― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Monday, 17 July 2006 21:21 (seventeen years ago) link
I lump This Time and Colossal Head together--both are post-Kiko, very "deconstructed," rough, loopy, and seems to trade the delicate production and melodicism that preceded them for a rougher style, both in production and in songwriting. More droneys, blues progressions, found-soundy effects, and lots of distortion. I liked Life Is Good because I can clap to it, and I liked "Buddy Ebsen Loves The Night Time" because it reminds me of sleepytime. That said, it was pretty disconcerting if you listened to The Neighborhood, which I loved for the AOR/folky pop songs, and Kiko, for its balance of that songwriting with a little more weirdness, and then turned on Colossal Head. Still neat for a major label album for me.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, LL seems to sway with the adventurousness of their producers--and this is the period when Froom/Blake started moving more and more towards experimenting beyond the polite edge of adult-alternative pop music, and they took a lot from Latin Playboys back to LL. After these two albums, LL went in search of new producers, with some middling results. Now this new one is with Tchad Blake sans Froom. And I don't like it so much.
Don't know if this at all answers your post. I suppose the other respnose could be, what do you think about it?
― Jubalique (Jubalique), Tuesday, 18 July 2006 11:54 (seventeen years ago) link
― xhuxk (xheddy), Thursday, 10 August 2006 00:52 (seventeen years ago) link
I myself only like them after "Kiko." "Kiko" is a bit diffuse for my tastes. for me, "Colossal Head" is far and away their best record, actually big-hearted and political, song structures actually ingenious, playing up but relaxed, plus their best-ever songtitle, "Buddy Ebsen Loves the Nighttime." Having seen them live a couple times, I think they're a tad overrated, but not much, and their whole shtick comes from Steve Berlin, my friends who know some of the band tell me. Anyway, I'll leave discussions of Cougar vs. The Wolf to others, but as usual Chuck makes an interesting point. To my ears, they are indeed the Little Feat of the (fill in the era). I think their specifics are far more in touch with the "world" than Lowell George or Bill Payne goin' on about Rock and Roll Doctors and their whole white-negro-funkateer thing they got into, but I get some bad wishy-washy vibes from "Kiko" that make the undeniable virtues of the *music* seem not so undeniable But I think the Latin Playboys are great, and I even have a live boot of them that's pretty amazing, with great sound. And it occurs to me that Calexico's stuff owes an awful lot to the Playboys, only it's not as good.
― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 10 August 2006 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 10 August 2006 18:18 (seventeen years ago) link
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 10 August 2006 18:58 (seventeen years ago) link
Maybe John Cougar's band didn't have enought Telecasters or something.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 10 August 2006 19:02 (seventeen years ago) link
― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 10 August 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
Often? I would say maybe temporarily (around Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot).
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 10 August 2006 22:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 11 August 2006 00:07 (seventeen years ago) link
i was hoping the video for 'Kiko & The Lavender Moon' would be on youtube. but no joy. :(
-- Konal Doddz (blueski), Friday, 14 July 2006 12:34
is is now :)
― blueski, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 13:57 (sixteen years ago) link
REVIVE!
― lukevalentine, Monday, 7 December 2009 20:17 (fourteen years ago) link
I would like to commend David Hidalgo's work on the smash hit single of the year, "Must Be Santa"
― lukevalentine, Monday, 7 December 2009 20:19 (fourteen years ago) link
I think the new Los Lobos album is a total peach! liking Los Lobos is an accomplishment for me, since years of SoCal operant conditioning made it difficult for me not to say "shut up Robert Hilburn" every time the subject of Los Lobos came up
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, 14 August 2010 15:00 (thirteen years ago) link
shut up Robert Hilburn
Is this a return to their roots move?
― curmudgeon, Saturday, 14 August 2010 17:24 (thirteen years ago) link
i looked online but couldn't find out who produced tin can trust. if they've dropped Froom i'm more excited about this
― ....some kind of psychedelic wallflower (outdoor_miner), Saturday, 14 August 2010 17:48 (thirteen years ago) link
Producer is just listed as Los Lobos here: http://music.barnesandnoble.com/Tin-Can-Trust/Los-Lobos/e/826663121100/?itm=2&USRI=los+lobos
― _Rudipherous_, Saturday, 14 August 2010 17:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I hate it when bands take a production credit - the engineer on this record is John Macy.
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Saturday, 14 August 2010 17:59 (thirteen years ago) link
I heard at a barnesandnoble yesterday, and I recognized the Grateful Dead cover, the Clapton/Winwood vocals, the Spanish language song, and correctly guessed Los Lobos. It was good though, and the best thing barnesandnobles was playing.
― it made sense when i did it (Zachary Taylor), Sunday, 15 August 2010 02:44 (thirteen years ago) link
listened to the samples of this on Amazon .. wow, it sounds fantastic. will definitely pick this up
― Stormy Davis, Sunday, 15 August 2010 02:53 (thirteen years ago) link
Has anybody heard the Hildago/Rosas CD?
― banjoboy, Sunday, 15 August 2010 05:14 (thirteen years ago) link
Um, sorry...it's Hidalgo.
― banjoboy, Sunday, 15 August 2010 05:15 (thirteen years ago) link
Colossal Head rules. One of the best albums of the 90s.
― brimstead, Saturday, 23 February 2013 03:10 (eleven years ago) link
if yous need some hip cliches, the second half of it is like portishead remixing Peter green era fleetwood Mac
― brimstead, Saturday, 23 February 2013 03:12 (eleven years ago) link
C
― brimstead, Thursday, 24 April 2014 04:54 (nine years ago) link
invoking robert hilburn is not a good thing, ugh what a filthy sausage
― brimstead, Thursday, 24 April 2014 05:06 (nine years ago) link
underrated
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 18:06 (seven years ago) link
I mean even this dopey Disney songs album is p great
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 18:11 (seven years ago) link
yeah Hildago's take on that Toy Story song.. "I Will Go Sailing No More" is just gorgeous
― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 18:18 (seven years ago) link
Hildago and Rojas became friends over a mutual love of Randy Newman records in the early 70s, so kind of a full circle thing.
― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 18:19 (seven years ago) link
So underrated. Like I've said before, it's like somebody flipped a switch and they were suddenly not cool, despite a relative lack of drop off.
The more you know: supposedly they are notorious at local clubs for drinking at the bar dry at the end of the night.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 19:09 (seven years ago) link
Ugh, drinking the bar dry at the end of the night.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 19:10 (seven years ago) link
feel like Rojas' blues dad schtick has taken them into "uncool" territory
― kurt schwitterz, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 19:25 (seven years ago) link
On a major kick: Will the Wolf Survive, the superior By the Light of the Moon, the even better The Neighborhood. As forgotten as they are, it's not often mentioned how their guitars got tougher, the rhythms more fascinating; my stereotypical thinking led me to think Mitchell Froom did his clinkety clankety Froomery on otherwise solid songs instead of complementing already weird songs.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 October 2020 02:11 (three years ago) link
Massively underrated band. Someone on twitter once asked for people to name the most underrated band, and Jason Isbell, immediately and to his credit, posted "Los Lobos."
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 02:34 (three years ago) link
Don't remember this thread, should have long since posted this, from my Nashville Scene ballot comments re 2010 albums:
On Los Lobos' Tin Can Trust, it seems like the narrator is on theverge, he's some old tired guy, but made up his mind to do something,take revenge and/or a commission, various indicators of volatilitykeep rolling by or up the block, and little jolts--I know, enough withthe foreplay already, but the tension keeps getting renewed,reinforced, and the Dead cover, "West L.A. Fadeaway," fits perfectly, with no crunchy granola attached (it's all sidewalks and traffic, the whole album, and thenthere's the sardonic "happy ending" history short). A cliche to sayit's a soundtrack for movies you can make up, but it really seems towork that way, rumbling implications--if it were so definite astoryline, would get too familiar too fast, perhaps. It is badassurban country, obsessive as a shot glass lens.
― dow, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 02:48 (three years ago) link
my fault that i don't really know the others, but kiko is an incredible album
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 02:52 (three years ago) link
Yeah, all the tracks I remember are pretty vivid, need to check it again.xpost Then from 2015 Pazz & Jop comments:Los Lobos, Gates of Gold: Sun-dried rough-edged West Coast splendor, variegated, acerbic, appetitive, keen. Still got the touch & the L.A. River. (Jimmy Carter: "When somebody described Ronald Reagan to ma as an ambitious old man, I laughed. I'm not laughing any more.")
That's still the most recent I've heard. Maybe they'll do some Deluxe Edition expanded reissues, or maybe they have?
― dow, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 03:04 (three years ago) link
I used to have an unexplainable aversion to these guys, probably because my only frame of reference when I was younger was the La Bamba soundtrack, but I picked up the Just Another Band from East L.A. comp earlier this year and belatedly realized how great they are.
― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 28 October 2020 15:16 (three years ago) link
I have a good friend who is (or I guess, was) always buying great seats to shows in his city and then generously inviting friends along. A few years back he bought some seats to see Los Lobos at sort of a seated club situation, and apparently no one wanted to go with him! He said he ended up going by himself, iirc, and that the band absolutely killed it.
Some trivia: everyone always cites bands like the Pogues, but I've had a club owner tell me that Los Lobos is the only band that ever shut them down at the end of the night. Out of booze, out of time, everyone has to go home.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 15:26 (three years ago) link
I will ride for Collosal Head forever but I know I’m in the minority
― brimstead, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 18:19 (three years ago) link
"Mas y Mas" and the title track kick ass.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 October 2020 18:20 (three years ago) link
I don't understand xhuck's Tom Waits comparisons. Waits loves his clinkety-clankety theatrics, but From and Los Lobos didn't pursue grotesquerie for its own sake.
― Patriotic Goiter (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 28 October 2020 18:22 (three years ago) link
it’s way more restrained than waits thing. I get a kind of lofi trip-hop vibe from a lot of stuff, e.g. the murky ride cymbals on stuff like “life is good” reminds me of portishead.
― brimstead, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 18:32 (three years ago) link
“little japan” is a sleeperthe whole last half is really interesting, lots of instrumentals.
― brimstead, Wednesday, 28 October 2020 18:34 (three years ago) link