Los Straitjackets

Interviewed at the 3-B Tavern
Fall 1995
 
Danny – Guitar
Scott – Bass
Jimmy – Drums
Eddie – Guitar
 
Sean: How has the tour been so far?
Danny: We’ve been on tour about 3 ˝ weeks now.
Jimmy: We started out in Atlanta.
Danny: Yeah, we did Atlanta, then a bunch of Florida dates. Next came Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Texas, and then…
Jimmy: We did the Hurricane Opal tour.
Danny: Yeah, Hurricane Opal followed us for a lot of the first half of the tour.
 
Sean: Did that cause any problems?
Danny: No, we thought it might but it didn’t.
 
Sean: How have the crowds been? Having never seen a show of yours on the East Coast, do the crowds react to your music differently over there?
Danny: We do particularly well on the coasts. We do really well in California and we’ve done really great in the Northeast too. New York, Boston, Philly, and D.C. are all really good cities for us.
 
Sean: I imagine coming up the West Coast is pretty good too.
Danny: Yeah, California’s been great.
 
Sean: When did you guys officially form the band?
Jimmy: Officially about six years ago, but we only played about five gigs.
Danny: Yeah, we started out as a three piece with Jimmy, Eddie, and I. I played bass. Then we reformed about a year and a half ago. We added our friend Scott on bass and became Los Straitjackets at that point.
 
Sean: Besides the album and the 45 that I have seen around here, do you have anything else available?
Danny: No, that’s all we have right now.
 
Sean: And you’ll be working on a new album in December.
Danny: Yes, we are. We are going to go back in the studio in December and work on a second album.
 
Sean: Will it be on the same label?
Danny: Yeah, Upstart.
 
Sean: Who thought of the name for the group?
Jimmy: Eddie had written a song called Straitjacket and we decided to call the band ‘The Straitjackets’. When we reformed six years later we called it Los Straitjackets because of the wrestling masks.
Danny: We were paying tribute to all of the early Mexican rock n’ roll bands, like Los Teentops and Los Rockin’ Devils.
 
Sean: Where and when was your first show?
Danny: As Los Straitjackets it was at Lucy’s Record Shop.
Jimmy: Opening for Man Or Astroman?
Scott: When was that?
Danny: It was July last year.
 
Sean: How do you do the songwriting? Do you just jam or does one person come to the band with an idea?
Danny: Generally one person will come to the band with an idea and we’ll work out the parts.
 
Sean: So you’ve been recording with Ben Vaughn in Nashville?
Danny: Yeah, he will be recording the second album.
Scott: Ben’s a good fellow. He just landed a…
Danny: He’s scoring a new television show on NBC with Jane Curtain and John Lithgow (Ed: Third Rock From The Sun).
Scott: He’s moved to L.A. and is really concentrating on film and soundtracks now. It seems to be going well for him.
Danny: He’s putting out a new album and he’s going to tour next year too.
 
Sean: Have you ever made a music video?
Danny: No, we haven’t yet but we hope to soon.
 
Sean: I’ve seen a Dick Dale video, but other than that I have never seen any videos for surf or instrumental music.
Danny: I haven’t seen any other than the Dick Dale one…
Scott: We’re seeking financiers. (laughs)
Danny: Yeah.
Scott: Hungry grad students with 50 grand to blow.
Danny: Do you want to pay for a video?
Sean: I wish I could. (laughs)
 
Sean: This is an obligatory question. Which groups do you listen to, surf or non-surf?
Danny: Surf or non-surf? Well, I’m pretty big into The Shadows. As far as new groups go…
Scott: Eddie’s way into Link Wray. Eddie is like Link Wray’s prodigal son. I tend to go for jazz guys. I like listening to Ellington, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker. I can’t play it, but I like to listen to it.
Danny: I like the Esquivel stuff too.
Scott: Yeah, all that L.A. soundtrack stuff.
Danny: That stuff’s cool too.
Scott: Spike Jones on. I personally listen to anything that’s interesting. It doesn’t take long to rule out stuff that’s not interesting.
Danny: We listen to all kinds of music.
Scott: Anything good. I think it was Miles Davis that said, "There are two kinds of music, good and bad." I listen to good.
 
Sean: Do you guys have a favorite cocktail?
Danny: I like the Sidecar.
 
Sean: How do you make that?
Danny: I’m not sure how it’s made, I just know I like them. If I find an older bartender I’ll get one.
Scott: It’s kind of a hip thing now. Combustible Edison is named after a drink. I had one of those once and it was terrible.
Danny: I’ve never had one, but I do like the Sidecar.
 
Sean: Maybe it would be in an old Trader Vic’s bartending guide.
Danny: It is. It used to be a standard drink.
 
Sean: What is your favorite Frank Sinatra song?
Danny: Witchcraft.
Scott: Something Stupid.
Danny: Actually his version of Downtown is amazing. It’s on the Strangers in the Night album.
Scott: I haven’t heard that yet.
Danny: It’s a really good one.
Scott: There’s one that really knocks me out. It’s on that collection of his where it’s just ‘doo-wop-boom-bang-bing-bong-boobie". It’s a collection of nonsensical words. Do you know that one? It’s one of the reissue CD’s that is just hilarious. If I had known you were going to ask that I would have memorized the title.
 
Sean: Didn’t he have an album where all of the sings had ‘zing’ in the title?
Scott: It’s something like that. It’s ‘zing-zang-wom-bam-don-juan-skadoodle-wop’ or something.
Danny: Yeah, I’d have to say his version of Downtown.
 
Sean: That must have been later; in the 60’s.
Danny: Capitol Records, yeah.
Scott: I just heard him sing All Of Me on the radio coming up here. That was a pretty good tune.
 
Sean: The following questions were sent to me from the Cowabunga internet group. It’s a group of surf enthusiasts…
Danny: I’ve heard of that.
Scott: Is it on AOL?
 
Sean: It’s a mailing list done through e-mail.
Scott: We have an e-mail address: losstraitj@aol.com. We encourage all surf enthusiasts to give us a jingle.
 
Sean: Shoman333 asks, "Does wearing a mask thwart their efforts to pick up on girls or does it hide their ugliness?"
Danny: All of the above.
Scott: Depends on where we are. In San Francisco a mask could be beneficial.
Danny: Yeah, but not necessarily in Iowa City.
Scott: Actually, I’d like to put an end to that whole myth. Maybe it’s just that we are ugly, but I think the days of picking up chicks are…they aren’t what they were.
Danny: They aren’t what they were in the 70’s.
Scott: It used to be that being in a band was a dead guarantee of getting laid, but it just doesn’t work that way anymore. For all of the girlfriends of musicians out there I’m here to testify that it just doesn’t happen like that anymore. I think musicians are like Class A risks right behind I.V. drug users and bisexuals, so I think those days are gone.
 
Sean: His second question is, "Are they really country cats out for a quick kick?"
Danny: No, we’re not country guys.
Scott: No, it’s plain and simple.
 
Sean: His final question is, "Who did your pseudo Aztec calendar album graphic?"
Danny: Brad Talbott. He’s a good friend of ours, a great artist who lives in Nashville. He came up with the idea and we were thrilled when we saw it.
 
Sean: This question is from Colin Hartridge. He asks, "What’s with the masks?"
Danny: They look cool.
 
Sean: This one’s from John Blair. He says, "Tell Danny & Eddie I said ‘hi’."
Danny: (To Eddie, who has just joined us) These are all questions from the internet.
 
Sean: He wanted me to ask you why you thought instrumental rock is so popular these days.
Danny: Because it’s time for it to come back again. It’s never gone away. It’s just time for it to get popular again.
Scott: I think Pulp Fiction has something to do with it.
Danny: Pulp Fiction helped, but it was coming anyway.
 
Sean: I remember Dick Dale played here at Western Washington University a couple of years ago, before Pulp Fiction came out, and the show still sold out. People still knew who he was.
Danny: Dick Dale doing a comeback helped a lot.
Jimmy: Dick Dale being on Beavis & Butthead helped a lot.
Danny: Yeah.
 
Sean: John also mentioned your previous band called The Raybeats…
Danny: Yeah?
Sean: What was being in that band like in comparison to this band?
Danny: This band is a lot more fun and this band is a lot more rock n’ roll. This band works harder. I’m playing with much better musicians than I did then.
 
Sean: He also asks about a song called Pink Dominoes.
Eddie: A record collecting friend of mine of mine in Nashville played me a copy of it. We were actually doing it six years ago.
Danny: In the original Straitjackets. We also do Carhop, which is a cover.
Jimmy: We’ll do covers that are cool.
Danny: Pink Dominoes is a great song that seems to have gone by without anybody noticing it, which is a shame because it’s a great song.
Scott: It’s fun to play.
 
Sean: This one is from a guy in a band called The Penetrators from Tuscaloosa.
Danny: Oh yeah, I saw those guys. They were good.
 
Sean: He was wondering when you were going to play with them.
Danny: Call our agent! (laughs)
Jimmy: We like to say "work together".
Danny: As opposed to "play with".
 
Sean: This is the last question, which is directed towards Eddie. His e-mail name is Tawsurf. He asked about Blelvis (the black Elvis impersonator) and Ray Wallace.
Eddie: Well, Blelvis claims to know the lyrics to every Elvis song ever written, and I think he does.
Danny: He’s that guy in D.C.
Eddie: But Ray Wallace is a good friend of mine. He lives in Denver now. He’s kind of a protégé and he’s done a video with Blelvis and Ray knows about every Bob Dylan song ever written. So there’s a combination!
Jimmy: Is he doing interpretive dancing with Blelvis?
Danny: Ray Wallace is just an all-around really cool guy.
 
Sean: So people go to Blelvis shows and try to stump him?
Eddie: I don’t know if he’s doing shows, but he did a public access TV show and the guy was trying to stump him and he couldn’t. He’s done all of these songs like Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce and Clambake. But the black Elvis, there’s a man without a country. His favorite period was the 70’s.
 
For More information, Write To:
Los Straitjackets
c/o Upstart Records
P.O. Box 44-1418
W. Somerville, MA 02144

Or go to their website at: http://www.nashville.net/~lstraitj

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