From the ACL Taping Program on September 26, 2005:
Blues Traveler hit the national spotlight when the song “Run Around” from their fourth CD became a hit. The band earned a Grammy, extensive critical praise and a large fanbase. With a near constant cycle of releasing a CD and touring over the past 15 years, Blues Traveler has cultivated a unique sound highlighted by extended jams, harmonica hooks and John Popper’s distinctive voice.
After eight albums, six gold or platinum plaques and sales of over 10 million discs, Blues Traveler return to their early routes to make an album on their own terms. Recorded in Austin earlier this year with the help of Jay Bennett (formerly of Wilco) as producer,
¡Bastardos! shows the band’s diverse influences and love of music.
“This is just us being completely ourselves, and not thinking about what we should be doing,” guitarist Chan Kinchla said. “Before we made this record, we decided, ‘Let’s just make records that we love and regardless of how they do commercially, at least we love ’em and they’re all ours.’ ... It’s an album where we’re not worrying about what everybody else is thinking about us, where we’re just trying to be true to ourselves. But it would be kind of fun to be seen as those bastards that just did what they wanted.”
From the ACL Taping Program on June 7, 2005:
Since the late ’80s Cafe Tacuba has been building an international fan base through their innovative and multi-award winning experimentation with music.
The Mexico City quartet helped shape the country’s rock scene. When they released their first CD in 1992 the band already had a rather large cult following and became the fastest selling artists in the history of Mexican rock. Their third release, 1999’s
Reves/Yo Soy, took home the Album of the Year award at the first Latin Grammys. Cafe Tacuba’s unique sound has made them popular in countries across the globe. As the “vanguard of Latin rock and pop” (Rolling Stone), they have worked with the Kronos Quartet for the Grammy-nominated
Nuevo and have been heard on the soundtracks for the films Amores Perros and Y Tu Mama Tambien.
Rolling Stone wrote “They’re consistently unconventional in everything from their compositions to their album artwork and packaging, and they appear poised to cross over to an American audience while still singing in Spanish.”
Their most recent release,
Cuatro Camino, is considered the band’s most lush work and received the 2003 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album. Pitchfork called the release one of “the rare albums on which a fantastically popular group with a firm grasp of their direction and sound is able to produce some of their most memorable and mesmerizing songs without sacrificing any of their experimentation and audacity.”
