The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 20, Ed. 1 Friday, February 13, 1987 Page: 13 of 24
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THRESHER Fine Arts Friday, February 13, 1987 13
6.4BSb8
Archi-Arts Ball '87
% ■}/■' ' V-M
I Joe "King" Carrasco
[Interview
I What do you think of Rice?
like Rice. My brother went to
I Rice . . . Rice is nice.
| Do you have any kids?
Kids like babies? Yeah, I've got a little
inino . . I think he's smart enough to
get mto Rice.
| Where are, you from originally?
i was born in Dumas, Texas, but I've
Ibeen living in Austin for the last 20years.
Austin is basically home.
I Where did you start your musical
[career?
in Austin and San Antonio [with crazy
I Mexican drawl].
What do you think of this surreal gig
|$o far?
I like Dali — I think he's great.
Tonight is a real special gig for us. It's
lour bass player George's last gig with us
and our new bass player Roberto Ramos'
first gig with us. You know it's kind of
emotional inside, because George has
been with me for a long time and I like
[George.
[is it true that he's going to join the
'rue Believers?
No, [laugh] unless they can get real
I hard Roberto Ramos, our new bass
player, used to play with Little Joe y la
Familia, so he comes from some pretty
I heavy background and he's real good.
Will he [George] be starting his own
[band?
Yeah. I think he is. He's going to be
Idoing his own thing, which is great.
I hear you switched from the French
New Rose label to an American
[recording label.
You know, we just signed with
I Grounder Records [EMI],
| What happened with MCA?
We asked to get off of MCA. We got
I caught in the transition period of MCA.
They were changing presidents and all
Ithat — it wasn't a very enjoyable
[experience. In retrospect I wish we
pould've stayed, but I think Grounder
Will be real good for us, because our
Ksic and the Grounder label are so
Eclectic. I like New Rose in France a lot
though. We do real well in France.
France seems to be the bread and butter
|[0r this band.
hear that Joe "King" Carrasco and
r*e Crowns are going on a concert
mm m
tour of Bolivia. (The first American
band allowed to play there since the
Village People.) Are you excited
about it?
Yeah, it's my dream. The reason I play
the music I play is because I like Latin
culture a lot. I like to travel in Latin
America. Tex-Mex music is finally doing
what it is supposed to do, which is to take
me down to places in Latin America. We
played Colombia already. Tex-Mex has
taken me all over the world except for the
Far East. We are the only people really
doing what we do, so playing Bolivia is
going to be real neat.
On your latest album, Bordertown,
there are several songs like "Currents
Events (are making me tense)" and
"Who Buys the Guns" that make some
social and political commentary on
American intervention and on the
whole screwed-up situation in
Central America. Have you spent
much time In Central America?
I stayed in El Salvador shortly, and I
lived in Nicaragua for a while. The new
album is really gonna float people out.
What Is your new album called?
It's called Bandito Rqgk. What it tries to
do, basically, is try to draw some parallels
on to what is happening now in Central
America with the events that led to and
followed the Mexican Revolution. A lot of
people don't know what's going on
down there.
It sounds like you feel really good
about this album. Do you think that
It's your best album?
It's what I've been going after. I think
it's fucking great. I don't think that it's
gong to bring any number-one singles or
anything, but it's the sound that I like. We
went down to Colombia and played two
years ago. There's a music down there
called "ballenato" music — it's like
African music and it uses accordion. The
coolest people I've ever met love it. It's
[Nobel laureate] Gabriel Garcia
Marquez's favorite music. I tried to
capture 'the ballenato sound on my
record.
What did you like about El Salvador?
I liked the surf. Playa de La Libertad — I
like the point [Punta Roca] there. That's
probably the best point in the world. I
almost drowned there. I got caught in the
riptide.
Were you in Nicaragua before or
after the Sandinista Revolution?
Joel Huerta and Joe "King" Carrasco
After. I had been in communist
countries before. To me Nicaragua is not
really communist. If you go to East
Germany, now that's communist. Forme
it's hard to tell a Latin American country
apart. You know, Latin America is Latin
America. I think that Latin Americans
have their own identity. The Sandinista
government is just another style — they
have their own way of doing things. It's
really not a pure form of socialism in the
traditional sense. I don't think it would
work.
Do you think that the U.S. should lift
the current trade sanctions imposed
on Nicaragua?
I wish they could solve their problems
themselves, but I do think that if the
United States opened up full trade with
them things wouldn't be going the way
they're going. To me Reagan is pushing
them into a corner — a more leftist-
communist position. It's like ifyou have a
dog you know, and you take the food
away from the dog. If someone comes
along and offers food, the dog's going to
eat that food.
Do you find that your unique style of
Tex-Mex-"nuevo-huevo" music tends
to cause problems in the marketing
of your records?
I've thought about that before. People
don't know what to categorize us as You
know, record companies are pretty weird
people.
Do you get to choose which singles to
release off an album? Take the Party
Weekend album, for example.
With that album we were so confused,
we didn't know what we were doing. So
we said you guys [MCA Records] can
release whatever you want, but there
was a l it Kjat ion su" over "P.«:\
—H. Turner
Weekend" so no single came out at all.
"Cantina" should have been the single,
since it is a Tex-Mex song. That was the
song I wanted to release.
The song "Party Weekend "Is far from
being Tex-Mex. When I hear that
song I envision frat boys raising hell.
at the mythical Corona Beach Club.
Actually, the song was written as a
parody inspired by watching fraternity
guys wrecking the street. We've got these
new shirts that say Carrasco Beach Club.
Corona's a cool beer. Everytimeyou buy
a Corona you're helping out Mexico. I
drink a lot of Hecate with salt and lime.
The Joe "King" Carrasco sound Is
obviously deeply Influenced by
Mexican music. Was there a particular
aspect of It or Incident perhaps that
turned you on to It?
When I was a teenager I was hanging
out in Mexico a lot I was hanging in
Oaxaca and all those places. The music is
very romantic and mystical. To me Latin
America is the most mystical place in the
world. The Mayan civilization covered
the whole area down there. There's
some strange heavy vibes hanging over
the place. Back then I was just a crazy
hippie kid I started jamming to a few
Mexican bands And I thought, "This
seems like the real thing." You know,
American guys who want to play in rock
bands do it and expect to get lots of
money. In Mexico you get guys who play
music because they like it. They know
that they're not going to make a million
dollars — there's no opportunity to do
that. They do it for the love of music. To
me that is more sincere. A song is special
— to me a song is like a good friend
'111' '' it"
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Greene, Spencer. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 20, Ed. 1 Friday, February 13, 1987, newspaper, February 13, 1987; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245656/m1/13/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.