Ernie Quintero no ‘Stranger’ to success the DIY way

Ernie Quintero is Strangers. And Strangers is Ernie Quintero.

Anybody who knows the 34-year-old Imperial man will tell you he has a knack for making friends and leaving an impression on, fittingly, strangers, an overwhelming mix of musicians, artists and people on fringes of the counterculture.

From budding documentarian, self-taught musician and self-styled tour manager for two of the country’s biggest underground punk bands, The Spits and Black Lips, Quintero has become a successful entrepreneur as owner of beer bar and live original music venue Strangers, a cramped, dark, hole-in-the-wall off downtown El Centro’s main drag.

As businessman, Quintero has matured into respectability … but not entirely.

His passion and experience and punk rock ethic in doing it your way at all costs — going big or going home — has made Strangers the Valley’s best-kept secret, growing quickly in underground national acclaim.

Through the months of March and April, several original music acts from across the county and the “pond,” (Sweden and Birmingham, U.K., for example),” will stop over in El Centro for intimate gigs as they make their way to and from Austin’s legendary South By Southwest Music Festival.

“I feel fortunate to have some real good bands that actually have South By Southwest showcases playing here … for the local residents,” Quintero said.

El Centro is perfect for bands touring between the West Coast and Phoenix, Quintero said. They can drop in to play an extra show, make some gas money and gain new fans and exposure.

The Valley’s fans respond well, too, he said, buying lots of band merchandise and savoring what for a long time has been an alien experience.

“The main goal before I even got into my beer selection was to have a venue for local artists and musicians, and to have a place to play and host touring bands,” he said.

“I think it’s really cool,” Quintero said. “There hasn’t really been a scene to cater to the (punk style) of music that people want to listen to.”

Quintero has consistently booked three to four shows a month since Strangers opened two years ago, supported by a community that has reveled in the eclectic offerings that have mirrored its owner’s travels off the beaten path.

But that underground success is coming at a more frenetic pace these days. It’s not uncommon for bands and bookers to offer more shows than Quintero can handle, up to 10 a month.

It’s at the point now where Quintero’s one-man operation has expanded to a permanent sound engineer and a second bartender (besides himself).

None of this happens without Quintero, his personality and his work ethic. It’s his time on the road and his reputation for doing whatever it takes to make his fellow musicians feel comfortable that has bands and booking agents looking to fill a night.

“We come to El Centro because of Ernie; he put it on the map for us,” said Alex White, singer and guitarist for the Chicago-based garage rock duo White Mystery, a band to watch according to Vice, Pitchfork and MTV.

The famously red-headed White, who along with her drummer and brother have played 1,000 shows in 44 states and more than 20 countries, counts Quintero as one of her favorite people and El Centro as one of the most receptive towns in which to play.

“From the first show until the present, it has been an amazing experience. The crowds in El Centro are very enthusiastic,” she said.

“(Ernie) is the beacon for touring bands from around the country and the world,” said White, who has played El Centro three times and Mexicali once. She first met Quintero when he was touring with The Spits and they shared a bill in Chicago.

It’s precisely Quintero’s time with The Spits, and in between, Black Lips, that first began to cement his esteem in garage punk circles.

An unconventional start

Quintero was always a Tiger of a different stripe, graduating from Imperial High in 1998, one of the community’s few old-school punks, a talented skater and a teen meant for something bigger, but not in any pretentious sort of way.

With documentary video credits from Vice, where he has tackled subjects like the netherworld of Slab City residents to Imperial County’s agricultural field burning and fish die-offs at the Salton Sea in “Toxic: Imperial Valley,” Quintero sought out Sean Wood from the Spits and asked if he could go on the road with the band to film a tour doc.

The year was 2004, and in no time, Quintero went from chronicler to caretaker, driving the van, dealing with club owners and promoters and handling arrangements for the band during a two-month tour of the U.S.

This was no small feat — although Kalamazoo, Mich.’s Spits are no household name, the band is among the most respected in the lo-fi punk genre, having performed their bizarre brand of two-minute, fuzzy, keyboard-laden songs at clubs, festivals and house parties all over the world for 15 years.

“I don’t think he knew what he was signing up for at that time, but we made his life a living hell,” said Sean Spits, born Sean Wood, through a hearty chuckle. “He has a great personality and everyone he’s ever met has fell in love with him.”

Quintero toured off and on with The Spits through the next decade, taking over as a traveling musician with the band for the first time in 2007 during a tour of Europe.

In between stints with the Spits, Quintero jumped on tour with Black Lips, falling into tour manager duties and driver on a West Coast swing that took the band and Quintero from Tijuana to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Back then, Quintero said, Black Lips were inexperienced with road managers, so he helped to make things go smoothly for a group that today is one of the fastest-rising acts on the garage rock scene. Black Lips now performs prime spots on prominent national festivals and charts on college radio following the release of 2014’s “Underneath the Rainbow” on Vice Records.

DIY skills pay the bills

Wood knows that Quintero’s success as a club owner and show promoter comes from the difficult lessons learned on the road.

“God, traveling with us and Black Lips, he got to see a ton of bars and how they were run,” Wood said, “and he got to see the good ways we were treated and the bad ways we were treated.”

Wood, whose wry sense of humor comes out over the phone as it does in his songs, cited the fresh-cut flowers in Strangers’ dressing room as being key to making bands feel at home.

With neither fresh-cut flowers nor a dressing room in the bar, which holds 49 or fewer patrons, he does make sure other amenities are taken care of.
“He greets you with one of his amazing microbrew beers and has tacos ready,” White said.

Wood agreed the tacos are an important part of the allure, giving credit to the home-cooked spread prepared for every incoming band by Quintero’s mom, Teresa.

And it doesn’t hurt that Quintero actually pays every act and donates his own tips to each band, also keeping the shows free.

This has the bands coming back in increasing frequency and the word spreading far and wide. On Sunday night, Low Cut Connie will perform, and Quintero said they are a big deal.

In 2011, NPR’s “Fresh Air” and esteemed music critic Robert Christgau placed the duo’s debut, “Get Out the Lotion,” in their top 10 lists for the year.

“They play really fun rock ‘n’ roll,” Quintero said, “pianos, boogie and honky tonk,” through a punk aesthetic, of course.

A natural-born salesman, quick with a smile and witty conversation, Quintero is pushing the SXSW festival connection hard over the next few months, but it all feels more impromptu punk rock than professional promoter.

Nothing is a greater example of this than The Spits’ show at Strangers last fall, where all of Quintero’s worlds — old and new — collided in one memorable night.

Surrounded by friends, family and the biggest crowd to date, Quintero poured beer as The Spits blazed through its brutally catchy set, dropping the tap handle to make his way to the stage and behind the keyboards to play with the band where this whole crazy journey started.

UPCOMING SHOWS AT STRANGERS

SUNDAY
Low Cut Connie
(Philadelphia/Birmingham, U.K.)

MARCH 10
Bür Gür
(Los Angeles)

MARCH 13
San Pedro El Cortez
(Tijuana)

MARCH 25
CIKATRI$
(Sweden)

MARCH 26
Michael Rault
(Toronto, Canada)

MARCH 30
Pizza Time
(Colorado)

MARCH 31
The Mondegreens
(Chico)

APRIL 2
Little Child Man
(Glendale)

APRIL 3
Cabana
(Seattle)

APRIL 10
I’d Die for Lo-Fi
(Austin, Texas)

RELATED STORY: Raw talent cooks right under local noses at Strangers

Photos courtesy of Fernando Acosta.

This story first appeared in the Imperial Valley Press, Feb. 27, 2014.