“We should meet up in front of 'el mous tache'
by Jorge Isordia
Last year when I had just moved down here to San Diego, I had made a friend on a social media website online. This friend I had made, happened to be living in Tijuana, Mexico, which is right across the U.S. Border in San Diego. When we finally arranged to meet up one day, they had asked me to meet them in front of a place downtown called “Mous Tache”. I had never heard of this place before and had a really hard time finding it. When I asked people for directions, they gave me names of streets that I had never heard about and the fact that most of the streets in Tijuana lack street signs, didn't make it any better. After walking down multiple random streets, I finally came across a building with neon lights glowing out from the inside, it had a classic English mustache in front, with the words Mous and Tache. In front of the building, my friend was sitting on a bench, patiently waiting for me. We introduced ourselves and left without even talking about Mous Tache.
After my friend introduced me to a few bars in El Centro (downtown Tijuana), they eventually brought me back to Mous Tache. Inside, a huge sculpture resembling a human head hung from the ceiling, on the wall behind the bar area different types of mustaches were drawn, each one representing a different type of drink. Behind the building was a backyard with a stage and lights and that night, a band was playing. My friend and I sat on the second floor looking out the window into the back, watching the band play. The night ended and we both went our separate ways, I never saw this friend again, and I didn't bother to come back to this venue, that was until I was introduced to it a second time for a Borderclick project. One of the teachers for Borderclick had invited me to take photos of a few artists that were performing at the Mous Tache on friday, may 31st.
Basically, Mous Tache is a popular venue in downtown Tijuana, that welcomes and supports both Mexican and foreign talent. In Mous Tache, a lot of popular indie bands from the U.S. and other countries come to share their talent with both, the Tijuana locals and the transborder youth living across in San Diego. That night on the 31st, a garage-psychedelic band from Texas called Holy Wave was playing, along with two other artists: Wax Children, also a psych band from the San Gabriel Valley in L.A. and Traptilian, a local Tijuana trap/phonk artist. After I got a ride from my father down to the San Ysidro border and crossed into Tijuana, I took a “taxi de ruta” down to el centro and once again, I could not find the Mous Tache, I asked people for directions, which didn't really help, forcing me to guess which streets to go into until I finally found the venue. When I got there, at 8:00pm, an hour before the show actually started, the place was almost empty, with only a few amount of people. Holy Wave was on the stage practicing and tuning their instruments. After about half an hour, another small amount of people arrived and were eventually told to leave outside due to the show almost starting.
Continuara: ///