Album Notes

"These tapes caused the buzz for Carrasco and his band that brought him from cult status in Texas to playing sold-out New York City club dates and recording contracts with Stiff, MCA, Hannibal, Rounder, Big Beat & New Rose." -Music Maker UK
Following in the tradition of Question Mark and the Mysterians, Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs, the Sir Douglas Quintet (Doug Sahm and Augie Meyers), Carrasco and his Crowns emerged from playing seedy Texas Chicano barrooms and two-bit saloons, where gringos were decidedly unwelcome, to the international limelight as a Nuevo Wave Tex-Mex farfisa driven punk band in the early '80's, touring the U.S.A., Canada and Europe.

Secretly championed by a group of powerful in-cahoots music critics including Bob Christgau, Billy Altman, Lester Bangs, Joe Nick Patoski, Ed Ward and John Morthland, a mystique was hyped about this weird Tex-Mex "King" Carrasco (named by his Chicano friends after a Mexican dope dealer who was killed escaping jail) and his band the Crowns, who at best were a Texas bar band with Norteno roots influenced by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the 60's Texas garage bands, flavored with wild yelping, mariachi, doo-wop, rockabilly, polka - a honky tonk barrio band with the worlds' cheesiest farfisa sound imaginable.

These tapes recorded in a basement in Austin, Texas in November 1979, circulated among the hip critics of the era and repeatedly kept appearing in Bob Christgau's Village Voice 'Pazz and Jop' Top 10 report for weeks on end. When the band made it to NYC they caused an uproar and a launch pad for a major success that never quite materialized.

Here's What The Press Had To Say About Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns and "Tales From The Crypt" (The Underground Basement Tapes):

"In trendy New York City where "odd" is in, the New Wave audience has embraced the clown prince of West Texas Rock with the same sort of fervor that greeted the thrift -store schlock of the B-52's a couple of years ago. Execs of Great Britain's Stiff Records, one of the labels that pioneered Punk and New Wave, had much the same reaction, signing the 27 year old unknown and his band to a recording contract." - Atlanta Constitution

"Their sets have a wild spontaneity that can turn any urban dive into a festive Cantina with their peppery Tex-Mex garage rock. Border town contagious." - High Fidelity

""Nuevo Wavo" blends garage rock, Chicano Polka, speedy good times music." - Rolling Stone

"Genuine Punk Tex-Mex. The Ramones of the Southwest."
- Goldmine

"New Wave adolescent new wave revved up punk. A marvelous set of demos from 1979 with embyryonic (read: Raw & Exciting) versions of many of Carrasco's best tunes. Boundless spirit and infectious fun." - Trouser Press

"Deep from the heart of Tex-Mex comes these early nuggets by His Royal Weirdness and his first serious edition of The Crowns cut in '79 in the basement of an Austin Texas radio station. Saucy dance music! What gems- no nonsense torpedoes with Carnival Kris Cummings' Farfisa organ (she studied with Professor Longhair & Huey Piano Smith). The wonder of the tape is the undiluted Tex-Mex essence of Carrasco's sound. Carrasco has never done it this hard. Down and Dirty." - David Fricke (Melody Maker)

"There's no doubt this sound is what the fuss is all about! The circumstances of professional recording have done this fellow no good at all - Ultimate Jalapeno Pepper."
-Fortnightly College Reporter

"Texas - The temperature is Rising. Rock Espanol has enjoyed a resurgence. The movement is beginning to thrive." - Billboard