What Kid Ramos carries in his guitar case is history that intertwines not only generations but cultures and coasts. Once the Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarist, his heart beats closest to his current band, Los Fabulocos. Indisputably rock with that blade-sharp Latin edge, they are yet another entry into the new Tex-Cali-Mex genre dubbed Americano.
The son of opera singers – think of the genre-bending there! – Ramos used the L.A.-based quartet’s recent self-titled album to display his proficiency on not only guitar but bajo sexto, Spanish guitar, and baritone guitar. It’s a righteous groove with as much Mex or Tex or Cali.
Playing the Continental Club tonight, Ramos waxed ecstatic about Chicano rock, and rhapsodized about his love for the sound from his home last week. Ramos practically wailed when asked to choose just one of the heroes of Chicano rock and talk about him.
“Stuff like Flaco and Doug Sahm do is so great. There are so many, but I really go for Sunny & the Sunglows, their arrangement of the Little Willie John song, ‘Talk to Me.’ But Sunny did it his way and to me, it’s so heavy, that sound. When I grew up, you just turned the dial and there it was, so many different things going on. Today, radio is such a wasteland. There’s all this art out there, but I don’t think people know where it is. You have to search this stuff out.”
This article appears in September 11 • 2009.