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Los Lobos is certainly not a band I am unfamiliar with. In my old concert promotion days I brought them to Cleveland twice. Since that time I have kept up with their recordings…always interested in seeing what new stuff they came up with. Known for their Tex-Mex rock, roots and Mexican music with tinges of jazz, blues and more, they began to branch off into a fresh and different direction on the CD Kiko. Now they have really expanded more on that with this brand new album, resulting in their finest, deepest, most creative offering to date.

The music here is comprised of dark moods and strange grooves – done mostly at medium or slow tempos and loaded with emotion. The concept is a look at life in America today…working harder and harder just trying to survive, not to mention so many other problems in today’s society, those of immigrants and in the world in general. Each song carries a different message and very different music to convey it, sometimes with some eerie things going on with the guitars, keyboards or percussion. Los Lobos actually began in 1973 in L.A., but became well-known with their mid eighties album How Will The Wolf
Survive? This is their 13th album with the same bandmembers; and the long road they’ve travelled, and experience they’ve garnered together certainly shows here. This is a keeper to be played again and again. Viva Los Lobos! Crank it up.
Bill Wahl

LONE WOLF: HANGIN’ WITH STEVE BERLIN

Words by Scott Caffrey

Los Lobos is easy to take for granted. As certified musical trailblazers, their path has always been a more difficult one.
Trailblazing involves struggle and strife, misguided criticism, and can take eons for anyone to recognize it as a worthy pursuit. But as their latest album The Town and the City attests, it’s clearly the only thing this 32-year-old quintet knows.

Being a maverick in the ’80s music business was tricky, to say the least. A band making its own decisions was either a big gun or had some credibility in the hit parade. But even then, those breaking artistically free were often castigated to the “eclectic” bin. If they were ever heard from again, it was in the underground scene. A select few of these bands, however, made it out with their careers intact, and have become the New Legends.

Los Lobos is one of these legendary bands. They made their name by consciously, constantly, and creatively moving in the opposite direction of their last recorded step. And it worked because they’re damn good. It’s one of the ballsiest moves in rock ‘n’ roll, and they don’t get enough credit for doing it. Because no matter how beloved any band is, making the anti-album is always a risk. But for The Wolves, these moves are normal, and they have come to define Los Lobos’s career.

As history has vindicated, “eclectic” is now a badge of cool. And the guys in Los Lobos wear it well. While most people know them for their hit Ritchie Valens covers on the La Bamba soundtrack, not enough know them for the brilliant musical grandeur that comprises Kiko. So today, they command something of a comfortable middle ground – they had a whiff of big time stardom and have earned their stripes underground.

The group’s continued success and rabid fan-base speak directly to the accessibility of their diverse music. On stage, their schizophrenic setlists foster a self-professed mission of intercultural and intergenerational harmony. Their shows have become something akin to a hip family reunion. It’s such a loose and friendly atmosphere that you can walk up, meet each one, and even request “La Bamba” if you absolutely have to hear it. The thin line between success and failure has been kicked out of whack, bent out of shape, and moved clear to the other side by a quartet of Chicano friends from East LA – David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas, and Conrad Lozano – and their lone recruit, Steve Berlin.

Born September 14th, 1955 in Philadelphia, Steve Berlin moved to Los Angeles at the ripe age of 19 after getting a call for a can’t-miss gig. He quickly became a hot commodity as a session saxophonist, and it was during his stint with The Blasters that Berlin remembers seeing Los Lobos for the first time. The year was 1980, and Los Lobos were opening for Public Image, Ltd. at the Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. The punk audience threw everything they could – literally and figuratively – at the long-haired, fuzzy foursome as they played their way through a set of traditional, acoustic Norteño music. The gutsy display fascinated Berlin, who would later equate the impact to “finding a tribe of Indians living under a freeway underpass.”

Steve Berlin
It wasn’t until the second time he saw them live, as openers for his own Blasters, that Berlin was gripped into a healthy obsession. “We ended up hanging out and I remember many, many times where I would do a gig with The Blasters or somebody else and then go screaming across town to catch the Lobos encore. Anything to get to play with them, to me, was what I would do. No matter how far, or how ridiculous the commute was, I was gonna be there just because I enjoyed it so much.”

With fascination eventually turning into full-time work, no decision was ever really made for Berlin to join as honorary Chicano. “I played with them long enough, and worked with them long enough. It wasn’t like they came to me and said, ‘Would you?’ I was sort of like, ‘Hey could I?’ So it all kinda melded into one big thing, I guess.” Berlin would go on to co-produce their Grammy-winning EP …And a Time to Dance with T-Bone Burnett in 1983 and more-or- less officially join Los Lobos sometime in 1984.

With his position in the band now firmly in place, Berlin continued playing countless sessions all over Southern California with a diverse array of bands, including the Beat Farmers, Translator, and Flesh Eaters. But as you’ll soon read, it was a “record label family” assignment on Paul Simon’s landmark Graceland that would shake Berlin to his core. And though Graceland amounted to a painful learning experience that none of the members have forgotten, one year later Los Lobos finally enjoyed their first taste of commercial success with La Bamba.

From there, Berlin’s reputation as a producer continued to grow. He helmed sessions for acts as diverse as Faith No More, The Tail Gators, and his former Blaster-mate Dave Alvin. He remained a stalwart on the alternative rock scene and worked with the likes of The Replacements, John Lee Hooker, Leo Kottke, Sheryl Crow, and The String Cheese Incident.

Armed with obvious studio acumen, Berlin works hard to make the recorded Lobos sound meet the band’s vision. And because of this prowess and thirst for record making, he spent every necessary minute poring over everything that was needed to create the wonderfully complicated The Town and the City. “Let’s put it this way – I was the only guy there every single day. A lot of guys got to take some days off, but I didn’t.”

The Town and the City falls perfectly in the Los Lobos canon. It has an undeniable patience and tranquility, even when the guitars are jacked up. It also focuses on one big theme close to the band’s
heart: immigration. This is an album about people feeling out of place. It’s about the hardships that come with being, and feeling, different.

The intricacies of sound presented on the album sway from the heart- wrenching laborer’s lament “Hold On” (I’m killing myself to survive)”
to the anthemic guitar power of “The Road to Gila Bend.” Along with the unique sensibilities of producers Tchad Blake and Robert Carrazza, the band is still able to emit those subtle, strange, and weird noises – like the effulgent feedback guiding the listener through “The Valley.” The Town and the City demands attention and repeat-listening. It’s far too heady to get it all in one sitting.
This album is the culmination of a musical family, living life together. Once again, Los Lobos has opened the doors to its collective heart and spoken for the world at large.

Lobos Live in Lowell: Ridin’ On
Published: September 23, 2006
All About Jazz
By Doug Collette


Los Lobos
Boarding House Park
Lowell, Massachusetts
September 1, 2006

Los Lobos should be honored as a national treasure. Appearing in the home of Jack Kerouac near the end of the Massachusetts city’s summer music series, this band from East LA displayed an affectionate enthusiasm for their audience that, combined with musical diversity and instrumental chemistry at their command, provided an ever so rare means of inaugurating the autumn.

Outside in the cool late summer early fall air in the middle of Lowell, Lobos let rip right from the start. In contrast to the acoustic concerts the group’s played in recent months, this was a high-energy affair beginning with, appropriately enough, “The Neighborhood.” Brandishing his Fender most of the evening, the affable but inscrutable David Hidalgo fired off the first of a series of gritty solos the likes of which should’ve earned him the title of guitar hero years ago.

Flanking him on the opposite end of the stage, as if to symbolize the symmetry in the band’s personality, was the irrepressible Cesar Rosas. Slyly masked as usual in dark glasses even as night set in, his consecration of the audience as “music lovers” and recognition of the dancers on their feet added a different fuel to the fire that was cooking in the park.

Los Lobos didn’t jam extensively or enact long segues September 1st. But if there is anything more enjoyable to experience than a great band in the full flight of improvisation, it’s hearing a band build up a full head of steam song by song like “I Walk Alone” and “Manny’s Bones.” Los Lobos kept themselves in control and tight alignment all the way, right down to the cold stops signaled with a flourish by Cougar Estrada.
“Los Lobos’ affectionate enthusiasm for their audience is equalled by the musical diversity and instrumental chemistry at their command.”

The young drummer, now sole percussionist for this great group, has much to do with their dynamism, especially as he interacts with Conrad Lozano. The bassist’s deep simple lines lock with the kick drum and toms to give tremendous bottom to a sound that was quite clear even in the open air. It was only when Hidalgo donned the accordion for “Kiko,” just at the right time for a change of pace, that charter member of Lobos Louie Perez forsook his guitars for drums (once his permanent spot in the lineup) and his lighter fluid attack recalled, appropriately enough for tunes such as “Maria Christina,” the early days of the band playing traditional Mexican music at weddings and local gatherings.

Clearly Los Lobos haven’t forgotten, much less forsaken, their roots (including those that stretch into garage rock and punk). The new album “The Town and The City” from which they introduced three cuts, is the story of their exploration into a new world made universal in a well-wrought song cycle. “Chuco’s Cumbia” and “The Road to Gila Bend” each spoke eloquently about stages of that journey, the former with Spanish effervescence buoyed by Rosas’ delivery, the latter, like “Hold On,” a more atmospheric blues rendered sensitively but with the appropriate strength by Hidalgo.

These novel originals sounded as well practiced as standards of the Lobos repertoire. With the often requested and eventually played “Mas y Mas,” the band entered overdrive, in part through the inclusion of the horn section and percussionist of opener Jen Kearney’s Lost Onion band (the frontwoman joined in on the uproarious “Cumbia Raza”). Now a ten- piece band, Los Lobos pumped their way with abandon through their sole mainstream hit “La Bamba” within which they interpolated “Good Lovin’.”

And who but Los Lobos would invite upwards of thirty audience members on stage to sing, dance and effectively obscure the band itself from sight? Not only that, but all of those invitees would leave the stage without hassle as the band climaxed its set proper. The good natured mien of the audience is a direct reflection of Los Lobos and their fundamental generosity, another aspect of which they exhibited with a lengthy encore, backing Barrence Whitfield on vocals for “Hey Joe” and “Baby What You Want Me to do?”
The breadth of the band’s influences, from Jimi Hendrix to earthy R&B becomes all the more astonishing when you hear the ease and finesse with which they move from genre to genre. Lobos’ own fluid chemistry is as impressive in the lysergic-laced licks from Hidalgo on the former as the redemptive joy that emanated from the latter (notwithstanding the overwrought delivery from Massachusetts semi-legend Whitfield). Steve Berlin’s guttural sax work was a joy throughout the evening, not just when he was interacting with three other horn men at the close of the show.

While much of the Commonwealth crowd seemed to be present out of habit and/or just for the sake of curiosity, virtually no one was left sitting by the time Los Lobos had asked them to stand before roaring to the close of their two hour set. The power of great music takes many forms, as a dynamic Los Lobos demonstrated here in no uncertain terms, with all due versatility at their disposal.

Los Lobos Tour Promotes New CD ‘The Town And The City’
By Larry London
Washington, DC
27 October 2006


Tex-Mex rock is alive and well after more than 33 years thanks to the original sounds of Los Lobos. The group recently released their new CD, “The Town And the City”, that includes a return to the experimental sound that earned them three Grammys. Founding members Louie Perez and David Hidalgo talked with VOA’s Larry London about their journey.

What is it that compels a band of musicians to remain together for more than three decades? I asked that question to two of the men responsible for starting Los Lobos in East Los Angeles, David Hidalgo and Louie Perez.

DAVID:
“The core of it is friendship. We have been friends since high school, and I think [there is] something [special] about this band that we all believe in and that is why we stick with it.”

LOUIE:
“As much as we might complain about getting up early, flying, and being away from home, we still have the best job in the world, really. You cannot beat it. Being able to go around the world with your friends, you stay a kid all your life … that is a good gig [job].”

With 15 albums and three Grammys, the band has secured a place in rock history. Did the first Grammy in 1987 change their lives?

LOUIE:
“After I won the Grammy, my youngest [child] was just an infant. I got home and I walked in the door, and my mother-in-law was watching my son. She looked at me and said, “Congratulations! We are out of diapers”. So I was at the market pushing a cart [shopping for diapers] and the family is the equalizer.

What exactly does Los Lobos mean?

DAVID:
“It is ‘the wolves.’ And the full title of the band was Los Lobos Del Este De Los Angeles (just another band from East L.A.) but it was too much for the marquee.”

Los Lobos is well received all around the world and Hidalgo is looking forward to playing for international audiences.

DAVID:
“It has been good, you know. We are starting to go more often. We kind of laid off of going overseas for quite a few years, and I think it kind of was not good for us, actually. So, we have been going back, trying to go at least once a year, trying to rebuild the audience over there (overseas). It seems to be working.”

And after all the years of success, what was the highlight?

LOUIE:
“Being able to travel around the world — for guys from East L.A. that never went anywhere, and to discover there [are] a lot more similarities than differences. I think that is really, it was a real awakening for me.”

Perez says the new CD “The Town And The City” is very personal.

LOUIE:
“The idea of the song (is)sort of (a) progression, (it) is of remembrances about our childhood and our parents. It is dedicated to our parents. We have been a band for 33 years this coming November. We are kind of getting to be older guys now. That funny thing starts to kick in when you start to think about how things used to be … how things are a lot nicer when they are simpler. So this record is about our experiences growing up, and seeing our parents work hard to try and provide for us. The kind of thing that happens everywhere all over the world.”

Los Lobos
The Town and the City
Mammoth/Hollywood PRCD-11803-2 (2006)

True artists that they are, Los Lobos have taken a current and important subject and addressed it in its music, creating a recording about the immigrant experience in America. And the great band that it is, Los Lobos has produced a CD that is as appealing as it is relevant. It is a musical landscape that begins in “The Valley,” a hauntingly hopeful and
lushly discordant expression of life worked on green land and lived into blue nights. There are myriad emotions relating to the album’s theme that emerge from the music. In “Hold On” the singer seems resigned to a quiet despair as he tells of “killing myself to survive.” “Luna” and “Chuco’s Cumbia” are joyful in their respective celebrations of Mexican music. “Little Things” is sweeping and sad, a story of precious love lost in pursuit of a bigger plan. The musical styles are as mixed as the emotions. “Free Up” is that most dependable of rave-ups, a lite gospel-inflected anthem with jazzy guitar. “The City” is the centerpiece, its scope breathtaking. Specific sounds merge with the changing music. Is that a barking dog or a revving motorcycle? No matter. It evokes a gritty panorama with “lovers kissing by the door…” and “sidewalks shining from the rain…”

While this release is groundbreaking, there are enough elements present that have become a familiar part of Los Lobos’ music over the span of its more than 30-year career. “Two Dogs and a Bone” is fine roadhouse rock, and “The Road to Gila Bend,” the tale of a fugitive immigrant, is full of the band’s signature sound with a strong melody, interwoven guitars, and great harmonies. And of course David Hidalgo’s earthy vocal clarity can be heard throughout. Evoking the intoxicating sonic ambiance of 1992’s Kiko, The Town and the City boasts interesting chord changes and varying rhythms that lend it an improvisational tone. And while it in no way can be categorized as that most American form of music, it all comes together in the tradition and greatness of the coolest of jazz.

– Ellen Geisel (Ballston Lake, NY)

The Town and the City
Hollywood
By Alex Rawls

Los Lobos are one of the handful of bands that genuinely seem to pursue their own muse, so much so that there’s rarely a track or musical decision that seems like a concession of any kind. Rather than viewing its audience as subtle jailers, locking them into musical modes they’ve already explored, Los Lobos seem liberated by their audience to go further. In the case of The Town and the City, that sense of freedom allowed them to make a subtly excellent album, with tracks becoming distinct and special with repeated listens. Only “The Road to Gila Bend” is memorable after the first few listens, and it’s a little reminiscent of the Grateful Dead. Soon, though, “Hold On” and its Latin Playboys-like production emerges, then “No Puedo Mas,” which recalls classic Santana. And so on. Piece by piece, the album becomes rich, complex and beautiful.

The Town and the City is also Los Lobos at their most political, addressing illegal immigrants with the intelligence and subtlety you’d expect. The album opens with “The Valley,” which is sung by someone who has successfully crossed the border and is working “as long as we are able,” but the trade off is “bread on the table,” and the compressed,
Robert Fripp-like ascending guitar line signals this as a good thing. By the album’s closer, “The Town,” a bittersweet song in which the speaker in the song lives in fear, signaled in the first verse by a gunshot in the distance, and his only connection to his hometown is his dreams. In between, Los Lobos bring people to life and turn the political sturm und drang over illegal crossings of our southern borders into a drama that involves people who have bought into the American Dream more genuinely than many of the supporters of the party that wants to fence off that border.

Los Lobos in extraordinary L.A. homecoming

By Darryl Morden

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Most bands would push a new album early in a show. But Los Lobos has never been an ordinary band. The group didn’t even get to the material from its new release “The Town and the City” (Mammoth/Hollywood) until the latter half of Friday’s richly rewarding performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

The show celebrated nearly three decades of remarkably diverse recordings and a Mexican-American heritage encompassing myriad musical styles from both sides of the border. The music was festive and reflective, enchanting and boisterous.

A series of acoustic songs in Spanish led off by their own “La Pistola y el Corazon” displayed the band’s traditional side. For the most part, the group put aside the full-jam mode that fires up appearances at outdoor venues and festivals, and instead played as artisans engaged in often-delicate craftsmanship imbued with heart and soul.

David Hidalgo still amazes as a multi-instrumentalist, easily moving from violin to accordion, then unleashing emotion-soaked electric guitar leads. His plaintive tenor rang out in the marvelous acoustics of the venue for the country-rock American fable of “One Time One Night” and was filled with weary melancholy in “When the Circus Comes.”

Singer-guitarist Cesar Rosas was de facto master of ceremonies for much of the night, quipping several times about the date, Friday the 13th — especially when the band encountered a few sonic troubles. His weathered growl turned gentle and caressing for “Sabor a Mi” and cut loose for the John Lee Hooker-inspired boogie “Don’t Worry Baby.”

Other band members took their turns on lead vocals as well: Louie Perez shone on the lovely, dreamlike and harp-stroked “Saint Behind the Glass,” and bassist Conrad Lozano turned in a joyous “Guantanamera.”

With a long, thin, graying beard plus hat and shades, Steve Berlin looked like a bohemian Hasidic as he added subtle keyboards and punctuating sax and flute. Steady drums and percussion came from Cougar Estrada, though Perez took over his former seat at one point to summon the spirit of old times.

When finally addressing the new album, the group focused on some of the most blues-steeped songs, including the brooding “Hold On,” with its quiet desperation set to a heartbeat tempo. The band soared on the arid folk-rock of “The Road to Gila Bend,” inspired by the Arizona hometown of Hidalgo’s mother.

Several guest musicians added to the special evening, including pedal steel wizard Greg Leisz, who took the two-step “Our Last Night” right into the honky-tonk, and a pair of violinists who joined Hidalgo on fiddle for the lullaby prayer of “Be Still.”

A lively encore was capped by the bump and groove of “Cumbia Raza,” with irresistible rhythms that brought the audience to its feet. A folkloric band, blues band, dance band and so much more — that’s Los Lobos.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserve

Oct. 16, 2006

Los Lobos

By Darryl Morden

Walt Disney Concert Hall
Friday, Oct. 13

Most bands would push a new album early in a show. But Los Lobos has
never been an ordinary band. The group didn’t even get to the
material from its new release “The Town and the City” (Mammoth/
Hollywood) until the latter half of Friday’s richly rewarding
performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

The show celebrated nearly three decades of remarkably diverse
recordings and a Mexican-American heritage encompassing myriad
musical styles from both sides of the border. The music was festive
and reflective, enchanting and boisterous.

A series of acoustic songs in Spanish led off by their own “La
Pistola y el Corazon” displayed the band’s traditional side. For the
most part, the group put aside the full-jam mode that fires up
appearances at outdoor venues and festivals, and instead played as
artisans engaged in often-delicate craftsmanship imbued with heart
and soul.

David Hidalgo still amazes as a multi-instrumentalist, easily moving
from violin to accordion, then unleashing emotion-soaked electric
guitar leads. His plaintive tenor rang out in the marvelous acoustics
of the venue for the country-rock American fable of “One Time One
Night” and was filled with weary melancholy in “When the Circus Comes.”

Singer-guitarist Cesar Rosas was de facto master of ceremonies for
much of the night, quipping several times about the date, Friday the
13th — especially when the band encountered a few sonic troubles.
His weathered growl turned gentle and caressing for “Beautiful Maria
of My Soul” — the band’s song from the soundtrack of “The Mambo
Kings” — and cut loose for the John Lee Hooker-inspired boogie
“Don’t Worry Baby.”

Other band members took their turns on lead vocals as well: Louie
Perez shone on the lovely, dreamlike and harp-stroked “Saint Behind
the Glass,” and bassist Conrad Lozano turned in a joyous “Guantanamera.”

With a long, thin, graying beard plus hat and shades, Steve Berlin
looked like a bohemian Hasidic as he added subtle keyboards and
punctuating sax and flute. Steady drums and percussion came from
Cougar Estrada, though Perez took over his former seat at one point
to summon the spirit of old times.

When finally addressing the new album, the group focused on some of
the most blues-steeped songs, including the brooding “Hold On,” with
its quiet desperation set to a heartbeat tempo. The band soared on
the arid folk-rock of “The Road to Gila Bend,” inspired by the
Arizona hometown of Hidalgo’s mother.

Several guest musicians added to the special evening, including pedal
steel wizard Greg Leisz, who took the two-step “Our Last Night” right
into the honky-tonk, and a pair of violinists who joined Hidalgo on
fiddle for the lullaby prayer of “Be Still.”

A lively encore was capped by the bump and groove of “Cumbia Raza,”
with irresistible rhythms that brought the audience to its feet. A
folkloric band, blues band, dance band and so much more — that’s Los
Lobos.

Copyright 2005 The Hollywood Reporter

POP MUSIC REVIEW
Friday the 13th: A lucky day for Lobos
The seminal L.A. band fills Disney Hall with its passionate and exciting
mix of sounds.

By Steve Appleford, Special to The Times

Some bands are built to last, fueled not by trends or chart action but
by an internal commitment to culture and community. Los Lobos has played
big rooms and small ones in Los Angeles over the last 33 years, and the
result is always the same: a sound that is traditional, eccentric,
intimate and exciting.

On Friday, Los Lobos brought that rewarding mix to the epic scene of
Walt Disney Concert Hall, where the band delivered more than two hours
of music. But the tone and texture were set from its first few moments
onstage, as Los Lobos picked up acoustic folk instruments (and Steve
Berlin’s tenor sax) for the sweet, forlorn “La Pistola y el Corazón.”

Los Lobos can rock hard when it chooses to, and the group did so Friday
night. But the warm acoustics at Disney Hall seemed to inspire a desire
for subtlety, with several more folk tunes and Spanish words of love and
drama, mostly sung by guitarist Cesar Rosas, and the excited plucking
and strumming of guitars by David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez.

There was a gentle, urgent “El Cuchipe” and some great honking sax work
on “Maricela.” And bassist Conrad Lozano took a rare lead vocal on the
Cuban standard “Guantanamera.”

“This is Friday the 13th, man,” Rosas warned with a smile. “Anything
could happen.”

Disney Hall is barely two miles from the old concrete cavern of the
Grand Olympic Auditorium, where in 1980 a then-unknown Los Lobos del
Este de Los Angeles made its debut on the local rock scene, opening for
Public Image Ltd., whose unruly punk fans showered the stage with
quarters. By then, Lobos had been playing for years at East L.A.
weddings and other social events, a band of Garfield High kids raised on
traditional Mexican folk and classic rock and blues.

That is an old story now, but it still says something of the band’s
longevity and scope. There have been wild experiments through the years,
from roots rock to cosmic trips into the nether regions of folk, jazz
and pop, yet the music has somehow always been grounded in a Mexican
folk and lowdown blues.

The band was loose and comfortable despite the inevitable formality of
Disney Hall, and members dealt with a few technical glitches with good
humor. As Hidalgo prepared to perform the rich, swampy blues of a new
song, “Hold On” (from Los Lobos’ elegant new album, “The Town and the
City”), his guitar slipped from his hands and fell hard to the stage floor.

“Friday the 13th,” he said with a smile, and soon joked, “We’re trying
to put together a big show for you guys, but we just don’t know how.”

Not likely.

Los Lobos at Disney Hall was just what we’ve learned to expect these
last three decades — warm, passionate and infinitely rewarding.

Los Lobos at Disney Concert Hall

Having clawed their way up through the murky hellholes of early-’80s Hollywood clubland, and then managed to shake off the stranglingly restrictive roots-rock mantle and launch themselves into an artistic strata that has absolutely no limit, these guys never cease to amaze. Case in point, their extraordinary new CD, The Town and the City, another instantly — and widely — acclaimed collection of remarkably executed songs focused on the immigrant experience that reaches both profound emotional depths and dazzling pinnacles of musicality. With their characteristically unpredictable mix of traditional Latin, earthy rhythm & blues, roiling funk, and rock & roll wallop, Los Lobos continue what undeniably rates as one of the most impressive ascensions this town has ever had the privilege to witness. (Jonny Whiteside)

Posted on Fri, Oct. 13, 2006

For the love of Los Lobos
The east Los Angeles ensemble makes the road trip to Cincinnati worth it
By Walter Tunis
CONTRIBUTING MUSIC WRITER

Talib Kweli, Los Lobos and OK Go

6 p.m. Oct. 14 at Fountain Square, Fifth and Vine streets in
Cincinnati. Free.

As we edge further into fall, the promise of cooperative weather for
an outdoor concert becomes more and more remote. Just ask the cold
and wet multitudes that waited on the Rolling Stones recently at
Louisville’s Churchill Downs or the more modest turnout that braved
the rains to check out Al Green at last week’s Tall Stacks Festival
in Cincinnati.

This weekend, another intriguing outdoor show beckons us to again
brave the elements. This one takes us straight to downtown Cincinnati
and marks the official reopening of Fountain Square after a
renovation that took more than a year and an estimated $42 million to
complete.

And so, Cincinnati will strike up the music in a big way tomorrow.

Festivities get under way at noon with a true variety of sounds and
styles: a joint performance of the Cincinnati Symphony, Opera and
Ballet along with a poem written and read by Nikki Giovanni — all
which will be emceed by the city’s forefather of funk, Bootsy Collins.

The big fun gets started around 6 p.m. New York hip-hop stylist Talib
Kweli (assisted by Cincinnati’s Hi-Tek) gets things started while
Chicago rockers OK Go (of A Million Ways and Get Over It fame) close
out the evening.

But the sound that will be rocking between those two acts is what
makes the event worth the road trip from Lexington and, of course,
another chance encounter with the elements. It’s the return of Los
Lobos. Though decidedly unflashy onstage, the East Los Angeles
ensemble has been mixing expert songwriting with music that runs from
Tex-Mex traditionalism to immensely resourceful rock and soul for
over 30 years.

Still need convincing that standing on a street corner for a few
hours is a cool way to spend your Saturday night? Then give a listen
to The Town and the City, Los Lobos’ highly topical new album — a
richly reflective song cycle of life, immigration, family and loss.

And we’re not alone in our love of the Lobos. The current issue of
Rolling Stone magazine proclaims “with exception of U2, no other band
has stayed on top of its game as long as Los Lobos.”

Sure, this is a night when Cincinnati reclaims a beloved downtown
landmark. But for those of us in Lexington, it’s a chance to get out
of town and celebrate one of the mightiest bands in the land.

For more information, go to www.myfountainsquare.com.

Los Lobos
(Walt Disney Concert Hall; 2,265 seats; $85 top)
By PHIL GALLO

Cesar Rosas and Los Lobos overcame some Friday the 13th oddities to
perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn. David Hidalgo, Cesar
Rosas, Conrad Lozano, Louie Perez, Steve Berlin, Cougar Estrada. Guest,
Greg Leisz. Reviewed Oct. 13, 2006.

Friday the 13th was blamed for a handful of occurrences at Los Lobos’
packed debut at Disney Concert Hall: An amp wouldn’t stop feeding back;
a strap broke and an electric guitar crashed to the floor; and
instruments that had sat idly were suddenly wildly out of tune. But East
L.A.’s finest soldiered on through more than 2? hours of music, spending
a fair amount of time with the Mexican tunes of their youth and,
unfortunately, only scraping the surface of their fine new album, “The
Town and the City.”
Los Lobos used the beginning of each of their two sets in the career-
covering concert to reach back to songs from their days as a backyard
party band in the 1970s, playing the romantic bolero “Sabor a Mi” with a
steamy guitar solo from Cesar Rosas and a fine version of the Bolivian
tune “El Chuchipe.”

But it also meant time was spent with the unnecessary warhorse
“Guantanamera” and a shaky “La Pistola y el Corazon.”

The band appeared rusty on a number of the tunes, and probably for good
reason: They don’t need to perform this material at every show. This is
the great American fusion rock band, rooted in more strains than anyone
would care to count and highly capable of making a sound artistic
statement with their own works rather than trying to fit some outdated
description of a Mexican-American band. To isolate them, whether with
folkloric music, Ritchie Valens covers or the intensely quiet material
of their masterpiece “Kiko,” is to sell them and the audience short.

David Hidalgo, an astoundingly inventive guitarist, has given
considerable shape to the new music. Rosas is a burner, a guitarist who
excels when he builds up speed on the frets; his solos give the Los
Lobos aud an adrenaline rush. Hidalgo is more painterly, capable of
going dark and abstract just as easily as he can tackle a still life.

On “The Valley,” one of “The Town and the City’s” most striking songs,
the Hidalgo sonic treatment was a unique highlight: He twisted the blues
with a hollow guitar tone that pinpointed the intersection of Wes
Montgomery and Jimi Hendrix. Perf was a gem.

“The Town and the City” (Mammoth/Hollywood) is a rugged and grounded
work, a solid return to form for the band that’s both lively and solemn
— a rock ‘n’ roll record with Latin American accents and a healthy dose
of reflection in the lyrics. It ventures close to being a song cycle
about the immigrant experience, from stealthily crossing the border to
preserving traditions. As an artistic statement for Los Lobos, the
concert would have been more intriguing had the band played the record
all the way through.

Los Lobos continues to work with a three-guitar lineup on every song —
in the early days, Louie Perez stuck to the drums before moving to
various instruments — and the denseness of the sound didn’t always find
a kind match in Disney Hall’s acoustics. Powerful rockers “The Road to
Gila Bend,” a new tune, and “Don’t Worry Baby,” one of Rosas’ grittiest
works, were exceptional in execution and, surprisingly, sound reproduction.

“Rita,” brimming with George Harrison overtones from late-period
Beatles, from their overlooked album “The Ride,” also was a nice
addition to the set; guest Greg Leisz played pedal steel on two numbers
and helped a forgetful Hidalgo salvage the country two-step “Our Last Night.”

Los Lobos, The Town And The City (Hollywood Records) ****
By Julian Cole
THE veteran American band, 33 years in music, have been in an out of favour, hitting mainstream success in 1987 with La Bamba.

Now they are heavy-set and sport goatee beards, their appearance suggesting perhaps a certain weighty menace.

Yet the music on this excellent album displays a light touch, mixing pop and rock with flourishes of South Americana.

continued…
From opener The Valley, Los Lobos create a layered organic sound that fits the music so well, with everything having a place and a purpose.

Hold On is a soulful lament wrapped in sweet music, while The Road To Gila Bend – charting the struggles of immigrants, an old Los Lobos theme – is memorable rootsy pop.

Infectious blues take over on Free Up, a song made for shuffling.

Los Lobos Takes the Pulse of Urban Life in `Town and the City’

By Douglas Lytle

Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) — The new album by Los Lobos, the lauded band
from East Los Angeles, begins quietly with a kick drum and snare
leading off a hangdog shuffle. It’s a simple pulse that anchors “The
Town and the City,” the group’s 15th album in a 23-year career.

That heartbeat is important. It’s an affirmation of life running
through the 13 stories comprising this ambitious chronicle of urban
existence that ranks among the band’s greatest achievements.

Documented here are the generally honest folks who make your
expensive coffee each morning, deliver your packages ordered on the
Internet, then go to bed with aching feet, scraping to get by and
keep their families intact. These are stories of people who struggle
to keep their heads high while gang violence swirls around and the
pull of drugs and alcohol takes down family members.

“Here in the valley/Bread on the table/Work through the day/For as
long as we are able,” guitarist David Hidalgo sings in “The
Valley,” the surrealistic, ambling first track.

While this is hardly a bitter record, the view is often bleak.
Consider “Hold On”: “Hold on/Hold on to every breath/And if I make
it to the sunrise/Do it all over again/Do it all over again/And I’m
killin’ myself just to keep alive/Killin’ myself to survive.”

Although many probably only know this band as the “La Bamba” guys
from the movie of the same name, Los Lobos is wildly more than just
three-chord roots rock. It toured extensively with the Grateful Dead
and explored the more ambient, arty edges of contemporary rock with
side projects like the Latin Playboys.

Smeared by Feedback

As in “Kiko,” the band’s much-loved record from 1992, those
experiences have filtered into the music here, with the songs smeared
by feedback, murmuring, ghostly voices and distorted horns.

There’s a sound and a beat here for everyone, from the Santana-
inflected lilt of “No Puedo Mas” to the bouncy pop of “Free Up.”
Things swing a bit with “The Road to Gila Bend” and “Chuco’s
Cumbia,” a dancing folk song that pulses with horns and Cesar
Rosas’s growling voice.

“Little Things” is anthemic, opening with ringing chords
reminiscent of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and delves
into the meaningful things that are buried close around us every day,
the little things “we never see.”

The careful listener will keep hearing that steady pulse through the
music, especially on the downbeat “If You Were Only Here Tonight.”

Heartbreak and Sorrow

This is a record that could only have been made by musicians who have
spent years together, experiencing their own successes, heartbreak
and sorrow, while also endlessly prowling the streets, soaking up the
culture and people. It is at once a celebration of community and also
a wake for its destruction.

The record closes on a grim, haunting note in “The Town,” with what
is presumably Hidalgo’s guitar tracing long, languid lines through a
cinematic vista of an unsettled, crime-ridden neighborhood at
twilight. In the background, the kick drum is offering that steady,
irresistible pulse. A pulse of life.

“The Town and City” is released by Hollywood Records in the U.S.
and by EMI overseas. The U.S. retail price is $18.99.

(Douglas Lytle writes about music for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Douglas Lytle at
dlytle@bloomberg.net

LOS LOBOS DEBUT BEGINS THE 2006/2007 WORLD MUSIC SERIES
AT WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL

Performances by Guinga, Paco De Lucia and Salif Keita Complete Series

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2006 at 8 PM

Los Lobos
East Los Angeles rockers Los Lobos make their debut appearance at
Walt Disney Concert Hall, commencing the 2006/2007 World Music Series
on Friday October 13, 2006 at 8pm. Performing both acoustically and
plugged-in, Los Lobos plays selections from their 13th full-length
album, The Town and The City, as well as other music from their
acclaimed career.

Los Lobos’ career kicked into high gear in the summer of 1987 with
the release of La Bamba. Los Lobos’ cover of the title track shot
straight to #1 on the Billboard Singles chart, remaining there for
three weeks, transforming Los Lobos into mainstream stars. However
this “overnight success” arrived 14 years after the band’s inception.
What started as a group of schoolmates gathering to play traditional
Mexican music in the early ’70s, launched a distinctive career that
has prevailed for over three decades. From traditional Spanish and
Mexican music, to rock, folk, jazz and even psychedelic sonic
experimentation, Los Lobos has successfully redefined their sound,
collecting three Grammy awards and consistently topping the charts.
Their latest Hollywood Records release, The Town and The City,
expands upon their roots-rock sound, and as the title suggests,
serves as a reflection of “the city” – Los Lobos’ experiences growing
up in East L.A. – and “the town” – a nostalgic reminiscence of back
home, a counterbalance to the hustle and glow of the boulevard. Ben
Wener, music critic for the Orange County Register, calls The Town
and The City “one of Los Lobos’ all-time best.”

The 2006/2007 World Music Series at Walt Disney Concert Hall
continues with Brazilian songwriter and guitar virtuoso Guinga, who
performs with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on Friday, December 1,
2006. Internationally recognized master of Flamenco guitar, Paco de
Lucia, performs on Sunday, February 4, 2007, and Malian superstar
Salif Keita, often called the Golden Voice of Africa, performs on
Saturday, April 28, 2007.

LOS LOBOS began as Los Lobos Del Este Los Angeles in 1973, having
since evolved into a respected artistic entity searching for themes
and topics that are an interpretive pulse of our times. Using musical
molds built on the blues, rockabilly, jazz, Latin and their own
Mexican-American heritage, Los Lobos have never beat their fans over
the head with politics or agendas. Instead, they subtly challenge
them with conscience-raising songs and thought-provoking lyrics.
Their latest release, The Town and The City, does just that. Told in
the first-person, each song serves as an episodic step in a journey
that travels over emotional peaks and valleys. The centerpieces of
the album – “The City” and “The Town” – serve as urban reflections of
immigrant arrivals. Most of the thirteen songs are co-written by
Louie Perez and David Hildago; Cesar Rosas contributes two songs.
Every song says something significant about the mysterious journey
that creates a new life in a society much different from where it
began. The release of The Town and The City marks a highly
anticipated event at this stage of Los Lobos’ illustrious career.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, under Music Director Esa-
Pekka Salonen, presents the finest in orchestral and chamber music,
recitals, new music, jazz, world music and holiday concerts at two of
the most remarkable places anywhere to experience music — Walt Disney
Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. In addition to a 30-week winter
subscription season at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the LA Phil presents
a 12-week summer festival at the legendary Hollywood Bowl, summer
home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and home of the Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra. In fulfilling its commitment to the community, the
Association’s involvement with Los Angeles extends to educational
programs, community concerts and children’s programming, ever seeking
to provide inspiration and delight to the broadest possible audience.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2006 at 8 PM
WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, 111 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles

Los Lobos
Steve Berlin, saxophones, percussion, flute, midisax, harmonica,
melodica
David Hidago, guitars, accordion, violin, banjo, vocals
Conrad Lozano, bass, guitarron, vocals
Louie Perez, drums, guitars, percussion, vocals
Cesar Rosas, guitars, mandolin, vocals

Tickets ($33 – $85) are on sale now at the Walt Disney Concert Hall
box office, online at LAPhil.com, or via credit card phone order at
323.850.2000. A limited number of $10 rush tickets for seniors and
full time students may be available at the Walt Disney Concert Hall
box office two hours prior to the performance. Valid identification
is required; one ticket per person; cash only. Groups of 12 or more
may be eligible for special discounts for selected concerts and
seating areas. For information, please call 323.850.2000.

With the exception of U2, no other band has stayed on top of its game as long as Los Lobos. But while U2 constantly reinvent themselves and compete with new generations of bands, these East L.A. vets just keep on making the same golden blend of blues, R&B, cumbia and barrio rock & roll that they first laid down when Jimmy Carter was president. The Town and the City, Los Lobos’ best album since 1996’s Colossal Head, takes on one big theme: immigration. It’s an album about people — the hard life of outsiders in a new place — told without moralizing or sentimentality.

The production favors restraint over the lush, chaotic arrangements of albums like Kiko. But the band still sneaks in bits of weird noise — the incandescent guitar feedback that bleeds into “The Valley,” about the shadow life of itinerant farm laborers; the chain-gang beat that underpins “Hold On,” with one laborer’s lament that, “I’m killing myself to survive.” The album’s standout, “The Road to Gila Bend,” is a classic Lobos anthem, powered by David Hidalgo’s smoky vocals and a hurricane of Neil Young-like guitar. Other songs are subtler and take a little longer to sink in. When they do, you marvel: This is what happens when five guys create a magical sound, then stick together for thirty years to see how far it can take them.

JASON FINE

LOS LOBOS
The Town And The City

For more than 20 years, Los Lobos have been writing the soundtrack to
the U.S./Mexico border debate from the perspective of its most
vulnerable participants: the immigrant workers. While The Town And
The City is more rigidly focused on this theme, its struggling,
displaced and generally hopeful inhabitants are strikingly similar to
those populating each of the band’s records. This time, however, grey
clouds hover over past optimism like a grim reaper. “Hold On” is a
desperate mutant-blues tune that follows a recovering addict through
the DTs. On “If You Were Only Here Tonight,” David Hidalgo’s weary,
heartbroken vocals mirror the exhaustion of a sleepless, guilt-ridden
soul after committing a violent crime. These are the tales of people
who have been swallowed up by the anonymity of a big American city,
far from mom’s sage advice, apart from loved ones, unable to focus on
the little things that make life worth living. There’s clearly an
intent to match this mood with the haunting sonic adventurousness of
Kiko, Los Lobos’ 1992 masterpiece, but ambition often outdistances
the underlying quality of the songs. “Two Dogs And A Bone” fails to
live up to the band’s best rockers, and “Free Up” is clearly intended
as a spiritual release but comes off as little more than a dippy,
laid-back jam for Jack Johnson acolytes. All this doesn’t mean to
imply you are excused from owning everything this American
institution records—just that you may have to dig around a little
this time to find moments of true brilliance. [Mammoth, www.mammoth.com]

—Ken Brandell

CLICK HERE to listen to Los Lobos Live On The Air from earlier today….

BY JIM CALIGIURI

Few, if any, American bands can match Los Lobos in terms of longevity and creativity. The Town and the City, their 13th studio effort, is more than just another album from East L.A.’s most famous quintet.

Essentially, it’s a suite of songs dealing with migration and the pains and perils of city living. Done in mostly dark hues matched to thoughtful lyrics chiefly composed by the band’s multi- instrumentalist Louie Perez, this is a disc that reveals itself only after several listens. There are echoes of their previous work, especially in the more adventurous tracks like “The Valley” and “The City,” whose slinky rhythms and near psychedelic musical beds recall those of Kiko or on “The Road to Gila Bend,” which brings to mind their early days of roots-rock survival. Cesar Rosas delivers his usual Latin flair with the deceptively sly “Chuco’s Cumbia.” His Santana-like “No Puedo Mas” features a near-reggae feel. Yet The Town and the City is no repeat. It’s Los Lobos confronting who we are today, in the only way they’re capable, and with new sounds, fresh rhythms, and a brooding manner that’s sure to get under your skin.

Los Lobos
The Town and the City
(Hollywood Records)
US release date: 12 September 2006
UK release date: 14 August 2006
by Andrew Gilstrap
PopMatters Associate Music Editor
cover art
* Amazon

Not many bands make it to the thirty-year mark, and of those that do,
fewer still make it with any vitality intact. Los Lobos are the rare
exception.

True, the band seems to have been in a holding pattern recently, what
with a record focused on collaborations (2004’s The Ride, a covers EP
(The Ride‘s accompanying Ride This disc), and a live album (2005’s
Live at the Fillmore)—oh, and a best-of disc earlier this year. But
their latest, The Town and the City, stands as one of the band’s best
efforts, even if the band’s success initially works against them.

The “problem” with Los Lobos, at this point, is that they’ve
basically spoiled us, making it easy to take them for granted.
Fourteen years past what will probably stand as their watershed
moment, 1992’s Kiko, Los Lobos have continued mining a rich vein of
traditional forms, rock, experimentation, and soulful lyricism. If
efforts like Colossal Head and This Time seemed like weaker efforts,
it’s largely because Kiko left little room for improvement (and yeah,
maybe because, here and there, the experimentation didn’t always
coalesce into solid songs).

So when you listen to The Town and the City, it’s tempting to call
the album more of the same: Los Lobos doing what they do in their
typical unassuming manner. There aren’t any songs that initially seem
like they’re going to dethrone “Just a Man”, “I Walk Alone”, “Mas y
Mas”, or “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” as Los Lobos classics—just one
solid song after another.

After a bit, though, the record’s darker feel begins to make itself
known. “The Valley” tells of those who “work through the day for as
long as we are able”; the backing arrangement has a gentle, pastoral
lope, but a keening guitar line arcs through, sometimes cutting into
the foreground, as if to underscore the hardscrabble life depicted in
the song. “Hold On” goes it one better, backing lyrics like “Hold on
to every breath / And if I make it sunrise, do it all over again /
Now I’m killin’ myself just to keep alive / Killin’ myself to
survive” with a measured rhythm, like a clock ticking towards the end
of a long day. “The Road to Gila Bend”, with overloaded electric
guitar crackling like it’s hooked to an amp via an electric fence,
tells the tale of a breakneck run across the border.

At this point, three songs in, it sounds like Los Lobos might be
making an album specifically about immigration. But by album’s end,
it sounds like they’re more concerned with the equally complicated
experience of simply living, whether it’s in a small village “back
home” or in an American city—really, the same themes they’ve been
addressing since The Neighborhood and before. The snarling guitar
bounce of “Two Dogs and a Bone” accompanies a mother’s practical
advice to her two sons, while the wistful “Little Things”, full of
regret over lost focus in modern times, simultaneously evokes Marvin
Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale”.
“The City”, decorated with broad, cosmopolitan chord progressions and
sonic swirls, follows the sentiment of “c’mon let’s go out tonight”
through never-sleeping nighttime streets.

The disc closes, though, with “The Town”, which may turn out to be
one of Los Lobos’ very best tracks. A counterpoint to the evening
adrenaline of “The City”, “The Town” opens with gunshots in the city
night, and the narrator’s conviction that things are better back
home, a place he sees whenever he closes his eyes. It’s evocative
enough on its own, especially as a conclusion to an album this
strong, but the lead guitar work puts it over the top. A nuanced,
fluid mixture of sympathethic chords, jazzy double-stops, and bluesy
wails, it’s perhaps the best Los Lobo guitar work since “Just a
Man“‘s solo sounded like the band were opening up actual veins in
order to let the torment out.

If you’ve kind of let your attention to Los Lobos slide, The Town and
the City marks the perfect opportunity to get back into the fold.
With every passing year, it seems like the band is less and less
interested with peeling the pain from the roadhouse walls, but with
age and wisdom comes something subtler, and just as long-lasting.

RATING: 7 on a scale of 10
— 28 September 2006

Los Lobos
The Town and the City
(Hollywood Records)
US release date: 12 September 2006
UK release date: 14 August 2006
by Matt Cibula
cover art
* Amazon

I got this CD a few months ago, and was astounded by how vital and
fresh and deep it was. Hadn’t Los Lobos turned into a boring jamband
about 10 years ago? So this summer was largely a re-examination of
this band, which I once loved more than maybe I should have. After
all, How Will the Wolf Survive? was prime “let’s get drunk” music in
college, my wife and I fell in love to the La Bamba soundtrack, and
I’ve been known to crank up our graphics department’s copy of Kiko at
work to get a project done. But what have I been missing by ignoring
them since then?

Well, I’m ashamed to say that the answer is: a whole hell of a lot.
It turns out, after my research into all their studio albums and box
sets (man, I love the library system), that Los Lobos never fell off
at all. The warm, rugged beauty in David Hidalgo’s voice kept on
delivering even after I stopped paying attention, and Louie Perez’
lyrics on albums like Colossal Head and Good Morning Aztlan remained
folk poetry of the highest order. The box set called El Cancionero:
Mas y Mas has largely taken over my iPod, and I can even recommend
2004’s The Ride, which celebrated their 30-year anniversary as a
working band.

But forget all that history jazz for right now; let’s get back to the
record that sent me on my mission. The Town and the City is just as
tight and adventurous as anything else coming out this year, a lean
and hungry record full of beauty and pain and fear and hope by five
guys who know what the hell they’re talking about.

It starts out in atmospheric/psychedelic mode with “The Valley”, a
song full of swirling guitar sounds and a disorientingly circular
structure in both its music and its words. We go from the founding of
Los Lobos’ beloved Los Angeles (“They seemed pleased with what they
had found”) to the present-day struggles of its people to keep “bread
on the table” with no warning whatsoever. It is an epic beginning for
what turns out to be an epic album.

Because a few songs after we visit “The Valley”, we run right up
against “The City”. This is a grinding rock song full of unexpected
bursts of be-bop chords built up over a beefy mambo beat, and it will
take a lot longer than a summer for me to fully understand how it
works. The talk is all about going out and celebrating, but in a
threatening (and threatened) way: “Come on let’s go out tonight /
Shoot out all the neon lights”. The freaky ambient noises and lengthy
guitar explorations make this a pretty unreliable signpost on our
journey.

In the meantime, we have come through a lot of different places and
styles and moods. “The Road to Gila Bend” is a standout, a
straightforward-seeming song with a revved-up guitar sound and a huge
pop drumbeat with spooky lyrics about staying ahead of the law with
four silver dollars and a mortal need to get to Tucson by the morning
light. We never actually learn why this character is fleeing, but the
disconnect between the words and the music is haunting—and the solo
is cool as hell. “Little Things” sounds like the Band covering “A
Whiter Shade of Pale”, but one chord change at the end of the first
verse deepens it immensely.

Some of the blues stuff here is shockingly effective. “Hold On” rides
Tchad Blake’s mix into surreal territory, an appropriate place about
a protagonist working himself into an early grave: “Killing myself
just to stay alive / Killing myself to survive”. “Two Dogs and a
Bone,” on the other hand, uses charm and guile to turn a childhood
memory into a universal statement about, um, sharing.

But Los Lobos retain their ability to kick any Latin genre they
choose. “Chuco’s Cumbia” is tough and lovely, giving Steve Berlin the
opportunity to blast a twisty-turny baritone sax solo. “No Puedo Mas”
takes cumbia even further into dub territory, while “Luna” reaches
further back into Mexican music’s folk past. But even these tunes are
darker and edgier than the band has seemed on their last couple of
records.

Everything comes back home on the final track, “The Town”. On its
surface, it is a simple song about the lifelong effects of growing up
in poverty; these effects are both negative (poverty) and positive
(family cohesion, cultural identity). It combines rock and folk and
Latin music, and its hushed tones are both lullaby and warning. Like
“The Valley” and “The City”, this song uses a sharp guitar tone and
some out-there sonics to make itself bigger than it is, but it is
already huge. In fact, “The Town” may be huge enough to be the
definitive statement on what may be the definitive album of one of
the most overlooked bands of our time.

RATING: 9 on a scale of 10
— 28 September 2006

In the Mix – Music

Los Lobos
The Town and the City
Hollywood Records

By Edward Dunn

The 13 confident tracks on The Town and the City form a loose
narrative, following an immigrant’s travels and travails al norte.
True to Los Lobos’ past musical statements, the songs take a personal
rather than politicized look at the issues at hand. But the band’s
music remains the real story here. The collection is intimate,
stirring and stylistically diverse, with pounding border-blues-rock,
slow funk and a rousing cumbia leading right into a plaintive ballad.
Two tracks split the album’s title, highlighting the emotional
dilemma faced by many immigrants with heartfelt ties to two “homes.”
“The City,” an intriguing mix of moody, ringing modulations and a
pulsing, hand-muted guitar lick, is full of a new arrival’s brash
hopes, while “The Town” is a gorgeous homesick lament.

Los Lobos, “The Town and the City” (Hollywood). Los Lobos has never delivered an album south of excellent over its two decades together. One record, however, has long stood out as a pinnacle – the early-’90s release “Kiko,” a multi-idiomatic blend of musics married to startlingly imaginative production values. The band followed “Kiko” with records that are almost as brilliant, but not until the release of “The Town and the City” has the group matched “Kiko’s” dreamlike magnificence. This new record packs in everything that Lobos has always done well – willfully twisting tropes pulled from Mexican-American music, jazz, Latin, blues and folk and coming up with a sound that deserves to be called unique. “The Town and the City” has plenty of the magic dust that elevated “Kiko” toward the sublime as well, much of it coming courtesy of the brilliance of the arrangements, the subtlety of the compositions, and the hypnotic, wide-screen imagination of the production – handled by the band members themselves, and given a final sweetening by Tchad Blake’s mix. A fully realized masterpiece from a band we should expect nothing less from.

4 Stars (Jeff Miers)

By Doug Collette

Los Lobos
Boarding House Park
Lowell, Massachusetts
September 1, 2006

Los Lobos should be honored as a national treasure. Appearing in the home of Jack Kerouac near the end of the Massachusetts city’s summer music series, this band from East LA displayed an affectionate enthusiasm for their audience that, combined with musical diversity and instrumental chemistry at their command, provided an ever so rare means of inaugurating the autumn.

Outside in the cool late summer early fall air in the middle of Lowell, Lobos let rip right from the start. In contrast to the acoustic concerts the group’s played in recent months, this was a high-energy affair beginning with, appropriately enough, “The Neighborhood.” Brandishing his Fender most of the evening, the affable but inscrutable David Hidalgo fired off the first of a series of gritty solos the likes of which should’ve earned him the title of guitar hero years ago.

Flanking him on the opposite end of the stage, as if to symbolize the symmetry in the band’s personality, was the irrepressible Cesar Rosas. Slyly masked as usual in dark glasses even as night set in, his consecration of the audience as “music lovers” and recognition of the dancers on their feet added a different fuel to the fire that was cooking in the park.

Los Lobos didn’t jam extensively or enact long segues September 1st. But if there is anything more enjoyable to experience than a great band in the full flight of improvisation, it’s hearing a band build up a full head of steam song by song like “I Walk Alone” and “Manny’s Bones.” Los Lobos kept themselves in control and tight alignment all the way, right down to the cold stops signaled with a flourish by Cougar Estrada.

“Los Lobos’ affectionate enthusiasm for their audience is equalled by the musical diversity and instrumental chemistry at their command.”

The young drummer, now sole percussionist for this great group, has much to do with their dynamism, especially as he interacts with Conrad Lozano. The bassist’s deep simple lines lock with the kick drum and toms to give tremendous bottom to a sound that was quite clear even in the open air. It was only when Hidalgo donned the accordion for “Kiko,” just at the right time for a change of pace, that charter member of Lobos Louie Perez forsook his guitars for drums (once his permanent spot in the lineup) and his lighter fluid attack recalled, appropriately enough for tunes such as “Maria Christina,” the early days of the band playing traditional Mexican music at weddings and local gatherings.

Clearly Los Lobos haven’t forgotten, much less forsaken, their roots (including those that stretch into garage rock and punk). The new album “The Town and The City” from which they introduced three cuts, is the story of their exploration into a new world made universal in a well-wrought song cycle. “Chuco’s Cumbia” and “The Road to Gila Bend” each spoke eloquently about stages of that journey, the former with Spanish effervescence buoyed by Rosas’ delivery, the latter, like “Hold On,” a more atmospheric blues rendered sensitively but with the appropriate strength by Hidalgo.

These novel originals sounded as well practiced as standards of the Lobos repertoire. With the often requested and eventually played “Mas y Mas,” the band entered overdrive, in part through the inclusion of the horn section and percussionist of opener Jen Kearney’s Lost Onion band (the frontwoman joined in on the uproarious “Cumbia Raza”). Now a ten- piece band, Los Lobos pumped their way with abandon through their sole mainstream hit “La Bamba” within which they interpolated “Good Lovin’.”

And who but Los Lobos would invite upwards of thirty audience members on stage to sing, dance and effectively obscure the band itself from sight? Not only that, but all of those invitees would leave the stage without hassle as the band climaxed its set proper. The good natured mien of the audience is a direct reflection of Los Lobos and their fundamental generosity, another aspect of which they exhibited with a lengthy encore, backing Barrence Whitfield on vocals for “Hey Joe” and “Baby What You Want Me to do?”

The breadth of the band’s influences, from Jimi Hendrix to earthy R&B becomes all the more astonishing when you hear the ease and finesse with which they move from genre to genre. Lobos’ own fluid chemistry is as impressive in the lysergic-laced licks from Hidalgo on the former as the redemptive joy that emanated from the latter (notwithstanding the overwrought delivery from Massachusetts semi-legend Whitfield). Steve Berlin’s guttural sax work was a joy throughout the evening, not just when he was interacting with three other horn men at the close of the show.

While much of the Commonwealth crowd seemed to be present out of habit and/or just for the sake of curiosity, virtually no one was left sitting by the time Los Lobos had asked them to stand before roaring to the close of their two hour set. The power of great music takes many forms, as a dynamic Los Lobos demonstrated here in no uncertain terms, with all due versatility at their disposal.

CD review | ‘The Town and the City’

Among the most durable of bands, Los Lobos continues to explore the
human condition through music, be it R&B, blues, straight-ahead rock,
or norteno and other styles from Mexico, elsewhere in Latin America
and the Caribbean.

The band’s latest memorializes what it means to lose one home in
search of another, as Los Lobos chronicles the often-dangerous
passage of Mexicans to “El Norte” and what awaits them.

“The Town and the City” represents Los Lobos at some of its
philosophical best, dispensing well-crafted electrified music from a
weathered, wiser band. It displays the almost resigned mood and quiet
strength that has colored more of Los Lobos’ work since “Kiko” in 1992.

“The Town and the City” is a fine addition to the Los Lobos catalog.

— Steve Burkholder, special to the Hartford Courant