They’ve got the tunes and the movies to match
This month, the Lincoln City Cultural Center will transform into a portal of rhythm, resistance and revelation as Making Movies, one of the most vital and genre-defying bands on the scene today, takes the stage on Wednesday, Aug. 28.
Joining them is the bold and electrifying Rizo, a Newport native and internationally acclaimed cabaret-rock icon, who will open the evening with vocal fireworks and fierce theatricality. It will be an evening of storytelling, sound that spans continents and of music that leaves you not only dancing, but thinking.
With their fourth studio album “XOPA,” Making Movies continues to live up to the mantra: “Siembra y llegará” — sow and you shall reap. This isn’t just the chant that rings out in their album’s powerful epic “La Primera Radio,” it’s a philosophy that defines their journey. The Kansas City-based quartet doesn’t just make American music — they redefine what “American” even means.
Their sound is a bold alchemy of classic rock, Afro-Latino rhythms and deep musical heritage. Guitar riffs meet mambo. Gospel meets cumbia. Psychedelic flourishes give way to merengue and rumba. This is the sound of the Americas — plural — layered, textured, pulsing with ancestral and modern energy.
Enrique Chi, the band’s frontman and songwriter, along with his brother Diego Chi on bass and vocals, Juan-Carlos Chaurand on percussion and newest member Duncan Burnett on drums, are lifelong musicians rooted in immigrant stories, gospel traditions and generational legacies of cultural activism. Their mission is clear: to explore identity through music, to unearth history through rhythm and to create space for healing through sound.
“The goal is to create music that includes every bit of our individual identities,” Enrique said. “Music is our way to find a deeper understanding of our own stories. It’s a healing of sorts.”
This drive has led them to collaborations with legends like Rubén Blades, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and Flor de Toloache. Their sound has been described as “pedagogical, yet kinetic” — every performance is alive, visceral and explosively present.
Setting the tone for the evening is Rizo, formerly known as Lady Rizo, a Grammy-winning chanteuse who blends golden-age glamour with no-holds-barred stagecraft. With a voice that channels Janis Joplin’s fire and David Bowie’s theatricality, her performances are a whirlwind of bold vocals, clever wit and fierce emotional honesty.
Whether belting heartbreak ballads or poking at the political with a wink, Rizo is unforgettable — and the perfect complement to a night about shaking loose the limits of genre, culture and expectation.
The Aug. 28 event begins at 7 pm at the Lincoln City Cultural Center, located at 540 NE Hwy. 101. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. For more information, go to lincolncity-culturalcenter.org or call 541-994-9994.