Based on sheer technologicalprowess, this shouldn’t happen. Palomo plays electro-pop. His electronicsshould work. This is a man who has just purchased a Theremin, nature’s mostcomplicated musical instrument, with money that easily could have been spent athis local Verizon store. Instead, Palomo’s phone turns our call into one of hissongs.
He records music as NeonIndian, with songs that are essentially Daft Punk tunes played over an 8-bitvideo game console. They click and pop, smothered in reverb and drowned innoise. That’s all that comes from his end of the phone call. Neon Indian is alo-fi dance music act with a lo-fi dance music cell phone.
Either that or theproblem is on my end of the line.
Palomo is 21, and hasplenty of time left in life to find a working phone. He has already played themusic industry trade show South by Southwest three times with three differentbandsno small task for someone who didn’t intend to become a musician untilvery recently.
“We came to the U.S. from Mexico with the idea of me comingto college,” Palomo says. His film degree at the University of North Texashas been put on pause with only a year and a half until completion. “I had toconvince my dad that I wasn’t just leaving school to sit in my apartmentsmoking weed and playing ‘Call of Duty.’”
To not have seen a musiccareer coming, Alan Palomo, like his father Jorge, must have overlooked thePalomo family history. Jorge was a successful pop singer in 1970s Mexico, andAlan's older brother had already followed in Jorge's footsteps. By now, it’s afamily business.
A career in music was aninevitability, but Neon Indian was an accident. It started, more or less, as anapology note. Then the driving force behind the band VEGA, Palomo made thefateful decision not to go on a planned hallucinogenic binge with his friend(and Neon Indian video artist) Alicia Scardetta over holiday break. Theresulting song “Should Have Taken Acid With You,” was too good not to publish,and too good to rewrite as a VEGA song. Neon Indian developed to continueworking in the aesthetic.
There is a universe wherePalomo took acid and never birthed Neon Indian. He’s probably a rising starthere, too. Palomo’s first band, Ghosthustler, drowned in its positive buzz.
“Ghosthustler gotattention beforewe were really ready for it, and we kepttrying to make massive production strides to keep up with our peers. LCDSoundsystem blew up overnight. I was doing that thing where you listen to asong and then write. Every song became a massive production,” Palomo says.
Barely older, andsomewhat wiser, Neon Indian is less about keeping up with the present and moreabout hazy memories of the digital past. And that’s what Palomo is best at.It’s what drew him to the fundamental instrument of all his bands, thesynthesizer, to begin with.
“I walked into a pawnshopand saw an Oberheim OB-X, which is a synth that’s normally Van Halen. I neversaw one in person, and I hit one note, and it triggered a flood of sensememory,” Palomo says. “I was $300 short of buying it, and by the time I raisedthe money to buy it, it was gone. But I found my old Casio Rap-Master [kiddiesynthesizer], and started using it instead.”
So he has $300 lyingaround? That’s a brand new iPhone. Just saying.
Neon Indian plays the Turner Hall Ballroom on Saturday, July 17, withBeach Fossils at 8 p.m. as part of WMSE’s Radio Summer Camp.
