Roadkill
Fri., Oct. 17, 1997
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Continental Club
Saturday, October 18
From Buddy to Bruce to Blur, the idea of a hometown has been central to rock & roll. Even in today's "global" era, where it's not where you're from, but where you're at, every band still has to come from somewhere. This isn't news to the Blazers, whose roots in Southern California's Latino community run deep. At the same time, this is hardly just another band from East L.A.
Flavoring traditional Mexican cumbias with a hard-driving backbeat, the quartet -- singer-guitarists Ruben Guaderrama and Manuel Gonzalez, bassist Lee Stuart, and drummer Raul Medrano -- has an ear for rockabilly and country and a deep affinity for R&B and soul. On their last album, the Cesar Rosas-produced East Side Soul, they covered Canned Heat's juiced-up blues "Going Up the Country" and Jessie Hill's syncopated New Orleans shuffle "Ooh Poo Pah Doo." This is not a band that has trouble blending styles.
"Growing up in L.A. at the time we were growing up, we were real lucky," Guaderrama says. "There seemed to be less barriers on the radio stations. You could hear just about anything coming out of one station. It was great. You were exposed to so many things, from the British Invasion to Motown and Stax and everything in between. We'd hear all the country music, all the Mexican music you wanted. It was all there. We grew up feeling that was the norm. You could wake up listening to the Four Tops and in the evening go listen to a mariachi."
The feeling is the same on their new album, Just For You (Rounder), starting with an infectious title track that could have been left over from the "She's About a Mover" sessions, continuing with producer Pete Anderson's gritty slide on "Nobody Told Me," the traditional stylings of "Las Clases del Cha Cha Cha/Los Marcianos" and "Tabaco Mascao," and ending on another R&B classic, southpaw Beaumont songwriter Barbara Lynn Ozen's "Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin')."
Whew. Did someone say melting pot? -- Christopher Gray
