THE TAOS NEWS / TEMPO - The Art and Entertainment Magazine
— Rick Romancito

They say the hair stands up on your arms when lightning is about to strike. The air gets crisp and somehow a little scarce. You want to breathe, but are afraid that if you do, you might invite the finger of God. You can get hit by lightning and survive, but life is too short to count on such a tiny little chance. So, you listen to your own instincts...


Music sometimes moves between the risky and the secure like that. Only when lightning strikes — that metaphoric burst of success when everything falls into place and suddenly there are limos and pretty women and more money than you have ideas about how it can be spent — it means you've hit a pinnacle.
...Romero's commitment to Indigenous People's causes remains the basis for much of his current success. And, in a way, it evolved again out of being in the right place at the right time.
...[Romero's] path became politicized. He made films about the desecration of sacred sites important to the world's Indigenous Peoples (Makoce Wakan aired on VH-1's "World Alert" series) and about the protection of "the remaining four percent of American's forests." The latter, titled Hidden Medicine, was produced by Roland Joffé, executive produced by Horst Rechelbacher and co-written by Chief Oren Lyons, "faith keeper of the Onandaga Nation." Just this past New Year's Day, Hidden Medicine began airing on the independent Sundance Channel and was shown at the 1999 Taos Talking Picture Festival.