![]() ![]() "We just try to keep pulling rabbits out of our hat," Angel says.American homicide and suicide at age 17. And as usual, fans can look forward to more cross-cultural musical adventures. ![]() The 'Jackets have more musical makeovers in mind for the future, including a kids record and a Halloween record, as well as a three-day guitar camp up in the Catskill Mountains in August. If you have a background in blues, you can play rockabilly, rock 'n' roll – any kind of music." ![]() "To me, it's all really rooted in blues guitar music. "I can see how on paper it looks kind of weird," says Angel of the band's merger of surf and rockabilly. Los Straitjackets have proven over time that their sound meshes well with a variety of genres, even earning them a Grammy nomination for '03's Rock 'n' Roll City, a blues collaboration with Eddy "The Chief" Clearwater. "Man, people probably feel like we're like Mexican or something," he says, laughing.īut fans and critics have no problem with the band's ethnicity. With the masks (and Amis now introducing all the tunes in Spanish on their live shows and a new collection of classic rock done entirely in Spanish), Angel worries they might have gone a bit too native. Williams' high, clear tenor comes in handy on tonsil-straining tunes such as Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" and a twitchy, upper-register rendition of the Coaster's "Poison Ivy" ("La Hiedra Venenosa") from the 'Jackets' latest, Rock en Español Vol. Horton Heat, X's Exene Cervenka and current touring vocalist Robert "Big Sandy" Williams of Big Sandy and the Fly Rite Boys have snuck in from the band's inception. "I had a kid in 1996 and I don't remember the first five years of his childhood."Īlthough billed as an all-instrumental band, guest vocalists including Allison Moorer, the Rev. "We hit the road, man, and never looked back," Angel says. "So we just wore the masks, and the timing was right."īut it took a lot of roadwork to keep Los Straitjackets in the public eye. ![]() Pulp Fiction came out, and all of a sudden surf music was really cool," Angel remembers. They wanted to call the band Los something, because they thought Mexican band names such as Los Teen Tops sounded funny and cool. Angel says the Mexican bands had a punk energy, and American rock 'n' roll such as Little Richard's "Good Golly Miss Molly" sounded even cooler when sung in Spanish. To go with the masks, the band incorporated its love for '60s Mexican rock 'n' roll. "'What would happen if we wore these, thinking people are used to watching singers, so after about 30 minutes they're gonna be bored with us, so we might want to do something to keep their attention.'" He had even brought back boxes of the masks from his visits to the Mexico City matches. Meanwhile, Amis developed a fascination with the Mexican wrestling culture Lucha Libre, featuring grapplers who wore full face masks. They gave it up after six months, cranking it back up in '94 just as something to have fun with. "Everybody liked it, but it wasn't going anywhere," Angel said recently by phone from his Nashville home. The duo started an instrumental band called the Straitjackets, named after Angel's tune "Straitjacket." It all started around '89 in Nashville when surf-guitar aficionado Danny Amis – who says the Ventures are the reason he plays guitar – teamed up with rockabilly twanger Eddie Angel, who toured with Ronnie Dawson and rockabilly legend Link Wray. But for Los Straitjackets, it's a necessary preparation for their nightly excursions flying into airspace other groups won't go near. It's not the preflight check most bands do before going on stage. ![]()
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