Los Pablos on Tear Drop

A few years back I got hip to one of my favorite local releases from the 70s, a mysterious and heavy duty latin-funk rock platter by a group called Moonlyte who put out one excruciatingly rare LP and a few 7"s on the Astro label. Ever since I got totally into that one, I've been on the look-out for exciting local-press latin rock and psychedelia. Most of the time there is just a truly wild grungy party vibe to alot of this stuff, and it really puts me in a different place than my favorite starry-eyed white-boy dreamer records. What's hilarious about the 70s small-label latin rock scene is that some of the best titles are really only half an LP worth of killer shit. And that's not because of filler, but literally because the label probably needed to sell the record to more than just the local dope-heads, and in a music-industry tradition as old as the hills, the A-side is usually pleasant but dull cumbia or tejano music, and the flip some kind of back-room after-hours mind-scorch. It would seem given the best case scenarios this worked in a band's favor, at least as far as putting out an insane side of rock music after bottling up all that energy during your sets of sleepy Tejano waltzes. So it goes with this little beast from San Antonio! Los Pablos, self-titled debut came out on the Tear Drop label probably around 1970, but I know of little other information at all concerning the band. In typical manner for these types of LPs, there is no band member info on the back, the record label instead deciding to post part of their catalog there. The music, however, on the "party side" of this one is pure bliss for fans of unhinged late-nite ambience, alternating ripping Hendrix fuzz riffs / loud horns / over-the-top vocals / and that crucial cheesy organ sound that is like the glue that holds the whole thing together. I ripped it all as one track, because it basically is despite having 3 song titles listed on the back of the LP. Turn it up!