Los Lobos C/D

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?

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.

Maybe John Cougar's band didn't have enought Telecasters or something.

Often? I would say maybe temporarily (around Spotlight Kid, Clear Spot).

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 :)

REVIVE!

I would like to commend David Hidalgo's work on the smash hit single of the year, "Must Be Santa"

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

shut up Robert Hilburn

Is this a return to their roots move?

i looked online but couldn't find out who produced tin can trust. if they've dropped Froom i'm more excited about this

Producer is just listed as Los Lobos here: http://music.barnesandnoble.com/Tin-Can-Trust/Los-Lobos/e/826663121100/?itm=2&USRI=los+lobos

I hate it when bands take a production credit - the engineer on this record is John Macy.

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.

listened to the samples of this on Amazon .. wow, it sounds fantastic. will definitely pick this up

Has anybody heard the Hildago/Rosas CD?

Um, sorry...it's Hidalgo.

Colossal Head rules. One of the best albums of the 90s.

if yous need some hip cliches, the second half of it is like portishead remixing Peter green era fleetwood Mac

C

invoking robert hilburn is not a good thing, ugh what a filthy sausage

underrated

I mean even this dopey Disney songs album is p great

yeah Hildago's take on that Toy Story song.. "I Will Go Sailing No More" is just gorgeous

Hildago and Rojas became friends over a mutual love of Randy Newman records in the early 70s, so kind of a full circle thing.

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.

Ugh, drinking the bar dry at the end of the night.

feel like Rojas' blues dad schtick has taken them into "uncool" territory

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.

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."

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 the
verge, he's some old tired guy, but made up his mind to do something,
take revenge and/or a commission, various indicators of volatility
keep rolling by or up the block, and little jolts--I know, enough with
the 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 then
there's the sardonic "happy ending" history short). A cliche to say
it's a soundtrack for movies you can make up, but it really seems to
work that way, rumbling implications--if it were so definite a
storyline, would get too familiar too fast, perhaps. It is badass
urban country, obsessive as a shot glass lens.

my fault that i don't really know the others, but kiko is an incredible album

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?

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.

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.

I will ride for Collosal Head forever but I know I’m in the minority

"Mas y Mas" and the title track kick ass.

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.

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.

“little japan” is a sleeper

the whole last half is really interesting, lots of instrumentals.

I love "Colossal Head."

Speaking of Los Lobos and The Pogues, there were two very young women, Nancy McCallion and Catherine Zavala, who had a Southwestern New Wave band, but they saw LL and TP on the same bill in London, then went back to Tucson and started The Mollys, which was Irish-Chicana folk-country-rock-polka etc (also sounded like they knew Willner's Weill tribs), which, why not, the Irish went West to work in the mines, also do some shooting (the band name is in part a reference to the Molly MaGuires from back East), also there was (stay with me now just a little bit longer) the San Patricio Brigade, who switched sides in the Mexican-American War, from the latter to former, and inspired The Chieftans' San Patricio, which includes Linda Ronstadt, Van Dyke Parks, enough Coody to appease the suits, Los Tigres del Norte, Lila Downs, and many more, incl. three tracks feat. Los Centzontles, a really good, deeply knowledgeable young folk-rock etc., who made a couple albums with appearances by David Hidalgo, and I think some other Lobos have showed up onstage them (a publicist told me was having trouble placing coverage in some Americana outlets, even w Hidalgo in there, also He and Taj Mahal were on the follow-up, but something about Los C not sounding American e enough)(I've heard grumbles about that Richard Thompson fella too, I shit you not).

Also, though I've never been that into his lyrics or his voice, can see how Waits albums like Rain Dogs and Swordfishtrombones relate sonically to some LL, also the Latin Playboys sidetrip, which xgau loved, esp. the s/t:
...David Hidalgo and Louis Pérez rework Kiko outtakes to undercut the band's Springsteenian quest for meaning. Whenever the lyrical impressions lapse toward the stolid or sodden, they're lifted by the spare, bent music: echoes and silences, filtered voices and ancient klaxons, Indian film sounds and scratchy samples of street bebop, jagged Beefheart rhythms and idle guitar thoughts, friendly melodies from a Victrola perched on a barrio windows..., gave that one an A+, and Dose an A, also wrote a bit longer, all of that's here (scroll way down past these Consumer Guide entries for link to other piece):
https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Latin+Playboys