Page 6 University Daily Kansan, March 10, 1981
C
'Taco rock' spicy stuff for Nuevo Wavos
By BLAKE GUMPRECHT Staff Writer
Joe "King" Carrasco wears a fire-engine-red cap, the skin pants and overall crown straight out of an empire coat.
On stage, he leaps from speaker columns and amplifiers like a madman, and uses a 60-foot guitar for frequent romps into the audience, jumping to the table and often duckwalking across the tops of bars.
Not surprisingly, Carrasco and his band the Crowns—appearing tomorrow night at the Lawrence Opera House—become one of the hottest acts to hit the music scene. The band finance a trip east from their home in Austin, Texas.
THEIR JUMPY, tireless blend of early rock-n-roll and Tex-Mex music was soon packing dance floors from Long Island to Greenwich Village, leading to a festival's appearance on "Saturday Night Live," and a world tour.
One critic recently dubbed the bend's blend of Mexican party music and classic 68s rock-n-roll "Nuevo Wave." Another described it as something akin to Tex-Mex Ramones.
"There's always been kid-rock in Texas," Carrasco says. "That's what I tapped into—trash."
"It's taco rock," the King says.
Indeed, what can you say about a band that performs songs like "Jalapecon big Ben" and "Coca de Vaca"?
(roughly translated as "Bull manure"), "Beer for Breakfast" and "Nervous Out" and returns for encores of "Wooly Bully" and "La Bomba," a song from a 1930s musical?
AND WHAT CAN you say about a band whose album describes itself as "Taco-rific," complete with two greasy tacos and a bottle of "Carrasco Sauce" pictured on the cover, a band that sings some song lyrics in Spanish, and once played a fourth encore to four people?
"Buy my album and win a night with my sister," a leering Carrasso says in an inset on the album's cover.
Carrasco and the Crowns (Kris Cummings, organ;
Brad Kizer, bass; Mike Navarro, drums) draw their
music from the likes of Buddy Holly, '60s bands like
Sam the Blues, ? and the Mysterians, the Farisa
organ-accented sound of Tex-Mex pioneers such as
Sir Douglas Ountet and even Mexican nolks.
"We're a party band," Carnisco says. "It's not a novelty. We just never saw ourselves as anything more than a National Guard Armry band. I'm just out there to have a good time."
Joe King Carrasco and the Clowns, er Crowns,
could hardly be described as serious musicians.
They're too busy having fun. No underlying messages.
Stupid lyrics. Catch my melodies.
THEIR TRADEMARK is the cheesy sound of Cummings cheeses arean
flight of stairs, burst into the women's rest room and played hopping up and down in a toilet stall.
Carrasco the live antics are fast becoming legend.
Once in New York, he jumped off the stage, ran up a
Last December in Los Angeles, he stretched his guitar cord out the door of the Whisky-a-Go-Go and played a few licks on the Sunset Boulevard. On another date, he again took his act outside, bopping around on the hood of a Cadillac before climbing a tree for one number.
BUT AFTER THE first night, word began to get around.
"They didn't know who we were—we were hocking records off the stage," Carrasco said last week, when he was during the Chicago stop of his U.S. tour. "I think they were catching a country-west band, but we rocked out."
Their next gig was at Manhattan's famed Mudd Club, and soon people were lined up around the corner to see Joe King 'Carrasco and the Crownes. New songs were even singing along with the Spanish lyrics.
Carrasco and the Crowns have only been together since October 1979. A month later, they managed to arrange a gift from New York's Lone Star Cafe based on their signature drink, "Fruit Roll-Roll." They paid just $100 for the performance.
ENGLAND'S STIFF RECORDS them to a multiple album record contract midway through a six-month run.
The Opera House will be selling half price tacos all night.
Joe 'King' Carrasco and the Crowns—(from left). Kris Cummings, Mike Navarro, Carrasco, Brand Kizer—appearing at the Lawrence Opera House tomorrow night.
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PRE-LAW?
Chancery Club is holding a meeting Wednesday, March 11, 7:00 P.M.
New Green Hall, Rm. 203
Meet with current 1st, 2nd, 3rd year law students discussing the experience of law school at KU and career opportunities.
Paid for by student senate
"U.S. Foreign Policy and Africa" Public lecture by Bill Sutherland
There will also be a film shown entitled "South Africa is Ours"a documentary film on Black South African Women.
Date----11th March
Time----3 pm
Sponsored by the African Students Association with Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, Womens Studies Dept., Oread-Friends meeting Commission on the Status of Women, the Nigerian Students Association and KU Committee on South Africa.
Location—Council Room
Paid for by the I-Club and ASA
9-5:30 m-s
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Tuesday is: STEAK NIGHT AT SIRLOIN STOCKADE
6 oz. of tender, jucy sirion cooked the way you like it—served with choice of potato, toast, and all the coffee or tea you can drink. 5 p.m. till closing.
THE STOCKADE CLUB
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This week: the 10' ice cream cone is FREE with any meal.
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T.G.I.S.
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