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Wow, what a weekend. I rode into Houston hecho madre to try and get a rehearsal in with LSV. We fortunately did, and came up with two new songs: an Etta James song that will feature the lovely and soulful tenor voice of David De La Garza and new song written by un servidor, Bubba Hernandez called El Callejero (which includes the catch phrase of our Midwest jaunt “no hombre no your out of control!)
LSV was so excited by the latter that we hooked it up on our short but sweet opening set at Fitzgerald’s where we opened for the fabulous flamenco rock pop band Del Castillo. (The song is so new and incomplete that a gentleman at the side of the stage held up my laptop with the acting lyrics as we gave it a shot. We had a great response for it.) Yipes, the guitar playing in Del Castillo is dazzling and the music is over the top passionate, so if red is your favorite aura, then…..there you have it. We were also joined by Palo Viejo from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I didn’t know there was Raza in Louisiana. Their bassist even speaks better Spanish than me which really isn’t hard but he did it elegantly.
Fitzgerald’s was celebrating its 28th birthday. It’s a great wooden venue to hear a band. I had played the room many times with Brave Combo. LSV is grateful to Sara, Michelle and Del Castillo for allowing us to break our cherry there. We hope it won’t be our last time at Fitzgerald’s.
It’s funny being in an opening act again. Although there’s not much feria, the excitement is a rush. The desire of just trying to coax a couple of handfuls of people to give you that attention that may blossom them into the land of San Vatonio or whatever we decided to call it. You know what I mean? Trying to work up a few new fans along the way is the main goal. Of course getting the club to hang with you as well as the headliners is part of the challenge. Unfortunately, I was a bit busy running around, but the rest of the Vatos really enjoyed the company of Del Castillo members as they traded jokes and goofed off back stage. That’s another plus, hanging around and hearing another act. When you are in the headline act, you too busy trying to get your game on and by the time you’re done, party time’s over. When you’re in the opener, you can actually enjoy the show, if you don’t have to drive out.
We’d like to thank our fans for coming out and supporting us on this the one of many important shows. Our lovelies came out with love and pride in us and danced right off the bat. We could see it in their eyes and we love you chingos! Xoxoxox
LSV was happy to have Michelle Evans all the way from Rhode Island in the house and thank her for he awesome support and poster designs.
As if the gig wasn’t enough, we went into the studio the following day. Thanks to Mando Lichtenberger at Urbana, we were able to get in and work on our project a little. We did some rough basic tracks on not one, not two, not three, not four, not five…oh hold it…yeah five songs!! In six hours!! Any guesses which ones, Vatonianos? The list is as follows: “Into The Night”, “El Callejero”, Voodoo Love (that’s the up tempo instrumental we usually start off with), “Tumbling Down” and “Demon Dance”. David will go into the studio with Maria in the morning that is, tomorrow morning which is already today perhaps yesterday when you get this except I’m up late ‘cause the Tribe Gather took me out and got me un poquito….tu sabes. We’ll just say a couple of Tecates. Thanks TG. Okay back to work…. Er uh where was I? Oh yeah….the recording session. As far as we could tell it went extremely well we were anal on the first two and then we just rolled live full band on the next three, one take each! The real test is always the next day listening. But I’m a vato of great faith. I know ya’ll are too. So we’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep you posted. We thank Rene Gonzalez and Darryl Gonzales for cooking us some killer barbecue outside while we were inside cooking in the studio. Artie not only sounded great while we were spinning hard drive (It used to be rolling tape.) but he made some killer jambalaya. Ajuaa! So LSV had a lot of inspiration. Everybody was on: me and Stev-o in the pocket, David locking in the chord changes, Artie being the shaman that he is and Nathan coming along more wicked than ever everyday. Los Super Vatos were also accompanied at Fitzgerald’s and the Urbana Recording Studio by Chris Axelrad on congas, timbales etc. Muchisimas gracias, Chris. We’ll try to get some samples up soon and get both Love and Drama and C/S ’05 out asap. Ya era tiempo, no?
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