A Band From Austin and the Machinations of the Record Industry
By Will Seeley
I first heard about Los Lonely Boys as "the new thing out of Austin" and "Willie Nelson's favorite band." As both a died-in-the-wool Willie fan and a Tex-Mex fanatic, my eyes lit up. I went out right away to listen these three brothers who were creating such a storm. I thought that with the word "los" in their name that maybe they would have a certain Tejano flavor, something along the lines of what Los Lobos achieves in some of their songs.

What did I find? I'll give you three seconds to sense my overwhelming disappointment. Feel it? Say uncle! Time for another story: when I was in high school, I fancied myself a guitar player and my buddy said, "oh yeah?" and took me out to see Stevie Ray Vaughan at the Albuquerque Civic Center. It was a religious experience. I was like two feet away from the pre-sober SRV shortly after Couldn't Stand the Weather came out (yeah, I'm old, and Woodstock rocked too) and he sits down on the monitor and plays his fucking guts out. Cold sweat, is what I'm talking about.

And when you listen to Henry Garza play guitar, nothing comes to mind as much as Stevie Ray. The new Live in SF (at our own Fillmore) even features Double Trouble organist Reese Wynans, who acquits himself admirably. Like Django Rheinhardt, Stevie Ray's personality looms so hugely that it's almost impossible to want to emulate him without getting trapped. I actually think that Garza can really play, and may have a future, but he's gotta escape the SRV thing a little.

But what really tears me up about the Lonely Jovenes is that they have a live album at all. The Garza's have proven themselves to be amazingly willing pawns in the worst kind of record company machinations in our modern day. Let's analyze their road from obscurity to stardom, such as it is.

OK, bar band makes good. First album, a quality, solid album, if overshadowed by the ghost of Stevie, released nationally at a low price point (a so-called introductory price) by what I call a Farm Team, that is a distributor that pretends to be indie but is really a smaller scale operation owned by a big MAJOR Label. Whenever the Farm Team has an album that does moderately well, the MAJOR swoops in and takes it over, with their bigger marketing machine. So what happens? It's released again, on the MAJOR label, at a higher price. Then, just to make people buy it again, they release a deluxe edition, with a bonus DVD or some extra tracks. This is still the same album, mind you, and all within the time frame of a year.

The second release is forgivable, when you think that what it means is that suddenly the band is reaching into the Wal Marts of the world, actually probably really widening their audience. But the Deluxe Edition? Shouldn't that be reserved for London Calling? What that really is is a way for the Fat Cats to rub our noses in it a bit and gouge some extra money from the people who ALREADY BOUGHT the album. Profit without investment, people. And now, to spite us even further, we get a live album with ALL OF THE SAME SONGS.

It doesn't freaking matter if Los Lonely Boys is the greatest deadful band in the jam band world. If that's the deal, then do a live album but throw in some new repertoire, not a greatest hits from their ONE ALBUM (and "La Bamba". Yes, fucking "La Bamba." If you play guitar and speak Spanish do you have to play "La Bamba"? What about "Besame Mucho"? What about "Vaya Con Dios"? Show some imagination!). Didn't Erykah Badu do this one already, the live album with only one album's worth of material to work from? What's the deal with Macy Gray's Greatest Hits after only regular two CDs? Don't the Boys have some other songs built up over their bar career? Don't most local bands end up with at least two albums of material before they even do their first? BASTARDS!
So here's my advice, Hermanos Garza: get a spine. Lose the six string bass, for heaven's sake. If you play that instrument, you just really want to play guitar, so make up your mind. Play what you want to play, and if you don't want to play true Tex-Mex or even a tune once in a while, you don't have to, just cuz you're from Texas. But don't pander to you're A&R guy. He's making you look stupid. You went on tour with Los Lobos, well absorb some of those guys' integrity. There should be a law: no live album before you've got three studio albums' worth of songs in public availability, and no greatest hits packages unless you've actually got enough greatest hits to fill a CD.

And us peons? We should go on strike. Only buy an album once. To hell with the bonus tracks, the extra DVD footage, the remixing whatever. You can download that stuff. Don't give the Satanic Majesties the pleasure, make them work a little harder. And they all sit around and wonder why the industry's in the toilet.