Nearly every story you'll read about the chingòn group Los Lobos treads a familiar trajectory—from the back yards of East Los Angeles to their 1987 smash La Bamba soundtrack to critically praised, commercially rejected albums during the 1990s to their current status as still-vital mentors to a new generation of Chicano musicians, roots-music aficionados and anyone with a brain. And you'll have a unique opportunity to delve into that history this Saturday, when group members Louie Perez and David Hidalgo offer an acoustic overview of their band's history and take questions from the audience. It's their only scheduled Southern California appearance for this intimate setup, so go.
But this Los Lobos feature is different. One of the best-kept open secrets about the pride of East LA is that Perez is a longtime Orange County resident—he moved to Laguna Niguel in 1992, switched over to Laguna Beach two years later, and has lived in “a little ranchito” in Yorba Linda for the past five years. Now, he's convinced Hidalgo to cross into our netherworld.
“He lives, like, a block away,” says Perez. “David's wife and mine grew up together since grammar school. David and I grew up since the 10th grade. It's difficult to separate us!”
It's destiny that the two now live in the land of Nixon-and not for fraternal reasons. Not far from their houses is the corner of La Palma Avenue and Imperial Highway in Anaheim Hills. Around here once stood a Mexican restaurant named Las Lomas, where Los Lobos got the boot they needed, according to Perez, to grow out of their Eastlos enclave and join the world.
In 1978, the young Lobos had just released their first album, Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles/Just Another Band from East L.A., a wondrous collection of Latin American musical standards. The group was looking to start recording new, original material and leave behind the clichéd tunes audiences expected any non-punk Latino outfit to play. But bills piled up, so they grudgingly accepted a job as the house band at Las Lomas three nights per week.
“We'd meet at Conrad's place in San Gabriel and load up the van,” Perez says, referring to Conrad Lozano, Los Lobos' bassist. “We had to make this huge trek into a rural place. Anaheim Hills was just getting developed. Near Las Lomas, there was a strip mall with a Knowlwood [burger restaurant], but that was about it. Going down Imperial was nothing. Almost everything was nothing but pinche fields. When I was a kid in Eastlos, Gage [Avenue] was the end of the pinche world. Going all the way out there to Orange County taught us there was more.”
At Las Lomas, Los Lobos played the usual folkloric stuff—mariachi, boleros, gentle music to please the mostly gabacho clientele. As the group became more familiar to patrons, though, they began to sneak in originals and “goof around,” Perez recalls. “We brought in electric stuff and just jammed. The customers had a ball.” Their audience followed them to gigs at Tlaquepaque, the iconic Placentia restaurant that recently burned down.
Only one person didn't enjoy their experimentation: Las Lomas' owner. “Every time we played there, we always saw the jefa at the end of the bar with this look on her face that said, 'If it wasn't for the fact that these people liked this music, I'd get that group the hell out of here,'” Perez says with a laugh. Eventually, Los Lobos went too far: They played the Troggs' “Wild Thing” too loud, “and we got canned.” That was in 1980.
After that, Los Lobos “ended up in the garage again.” Soon after, they opened for the Blasters at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go in a much-mythologized performance that brought widespread attention to the group. Los Lobos never looked back on their Las Lomas days, and Perez wouldn't regularly return to Orange County until moving here.
Perez has enjoyed his 16 years in Orange County, and he has experienced all of its insanity, from immaculate Laguna Niguel (“They must have elves who come out at night with toothbrushes or something”) to Laguna Beach gentrification (“The billionaires are moving out the millionaires”) to SanTana (“I just about expected chickens to come crossing the street”). And since this is an Orange County-centric piece, we'll end it with Louie's restaurant picks: Thai Brothers in Laguna Beach, Irvine's Wheel of Life and El Farolito in Placentia. But don't bother with any restaurants in Yorba Linda, Perez says: “Food-wise, it's a wasteland.”
See more Perez quotes about Orange County at our music blog, Heard Mentality.
David Hidalgo and Louie Perez perform at the Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Dr., Irvine, (949) 854-4646; www.thebarclay.org. Sat., 8 p.m. $33-$38. All ages.
