WATCHA WANT? ROCK EN ESPANOL HOPES RADIO PLAY CAN HELP BUILD POPULAR FOLLOWING.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

When the Watcha Tour launches its 18-city U.S. trek beginning Friday at the Universal Amphitheatre, a proclamation will be made declaring it ``Watcha 2000-Rock en Espanol Day in the City of Los Angeles.''

The irony here is that while rock en espanol is important enough to have its own day in L.A., it can only be heard on the concert stage since it's little played over the airwaves. Like country or rock stations, Spanish radio is locked into the same format, leaving no room for bands with a cult following.

``It's a huge market that these people don't recognize,'' says Emilio Morales, who publishes the Spanish answer to Rolling Stone magazine, La Banda Elastica.

By Warner Music Latin America estimates, nearly 40 million Latinos in the United States buy rock en espanol CDs and flock to its concerts annually.

Morales says a large percentage of those people live in L.A., which is considered to be the rock en espanol capital of America. He believes it has to do with the city's proximity to Mexico, as well as the growing Latino population familiar with the rock en espanol scene.

``When some of the best recording artists in Latin America and Spain come here to record,'' he says, ``then go out and play small clubs for the fun of it, people get really excited.''

One group that generates a lot of that excitement is Mexico's Cafe Tacuba.

Since 1992, the band has toured the United States and attracted people to its fusion of hip-hop, punk and folk music.

In the last year, Cafe Tacuba has toured with Beck and been nominated for a Latin Grammy - to be presented next month at the Staples Center - for Best Rock Album for its last album ``Reves,'' an album that has sold 60,000 copies in the United States. (``A success is 50,000 units for a start-up artist on U.S. labels,'' says Maribel Schumacher, vice president of marketing for Warner Music Latin America. ``Our artists are selling that and way more.'')

Right now, Cafe Tacuba is gearing up for the Watcha Tour, described as a Spanish version of the Warped Tour without the skateboards and second-stage acts.

``All of the bands that are on Watcha have had relatively long careers in their own countries,'' says Quique Rangel, who plays bass for Cafe Tacuba, which has played together for the last 11 years. ``It would be absurd for a group that's been playing together as long as we have to play the Warped Tour. But the Watcha Tour is a good way to give bands from Latin America exposure to an American audience.''

When it was first introduced to America in the late 1980s, rock en espanol appealed to Latin immigrants already familiar with this kind of rock in their countries.

The rock scene has been thriving in Argentina since 1965, fueled by the politically charged band Los Gatos Salvajes. Mexico's El Tri helped shape the movement from covering '70s rock bands to composing its own homespun sound.

In Spain, the rock scene didn't take off until the mid-1980s, several years after the death of Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator who ruled the country for 40 years.

Duncan Dhu, a new-wave band from Spain, was one of the first artists to play America in 1989 on a 14-city club tour billed as the ``Rock En Espanol Tour.''

Schumacher, who was then an independent band promoter, lost a lot of money on that tour. ``It's always a question of somebody taking the initiative,'' she says.

The same could be said about the Watcha Tour, now in its second year.

``We're trying to work as a unification force within rock en espanol,'' says Kevin Lyman, one of the tour's creators. ``We're trying to grow the scene all across the labels so there's Warner acts, there's Universal acts, there's independent acts.

``With the Warped Tour we kind of unified everyone under the umbrella of Warped and it's basically made the scene very strong and large,'' he says. ``And we're trying to do the same for the rock en espanol community.''

He says one way of doing this is to put acts like the Argentine hard rock band A.N.I.M.A.L. on both the Warped and Watcha tours for maximum exposure. The same was done with L.A.'s Ozomatli and Mexico's Molotov last year.

``I think this year we'll see some of our more musically creative fans (from the Warped Tour) in the (Watcha) audience just because they're starting to understand that, wow, bands like Ozomatli or Molotov and now A.N.I.M.A.L. are so great,'' Lyman says. ``They're finding this is a music that has just been under-represented.''

Another line of attack is expanding the Watcha Tour from last year's 11 dates to an 18-city trek.

``We're going to play in a few cities that we've never been before, so that's nice,'' says Andrea Echeverri, who fronts the folksy Colombian punk band Aterciopelados.

Echeverri says that the band, which is finishing work on a new album, still to be titled, has always been received warmly by Latinos in the United States.

``In the United States, you always feel this warmth like you're bringing something to them,'' she says. ``Some Spanish. Some cultural roots. A bit of musical roots, as well. Identity. All that.''

But are they mainstream enough to land on commercial radio?

The two Latin Top 40 stations in L.A. - 97.5 FM-KSSE and 107.1 FM-KLYY - play dance music and hits by larger rock bands such as Jaguares, Enanitos Verdes and Mana.

``But the number of artists who don't get recognition is very big,'' says Patricio Flores, owner of the rock en espanol record store Aventura Musical in Hollywood. ``We don't even hear 1 percent of the rock that's being created.''

KLYY broadcasts a rock en espanol show called ``The Red Zone'' on Sundays from 5 to 7:30 p.m. It plays old and new acts. But unless these songs chart, programmers have no intention of making these artists part of the station's regular programming.

Fernando Perez, music director at KLYY, says that while he acknowledges rock en espanol is growing, ``radio stations are looking for the money.

``Rock en espanol doesn't draw enough people to make it an important revenue,'' he says.

But Cafe Tacuba's Rangel believes that, sooner or later, perception will change with more people jumping on the rock en espanol bandwagon. The latest is Batanga.com, an online radio station that streams rock en espanol music and interviews 24 hours a day.

``They'll probably do it at first because they like the music,'' Rangel says. ``But in the end, they'll probably do it more for the money.''

The facts

--The concert: The Watcha Tour.

--The bands: Cafe Tacuba, Aterciopelados, A.N.I.M.A.L., Enanitos Verdes, Molotov, Ozomatli, Resorte, Riesgo De Contagio.

--Where: Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City.

--When: 6:15 p.m. Friday.

--Tickets: $25.50 to $55.50, available by calling Ticketmaster at [phone] or the Universal Amphitheatre box office at [phone].

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) Enanitos Verdes

Cafe Tacuba

(3) Latin Grammy-nominated Cafe Tacuba is one of the rock en espanol bands scheduled to perform at Friday's Watcha Tour at the Universal Amphitheatre.

(4) Colombian folk-punk band Aterciopelados say they enjoy the warm reception they receive from American Latinos, and are currently working on an album.

(5) The multimembered L.A.-based Ozomatli brings its funky sound to Universal City as part of Friday's Watcha Tour.