Joe King Carrasco y Los Crowns Originales

Que Wow (Anaconda Records)

World music finally caught up to Joe King Carrasco. Austin’s New Wave piñata – Tex-Mex garage rocker, pre-dance hall – regroups his core posse to resurrect their Nuevo Wavo pogo. Kris Cummings’ vintage keyboard wheeze revisits Michigan circa “96 Tears” in opener “Drug Thru the Mud,” the slightly spacey cumbia of the title track wafting next its immediate yang. Stone cold Sir Douglas Quintet follows on “Havin a Ball.” “Nacho Daddy” then clears the bases. Biff, bam, pow, in other words: fiesta central. Inclusion of greatest hit “Pachuco Hop,” rollicked by Manu Chao’s seminal French/Spanish/Arabic punk band Mano Negra, compliments closer “Bandido Rock” from JKC’s 1987 Rounder Record of the same name. Que Wow gets slightly long in the tooth after island noir “1313 Jamaica,” but the King is back.

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This article appears in August 24 • 2012.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.