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NewWest Fest music lineup - NewWest Fest Guide |
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Written by NEXTnc staff reports
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Friday, 17 August 2007 |
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Page 1 of 4
RUNNING WITH THE WOLVES
Discover the experimental edge of Los Lobos
By Glenn BurnSilver
For NEXTnc
Los Lobos often get pigeonholed as a band of Latin rockers with a singular sound.
Truth be known, the Latin influences of this East Los Angeles band can’t help but seep into its overall sound, but to go deeper is to find a rock band with an experimental edge of musical innovation that extends far beyond such popular favorites as “How Will the Wolf Survive” and “La Bamba.”
“We’re lucky, we’ve never really had to make a commercial-based decision. Even when La Bamba was hot and heavy we knew there wasn’t going to be any way to come up with ‘La Bamba 2,’” saxophonist/percussionist Steve Berlin explained from his Portland, Ore., home. “We’ve always been able to make creative decisions around what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it.
So rather than reach for another hit after “La Bamba,” the band went the other direction and released a stripped down acoustic album of traditional Latin songs “La Pistola y El Corazon.”
“I think it is one of our — if not the — most important record we made,” Berlin said of the Grammy-winning record. “It defines who we are, where we come from and why we sound the way we do. That record was as profound and powerful as anything we’ve done. We did it back then to create a little more identity beyond ‘La Bamba.’ People thought that’s what we were all about. We had to cleanse the world’s palate of that.”
And while the band never really attained major commercial success — at least by industry standards — they have developed a loyal following that expects something different each time the band walks into the studio. Los Lobos’ latest, “The Town and The City,” while full of fresh ideas and challenging song structures is also reminiscent of one of their most storied works, “Kiko,” a slightly off-kilter album awash in fuzzy guitars, feedback, pedal loops and unusual effects.
Berlin explained that after the two previous “consciously commercial” albums, the band approached this one with a looser ideal.
“We wanted to make a record in that (Kiko) style,” Berlin explained. “We felt like ‘The Ride’ and to a great extent ‘Good Morning Aztlan’ were us being consciously commercial, trying to write songs with bridges and verses that connected the dots. ‘Kiko’ was made in a much more impressionistic way. We’d keep all the mistakes, and look for the brilliant errors.”
Yet, like every Los Lobos album the outcome of “The Town and The City” was never a foregone conclusion, something that keeps Berlin happy.
“On the new record, we just went back to the idea of let’s entertain ourselves and make a record that’s as cool as we can. But there’s a lot of voodoo that goes into this,” he said. “I’d rather have the voodoo than know what’s going to happen before we start. This way you never know where you’re going to end up. But I prefer that.”
So do Los Lobos fans.
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Los Lobos
4:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 19
Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest
Mountain Avenue Stage
Free.
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Comprende amigo?
When Steve Berlin joined Los Lobos in 1984, the Philadelphia native admits he knew nothing about Latin culture. His new bandmates indoctrinated him with some traditional music.
“I had exactly zero familiarity with the music those guys grew up with. Nothing,” he recalled. “They said there was a saxophone tradition in their music and did I want to learn some new songs. I was like, ‘There is? Yeah, let’s go.’ It was an eye opener.”
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