december 7th extract

The Latin Playboys- Lemon N Ice

The Latin Playboys are a side project of David Hilgado and Louis Perez from Los Lobos along with Mitchell Froom, Los Lobos’ producer and keyboard player. This track is from their second of two albums they released, “Dose” in 1999. Their first self-titled album came out in 1994.Originally the majority of tracks on the first album were recorded by Hilgado simply as demos on an old 4 track recorder in his kitchen. On hearing them, Froom thought that they were too good to be left just as demos and too different to be recorded as Los Lobos songs. On his cajoling, Hilgado was persuaded to re-record them and thus the first Latin Playboys album came into existence.

I’m not a big fan of Los Lobos- in fact apart from a few tracks that are scattered on the iPod that  probably only ended up on there because I ripped them onto the pc from cover- mounted free cds that came with music magazines-I don’t think that I’ve got any of their music. I think that they backed up Dylan on some of the tracks on his “Christmas From the Heart” album, and that they may have even written one of the songs, but having them on there was more by accident than by design. I wouldn’t have bought-or not bought- the Dylan album because there was something to do with Los Lobos on it. (If the roles were reversed however, it may have caused me to buy a Los Lobos album. Even if Dylan had just turned up in the studio as Los Lobos were recording and made a brew for everyone (as if) that would have been enough for me. The Los Lobos album where Dylan made a pot of tea and walked round with an assortment of mugs on a tray. Can you imagine it? “Who wanted the one with three sugars? Who was the decaff? No, there aren’t any fucking Custard Creams. What do you think I am a bloody tea-lady? I’m a renowned rock star for goodness’ sake and here I am making cups of tea.” Yes-I would have definitely bought that Los Lobos album).

But the only Los Lobos albums that I have are these two by The Latin Playboys- and I don’t think that they really qualify as Los Lobos albums anyway. It’s hard to describe what they are exactly. They do sound like some sort of soundtrack album for a film that’s not been made. All the songs are short on both albums; I don’t think that there’s a track that lasts over five minutes on either of them and some are barely 90 seconds long. They sound like you’ve just tuned into some weird radio station where the signal keeps fading in and out-it’s really music for waking up to or being half asleep to or dreaming to. Something along those lines. Not the sort of rambunctious music I’d associate with Los Lobos- and so much better for that.