From 1984, please enjoy the incredibly great Los Lobos and the (sort of) title track from their debut LP How Will the Wolf Survive?.
I can't believe I've never seen these guys live; I must have listened to the album that video is from a gazillion times back in the day, and they have lots of other stuff just as good, too. In any case, next time they're in the NYC area, I'm getting tickets, or I'll know the reason why.
I should also add, in the interest of full disclosure, that it now dawns on me that -- consciously or unconsciously -- a certain band featuring an asshole bass player whose name rhymes with Sleeve Nimels probably lifted stuff from LL on more than once occasion.
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16 comments:
Please tell us about those lifts.
Captain Al
Humblebraggin'...
I saw them on the Warner Bros. Studios backlot premiering the entirety of Kiko...the Gilmore Girls set; I was looking due west from the "Stars Hollow" gazebo. Amazing show, signed CD cover afterwards.
Captain Al -- numerous Hi-Beams songs, while not in the same league, remind of me "Will the Wolf Survive" in overall sound.
This is driving me crazy - I just saw them perform on TV, American Epic, maybe ?
Wolf was a great first album and somewhere in a closet it shares space waiting for me to rca plug my turntable.
The opening notes of that song remind me of another band that I fell in love with at the time, The BoDeans.
rob
Kiko is one fine fine album, where you CAN believe what you hear at all.
"Just Another Band from East LA" was their first album, but it didn't gain re-release until after "How Will the Wolf Survive" was big hit. John Doe's autobiography mentions Los Lobos often as following a parallel track to the early LA punk scene.
I should have major corporation album debut.
😀
1- David Hidalgo, who sings most of the leads on Los Lobos' material, is a seriously underrated singer - he's got a great, distinctive voice yet never gets mentioned when you see those polls about Best Rock Vocalists.
2- Let's not forget that these guys did get some well-deserved commercial success when the soundtrack to LA BAMBA went up the charts in the late 1980s. I hope they were smart with the money that should have come their way from the sales of that album, and the #1 single (their rendition of the title track), that it spawned.
3- Steve, if it makes you feel better, I've been a fan of theirs, too, for close to 30 years and I've never seen them "live", either.
J. Lag
They are wonderful live. Warm, funny, among the least pretentious performers around. Great original material, always some tasty cover versions, pride in their musical heritage and wonderful musicians.
Anyone who has never seen them live, do so! Those of us who have seen them live have seen them multiple times. They have never been less the wonderful in the ten or so times I've seen them.
Vickie: Any stories of them? Bet you got some tasty ones of the early days.
Captain Al
I'm guessing they're too brown for VR. She sounds like a Vanilla Queen to me. I apologize in advance if I'm wrong.
I was a part of the LA punk scene 1979-81. I played bass in King James And The Bible Burners. I first heard about them from my friends The Blasters.
Los Plugz was another barrio punk band at the time.
I have a poster from the first time Public Image played in the US, at the Olympic auditorium in LA. It lists .45's and special guests as opening acts.
The special guests turned out to be Los Lobos.
I got there late, I missed them trying to score acid. I caught them a little while later somewhere else.
Public Image wasn't great.
I think it's very cool that the same LA punk scene that gave us X also, simultaneously, gave us Dwight Yoakam and Los Lobos.
:-)
....and The Blasters & Fear!
Captain Al
Steve: That same "punk" scene also gave us Lucinda Williams, Nerves/Plimsouls among many others.
Apology accepted BBJ. I was living common law with a Hispanic drug dealer for 10 years and gave birth to two of his children. One of my boyfriends before that, who introduced me to the "dealer", was also Hispanic. I know the culture. My boyfriend before that was a brown skinned Portuguese that I helped learn the language, both English and Universal. His linguica was mighty terrific. And that's just a few. I may be a white girl from the suburbs, but I've had a lot of Hispanic in me:-) I'm not fair skinned either. I look naturally tanned.
Also BBJ, if you would have been there at the Olympic early enough to see Los Lobos, you would have seen them get booed off the stage. Not kidding. And they didn't suck like PIL. I hated the Olympic anyway. Concerts should not be held in boxing arenas.
I went to a lot of "punk" shows in the later 70's. I refused to wear "the uniform" so I got gobbed a lot. Especially by phony-ass punks at the Whisky. It made me feel like Jesus:-)
As far as Los Lobos goes, I remember them playing the tejano stuff at Disneyland in the mid-1970's. Also saw them doing this type of material at Cal Poly in that same time frame. I was visiting a girlfriend who went there who was studying to be a civil engineer. She was in Playboy around that time, too. She put herself through college by working a Nevada brothel during the summers. She never said a word about it. But I knew because my uncle went to that cathouse with a friend. He waited in the front with the girls while his buddy got a couple of hours' worth. One of the girls really impressed him and they had a long and intelligent conversation. He got her picture and phone number. He shared it with me. So ... it wasn't true when she told me that she was spending the summers on her uncle's farm in Sycamore, Illinois. But I digress.
They played McCabe's a few times too. Haven't seen them in about 8 years.
One weird thing. Back in the early 2000's I bought a Los Lobos bootleg from a Stubbs BBQ radio broadcast. It was a double cd for 18 bucks. Turned out Sandy bought the same CD. I put the extra one on ebay for 8 bucks. A couple of days after the listing, some rough Mexican dudes, who said they worked for Los Lobos, came to our door and threatened us if we didn't remove the listing. They made us give them the CD. As ridiculous as it was, we complied.
Nevertheless, I still like their music.
VR
Thank-you VR for accepting my inevitable apology. I knew when I called you out I'd be sorry.
Excuse me, and with all respect, but how is it possible that "serious music people" purport to be fans of an artist or band who plays in their hometown repeatedly over a span of *decades*, and yet never go see them perform live?
They did an amazing contribution to American Epic.
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