Thursday, December 10, 2009
Made this up a couple weeks ago in time for the holidays...he ha ho, baby!
this was really made on the spot and unplanned so bear with me...
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
music and acting
It's fall and as things cool, seems like my professional life is picking up...and Lord knows I happy about that! Interesting full circle to note: growing up, I always thought I would be an actress.I remember seeing "Annie" when I was 5 years old in San Francisco (where I grew up on the most part) and deciding right then and there, that that was what I wanted to do. I loved performing in plays, musicals and community theater and if that wasn't enough, I would enlist my own friends to stage our own plays for the always adoring parental crowd. It has been over 10 years since I did any acting really, but recently, I have decided to get back into that side of myself and am very happy at how things are going.
When I say that I have been working in movies, as background or featured background (to begin), people seem really surprised about it. I suppose many only know me for my music side, which I decided in my early 20's that that was what I would focus on. I get a lot of "oh really? when did you start doing that?" comments, to which I can only reply, "since I was a kid", and then I get a raised eyebrow in return. It is totally me, I love love it, always have always will. There is nothing too big or small and I welcome back this new part of my life with open arms. Music and acting go hand in hand really. It is performing, which is who and what I am. I hope that my music will help and heal and that my acting will also add to that.
In the last month, I have been blessed to be able to work on several different features, and every week seems to inspire a new role, and new part and a new experience. My album will be finished shortly, and then we'll see where this road leads me. I thank God everyday, for bringing these new adventures and lovely people into my life, and for the opportunity.
I am so excited about my new record and look forward to releasing it sometime in the near future. The experience, journey really, was a great one, I have learned much and still need to learn, and am so thankful and grateful to be able to work with two especially talented and lovely people, Winn and Cody. The past few years were especially difficult and challenging for me, but I realize that that was what I needed to experience, to really know. It added a great many layers to me as a person, as a songwriter, and actress.
And how 'bout those Saints?? Who dat!!
When I say that I have been working in movies, as background or featured background (to begin), people seem really surprised about it. I suppose many only know me for my music side, which I decided in my early 20's that that was what I would focus on. I get a lot of "oh really? when did you start doing that?" comments, to which I can only reply, "since I was a kid", and then I get a raised eyebrow in return. It is totally me, I love love it, always have always will. There is nothing too big or small and I welcome back this new part of my life with open arms. Music and acting go hand in hand really. It is performing, which is who and what I am. I hope that my music will help and heal and that my acting will also add to that.
In the last month, I have been blessed to be able to work on several different features, and every week seems to inspire a new role, and new part and a new experience. My album will be finished shortly, and then we'll see where this road leads me. I thank God everyday, for bringing these new adventures and lovely people into my life, and for the opportunity.
I am so excited about my new record and look forward to releasing it sometime in the near future. The experience, journey really, was a great one, I have learned much and still need to learn, and am so thankful and grateful to be able to work with two especially talented and lovely people, Winn and Cody. The past few years were especially difficult and challenging for me, but I realize that that was what I needed to experience, to really know. It added a great many layers to me as a person, as a songwriter, and actress.
And how 'bout those Saints?? Who dat!!
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Birthday 2nd Line!
Yesterday was a bit of a surprise, yet fun none-the-less! I was scheduled to play an art market in the Bywater and did for a couple of hours. During the market, people had brought their dogs, and the SPCA was also there trying to adopt some as well, so I think people were highly distracted and occupied by the dogs, as after playing for two hours, I only made $2! At that, I decided I had enough, and since it was my Birthday weekend and all, I wanted to go get a mint julep at the one bar I know makes them in the classic style: Tujac's!
While in there, I met the grand marshall and several members of the Downtown Irish Club. Apparently, they were staging their meeting and what would soon be a second line into the quarter, celebrating the half way date to March 17th! If you know NOLA, then you know that St. Patrick's Day here is off the charts and a huge deal. So much so, that they were celebrating the half way mark. Now you get the picture!
It being my birthday and all, the invited me to join and blabbed to everyone that is was my 29th birthday, to which I could only laugh! Yeah, I'll do 29 again, no problem! Before I knew it, I was in a 2nd line parading to various irish bars in the quarter. We had a police escort and brass band, a Grand Marshall and a Queen to boot, and I was shortly covered in Mardi Gras beads. Had I known all this, I would have brought mine to throw for people. By the end of the afternoon, I was dancing in front with the Queen demonstrating how one leads a second line, ya'll. We had a blast! Great way to celebrate.
Today is my actual birthday, so hope to have more imprompteaux fun today! Maybe the Zoo, a haunted house and...?
While in there, I met the grand marshall and several members of the Downtown Irish Club. Apparently, they were staging their meeting and what would soon be a second line into the quarter, celebrating the half way date to March 17th! If you know NOLA, then you know that St. Patrick's Day here is off the charts and a huge deal. So much so, that they were celebrating the half way mark. Now you get the picture!
It being my birthday and all, the invited me to join and blabbed to everyone that is was my 29th birthday, to which I could only laugh! Yeah, I'll do 29 again, no problem! Before I knew it, I was in a 2nd line parading to various irish bars in the quarter. We had a police escort and brass band, a Grand Marshall and a Queen to boot, and I was shortly covered in Mardi Gras beads. Had I known all this, I would have brought mine to throw for people. By the end of the afternoon, I was dancing in front with the Queen demonstrating how one leads a second line, ya'll. We had a blast! Great way to celebrate.
Today is my actual birthday, so hope to have more imprompteaux fun today! Maybe the Zoo, a haunted house and...?
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
Just found this old interview on the net I did almost 10 years ago with Dave & Louis from Los Lobos...time sure flies!
Interview with Los Lobos
By Olga Munding, Colorado Radio Personality
(Originally aired in February 2000)
Flash Audio
Olga: It is my extreme honor to bring to you today, Doctor Martin's interview with David Hidalgo and Louie Perez from Los Lobos.
Louie: Howdy.
David: Hi Olga.
Olga: Thank you for being here. So, what I'd like to know is a little background, 'cause I know the two of you kind of grew up together, right?
Louie: Since about tenth grade.
Olga: Yeah. Okay, so where did you grow up and tell me a little bit about your families.
Louie: Where did we grow up?
Olga: Yeah. Brothers and sisters.
Louie: David and both, we grew up in East L.A., but we were kinda separated by the freeway. What was it, the Five Freeway?
David: Five.
Louie: Yeah. But what brought us together was high school. I was in the, no, 10th grade, 11th grade.
David: I was in 10th, he was in 11th.
Louie: I was in the 11th grade. He was incoming and I was...
David: He was ongoing.
Louie: ...trying to stay in there.
Olga: In art class?
Louie: Yup. Mr. Ramirez' art class. We didn't do anything.
David: Clear the desks, they had these easel desks, put 'em up and it's....
Louie: He couldn't see what we were doing. We were just like talking about records.
Olga: What kind of records?
Louie: Hendrix records.
David: Yeah, mostly.
Olga: Is that when you started playing, both of you, guitar?
Louie: No.
David: Both of us had been playing for a while before we met, but we started talking and found out we had the same record collection. It wasn't long before we were playing guitar together.
Louie: Yeah, yeah.
Olga: So what were you guys like as youngsters?
Louie: I guess we were like, in high school we were like, we kind of fell in the category of like the hippies or something like that. Sort of.
David: The longhairs.
Louie: The longhairs, yeah. It wasn't really hippies...
David: We didn't buy into the whole program, but we had long hair.
Louie: Yeah. Got that pretty much. Kind of like a fringe group or something that I guess we hung out with. There was quite a few of us. There was probably about 12, about a dozen of us.
David: We still had the cuffs on our Levis.
Louie: Yeah, yeah.
David: But we had long hair, so somewhere in between....
Louie: Yeah. So we could kind of like blend in, which is about any group. Kind of works pretty good that way, you know, you don't get beat up so often.
Olga: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Louie: Older sister.
David: I have older brothers.
Olga: A couple?
David: Three.
Olga: Three? So you're the youngest? So is everybody in your family musical?
David: One way or another. My oldest brother played drums before he went to the service. He's always appreciated music. The next to the oldest, he was the jazz fan. He didn't play, but he the record collection. He had all the great records, the nice, the Grundig hifi, so there was always music in the house. When I was a little kid, he was my favorite brother, so I'd always be him, so I'd be with his buddies, they'd be drinking beer, and I'd be drinking ginger ale listening to jazz. It was fun. I think he made it fun for me. And then my brother Joe, he's the musician, he's the one that I learned from. Plays guitar and drums.
Olga: Do you play with him now?
David: Whenever we get together we end up playing. He still plays. He does recordings at home and stuff. He doesn't play in a band or anything, but he's never stopped playing.
Olga: So who are some of your heroes? It sounds like your brother is one of them.
David: Jimi Hendrix. The early days you mean?
Olga: Yeah. Like, that's who I want to be when I grow up.
David: Duane Eddie, I guess. Duane Eddie is the first one that I noticed. I like guitar, and when I was a kid back in the late 50's, early 60's, guitar instrumentals were happening. I just liked Duane Eddie. I liked the beginning of surf music. I like guitars. I've always liked the sound of a guitar, electric guitar.
Olga: What about you, Louie? Did you have any heroes?
Louie: Any heroes? No, I don't think so. Until later on. Until I started listening to records, 'cause mostly it was Mexican music until my sister, when she got old enough to listen to whatever she wanted, she brought rock 'n roll into the house, and I don't know how old I was. I was probably about nine or something like ten, something like that, and then that's when she started bringing rock 'n roll into the house, and we had a cousin who used to come over with a little record player with the little stack of 45s, and that's how I first heard it, and then when I heard, it was I guess Jimi Hendrix, it gets kind of old after a while, I always talk about Jimi Hendrix all the time, but I guess he was like a hero, but I don't know whatever that means.
Olga: So when did the two of you start collaborating on song writing? I know that you both write a good portion of the songs for Los Lobos and also some side projects like Latin Playboys. When did the two of you get together and start writing some songs?
David: The summer of '72.
Olga: The summer of '72? That's very precise.
Louie: Yeah. I got out of high school already and Dave was still in high school.
David: I graduated in '72.
Louie: And I called him up and said, what's up? You weren't playing with anybody at the time, and neither was I. And I say, hey, why don't we start a band or something? We didn't start a band right away. I just started going over to his house and we started playing records, and we started writing songs kind of just like making fun of people. You know, if there was somebody at school that was kind of like however, we'd just write a song about 'em or something. Just joke songs.
David: Or we'd imitate too.
Louie: Oh, yeah.
David: Mostly like local people, like Weird Al.
Olga: Can you do one for me?
David: No. It wouldn't matter, 'cause you wouldn't know if it was a good imitation or not. Local guys. There were popular musicians in the area, just like any neighborhood, but there was the ones that believed, they went to their head, and they would start acting like stars. Chicanos with english accents and stuff like that.
Louie: Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.
David: So we saw right through that, and we'd poke fun at them. We had fun.
Louie: And then we used to make fun of rock stars, too. We used to do really bad imitations of Emerson Lake & Palmer. I used to be Rick Wakeman. I'd put on Dave's bathrobe.
David: Bikini glasses and things.
Louie: Bikini glasses. And we'd do like 15 minute jams. That went on for a long time. A long, long time.
David: All summer.
Louie: Yeah. And then we started making recordings and started to write songs and....
David: Friend I went to school with, he had these two Sony two-track recorders, the reel to reels that did sound on sound. If you hooked them up together you could do multi-track. So that was the beginning of the song writing. We'd make little records. It was cool. We'd play the drums, guitar, bass all together. We'd play everything. Stay up all night doing it.
Louie: Yeah. And then if we needed some instruments, we'd invite a drummer over and say that we were going to rehearse and maybe start a band, and then we'd tell him, hey, you know what, go ahead and just leave your drum set up until....we're gonna practice like tomorrow or the next day. And then we just wouldn't call him back, and he'd come over to get his drums and we wouldn't answer the door. And go on. We'd eventually give him back his drums, but after we were done with them. And we'd do that with electric pianos and somebody's car.
David: We used to go to Sambo's and get the endless cup of coffee. We'd get wired.
Louie: What did Sambo's turn into?
Olga: Four Seasons or something?
David: Four Seasons, yeah.
Louie: Oh yeah.
David: And Baker's Square after that.
Louie: Baker's Square. Yeah, stay up all night.
Olga: So, in your opinion, what makes a good song?
Louie: Something real simple.
David: Yeah, simple is the best.
Louie: Something real simple. The stuff you kind of overlook when you're trying to write a song is the song.
David: And it has to have some kind of sentiment at the core of it, though.
Louie: Yeah.
David: All the best songs connect with people one way or another, something they can relate to, but simple's the best. What is simple? Hank Williams was considered....I mean is that simple or not? To me, it sounds simple but it's not at all.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It's deceiving.
Louie: And Miles Davis was real simple, but kind of just like [whistles] does some stuff with it.
David: It's enlightened or something. He'd get to that point where he can just throw away all the unnecessary stuff and get right to the core of it. That's hard to do. Monk's the same way. He has one scene in that "Straight, No Chaser", that the producer's telling me, why don't we go outside, extended jazz and all this stuff. He says, ah, I want to keep it simple so people can dig it, you know. This is Monk saying this. That is something to live by.
Olga: So, in your own opinion, you find that true, when you're writing a lot of songs and...
David: Oh, it always is. Those records are the popular records are always the simple song, a simple idea, it may not be in your or my opinion a great song, but it still has something that people can connect with, so yeah. Holds true.
Olga: So, when the two of you started playing together, how did Lobos band come together?
Louie: Sort of the same way. We eventually started a band, David and I.
David: That was the summer of '73.
Olga: Good memory!
David: ...actually fall of '73
Louie: And Cesar had a band, and we used to go hang out with him, because we all went to high school together, so we all knew each other. And then Conrad always was playing in bands. He was a little older, so he was like ahead of us. He was already playing.
David: He was a local hero.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Conrad was well respected, well known.
Louie: Yeah, a well-known local bass player.
David: He was like the best bass player in East LA, everybody knew who he was. We liked what he did. He lived up three blocks from Louie, so they knew each other for years.
Louie: Yeah. So we'd all kind of end up together, you know, and then we just started fooling around and we started pulling out records out of our parents' record collection and try to get through the songs, because we realized that it wasn't as easy as it sounded. And then it just fascinated us so much we spent the next ten years just doing that. We put everything else away.
Olga: Did you go to college at all?
David: Junior college.
Louie: Went to junior college. Graduated from there.
Olga: Did you find any sort of resistance, like from your parents, about wanting to play music?
Louie: No.
David: My mom always told me she wanted me to stay with education. She knew I loved music and I wasn't going to do anything else, but she was, well, be a teacher, have proper job, you know.
Olga: Plan B.
David: Yeah. Started out was going that way and then I got married. You know the rest.
Olga: I know the rest, but the listeners don't.
David: We started playing and we all started having families and so we needed income, and little by little we started gigging more for just like local, doings casuals...
Louie: Weddings.
David: Weddings mostly. That was great for a while. Ended up doing restaurants.
Louie: Yeah, 'cause we needed like the regular income.
David: Mexican band...strolling...
Louie: ...it was bad...
David: ...wear the same color shirts...
Louie: Very bad. Very bad.
David: So that kind of drove us into what we're doing now out of the frustration.
Louie: We were doing exactly what we set out not to do, and so then once our backs were against the wall, we had to just kind of take the radical way and just kind of break everything, break all the rules again, you know.
David: It was like when we first started doing the folk music, it was the same thing.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It was a revolutionary move to throw away the electric guitars and play strictly Mexican music in Spanish.
Louie: Yeah, 'cause we still look like everybody else, you know. We had long hair and flannel shirts and Levis and desert boots and looked like everybody else, but if we played Mexican music, it would really confuse the heck out of people that were like our own age, so we broke all the rules then. It was just time to do it again. And we sure did.
Olga: What was your most memorable gig? Could be memorable as in the weirdest or funniest, or just strange or something that just sticks out.
Louie: Well, the most infamous one is the PIL gig we opened for in L.A. at the Olympic Auditorium. It was a wrestling arena in Los Angeles, and of course nobody knew who we were, and the whole idea was like, the first set that Johnny Rotten, John Lyden was bringing his band and it was kind of just like punk rock and it was just like building up or something like that, so everybody came out in droves to just see like the last gasp of funk rock, and so they were like really ready to just tear the whole place apart. So they started with us. And so, yeah, that was probably the most infamous, legendary kind of thing that kind of most certainly sticks out in my mind. There's a lot of other things. I mean, we've been together for 26 years. You got about 48 hours? We could tell you all about it.
David: Plus another good one was, early on, we were playing a college gig, a Cinco de Mayo celebration or something and we started to set up, and all the people, they saw the long hair and all that, we wen to set up our stage at that, all the older people with their kids, they start packing up their blankets and their picnic baskets and started like, oh sh!t, here come the rockers, the rock stuff. So they started walking away. You know, they all packed up to leave, and then we started playing, they all came out. They all like put their blankets back down and sat down, you know. That was nice. It was something that we had never experienced before. Playing for like three generations at one time, and everybody enjoyed it.
Louie: Right. We got a lot of funny looks, but it was a different kind of thing. It was cool.
David: Afterwards, the older women were coming, blessing us, giving us kisses, offering us food and stuff.
Louie: Yeah. It was working for us. It worked for us.
David: They appreciated the fact that we appreciated their music, their generation, it was like they'd always been left out of young people's lives.
Louie: It was kind of tough for a while, all these ladies would be like crying and sh!t like that, you know. Hey mom, come on, allright, I'm trying to play this song for you.
David: Yeah, we started crying and couldn't play, couldn't sing.
Louie: Yeah, it was like forget it. It was rough. But it was certainly a really....
David: Special.
Louie: ...crazy kind of move, you know, that we made.
Olga: I'm wondering, you know, it's hard enough to just stay in any one profession for 26 years, let alone be married, have a family and a career in the public eye. So how have you been able to sustain for 26 years That is very difficult.
Louie: Well, by not selling a lot of records. We can't think that we're big shots.
David: 'Cause we're not.
Louie: Well, you know what it is, and I'm just kind of kidding, but we kind of made up our mind to become rock stars as adults. We weren't like 20 years old with a record contract and a number one record. We were older, we had been around the block a few times, and we had responsibilities, and there were these little people at home calling us dads. You couldn't' just flip a switch and say, okay, now I'm this, then flip the switch and say, now I'm that, you know. So we just let everything kind of inform what we do, you know. It kind of kept us kind of like getting like real nuts, and we sure tried, but we always kind of reeled ourselves back in if we got a little too crazy.
David: Our families did it for us. It's always a great governor, you know what I mean. We couldn't get too crazy or too extreme with anything, because we had people depending on us. We had responsibilities, we knew we had responsibilities to people, you know, people we love, our families, and so it always would reel us back in.
Louie: Well, you sure as heck can't act like a rock star at home. They don't buy it. Tell the story about the shirt. The wrinkled shirt. That's a good one.
David: Yeah, I tried to get away with....I put on this shirt, it was all wrinkled, you know. My wife says, what are you doing? I says, well, see, this wrinkled shirt will look like I'm so creative, artistic, I don't have time to iron a shirt, man. I'm just like too into my thing, you know. And she says, iron your shirt. So I said, okay.
Louie: Yeah. Right.
David: That was the end of that. But I mean, it's just the way it is. They don't take anything from us, you know. They know who we are. They know when we're trying to be something different.
Louie: Yeah, we wouldn't want to, you know. We kind of take all this kind of different than most people.
David: I mean, not that I believe that I was this artist. It was angle just so I didn't have to iron my shirt. But that didn't work.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: So how do you keep the balance between family and career, especially being away.
Louie: Well, we don't go out for like three months. We'll out for like three weeks. Then we go home and we kind of connect, recharge our batteries, everybody kind of gets, put everything kind of back together. Three weeks is about the longest. You know, anything beyond that, then everything starts breaking, you know. So we gotta go back and fix stuff and make sure that everybody knows that we love them and get our own batteries up to the red line where it says charged, and then come back out again.
Olga: What do you think is the most challenging thing in the music business, the most difficult.
David: Dealing with record companies. It's the most frustrating.
Louie: Yeah.
David: I guess being out on the road is the hardest physical thing or emotional or mental, because being away from the families and all that, that's pretty hard. That's probably the first thing we could give up if we had a chance. We like to play, but we'd much rather be home. So it's a balance somehow, but that's hard to do. But the most frustrating thing is dealing with record companies, because they don't, for some silly reason, they don't support their product. They sign things, they get excited and they get you to make a record, then they don't do anything with it. It just doesn't make any sense to me, but it's just the way it is.
Olga: Well, you know, our show deals with mainly unsigned independent bands, and one of the questions we always ask is, what's your opinion on major labels versus indy labels, so you just talked a little bit about what sounds like major label kind of thing. What's your opinion on indie labels.
David: For any labels, if it's your own label, then you're gonna do the best you can with it. But even indy labels, though, they don't have the resources to do a whole lot. There's indy labels that don't do a damn thing either, because either they're scared or they just don't have a clue. Just did a record with a guy that produces albums, his name's Little Willy G. He's in a band called "Thee Midnighters" from East L.A. and he's been a pastor for the last 20 years and he just decided to do a record of secular music. He's a soul singer basically. So he did this record. He has a great album, great players. But the record company won't put any money behind it. And it didn't cost that much to make it, you know, so I don't understand why they'll even bother when they're not going do anything with it, just let it die. So independents aren't the way out either. I think you've got to have your own hand in it to make it happen, you know what I mean? Or it's a fluke. These bands like more the punk bands like Bad Religion, started their own label, Epitaph, which has gone on to be really successful. Fat Records and the band No Effect started their own label, and now they're signing other bands, but you have to have that hands on.
Louie: Goes all the way back to like SST, you know.
David: Yeah, SST too.
Louie: Black Flag.
David: Guys like that. I mean, you have to really be involved to make it happen. You've got to be involved every step of the way, from the recording to getting the cover together, the distribution, promotion, all that stuff. It won't happen if you don't do anything about it. Then there's like this band Creed, they did the same thing, but they did it through the Internet, and I don't know how many albums, they sold like millions, mostly millions, I mean they sold millions of albums.
Louie: Yeah, never got played on the radio.
David: Yeah, didn't have to worry about it.
Louie: So enough.
David: That's it.
Louie: Enough said.
David: There's no....
Louie: Place like home?
David: ...surefire answer, yeah, that too. It's a crap shoot in a way. You have to be involved to make it happen, but then you never know if that's going to work. Just have to do something, you strike a nerve with people, I don't know.
Olga: Well, both of you having sons playing in a band, it just so happens they're playing together, but wanting to do something professionally with it, what kind of advice did you give them about it?
David: Not to do it.
Louie: Not to do it, yeah. Don't do it.
David: Don't do it. You'll be sorry.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: Do you want them to get a real job and have a Plan B?
David: I don't know about a real job...I want them to have a nice life, stress-free, it'll never be stress-free, but...
Louie: No such thing.
David: ...at least have a comfortable life somehow, I mean, I don't know. But it just seems like something they have to try out. Everyone has to learn for themselves, so unfortunately that's the way it is. The school of hard knocks. You can tell someone not to drink that beer, but he's not going to listen to you until he's puking. Or years later. You know what I mean. You have to live it up yourself, so there's not much we can really tell.
Olga: Other than keep your publishing.
David: Oh yeah, that.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Yeah, make sure the businesses together. That's one thing I learned from Bob Hope. He says, show business is two words - show and business. In some interview with Bob Hope, they're saying this. Wow, never thought of that. You gotta keep the business side together. That's what we didn't do, so we're who we are. Louie, help me. I already unplugged my mike.
Olga: Why? You sound great.
David: I'm rambling. I'm not saying sh!t.
Olga: No, it's good. I want you to just go with it.
David: I think it's the lack of oxygen.
Olga: Maybe.
David: We're missing String Cheese, Holmes.
Olga: Oh, okay. Does that mean you want to go play?
David: No.
Olga: Okay, I just got like two more questions. One of them being, how do you see yourself as having evolved over the years as a person?
Louie: That's like a weird question.
David: It's the same thing. I don't know if you've done it. I mean, you still see the world through the same eyes that you've always seen the world through ever since you were a little kid. Everything's the same. It's the same point of view. So you either get bigger or smaller. I mean, you change physically or the surroundings change, but you don't change, I don't think.
Louie: I know, 'cause David and I have talked about it, but I still kind of, I really sincerely and honestly, I still kind of think the same way I did when I was like ten.
David: Yeah. You form your personality when you're a baby. It never changes.
Louie: So I don't know if that, 'cause I can't get into somebody else's head, but I don't know, if it's most people do or whatever, or maybe it's because this kind of business that we're in, being in music, it kind of insulates you from growing up, so maybe I still think like a ten-year-old because I never grew up or something, you know.
David: That's why we became musicians.
Louie: Yeah.
David: So we can stay in the sandbox.
Louie: Yeah. I think everybody kind of just wants to be a kid again. Everybody wants to be back at that time when things were like really simple and really have that freedom. I mean, just see the little kids, like five-year-olds, running around in a playground. It's amazing, because they're just so unfettered and free, and everybody wants to get back to that.
David: You know, work hard to buy couch time. So you want to get back to that comfort zone when the stress was at minimum and you could just coast along.
Olga: I guess what I kind of meant by the question was just the some people look back...
David: Oh, we answered it wrong?
Olga: No...that some people kind of look back and they say, you know, I was so different when I was 18. Four years ago....
David: Do you feel that way?
Olga: Oh, I totally feel that way.
Louie: Yeah, I don't.
Olga: I mean, I'm still the same person as I was when I was ten, as when I first started growing up, but then there's a period of time where, especially during adolescence, where everything is just completely screwed up and you don't know where you're going and what's going on, and your brain is like....
Louie: Well, guess what? That's us.
Olga: Yeah? So you're still there.
Louie: Still there. Still there.
David: Do you have any heroes?
Olga: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I always wanted to be a pilot. Actually, I wanted to be a stewardess, but my parents thought that's not good enough. You can't be like a waitress in the sky. You have to be something more than that. So I said, okay, I'll be a pilot, 'cause I always liked to fly.
David: When did the violin come in to play?
Olga: The violin came in, I was in music class, I was probably about, I was in the third grade, and I was playing piano at that time, and there was a lot of piano players at my school. My music teacher came in and she said, we need some violinists for the orchestra. We need people to learn violin. Is there anybody that's interested? And I raised my hand. I said, me! I'll do it.
David: You still play, right? You still play violin.
Olga: Yeah. You gotta bring yours sometime, 'cause I want to try it out with the frets. It'd be cool.
David: Oh sure. You still working with Maria Muldaur?
Olga: No. I see her from time to time. But I live in a whole 'nother state.
David: I'm just trying to turn this interview around to you.
Olga: I know. I know you are. And I'm letting you. So cool.
David: Talking about yourself.
Olga: Well, no, I like talking about yourself. So when is the next Latin Playboys album coming out?
David: Before you know it.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: You're already working on it?
Louie: Um unh.
Olga: No?
David: We don't know.
Louie: We don't know.
David: As soon as things level out a little bit. There's just been a little, well you know what's been going on...
Louie: Yeah. We've had a rough go at the end of '99, so we're just kind of trying to regroup and see what's going on, so we're just kind of concentrating on Lobos right now.
David: Get Lobos back to...
Louie: Yeah. Back up to speed.
David: There's a few things. There's a play that Louie and I....
Louie: wrote....
Olga: A play? Like acting play?
Louie: Yeah. We're doing this piece for theater...
David: For the Mark Taper Forum.
Louie: Yeah. In L.A., there's the L.A. Music Center, which is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Mark Taper Forum and the Mark Taper's the one that commissioned us to do this piece, and I've been working on it for the past about two years, and we almost got it to the point where like David's going to come in now and then David and I are going to work the rest of this year probably working on the music.
Olga: So it's a musical.
Louie: Oh yeah, I guess so.
Olga: Kind of like more of a modern rock 'n roll kind of thing....
Louie: No.
David: It's gonna be all over the place. 'Cause the story spans, there's lives that go through lots of changes.
Louie: It's a very simple story. Very simple story.
Olga: What's the story.
Louie: It's based on the Orpheus myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. But it's all kind of like happening in this fictitious Mexican-American neighborhood. And it's really interesting. I think music is going to really kind of expand it, and hopefully I think in like 2001 season, maybe it'll be ready.
Olga:Wow. You'll have to call me when you start casting.
Louie: Oh, ha! Okay.
Olga: I'll go downaudition. Cool. Well, thank you so much.
Louie: Sure.
Olga: For taking time and missing String Cheese to talk to me.
Louie: Oh, no problem. I think I'd much rather talk to you. But cut that part out.
David: Well, we know you.
Olga: I'll edit it. So what do you guys think of Doctor Martins?
David: I love them.
Louie: Oh, you know what. I'll tell you truth here. When we first went to England in about 1984, I guess you know what I'm trying to say is that, we were into Doc Martins before they were cool. It's everybody's line, right? But it's true.
David: Like we went to the shop. I told her, yeah, all the English punkers wear these shoes.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It hadn't happened to us yet.
Louie: And you could only find them in work clothes stores in England.
David: In the real boutiques with Doc Martins.
Louie: Yeah.
David: They're actual real work boots.
Louie: Yeah. So we've been wearing Docs since 1984.
David: Bought 'em for $18.
Louie: Oh, yeah, you could buy 'em for really cheap.
David: 18 bucks for the first eight hole Doc Martins.
Louie: But there's nothing like 'em, tell ya.
Olga: So they went with the long hair and the blue jeans and...
David: Didn't have long hair.
Louie: Didn't have long hair.
David: This is 80's. The shirts we had.
Louie: No, we were pretty like wild by the time we got into Docs.
David: We came up with this concept. We had these bad mama pajamas. We had flannel shirts, right? And we'd do the gig, we'd button the top button, play the gig, go home, unbutton it, and it became a pajama top.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Show clothes pajama top.
Louie: Yeah, it was show clothes and pajamas in the same, yeah, so it was really a good thing. And then our Doc Martins.
David: European thing with no bathing and....
Louie: Oh yeah, it was good.
David: And we stunk and we were sheik.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: You could probably start a separate business just on clothing, you know?
David: We probably could.
Olga: With bad mama pajamas.
David: Oh yeah.
Louie: Yeah.
By Olga Munding, Colorado Radio Personality
(Originally aired in February 2000)
Flash Audio
Olga: It is my extreme honor to bring to you today, Doctor Martin's interview with David Hidalgo and Louie Perez from Los Lobos.
Louie: Howdy.
David: Hi Olga.
Olga: Thank you for being here. So, what I'd like to know is a little background, 'cause I know the two of you kind of grew up together, right?
Louie: Since about tenth grade.
Olga: Yeah. Okay, so where did you grow up and tell me a little bit about your families.
Louie: Where did we grow up?
Olga: Yeah. Brothers and sisters.
Louie: David and both, we grew up in East L.A., but we were kinda separated by the freeway. What was it, the Five Freeway?
David: Five.
Louie: Yeah. But what brought us together was high school. I was in the, no, 10th grade, 11th grade.
David: I was in 10th, he was in 11th.
Louie: I was in the 11th grade. He was incoming and I was...
David: He was ongoing.
Louie: ...trying to stay in there.
Olga: In art class?
Louie: Yup. Mr. Ramirez' art class. We didn't do anything.
David: Clear the desks, they had these easel desks, put 'em up and it's....
Louie: He couldn't see what we were doing. We were just like talking about records.
Olga: What kind of records?
Louie: Hendrix records.
David: Yeah, mostly.
Olga: Is that when you started playing, both of you, guitar?
Louie: No.
David: Both of us had been playing for a while before we met, but we started talking and found out we had the same record collection. It wasn't long before we were playing guitar together.
Louie: Yeah, yeah.
Olga: So what were you guys like as youngsters?
Louie: I guess we were like, in high school we were like, we kind of fell in the category of like the hippies or something like that. Sort of.
David: The longhairs.
Louie: The longhairs, yeah. It wasn't really hippies...
David: We didn't buy into the whole program, but we had long hair.
Louie: Yeah. Got that pretty much. Kind of like a fringe group or something that I guess we hung out with. There was quite a few of us. There was probably about 12, about a dozen of us.
David: We still had the cuffs on our Levis.
Louie: Yeah, yeah.
David: But we had long hair, so somewhere in between....
Louie: Yeah. So we could kind of like blend in, which is about any group. Kind of works pretty good that way, you know, you don't get beat up so often.
Olga: Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Louie: Older sister.
David: I have older brothers.
Olga: A couple?
David: Three.
Olga: Three? So you're the youngest? So is everybody in your family musical?
David: One way or another. My oldest brother played drums before he went to the service. He's always appreciated music. The next to the oldest, he was the jazz fan. He didn't play, but he the record collection. He had all the great records, the nice, the Grundig hifi, so there was always music in the house. When I was a little kid, he was my favorite brother, so I'd always be him, so I'd be with his buddies, they'd be drinking beer, and I'd be drinking ginger ale listening to jazz. It was fun. I think he made it fun for me. And then my brother Joe, he's the musician, he's the one that I learned from. Plays guitar and drums.
Olga: Do you play with him now?
David: Whenever we get together we end up playing. He still plays. He does recordings at home and stuff. He doesn't play in a band or anything, but he's never stopped playing.
Olga: So who are some of your heroes? It sounds like your brother is one of them.
David: Jimi Hendrix. The early days you mean?
Olga: Yeah. Like, that's who I want to be when I grow up.
David: Duane Eddie, I guess. Duane Eddie is the first one that I noticed. I like guitar, and when I was a kid back in the late 50's, early 60's, guitar instrumentals were happening. I just liked Duane Eddie. I liked the beginning of surf music. I like guitars. I've always liked the sound of a guitar, electric guitar.
Olga: What about you, Louie? Did you have any heroes?
Louie: Any heroes? No, I don't think so. Until later on. Until I started listening to records, 'cause mostly it was Mexican music until my sister, when she got old enough to listen to whatever she wanted, she brought rock 'n roll into the house, and I don't know how old I was. I was probably about nine or something like ten, something like that, and then that's when she started bringing rock 'n roll into the house, and we had a cousin who used to come over with a little record player with the little stack of 45s, and that's how I first heard it, and then when I heard, it was I guess Jimi Hendrix, it gets kind of old after a while, I always talk about Jimi Hendrix all the time, but I guess he was like a hero, but I don't know whatever that means.
Olga: So when did the two of you start collaborating on song writing? I know that you both write a good portion of the songs for Los Lobos and also some side projects like Latin Playboys. When did the two of you get together and start writing some songs?
David: The summer of '72.
Olga: The summer of '72? That's very precise.
Louie: Yeah. I got out of high school already and Dave was still in high school.
David: I graduated in '72.
Louie: And I called him up and said, what's up? You weren't playing with anybody at the time, and neither was I. And I say, hey, why don't we start a band or something? We didn't start a band right away. I just started going over to his house and we started playing records, and we started writing songs kind of just like making fun of people. You know, if there was somebody at school that was kind of like however, we'd just write a song about 'em or something. Just joke songs.
David: Or we'd imitate too.
Louie: Oh, yeah.
David: Mostly like local people, like Weird Al.
Olga: Can you do one for me?
David: No. It wouldn't matter, 'cause you wouldn't know if it was a good imitation or not. Local guys. There were popular musicians in the area, just like any neighborhood, but there was the ones that believed, they went to their head, and they would start acting like stars. Chicanos with english accents and stuff like that.
Louie: Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.
David: So we saw right through that, and we'd poke fun at them. We had fun.
Louie: And then we used to make fun of rock stars, too. We used to do really bad imitations of Emerson Lake & Palmer. I used to be Rick Wakeman. I'd put on Dave's bathrobe.
David: Bikini glasses and things.
Louie: Bikini glasses. And we'd do like 15 minute jams. That went on for a long time. A long, long time.
David: All summer.
Louie: Yeah. And then we started making recordings and started to write songs and....
David: Friend I went to school with, he had these two Sony two-track recorders, the reel to reels that did sound on sound. If you hooked them up together you could do multi-track. So that was the beginning of the song writing. We'd make little records. It was cool. We'd play the drums, guitar, bass all together. We'd play everything. Stay up all night doing it.
Louie: Yeah. And then if we needed some instruments, we'd invite a drummer over and say that we were going to rehearse and maybe start a band, and then we'd tell him, hey, you know what, go ahead and just leave your drum set up until....we're gonna practice like tomorrow or the next day. And then we just wouldn't call him back, and he'd come over to get his drums and we wouldn't answer the door. And go on. We'd eventually give him back his drums, but after we were done with them. And we'd do that with electric pianos and somebody's car.
David: We used to go to Sambo's and get the endless cup of coffee. We'd get wired.
Louie: What did Sambo's turn into?
Olga: Four Seasons or something?
David: Four Seasons, yeah.
Louie: Oh yeah.
David: And Baker's Square after that.
Louie: Baker's Square. Yeah, stay up all night.
Olga: So, in your opinion, what makes a good song?
Louie: Something real simple.
David: Yeah, simple is the best.
Louie: Something real simple. The stuff you kind of overlook when you're trying to write a song is the song.
David: And it has to have some kind of sentiment at the core of it, though.
Louie: Yeah.
David: All the best songs connect with people one way or another, something they can relate to, but simple's the best. What is simple? Hank Williams was considered....I mean is that simple or not? To me, it sounds simple but it's not at all.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It's deceiving.
Louie: And Miles Davis was real simple, but kind of just like [whistles] does some stuff with it.
David: It's enlightened or something. He'd get to that point where he can just throw away all the unnecessary stuff and get right to the core of it. That's hard to do. Monk's the same way. He has one scene in that "Straight, No Chaser", that the producer's telling me, why don't we go outside, extended jazz and all this stuff. He says, ah, I want to keep it simple so people can dig it, you know. This is Monk saying this. That is something to live by.
Olga: So, in your own opinion, you find that true, when you're writing a lot of songs and...
David: Oh, it always is. Those records are the popular records are always the simple song, a simple idea, it may not be in your or my opinion a great song, but it still has something that people can connect with, so yeah. Holds true.
Olga: So, when the two of you started playing together, how did Lobos band come together?
Louie: Sort of the same way. We eventually started a band, David and I.
David: That was the summer of '73.
Olga: Good memory!
David: ...actually fall of '73
Louie: And Cesar had a band, and we used to go hang out with him, because we all went to high school together, so we all knew each other. And then Conrad always was playing in bands. He was a little older, so he was like ahead of us. He was already playing.
David: He was a local hero.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Conrad was well respected, well known.
Louie: Yeah, a well-known local bass player.
David: He was like the best bass player in East LA, everybody knew who he was. We liked what he did. He lived up three blocks from Louie, so they knew each other for years.
Louie: Yeah. So we'd all kind of end up together, you know, and then we just started fooling around and we started pulling out records out of our parents' record collection and try to get through the songs, because we realized that it wasn't as easy as it sounded. And then it just fascinated us so much we spent the next ten years just doing that. We put everything else away.
Olga: Did you go to college at all?
David: Junior college.
Louie: Went to junior college. Graduated from there.
Olga: Did you find any sort of resistance, like from your parents, about wanting to play music?
Louie: No.
David: My mom always told me she wanted me to stay with education. She knew I loved music and I wasn't going to do anything else, but she was, well, be a teacher, have proper job, you know.
Olga: Plan B.
David: Yeah. Started out was going that way and then I got married. You know the rest.
Olga: I know the rest, but the listeners don't.
David: We started playing and we all started having families and so we needed income, and little by little we started gigging more for just like local, doings casuals...
Louie: Weddings.
David: Weddings mostly. That was great for a while. Ended up doing restaurants.
Louie: Yeah, 'cause we needed like the regular income.
David: Mexican band...strolling...
Louie: ...it was bad...
David: ...wear the same color shirts...
Louie: Very bad. Very bad.
David: So that kind of drove us into what we're doing now out of the frustration.
Louie: We were doing exactly what we set out not to do, and so then once our backs were against the wall, we had to just kind of take the radical way and just kind of break everything, break all the rules again, you know.
David: It was like when we first started doing the folk music, it was the same thing.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It was a revolutionary move to throw away the electric guitars and play strictly Mexican music in Spanish.
Louie: Yeah, 'cause we still look like everybody else, you know. We had long hair and flannel shirts and Levis and desert boots and looked like everybody else, but if we played Mexican music, it would really confuse the heck out of people that were like our own age, so we broke all the rules then. It was just time to do it again. And we sure did.
Olga: What was your most memorable gig? Could be memorable as in the weirdest or funniest, or just strange or something that just sticks out.
Louie: Well, the most infamous one is the PIL gig we opened for in L.A. at the Olympic Auditorium. It was a wrestling arena in Los Angeles, and of course nobody knew who we were, and the whole idea was like, the first set that Johnny Rotten, John Lyden was bringing his band and it was kind of just like punk rock and it was just like building up or something like that, so everybody came out in droves to just see like the last gasp of funk rock, and so they were like really ready to just tear the whole place apart. So they started with us. And so, yeah, that was probably the most infamous, legendary kind of thing that kind of most certainly sticks out in my mind. There's a lot of other things. I mean, we've been together for 26 years. You got about 48 hours? We could tell you all about it.
David: Plus another good one was, early on, we were playing a college gig, a Cinco de Mayo celebration or something and we started to set up, and all the people, they saw the long hair and all that, we wen to set up our stage at that, all the older people with their kids, they start packing up their blankets and their picnic baskets and started like, oh sh!t, here come the rockers, the rock stuff. So they started walking away. You know, they all packed up to leave, and then we started playing, they all came out. They all like put their blankets back down and sat down, you know. That was nice. It was something that we had never experienced before. Playing for like three generations at one time, and everybody enjoyed it.
Louie: Right. We got a lot of funny looks, but it was a different kind of thing. It was cool.
David: Afterwards, the older women were coming, blessing us, giving us kisses, offering us food and stuff.
Louie: Yeah. It was working for us. It worked for us.
David: They appreciated the fact that we appreciated their music, their generation, it was like they'd always been left out of young people's lives.
Louie: It was kind of tough for a while, all these ladies would be like crying and sh!t like that, you know. Hey mom, come on, allright, I'm trying to play this song for you.
David: Yeah, we started crying and couldn't play, couldn't sing.
Louie: Yeah, it was like forget it. It was rough. But it was certainly a really....
David: Special.
Louie: ...crazy kind of move, you know, that we made.
Olga: I'm wondering, you know, it's hard enough to just stay in any one profession for 26 years, let alone be married, have a family and a career in the public eye. So how have you been able to sustain for 26 years That is very difficult.
Louie: Well, by not selling a lot of records. We can't think that we're big shots.
David: 'Cause we're not.
Louie: Well, you know what it is, and I'm just kind of kidding, but we kind of made up our mind to become rock stars as adults. We weren't like 20 years old with a record contract and a number one record. We were older, we had been around the block a few times, and we had responsibilities, and there were these little people at home calling us dads. You couldn't' just flip a switch and say, okay, now I'm this, then flip the switch and say, now I'm that, you know. So we just let everything kind of inform what we do, you know. It kind of kept us kind of like getting like real nuts, and we sure tried, but we always kind of reeled ourselves back in if we got a little too crazy.
David: Our families did it for us. It's always a great governor, you know what I mean. We couldn't get too crazy or too extreme with anything, because we had people depending on us. We had responsibilities, we knew we had responsibilities to people, you know, people we love, our families, and so it always would reel us back in.
Louie: Well, you sure as heck can't act like a rock star at home. They don't buy it. Tell the story about the shirt. The wrinkled shirt. That's a good one.
David: Yeah, I tried to get away with....I put on this shirt, it was all wrinkled, you know. My wife says, what are you doing? I says, well, see, this wrinkled shirt will look like I'm so creative, artistic, I don't have time to iron a shirt, man. I'm just like too into my thing, you know. And she says, iron your shirt. So I said, okay.
Louie: Yeah. Right.
David: That was the end of that. But I mean, it's just the way it is. They don't take anything from us, you know. They know who we are. They know when we're trying to be something different.
Louie: Yeah, we wouldn't want to, you know. We kind of take all this kind of different than most people.
David: I mean, not that I believe that I was this artist. It was angle just so I didn't have to iron my shirt. But that didn't work.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: So how do you keep the balance between family and career, especially being away.
Louie: Well, we don't go out for like three months. We'll out for like three weeks. Then we go home and we kind of connect, recharge our batteries, everybody kind of gets, put everything kind of back together. Three weeks is about the longest. You know, anything beyond that, then everything starts breaking, you know. So we gotta go back and fix stuff and make sure that everybody knows that we love them and get our own batteries up to the red line where it says charged, and then come back out again.
Olga: What do you think is the most challenging thing in the music business, the most difficult.
David: Dealing with record companies. It's the most frustrating.
Louie: Yeah.
David: I guess being out on the road is the hardest physical thing or emotional or mental, because being away from the families and all that, that's pretty hard. That's probably the first thing we could give up if we had a chance. We like to play, but we'd much rather be home. So it's a balance somehow, but that's hard to do. But the most frustrating thing is dealing with record companies, because they don't, for some silly reason, they don't support their product. They sign things, they get excited and they get you to make a record, then they don't do anything with it. It just doesn't make any sense to me, but it's just the way it is.
Olga: Well, you know, our show deals with mainly unsigned independent bands, and one of the questions we always ask is, what's your opinion on major labels versus indy labels, so you just talked a little bit about what sounds like major label kind of thing. What's your opinion on indie labels.
David: For any labels, if it's your own label, then you're gonna do the best you can with it. But even indy labels, though, they don't have the resources to do a whole lot. There's indy labels that don't do a damn thing either, because either they're scared or they just don't have a clue. Just did a record with a guy that produces albums, his name's Little Willy G. He's in a band called "Thee Midnighters" from East L.A. and he's been a pastor for the last 20 years and he just decided to do a record of secular music. He's a soul singer basically. So he did this record. He has a great album, great players. But the record company won't put any money behind it. And it didn't cost that much to make it, you know, so I don't understand why they'll even bother when they're not going do anything with it, just let it die. So independents aren't the way out either. I think you've got to have your own hand in it to make it happen, you know what I mean? Or it's a fluke. These bands like more the punk bands like Bad Religion, started their own label, Epitaph, which has gone on to be really successful. Fat Records and the band No Effect started their own label, and now they're signing other bands, but you have to have that hands on.
Louie: Goes all the way back to like SST, you know.
David: Yeah, SST too.
Louie: Black Flag.
David: Guys like that. I mean, you have to really be involved to make it happen. You've got to be involved every step of the way, from the recording to getting the cover together, the distribution, promotion, all that stuff. It won't happen if you don't do anything about it. Then there's like this band Creed, they did the same thing, but they did it through the Internet, and I don't know how many albums, they sold like millions, mostly millions, I mean they sold millions of albums.
Louie: Yeah, never got played on the radio.
David: Yeah, didn't have to worry about it.
Louie: So enough.
David: That's it.
Louie: Enough said.
David: There's no....
Louie: Place like home?
David: ...surefire answer, yeah, that too. It's a crap shoot in a way. You have to be involved to make it happen, but then you never know if that's going to work. Just have to do something, you strike a nerve with people, I don't know.
Olga: Well, both of you having sons playing in a band, it just so happens they're playing together, but wanting to do something professionally with it, what kind of advice did you give them about it?
David: Not to do it.
Louie: Not to do it, yeah. Don't do it.
David: Don't do it. You'll be sorry.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: Do you want them to get a real job and have a Plan B?
David: I don't know about a real job...I want them to have a nice life, stress-free, it'll never be stress-free, but...
Louie: No such thing.
David: ...at least have a comfortable life somehow, I mean, I don't know. But it just seems like something they have to try out. Everyone has to learn for themselves, so unfortunately that's the way it is. The school of hard knocks. You can tell someone not to drink that beer, but he's not going to listen to you until he's puking. Or years later. You know what I mean. You have to live it up yourself, so there's not much we can really tell.
Olga: Other than keep your publishing.
David: Oh yeah, that.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Yeah, make sure the businesses together. That's one thing I learned from Bob Hope. He says, show business is two words - show and business. In some interview with Bob Hope, they're saying this. Wow, never thought of that. You gotta keep the business side together. That's what we didn't do, so we're who we are. Louie, help me. I already unplugged my mike.
Olga: Why? You sound great.
David: I'm rambling. I'm not saying sh!t.
Olga: No, it's good. I want you to just go with it.
David: I think it's the lack of oxygen.
Olga: Maybe.
David: We're missing String Cheese, Holmes.
Olga: Oh, okay. Does that mean you want to go play?
David: No.
Olga: Okay, I just got like two more questions. One of them being, how do you see yourself as having evolved over the years as a person?
Louie: That's like a weird question.
David: It's the same thing. I don't know if you've done it. I mean, you still see the world through the same eyes that you've always seen the world through ever since you were a little kid. Everything's the same. It's the same point of view. So you either get bigger or smaller. I mean, you change physically or the surroundings change, but you don't change, I don't think.
Louie: I know, 'cause David and I have talked about it, but I still kind of, I really sincerely and honestly, I still kind of think the same way I did when I was like ten.
David: Yeah. You form your personality when you're a baby. It never changes.
Louie: So I don't know if that, 'cause I can't get into somebody else's head, but I don't know, if it's most people do or whatever, or maybe it's because this kind of business that we're in, being in music, it kind of insulates you from growing up, so maybe I still think like a ten-year-old because I never grew up or something, you know.
David: That's why we became musicians.
Louie: Yeah.
David: So we can stay in the sandbox.
Louie: Yeah. I think everybody kind of just wants to be a kid again. Everybody wants to be back at that time when things were like really simple and really have that freedom. I mean, just see the little kids, like five-year-olds, running around in a playground. It's amazing, because they're just so unfettered and free, and everybody wants to get back to that.
David: You know, work hard to buy couch time. So you want to get back to that comfort zone when the stress was at minimum and you could just coast along.
Olga: I guess what I kind of meant by the question was just the some people look back...
David: Oh, we answered it wrong?
Olga: No...that some people kind of look back and they say, you know, I was so different when I was 18. Four years ago....
David: Do you feel that way?
Olga: Oh, I totally feel that way.
Louie: Yeah, I don't.
Olga: I mean, I'm still the same person as I was when I was ten, as when I first started growing up, but then there's a period of time where, especially during adolescence, where everything is just completely screwed up and you don't know where you're going and what's going on, and your brain is like....
Louie: Well, guess what? That's us.
Olga: Yeah? So you're still there.
Louie: Still there. Still there.
David: Do you have any heroes?
Olga: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I always wanted to be a pilot. Actually, I wanted to be a stewardess, but my parents thought that's not good enough. You can't be like a waitress in the sky. You have to be something more than that. So I said, okay, I'll be a pilot, 'cause I always liked to fly.
David: When did the violin come in to play?
Olga: The violin came in, I was in music class, I was probably about, I was in the third grade, and I was playing piano at that time, and there was a lot of piano players at my school. My music teacher came in and she said, we need some violinists for the orchestra. We need people to learn violin. Is there anybody that's interested? And I raised my hand. I said, me! I'll do it.
David: You still play, right? You still play violin.
Olga: Yeah. You gotta bring yours sometime, 'cause I want to try it out with the frets. It'd be cool.
David: Oh sure. You still working with Maria Muldaur?
Olga: No. I see her from time to time. But I live in a whole 'nother state.
David: I'm just trying to turn this interview around to you.
Olga: I know. I know you are. And I'm letting you. So cool.
David: Talking about yourself.
Olga: Well, no, I like talking about yourself. So when is the next Latin Playboys album coming out?
David: Before you know it.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: You're already working on it?
Louie: Um unh.
Olga: No?
David: We don't know.
Louie: We don't know.
David: As soon as things level out a little bit. There's just been a little, well you know what's been going on...
Louie: Yeah. We've had a rough go at the end of '99, so we're just kind of trying to regroup and see what's going on, so we're just kind of concentrating on Lobos right now.
David: Get Lobos back to...
Louie: Yeah. Back up to speed.
David: There's a few things. There's a play that Louie and I....
Louie: wrote....
Olga: A play? Like acting play?
Louie: Yeah. We're doing this piece for theater...
David: For the Mark Taper Forum.
Louie: Yeah. In L.A., there's the L.A. Music Center, which is the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion of the Mark Taper Forum and the Mark Taper's the one that commissioned us to do this piece, and I've been working on it for the past about two years, and we almost got it to the point where like David's going to come in now and then David and I are going to work the rest of this year probably working on the music.
Olga: So it's a musical.
Louie: Oh yeah, I guess so.
Olga: Kind of like more of a modern rock 'n roll kind of thing....
Louie: No.
David: It's gonna be all over the place. 'Cause the story spans, there's lives that go through lots of changes.
Louie: It's a very simple story. Very simple story.
Olga: What's the story.
Louie: It's based on the Orpheus myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. But it's all kind of like happening in this fictitious Mexican-American neighborhood. And it's really interesting. I think music is going to really kind of expand it, and hopefully I think in like 2001 season, maybe it'll be ready.
Olga:Wow. You'll have to call me when you start casting.
Louie: Oh, ha! Okay.
Olga: I'll go downaudition. Cool. Well, thank you so much.
Louie: Sure.
Olga: For taking time and missing String Cheese to talk to me.
Louie: Oh, no problem. I think I'd much rather talk to you. But cut that part out.
David: Well, we know you.
Olga: I'll edit it. So what do you guys think of Doctor Martins?
David: I love them.
Louie: Oh, you know what. I'll tell you truth here. When we first went to England in about 1984, I guess you know what I'm trying to say is that, we were into Doc Martins before they were cool. It's everybody's line, right? But it's true.
David: Like we went to the shop. I told her, yeah, all the English punkers wear these shoes.
Louie: Yeah.
David: It hadn't happened to us yet.
Louie: And you could only find them in work clothes stores in England.
David: In the real boutiques with Doc Martins.
Louie: Yeah.
David: They're actual real work boots.
Louie: Yeah. So we've been wearing Docs since 1984.
David: Bought 'em for $18.
Louie: Oh, yeah, you could buy 'em for really cheap.
David: 18 bucks for the first eight hole Doc Martins.
Louie: But there's nothing like 'em, tell ya.
Olga: So they went with the long hair and the blue jeans and...
David: Didn't have long hair.
Louie: Didn't have long hair.
David: This is 80's. The shirts we had.
Louie: No, we were pretty like wild by the time we got into Docs.
David: We came up with this concept. We had these bad mama pajamas. We had flannel shirts, right? And we'd do the gig, we'd button the top button, play the gig, go home, unbutton it, and it became a pajama top.
Louie: Yeah.
David: Show clothes pajama top.
Louie: Yeah, it was show clothes and pajamas in the same, yeah, so it was really a good thing. And then our Doc Martins.
David: European thing with no bathing and....
Louie: Oh yeah, it was good.
David: And we stunk and we were sheik.
Louie: Yeah.
Olga: You could probably start a separate business just on clothing, you know?
David: We probably could.
Olga: With bad mama pajamas.
David: Oh yeah.
Louie: Yeah.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Olga spotlighted on Sonicbids this week!
Myself and three other artists, will be spotlighted on Sonicbids homepage all week!
Check it out and my EPK on www.sonicbids.com
Check it out and my EPK on www.sonicbids.com
It Comes & It Goes
New song "It Comes & It Goes" from the album "Whatever You Want" (to be released in 2010)
The song and album is a collaboration with my homeboy Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars/Hill Country Revue. Produced and engineered by Winn McElroy at Black WIngs Productions.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Olga in Chicago area this weekend!
Also two shows at Cab's WIne Bar in Glen Ellyn (N. Main Street) on Sept. 10th 7:30pm and Sept. 11th at 9pm.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Mastering!
Okay, mastering 3 songs tomorrow! We are still working on mixes for the rest, but after tomorrow, there will be 4 in the can and 8 to go...
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Back to the Studio!
Back in for the next three days and I think we will be finishing the new album *hope*. There is really no reason we won't that I can think of, but I hate to say anything before it's actually completed. More later...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Jim Dickinson, Down in Mississippi
I am so blessed to have been able to be part of this video. Jim RIP
Friday, August 14, 2009
Gap store show, Thursday Aug 20th
Please come out to see me play at The Gap on Riverwalk Market place in NOLA. I'll be representing NOLA for this nationwide Gap event. The show is from 5-7pm.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Friday, August 07, 2009
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Born to Play: Live Acoustic Performances in 700+ Gap Stores
Olga performs as part of the following event:
Born to Play: Live Acoustic Performances in 700+ Gap Stores.
On August 20, 2009, every Gap store in the U.S. and Canada will host an exclusive, live acoustic music night to celebrate Gap’s 40 years of heritage in jeans and music.
Show Details
Date: Thursday, August 20th 2009
Time: 5:00pm
City: New Orleans, LA
Venue: The GAP, Born To Play, Riverwalk Mall
Address: Riverwalk Market Place, 1 Poydras Street
Country: US
Admission: Free
Age restrictions: All Ages
Notes: Olga performs as part of the following event: Born to Play: Live Acoustic Performances in 700+ Gap Stores. On August 20, 2009, every Gap store in the U.S. and Canada will host an exclusive, live acoustic music night to celebrate Gap’s 40 years of heritage in jeans and music.
Born to Play: Live Acoustic Performances in 700+ Gap Stores.
On August 20, 2009, every Gap store in the U.S. and Canada will host an exclusive, live acoustic music night to celebrate Gap’s 40 years of heritage in jeans and music.
Show Details
Date: Thursday, August 20th 2009
Time: 5:00pm
City: New Orleans, LA
Venue: The GAP, Born To Play, Riverwalk Mall
Address: Riverwalk Market Place, 1 Poydras Street
Country: US
Admission: Free
Age restrictions: All Ages
Notes: Olga performs as part of the following event: Born to Play: Live Acoustic Performances in 700+ Gap Stores. On August 20, 2009, every Gap store in the U.S. and Canada will host an exclusive, live acoustic music night to celebrate Gap’s 40 years of heritage in jeans and music.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Fanpage facebook
Olga on Facebook
I am really digging Facebook these days. If you are on, please be my fan! xoxox Lord knows it's hot enough down here...
Italy tour
Packing, and cleaning...wondering where my Italian phrase book is...do I need it?
I leave for Italy in two days! Going on tour for a couple weeks and hope I'll get a chance to do some sightseeing in Rome (my favorite city aside from sweet old New Orleans). I finally figured out how to post tour dates on my website, so they are up, plus also on myspace.com/laolga I will be tweeting while overseas, so stay tuned!!
I leave for Italy in two days! Going on tour for a couple weeks and hope I'll get a chance to do some sightseeing in Rome (my favorite city aside from sweet old New Orleans). I finally figured out how to post tour dates on my website, so they are up, plus also on myspace.com/laolga I will be tweeting while overseas, so stay tuned!!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
lollygagging
so the last few days have been a combo of work and lollygagging. i am slowly gearing up for my tour to Italy need to learn some new songs and spirituals, pack, clean and well, lollygag! did i mention it's really freakin' hot?? no reprieve anytime soon...
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Follow Olga on Twitter!
Yes, I joined finally. Okay so here it is if you want to "follow" and read my tweets...
www.twitter.com/olgawankenobi
www.twitter.com/olgawankenobi
Friday, May 15, 2009
New Songs, Yay!
I posted some of my new songs up on myspace.com/laolga
They are almost finished but you can get an idea of what's going on! I have to give major love and props to my dear friend Cody Dickinson who is playing the majority of the instruments and Winn McElroy who's engineering and production skills are unmatched.
They are almost finished but you can get an idea of what's going on! I have to give major love and props to my dear friend Cody Dickinson who is playing the majority of the instruments and Winn McElroy who's engineering and production skills are unmatched.
Monday, April 13, 2009
It Is What It Is
Thought I would share the lyrics from one of my songs on the new album called "It Is What It Is"...
It is What It Is
Looking back I can see
The bigger picture in front of me
At the time I was so low
Couldn’t tell which way to go
Some folks tried to tell me
What it is I need to be
They spoke of what they know is true
Because they had gone through it too
It is what it is, it is what it is
One thing that I know now
It is what it is
At the time I couldn’t hear
Their word were falling on deaf ears
Wisdom can be only learned
Through the experience earned
I cannot change the past
And I cannot always have my way
I take the good and the bad
And let it all fly away
It is what it is, it is what it is
One thing that I know now
It is what it is
©2008 owm/sperling lieder, bmi
It is What It Is
Looking back I can see
The bigger picture in front of me
At the time I was so low
Couldn’t tell which way to go
Some folks tried to tell me
What it is I need to be
They spoke of what they know is true
Because they had gone through it too
It is what it is, it is what it is
One thing that I know now
It is what it is
At the time I couldn’t hear
Their word were falling on deaf ears
Wisdom can be only learned
Through the experience earned
I cannot change the past
And I cannot always have my way
I take the good and the bad
And let it all fly away
It is what it is, it is what it is
One thing that I know now
It is what it is
©2008 owm/sperling lieder, bmi
Love and Music
I haven't blogged in forever it seems, and though I have often thought about it, just could not bring myself to, as there was nothing I felt I could really talk about at the time publicly. See I have been making a lot of big changes in my life in recent months, life changing decisions and have not been in a place to be able to talk about it, so I have been keeping it close to home and the heart.
The last several years have been very emotionally difficult for me, for reasons I cannot get into. But I can say that I really lost sight of who I was and where I was going. In essence, I was turning into another person and it wasn't someone who I liked or who made me happy. It was not until last summer when I began recording my songs and working on my album, that I slowly started my ascension out of the deep hole I was in. In fact, I didn't know how lost I was! Now I am at the surface, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am back on track to where I should be and should have been all this time. I cannot look back with regrets and as they say, everything happens for a reason. Truthfully though, I have had some days filled with regret of past decisions I made that ultimately lead me down the wrong path. With the recording of my new songs, I began to feel important again like I was rediscovering my soul and I realized that I do have something special to offer after all. I don't know how or when I became so low, I suppose it was little by little with each passing day. But all that is behind me now, I have moved back to my true home, New Orleans, to start over and I also made the heartbreaking decision to leave my marriage. What is left after all was said and done is only love and music. This is who I am and this is where I will be from now on.
As for my album, it will be finished very soon. I am so incredibly amazed and proud of what we have done. Yes I said we, as without my two talented and lovely friends Winn McElroy and Cody Dickinson, it would not have become the beautiful work that is is. And without the experience I would not have been able to find my soul again and climb out of the dark.
More news soon...
Happy Easter!
The last several years have been very emotionally difficult for me, for reasons I cannot get into. But I can say that I really lost sight of who I was and where I was going. In essence, I was turning into another person and it wasn't someone who I liked or who made me happy. It was not until last summer when I began recording my songs and working on my album, that I slowly started my ascension out of the deep hole I was in. In fact, I didn't know how lost I was! Now I am at the surface, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am back on track to where I should be and should have been all this time. I cannot look back with regrets and as they say, everything happens for a reason. Truthfully though, I have had some days filled with regret of past decisions I made that ultimately lead me down the wrong path. With the recording of my new songs, I began to feel important again like I was rediscovering my soul and I realized that I do have something special to offer after all. I don't know how or when I became so low, I suppose it was little by little with each passing day. But all that is behind me now, I have moved back to my true home, New Orleans, to start over and I also made the heartbreaking decision to leave my marriage. What is left after all was said and done is only love and music. This is who I am and this is where I will be from now on.
As for my album, it will be finished very soon. I am so incredibly amazed and proud of what we have done. Yes I said we, as without my two talented and lovely friends Winn McElroy and Cody Dickinson, it would not have become the beautiful work that is is. And without the experience I would not have been able to find my soul again and climb out of the dark.
More news soon...
Happy Easter!
Monday, February 09, 2009
25 Random Things
This is a facebook thing going around, so I thought I'd jump start and post here too before it starts going around on myspace and email too...
Here are the rules - post this list on your profile (in Notes) with 25 random things about you. Tag friends you would like to know more about.
I keep getting tagged for this, so I guess I will participate!
1. I am a native San Franciscan, but I am full blooded Austrian. My family is over 1260 years old.
2. I speak fluent German and am learning Italian
3. I like to tap dance and paint water color and pottery, something I have not done in a long time but will again soon.
4. I share a birthday (October 18) with Jessie Mae Hemphill, Chuck Berry and Tony Furtado.
5. My favorite time of year is Carnival in New Orleans.
6. I remember being born. I also have memories of being in my mother's womb!
7. When I was a little girl I wanted to be a pilot. I like to fly.
8. I talk to animals, plants and to myself
9. I was on a ski team growing up.
10. I follow politics rather closely on the most part.
11. My favorite color is soft blue or green. It has fluctuated over the years. I also like soft pink.
12. I have a "beauty mark" in my left eye.
13. I have seen ghosts.
14. I have also witnessed three UFO sightings.
15. I am usually pretty well organized.
16. My favorite sports are hiking and skiing.
17. I have moved a total of 15 times.
18. I like to be by myself sometimes and I don't mind being alone.
19. When I was very young, I realized I was actually an old soul.
20. I was a late bloomer.
21. I am an only child.
22. I am a lucid dreamer.
23. I am allergic to milk, but it doesn't stop me from sneaking some cheese and chocolate.
24. I am named after both my grandmothers.
25. My father insisted I be born in San Francisco and he was convinced I would be a boy until I came out a girl. My name would have been Otto (after my grandfather).
Here are the rules - post this list on your profile (in Notes) with 25 random things about you. Tag friends you would like to know more about.
I keep getting tagged for this, so I guess I will participate!
1. I am a native San Franciscan, but I am full blooded Austrian. My family is over 1260 years old.
2. I speak fluent German and am learning Italian
3. I like to tap dance and paint water color and pottery, something I have not done in a long time but will again soon.
4. I share a birthday (October 18) with Jessie Mae Hemphill, Chuck Berry and Tony Furtado.
5. My favorite time of year is Carnival in New Orleans.
6. I remember being born. I also have memories of being in my mother's womb!
7. When I was a little girl I wanted to be a pilot. I like to fly.
8. I talk to animals, plants and to myself
9. I was on a ski team growing up.
10. I follow politics rather closely on the most part.
11. My favorite color is soft blue or green. It has fluctuated over the years. I also like soft pink.
12. I have a "beauty mark" in my left eye.
13. I have seen ghosts.
14. I have also witnessed three UFO sightings.
15. I am usually pretty well organized.
16. My favorite sports are hiking and skiing.
17. I have moved a total of 15 times.
18. I like to be by myself sometimes and I don't mind being alone.
19. When I was very young, I realized I was actually an old soul.
20. I was a late bloomer.
21. I am an only child.
22. I am a lucid dreamer.
23. I am allergic to milk, but it doesn't stop me from sneaking some cheese and chocolate.
24. I am named after both my grandmothers.
25. My father insisted I be born in San Francisco and he was convinced I would be a boy until I came out a girl. My name would have been Otto (after my grandfather).
Friday, January 09, 2009
Can't Sleep
All week, I have really not been able to sleep much. It's not like I'm not tired, because I am, I just can't sleep. I took a Melatonin and ended up not falling asleep either. When I finally did, I awoke to swollen eyelids. Turns out I had some sort of congestion in my eyes instead of my nose. Strange, huh? I have learned that as you age, your body starts to do unexplainable things...it's something new all the time. The only thing I like about getting older, is that emotionally and mentally, I am wiser and able to handle many more things in a more responsible and mature way. I was always mature for my age, even as a young girl, but I really am only just starting to know, and even then, it is still something new all the time...
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Friday, January 02, 2009
Chores
Things to do this weekend which I am procrastinating for a bit longer:
go to home depot and get supplies
clean and prepare walls of 3rd floor apartment for painting
paint the third floor apartment
unpack and clean the basement
Once I start rolling it will be easier, but it's the move on that is the hard part!
go to home depot and get supplies
clean and prepare walls of 3rd floor apartment for painting
paint the third floor apartment
unpack and clean the basement
Once I start rolling it will be easier, but it's the move on that is the hard part!
Thursday, January 01, 2009
She's baaaack!
She's baaaaack! After many moths of not blogging, because the experiences I was having were really too personal to talk about in cyberspace, I decided to start anew in '09 and make blogging a priority. Actually, I read a lot of blogs almost everyday, mostly political and some gossip ones (I know, lame,but it's like sugary candy though).
Let's see...last night I was probably the only person voluntarily staying in instead of pAArtying. Why? Well, I just got home late the night before and have been on the move most of the month and just, well, felt like staying in and waking up without a hangover for one New Years Day. I have done that a time or two before, but that was because I would get up early and go skiing instead. This morning however, even though I stayed in, I could hardly wake up and fumbled around reading blogs and drinking coffee for a couple hours. But my day started to get a move on and I did a bunch of things around the house. I, we actually, have a lot of unpacking and organizing still left to do from moving (the last U-haul from Memphis was 12 Days ago) and also from December travels. The house was in quite a disarray not to mention the basement. So, I got a move on that today and plan on painting the 3rd floor apartment and finishing that up this weekend.
January 10th is Twelfth Night for us. The Krewe of Muses is having a big party and that's when I'll put out my Mardi Gras decorations. I am very excited about Mardi Gras I am a total freak about it if you couldn't tell already.
And I also am continuing work on my album which is really starting to shape up nicely. Lot's more to do on it and more songs, but it's coming and it will be the best of my efforts. As I had previously mentioned, my good friend Cody has been a huge rock for me during this process and really invaluable. Many people do not know what all he can do aside from amazing drumming for the Allstars, but they are about to find out really soon and they will be agape with awe! And that's no joke. My friend Winn has also been a great help in this process. He is a pro-tools engineering whiz and also a top musician whom I have been learning about in recent months as well. I think all three of us have been doing something outside-the-box this time around and it feels great!
Let's see...last night I was probably the only person voluntarily staying in instead of pAArtying. Why? Well, I just got home late the night before and have been on the move most of the month and just, well, felt like staying in and waking up without a hangover for one New Years Day. I have done that a time or two before, but that was because I would get up early and go skiing instead. This morning however, even though I stayed in, I could hardly wake up and fumbled around reading blogs and drinking coffee for a couple hours. But my day started to get a move on and I did a bunch of things around the house. I, we actually, have a lot of unpacking and organizing still left to do from moving (the last U-haul from Memphis was 12 Days ago) and also from December travels. The house was in quite a disarray not to mention the basement. So, I got a move on that today and plan on painting the 3rd floor apartment and finishing that up this weekend.
January 10th is Twelfth Night for us. The Krewe of Muses is having a big party and that's when I'll put out my Mardi Gras decorations. I am very excited about Mardi Gras I am a total freak about it if you couldn't tell already.
And I also am continuing work on my album which is really starting to shape up nicely. Lot's more to do on it and more songs, but it's coming and it will be the best of my efforts. As I had previously mentioned, my good friend Cody has been a huge rock for me during this process and really invaluable. Many people do not know what all he can do aside from amazing drumming for the Allstars, but they are about to find out really soon and they will be agape with awe! And that's no joke. My friend Winn has also been a great help in this process. He is a pro-tools engineering whiz and also a top musician whom I have been learning about in recent months as well. I think all three of us have been doing something outside-the-box this time around and it feels great!
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