By Bob Tarte

I recently received an e-mail from my good friend and fellow Beat columnist Dave Hucker, threatening to drag me in front of the International Web Crimes Tribunal at the Hague unless I added his recent "Hey Mr. Music" installments to my technobeat.com Web site. And by "recent," he was referring to the fact that I hadn't updated the site since 2003.

Remarkably, despite the dearth of any material post-dating the break-up of the Beatles, the "Technobeat" Web site still received between 1832 and 2681 hits per day this month--which made me wonder how much traffic I might get if I actually caught up the content. But content wasn't the only problem. I designed the site late last century in the days before large monitors became the norm. So it also needed a more modem look that replaced the postage stamp-size area I'd reserved for text and graphics to a window you could view without resorting to scanning electron microscopy.

By the time you read this, I should have finished the reconstruction. That is, if Mr. Hucker, who egged me on to update in the first place, gets around to sending me the info he wants on his home page. Otherwise, I have no choice but to drag him in front of the Internet division of Interpol. All of this I do simply to serve the public--and also with the hope of pointing more traffic toward my bobtarte.com Web site and selling copies of my two books, Enslaved by Ducks and Fowl Weather, which every reader of this magazine should immediately buy.

Check out the site, which includes all "Technobeat" columns since 1990 and all "Hey Mr. Music" columns since 1997, and let me know what you think of the new design. You can e-mail me at r.tarte@att.net and Uncle Huck at huckero@ btintemet.com.

 I know squat about chichi, but I'm pleased to meet'cha when a genre this fun introduces itself. This Peruvian concoction from the late 1960s added Andean melodies and the reigning American rock sound of the day to Colombian cumbias. The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias (P&C Barbes) from Peru drenches the unsuspecting listener in waves of wah-wah and a frenzy of Farfisa organ. Chicha's obscurity may seem well deserved as the first surf guitars lash out, but in addition to the infectious cumbia beat, "Carinito" by Los Hijos del Sola is redeemed by rousing highland vocals, while the clattering percussion of the lusty-voiced Juaneco y Su Combo saves "Ya Se Ha Muerto Mi Abuelo" to the accompaniment of a Question Mark and the Mysterians' keyboard throttle. Fans of acid-crazed West African pop of the 1970s will find much to groove on here.