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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 1987)
"Bandido Rock" Joe King Carrasco y las Coronas Rounder Records **** Ever since Joe Carrasco has been recording, his love for hispanic rhythms has been obvious. He always incorporated them into a few songs on each album, but seemed to be drifting away from that on “Party Weekend, ” his last LP before “Bandido Rock. ” This latest album reverses that trend and explores the roots of popular hispanic music with marvelous results. Carrasco has been playing his own version of Tex-Mex music for several years, and came close to being a national sensation with “Synapse Gap,” his first major label release, largely due to video play on MTV. After “Party Weekend” however, Carrasco stopped working with major record labels. He is now recording for Rounder, which is a respectable but smaller company. Music from south of the border has been making a return to the United States due to the popularity of the “La Bamba” remake, but the path was paved back in 1983 when Los Lobos released “... And a Time to Dance” on Slash records. This EP accomplished the seemingly impossible by turning several American pop music fans on to hispanic polka music. With his new album Carrasco is doing his best to continue the fusing of American rock V roll and Latino music. Joe “King” Carrasco and his band Las Coronas will be performing at Texas A&M’s DeWare Field House Friday, Sept. 18 at 8:30 p.m. The first song on “Bandido Rock” is “Juarez and Zapata, ” a song that recalls Carrasco’s earlier album “Synapse Gap. ” That is followed by “Pachuco Hop, ” an energetic Latin American polka. Here and on many other songs the accordian is used to help create fun dance songs. The following three songs on side one, “Bandido Rock, ” “Arriba Sandino” and “Hey Gringo” are upbeat numbers that stir images of the Old West below El Paso. “Banana,” an ode to the popular fruit, begins side two. The next song is “Chicano Town,” another splendid polka. “Dame tu Nook Nook” is a humorous song about love and lust. “Kry Tuff” is the one slow song on the album that shows how the accordian can be used to create a romantic and sentimental mood. “Fuera Yanqui,”the final cut, demonstrates how Carrasco feels about the United States interfering in Latin and South American affairs. Carrasco has been able to create great dance songs since his pop music career started and this album is no exception. Another thing he has had from the start is a devoted and sometimes fanatical following in Texas. For some reason, however, the rest of the United States has not yet caught on to the beat of the King. That is their loss. —Review by Tom Reinarts "Freedom" Little Steven Capitol Records NEW YORK (AP) —After raising money, consciousness and some hackles with the anti apartheid “Sun City” project, Little Steven Van Zandt is back pointing his finger at governments and politicians around the world. This time, the opinionated songwriter’s finger is directed at Washington as well as Pretoria, El Salvador and Guatemala City. “There are three main themes: the South African theme, Latin American exploitation and Native American genocide,” Van Zandt said of his third solo LP, “Freedom, No Compromise.” “I began to just generally study foreign policy, and everything starts to connect with everything else,” he said in explaining the album’s evolution. “But 1 found out the worst example of foreign policy was on our own soil.” And so Van Zandt attacks both the Botha regime’s treatment of blacks and the Reagan administration’s American Indian policy on the album, which was initially written and ready to record in 1984. He instead delayed his album, recruited performers from rappers Run-DMC to trumpeter Miles Davis to long time pal Bruce Springsteen, recorded “Sun City” and released the politically charged single in 1985. “We accomplished two main things (with ‘Sun City’). First of all, we stopped all international entertainers from going down there, which was good,” he said. “And the main thing probably was the basic politicization of people, of letting people know we’re responsible for this government.... Our economic relationship keeps them alive.” Van Zandt examines the South African situation again on the new album, while mixing in songs condemning political organizations (“No MorePartys”) and encouraging the listener to take a stand against government immorality (‘ ‘Freedom’ ’). It’s hardly the usual music business fare, but Van Zandt has skirted the mainstream throughout his career as guitarist, producer and solo performer. Bom in Massachusetts but raised in New Jersey, he became involved in the Asbury Park music scene, hanging out with fellow shore musicians Springsteen and Southside Johnny Lyon at such after- hours clubs as the Upstage. After producing and playing on the first three albums for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes in the mid- 1970s, Van Zandt joined Springsteen’s E Street Band as its rhythm guitarist, co producing the million-selling albums “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “The River” and “Bom in the USA.” But as Springsteen climbed the charts, packing stadiums around the world, Van Zandt stepped out to produce his solo albums — intensely personal statements on the world situation and America’s role in it. “The whole point of what I’m doing, the whole point of the career really, was to write from an international perspective,” he said. “To write about not specifically America, although America comes up a lot because it has the most impact around the world, but what happens when a country leaves its borders.”