I recently assigned the students in my Geography 101 course a writing project whereby they select a song with geographically-oriented content and report on all of that song’s inherent regionalisms. In the body of their assignment text, I include a list of suggested songs for anybody who may be interested in them or may have difficulty selecting a song on their own. The following is one of them.

It’s Casual – “The Red Line”

I deeply admire how It’s Casual represents and interprets Los Angeles. In both their songs and videos, L.A. is the polar opposite of the place where dreams come true. It is a smoggy, violent pastiche of contradictions where fantasy only exists in some unattainable alternate dimension inside of billboards and bus bench advertisements. After spending a couple of years in the area, I find it remarkable how quickly my imaginary of Los Angeles moved away from the artificial public memory filled with sun, surf, and vapid blondes. Personally, I (somehow) never tried surfing while I lived so close to the SoCal waves, and the only sun I remember was the uncompromising star that scorched the streets and made it nearly impossible to see anything if you were unlucky enough to be staring directly into it while sitting in traffic for three hours on the 405. Fortunately, for that fleeting moment when you are crawling down the hot asphalt plain, cursing out everything within your peripheral vision, wondering why human beings do this to themselves, you’ve got a spokesperson. His name is Eddie Solis.

You can tell me about your romanticized mental landscapes of Southern California until your words have melted away into white noise. For my money, there is nothing more quintessentially “L.A.” than a Chicano dude playing metal and screaming about how godawful the freeways are. This song, along with this album’s other iconoclastic video “The New Los Angeles,” are exactly that. It is not pleasant, but it rocks, and perhaps more importantly, it’s completely honest and sincere, two qualities that few people would immediately associate with Solis’ hometown.

Another thing that most outsiders and a disappointing amount of Angelenos would never assume: the public transit is outstanding. Los Angeles grew generations of people handcuffed to their cars, but unlike from over the Hollywood sign, that smoke is finally clearing. Metro knows exactly what they are up against, and their growing system of light rail, subways, express bus lines, and city buses (all intertwined with GPS that lets those with smart phones know when they’re going to arrive down to the second) are responding. So, if you find yourself in the city of Angels, do take advantage of those resources. It will make your life easier and you may even run into Eddie Solis on the Red Line. I did once… it was a strange night. I really miss that metropolis.