#David Hidalgo

[krispyweiss]

Little Feat with Los Lobos at PNC Pavilion, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 18, 2024

When writing about a two-band gig, journalistic norms dictate leading with the headliner. But where Little Feat and Los Lobos are concerned, such guidelines are bunk.

For on June 18 at Cincinnati’s PNC Pavilion, support act Lobos, a band with its core quartet in place for 51 years, was the brightest star on a stage shared with the recently reconstituted Feat, with original keyboardist and onstage traffic cop Bill Payne; Dixie Chicken-era members Sam Clayton (percussion) and Kenny Gradney (bass); Let it Roll arrival Fred Tackett on guitar, mandolin and trumpet; and new additions Tony Leone on drums and Paul Barrere vocals and Scott Sharrard on guitar and Lowell George vocals.

What the fans who filled some one-third of the venue’s 4,000 seats received in return for braving the outdoor sauna was an hour from one of America’s longest-running and stable bands - horn/keyboard man Steve Berlin joined in 1982 - and 90 minutes from the world’s-best Little Feat tribute act with members of Los Lobos sitting in on multiple cuts.

It was still near 90 degrees when Los Lobos wrapped at 9 p.m., yet the fans dancing to the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha,” which morphed out of “Not Fade Away,” rewarded the group with a standing ovation. And Cesar Rosas (guitar, percussion, vocals), Conrad Lozano (bass), Louie Pérez (guitar, jaraña, drums), David Hidalgo (guitar, accordion, vocals), Berlin and touring drummer Alfredo Ortiz earned the accolades with a career- and-genre-spanning set bridging decades, cultures and influences.

The sextet opened with “Flat Top Box” and “Love Special Delivery” from 2021’s covers album, Native Sons, songs that featured Berlin’s baritone saxophone underscoring the 1950s vibe. Hidalgo’s Hendrixian guitar solo on the latter added trippy color to the song Rosas typically calls “LSD.”

It was off to the stratosphere from there with Lozano, who spent the gig seated on his amp, and Ortiz signaling a deep-pocketed “Dream in Blue” with an extended sax solo from Berlin. Rosas was on maracas and Pérez on jaraña for “Maricela,” instrumentation that would be reprised later on “Chuco’s Cumbia.”

Jazz was the hallmark of a 10-minute plea for peace on “The Neighborhood;” blues and a dedication to John Lee Hooker on “Don’t Worry Baby;” and the band looked to the East (“Kiko and the Lavender Moon”) and South (“Georgia Slop”) when Hidalgo strapped on a squeezebox and Pérez retuned temporarily to his original spot behind the kit.

Though Lobos’ opening set was necessarily truncated, Berlin, Hidalgo and Rosas had more stage time to come, as each sat in during Feat’s performance, bookended with “Fat Man in the Bathtub” and “Feats Don’t Fail Me Now.” Harmonica blower Michael LoBue also appeared for “Mellow Down Easy” (with Hidalgo) and “Long Distance Call” (Rosas) from Sam’s Place, the band’s 2024 blues covers album with Clayton on lead vocals.

These songs, Payne’s “Oh Atlanta,” and 1988’s “Hate to Lose Your Lovin’” sounded like the band that recorded them, as Sharrard (Gregg Allman Band) is more adept at channeling Craig Fuller than George.

Other tracks from Feat’s golden era were less successful. “Willin’” featured a mandolin solo and was akin to John Mayer singing “Ripple” for Dead & Company; Leone (Chris Robinson Botherhood) didn’t quite capture the essence of “Old Folks Boogie;” and “Dixie Chicken” - outfitted with trumpet, bass and synth solos - lost its momentum in the gratuitous showcases.

But “Cold, Cold, Cold,” “A Apolitical Blues,” “Spanish Moon” and “Skin it Back” - the latter two with Berlin reading charts from a piece of paper taped to a mic stand and honking on a baritone sax - almost sounded like Little Feat. Not quite. But almost.

In the end, Los Lobos met the absurdly high expectations that come with being the best live band in America on any given night, while Little Feat exceeded the more-modest hopes for a group of veterans and ringers.

Grade card: Little Feat with Los Lobos at PNC Pavilion - 6/18/24 - B/A

6/19/24

[sinceileftyoublog]

Los Lobos Live Show Review: 12/14, Cahn Auditorium, Evanston

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The Chicago area was a fitting stop for east L.A. Chicano rock band Los Lobos on their current 50th anniversary tour. Sure, Los Lobos is one of many bands not from the Windy City to call it "like [their] second home," as did David Hidalgo on Saturday night at the Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. But Los Lobos, especially, have been influenced by and increasingly seem to absorb the aesthetic of the various music scenes within Chicago, big and small, from Chicago blues to alt-country. Even their most recent album Native Sons (New West), a covers album of entirely musicians from L.A., has a secondary Chicago feel to it: I can imagine Jackson Browne and The Blasters rubbing elbows, played on WXRT or booked at the Old Town School of Folk Music, back-to-back. In Los Lobos' direct and indirect embrace of Chicago, music fans here have espoused them right back.

Oh, and it certainly helps their case that whether they're playing their original material or others', Los Lobos expand their songs such that the studio or original versions sound like ditties in comparison. Folks were dancing in the aisles on Saturday to everything from the dynamic "The Neighborhood" to ripping psychedelic jams like "Chuco's Cumbia". The band found new ways to elevate well-known songs. On the beloved "Kiko and the Lavender Moon", Hidalgo's accordion, Steve Berlin's keyboard delay, and Cesar Rosas' guitar distortion congealed into a dub-like haze, emphasizing the groove above all else. And for their encore, they threw a bone to not just the Chicago area but the Midwest in general, inviting on stage to play with them Milwaukee-based guitarist/singer-songwriter/bandleader Paul Cebar and Chicago jazz and blues guitarist Dave Specter, who opened the night. They played, as expected, Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba", interspersed with The Rascals' "Good Lovin'" (as Los Lobos are known to do), but it was the preceding performance of "Buzz, Buzz, Buzz" that caught my ear even more. Los Lobos covered the 50's doo-wop song, originally recorded by The Hollywood Flames, for their 1995 collaborative children's album with Lalo Guerrero, Papa's Dream. Given the President-elect's cabinet's promise to make Chicago ground zero for mass deportations, there was perhaps no better time than now to pay tribute to the late Guerrero, a farm labor activist. I don't know whether or not the political connotation of the song's inclusion in the set was intentional. That, however, is the richness and magic of Los Lobos, who have five decades of songs and albums about Mexican-American life, struggles against oppression and joy and thriving in spite of it.

[longliverockback]

Los Lobos The Ride 2004 Hollywood ————————————————— Tracks: 01. La venganza de dos pelados - Café Tacvba 02. Charmed 03. Is This All There Is? - Little Willie G 04. Charmed 05. Somewhere in Time - Dave Alvin 06. Wicked Rain • Across 110th Street - Bobby Womack 07. Kilate - Tom Waits & Martha González 08. Hurry Tomorrow 09. Ya se va - Rubén Blades 10. Wreck of the Carlos Rey - Richard Thompson 11. Matter of Time - Elvis Costello 12. Someday - Mavis Staples 13. Chains of Love 14. Phone Call from Rita 15. Monstra’s Out 16. Jockey Full of Bourbon —————————————————

Steve Berlin

David Hidalgo

Conrad Lozano

Louie Pérez

César Rosas

* Long Live Rock Archive

[thebowerypresents]

Willie Nelson Brings Outlaw Music Festival to Forest Hills Stadium

Outlaw Music Festival – Forest Hills Stadium – September 17, 2023

You don’t so much attend a Willie Nelson concert these days as you conform to its warmly understated, sometimes leisurely, sometimes-invigorating pace. Then again, he’s always seemed to have that pause-a-sec-and-listen effect: Whether 30 or 90, delivering sad-eyed, tear-in-beer weepers, tender folk, inspiring hymns or outlaw country rousers, he’s got you. Hearing him play, surrounded by his adoring band, still has that time-stopping quality, and Forest Hills Stadium was in thrall to one of American music’s true and unimpeachable legends on a rainy but warm Sunday evening. 

The Outlaw Music Festival, a going concern for a while now, is Willie’s eclectic seasonal caravan, loading up a sprawling six-hour bill with a range of artists that don’t sound quite like Nelson but are at the same time just right for a show like this, underscoring his own lineage and place in the history of many potent strains of Americana. As ever, he and his impressive band crowned the show with an hour-long set of their own, setting a brisk but not workmanlike pace through his classics (“Whiskey River,” “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” “On the Road Again,” “I Gotta Get Drunk,” “Always On My Mind,” “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die”) and those of friends and favorites, including Billie Joe Shaver’s “I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train,” “Stay a Little Longer” from the Bob Willis catalog, “Move It On Over” from Hank Williams, and the immortal “Georgia on My Mind.” Willie’s sung these songs thousands of times, but each one still felt like a warm embrace, even the wistful ones, and even the ones for which he wouldn’t need to do more than go through the motions but is just too classy for that.

About the bill: There were plenty of willing conspirators and indeed, half the fun of a tour like this is the cross-pollination and spirit of collaboration that happens throughout. No less than Norah Jones — a surprise guest, unannounced — low-key sat in on keyboards for most of the Willie set. (It wasn’t even clear it was her until she took a few backing vocals and then a full verse of “I Gotta Get Drunk.”) Harmonica ace Mickey Raphael — a stalwart of Nelson’s band — joined for sections of earlier sets from Los Lobos, the String Cheese Incident and Bob Weir & Wolf Bros using a range of harmonica modes, from sawing roadhouse blues to sweet-’n’-tender folk. And as ever, Willie made his customary invite to many of the musicians, including a game and all-smiles Weir, to join in for the rootsy, hymnal “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” and several more selections, hootenanny-ing up the stage to close the night.

Weir’s Wolf Bros — one of the most interesting post–Grateful Dead bands and as oddly compelling a capture of Weir’s Weir-ness as any other group he’s been part of — got about 90 minutes to roam as the night’s coheadliner and more than made the most of it. The core trio of Weir, Don Was and Jay Lane has mushroomed on the road into a full ensemble, including Weir’s longtime swingman Jeff Chimenti on keys and ace pedal steel from Barry Sless, plus a sturdy horns-and-strings section called the Wolfpack. That bigness was well used here: “Jack Straw,” “Estimated Prophet” (neatly segued into its forever companion, “Eyes of the World,” which itself neatly segued into Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”), the Sunday-special “Samson & Delilah” and a rollicking “Turn On Your Lovelight” were Grateful Dead staples all getting jammy workouts.

Earlier came a potent set from jam-bluegrass stalwarts the String Cheese Incident, somehow now approaching their own 30th anniversary. And earlier still came the mighty Los Lobos — themselves, whoa, 50 years along! — who played a ripsnorting 45-minute frame full of cumbia and full-boogie rockers, including the beloved “Georgia Slop.” 30 years? 50 years? So much beautiful longevity here, but the bar appears to be 90 years, gang. —Chad Berndtson | @Cberndtson

Photos courtesy of Silvia Saponaro | @Silvia_Saponaro

[mitjalovse]

Mitchell Froom did what he did with his own set of skills, but I would claim he could have let some of his favourite players on their own. For instance, he helmed Los Lobos and one can dare to claim his collaboration with them made them popular, but they did sort of lose their cooperative skills later on. Mind you, this happens to everyone, there's nothing out of the ordinary in this, so when you notice how the songs on This Time could've benefitted greatly from a different person behind the helm? Stuff like this happens. Then again, this was their late 90's record with all the latter phrase entails, which suggests they assumed the following – let us work again with the guy who lead us through our biggest success. Well, who could have begrudge them of that?

[sunset-supergirl]

Happy birthday David Hidalgo

[dzgrizzle]

Ripple (Grateful Dead) feat. Bill Kreutzmann | Playing For Change | Song...

Featuring Keelin Noel Garcia (Jerry's daughter), David Hidalgo (Los Lobos), Bill Kreutzmann, Jimmy Buffett, David Crosby, and many more...

[sonicziggy]

"Sing" by Jerry David DeCicca, David Hidalgo https://ift.tt/DR7m280

[myvinylplaylist]

The Fabulous Thunderbirds: Tuff Enuff (1986)

CBS Records

[hot-glue-burns-hurt]

Rest in piece Dorian and Barbie y'all would've loved walking into Dorian and Mickey's dorm and yelling "PMO" whenever Jaysen and Mickey were in there... Just in case.

( @algraziadei )

[krispyweiss]

Los Lobos Remember Pee-wee Herman with Archival “Friday Night Videos” Clip

- “Farewell, Amigo, you were a good soul,” Louie Pérez says

Whether one was “from” East L.A. or one was “from” Los Lobos, Pee-wee Herman was gonna charge them a buck to sit on Chairry. And pity the sucker who tricked him into saying the secret word.

Both of these things happened when David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez and Conrad Lozano - from Los Lobos - visited Herman on “Friday Night Videos” while promoting By the Light of the Moon.

Los Lobos unearthed the 1987 video to remember their “amigo” Herman, whose creator and alter ego, Paul Reubens, died this week.

And it turned out Herman wasn’t impressed by celebrity.

It’s an uproariously ridiculous segment that begins with the band fighting over Chairry and ends with Herman refusing to air the Wolves’ video. He was kidding, of course, and the band remembers the ordeal fondly.

“So much fun hanging with Pee-wee …,” Pérez said in a statement.

“Farewell, Amigo, you were a good soul. R.I.P.”

8/3/22

[chronic-optimistt]

we never get to see mickey speak italian in front of any of the royals during the books but every time I think about it I just start to picture delilah storming into the dorm room when mickey+jaysen+barbie+dorian are doing their homework and start to chew mickey out in very intense italian and then he starts to respond like a little asshole and soon the two of them are just cussing each other out in a different language and the other boys are like confused out of their minds because they have no clue what the two are arguing about but it’s hilarious nonetheless and they have to try very hard to not laugh

[ultrameganicolaokay]

Penthouse Comics #3 by Jean-David Morvan, Stephen Desberg, Guillem March, Alain Queireix and more. Covers by (1) Matteo Scalera, (2) PJ Kaiowá, (3) Perditah and (4) George Baramatis. Out in June.

"Releasing 30 years after the original line debuted, Penthouse is proud to present the ongoing return of Penthouse Comics! Featuring a wealth of talent from all across the industry telling stories in the action, thriller, and horror genres, issue #3 continues the ongoing tales. Gun Crazy continues with the wild ride of Dolly Sanchez and Lanoya O'Brien, two girls fighting for survival in this violent story in the crossroads of Tarantino, VHS stuff, and the 80's. Guillem March continues with his incredible artwork on The Dream, a tale about Megan, a Hollywood casting director who attempts to bring out the potential actor hidden deep inside a stripper in the San Francisco suburbs. I Spit On Your Grave, is an adaptation of Vernon Sullivan's famous novel about Lee Anderson, whose only goal is to avenge the death of his brother. Along the way he'll fall into a life of debauchery and sex. The Dead All Have The Same Skin, continues with its tale about a mixed race bouncer in old world New York who must hide his identity to keep being accepted by society. But his brother, Richard has other plans. As always, Penthouse Comics features a bonus photoshoot and editorial!"

[nofatclips]

Cerdita, a short film by Carlota Pereda

[mitjalovse]

Mitchell Froom established many great working relationship with many musicians he produced. To give you an example, he collaborated with Bonnie Raitt on some albums, though not of all of them were great. For instance, Fundamental was fine in the most generic meaning of the word. Personally,I would claim the disc represent a typical example of what a musician after their commercial heights could've done during the late 90's. Everything sounds nice, everything seems to be paid a bit too much and everything resembles a retread of the better things in the past. Mind you, she was not the only one like this at that time, many of her peers went through the similar things and like her some of them did find their way back later on.

[feelingsofaithless]