14 Replies to “January 24, 1981 – Robert Hays / Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crowns, 14 Karat Soul (S6 E8)” Tim H. Says: December 5, 2018 at 1:03 pm. Lyrics for top songs by Joe King Carrasco & The Crowns. Nervoused Out Joe King Carrasco, The Crowns. Perfect Spot Joe King Carrasco, The Crowns. Get Off Mi Quesadilla Joe King Carrasco, The Crowns. Susan Friendly Joe King Carrasco, The Crowns. Music Video From 1982 From Joe 'King' CarrascoGotta love the 80's! At a time when the New York club scene was dominated by the remnants of punk and quirky power pop of Devo and the B-52s, Joe 'King' Carrasco, whose music complemented those styles, constituted comic relief. He would sweep on in his crown and cape and play Farfisa organ-based mid-'60s-style Tex-Mex rock & roll.
Joe 'King' Carrasco is a Texas dreamer, which means the wild thoughts that gallop around his fevered brain are in greater relief and deeper Technicolor than the visions of other mortals. Forty years ago, Carrasco envisioned himself the leader of a band of musicians who could play any and all styles of Lone Star music, a sound that would be born in the barrio of West San Antonio where legends walk the streets and fill the cantinas with the feeling of freedom. The young Texan saw himself someday hopefully being one of those legends, and over the past several decades has rightfully earned his place in that firmament. Once Carrasco formed El Molino in the mid-'70s in Austin , it was only a matter of extreme word of mouth before the world would discover their awesomeness.
Today's El Molino, rising from the soul of past infamy, includes some of Texas' most revered musicians, people like drummer Ernie 'Murph' Durawa, Miller 'Speedy' Sparks, guitarist John X. Reed, accordionist Marcelo Gauna, saxophonist Joe Morales, backup vocalist Chuggy Hernandez, and, of course, keyboard player Augie Meyers from the world famous Sir Douglas Quintet. Leading this group of musical madmen is permanent el jefe Joe 'King' Carrasco on vocals and guitar. Their blend of Tex-Mex mania, cumbias, rancheras, and even flat-out West Texas rock & roll is a heady swirl that is rarely equaled in the scientific labs of record production. It takes a certain demented dedication to chase the sound for all these years, and only Carrasco has been able to capture the heartfelt passion that makes this kind of rock & roll as necessary as air. By rounding up the present-day unstoppable aggregation of players, he has defied gravity and returned El Molino to the land of the living.
The band's new album, ' Tlaquepaque ' makes good on the promise of El Molino's 1977 debut album 'Tex-Mex Rock-Roll.' That 12' slab of audio dynamite featured brand new classics like 'Jalapeno con Big Red,' ' Mezcal Road ' and 'Tell Me,' and has gained a notoriety not often found in 1970s music. While it might be a mistake to say that Joe 'King' Carrasco has grown up, it would be true to claim he has found his place among the greats of Texas music. When it was time to reconvene the El Molino experiment 35 years later, he went straight to the source and gathered the surviving members and took on the grand plan to move the mesmerizing El Molino mystique to the next level. In honor of fallen members Ike Ritter, Richard 'Eh Eh' Elizondo, Rocky Morales and Charlie MacBirney, the band's new songs burn from the very start. There is simply no way to define exactly what these musicians accomplish except to say when the wind howls and the guitars scream, when the drums pound and the singers sing, listen for El Molino to be the ones on the bandstand leading the charge. Vamos al gitdown indeed.
--Bill Bentley, November 2012
(Bill Bentley was lucky enough to play drums with El Molino on occasion in the '70s at Raul's nightclub in Austin on his fave rave 'Buena.')
Joe King Carrasco Crowns Rar Gratis
The band I managed back in the 1980s, Stiff Records artists Joe “King” Carrasco and the Crowns (Joe King, Kris Cummings, Brad Kizer, Miguel Navarro) have reformed 30 years after the fact for a Texas Tourette.
Dates are Friday, June 17 @ the Continental Club Houston
Saturday, June 18 @ the Back Porch, Port Aransas
Friday, June 24 @ Poor David’s, Dallas
Saturday, June 25 @ Antone’s, Austin
Sunday, June 26 @ Sam’s Burger Joint, San Antonio.
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Here’s the story:
In the late summer 1979, Joe “King” Carrasco formed a stripped-down four-piece combo to replace his Chicano big band, El Molino. Dubbed the Crowns, organist/accordionist Kris Cummings, bassist Brad Kizer, and drummer Miguel Navarro backed up Carrasco at Raul’s, the famed punk club, and the Hole-in-the-Wall, and other University of Texas-area venues in Austin, quickly gaining a following around their revved-up Tex-Mex brand of punk rock, harkening back to the classic Vox and Farfisa organ-driven sound first popularized by the 1960s Texas bands Sir Douglas Quintet (“She’s About A Mover”), Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs (“Wooly Bully”), and ? And the Mysterians (“96 Tears”).
In November 1979, Joe “King” Carrasco & the Crowns made their first trip to New York City where Joe “King” almost gave the Lone Star Café’s owner, Mort Cooperman, a heart attack when he jumped off the club’s balcony onto the stage. The band was such a sensation, they were invited to play the storied Mudd Club downtown, and returned to Austin with critical praise from New York’s music press including Lester Bangs and John Rockwell of the New York TImes.
Joe King Carrasco Crowns Rare
Armed with a 45 rpm single “Party Weekend” b/w “Houston El Mover” that was financed by ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, the band returned to New York in the spring of 1980 to record a demo album for Warner Brothers Records, which was eventually released on ROIR records as “Tales From the Crypt,” and platy two weeks worth of dates at CBGB’s, Hurrah, TR3, which would lead to more bookings at the Danceteria, the Peppermint Lounge, and the Bottom Line, as well as appearances in Washington, DC, Boston, Toronto, Providence, and other cities in the northeast.
By the end of the summer, Joe “King” Carrasco & the Crowns signed a recording contract with Stiff Records in England and embarked on the Son of Stiff Tour with Tenpole Tudor, Dirty Looks, the Equators, and Any Trouble, an extended three-month tour of the United Kingdom, Europe, and the northeastern United States, promoting their debut album and the single “Buena,” a Top Ten hit in France and Sweden that charted in the Top 40 on the BBC.
While overseas, the band filmed a video of “Buena” in London, and taped television appearances in Spain, France, and on Musicladen in Germany, which was broadcast across the Continent.
In January, 1981, the band issued their first US album on the Hannibal label for music empresario Joe Boyd and appeared on the television series “Saturday Night Live” and was a featured act on a new cable television channel called MTV. Later that year, JKC and the Crowns made their West Coast debut at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go behind their Hannibal EP “Party Safari” and played a date in the basement of Hollywood’s Cathay de Grande where they shared the bill with Top Jimmy & The Rhythm Pigs and Los Lobos, making their West LA debut.
Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crowns played a critical role in exporting the Austin sound and Texas music around the world, while establishing the band as one of the most popular music-makers in the Lone Star state in clubs, at Spring Break in South Padre Island, and in arenas and outdoor venues such as Red Rocks, the Frank Erwin Center, the Summit, the Ritz, and Southpark Meadows where they shared the bill with the Talking Heads, the Police, REMm UB 40, the English Beat, the Go-Gos, George Thorogood, and Culture Club.
Thirty years later, the band that exported Tex-Mex Rock-Roll around the globe has reunited for a limited number of Texas dates, demonstrating to fans that what they had heard all those years ago was no mirage: Joe “King” Carrasco & the Crowns rock like no one else before or since.