Joe ‘King’ Carrasco brings his Tex-Mex celebration vibes to Ukraine for tour, fundraising efforts 

Joe “King” Carrasco, identified for a sound that fused party-ready Tex-Mex with storage rock and new wave, has ridden a wild 50-year profession. 

The Texas-bred singer-songwriter leveraged a recording with San Antonio musical legends on the metropolis’s now-defunct Zaz Studios into rock ’n’ roll cult standing, changing into a scorching touring commodity and singing a duet with Michael Jackson. He even appeared in a number of motion pictures and TV reveals and relocated to Nicaragua at one level to dwell with the Sandinistas.  

However his most up-to-date endeavor could be his most spectacular — and dangerous — but. 

Carrasco staged a rock ’n’ roll tour throughout war-torn Ukraine final 12 months, elevating cash for emergency automobiles within the wake of the nation’s devastating invasion by Russian forces. The life-or-death scenario lent an depth to the reveals, he instructed the Present. 

“Ukraine is like Texas, man,” Carrasco stated. “It’s like Austin again in 1980 at Membership Foot. It’s loopy but it surely’s enjoyable. Enjoying there may be a lot enjoyable, as a result of they want it. They’re excited and so they’re not jaded.”

Along with Hartewick Circus, a gaggle of 20-something rockers from the UK, Carrasco embarked his Ukrainian tour final June, changing into the primary international rock band to do highway dates there for the reason that Russians invaded in early 2022. 

By night time, the entourage packed in eight dates at golf equipment in L’viv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Ternopil’, Vinnytsia, and Kyiv. Throughout the day, they performed in hospitals and faculties.

“We would like folks to remember World Battle III is right here,” Carrasco stated. “The Ukrainians, they’re defending Europe. The Russians are evil, man. I’ve seen what they’ve completed — been to the cemeteries, been to the funerals.”

Main publications in Europe have written about Carrasco’s tour, together with an in depth characteristic in The Guardian, however again residence, it’s largely been greeted with radio silence. Largely, Ukraine’s wrestle has been pushed out of the headlines by the struggle in Gaza, ICE raids and President Trump’s more and more outlandish antics.

Whereas again in Texas, Carrasco continued elevating funds for extra automobiles. Since Russian drones have repeatedly focused emergency automobiles, he’s serving to the nation purchase mini-vans much less prone to set off a Russian assault. His tour and fundraising additionally helped elevate cash to help homeless and injured canines — one other of Carrasco’s passions. 

“Our aim is to boost cash to purchase automobiles for the entrance, automobiles to take the wounded again to the medics,” Carrasco stated. “Every automotive saves 40 lives. Final tour, we introduced two automobiles, so we saved 80 lives.”

‘I am going the place the power is’

Past the feeling of doing good, Carrasco was buoyed by the keenness of the crowds.

“It’s largely ladies as a result of the lads are out on the entrance,” he stated. “The primary present, you knew you have been in a struggle zone, as a result of in the course of the present, a man auctioned off a 50-caliber machine gun belt, like Pancho Villa. You’re enjoying and the place is intense, however the persons are dancing.”

Ukrainians are decided to celebration like there’s no tomorrow, Carrasco stated, as a result of they know there won’t be. Tex-Mex music additionally was fairly the novelty in a Ukrainian struggle zone.

“Like tequila in Mexico, they drink lots of vodka,” he added.

Naturally, touring was tough in a struggle zone. 

For one, Carrasco and the band had to make use of burner telephones, since Russian intelligence can hint regular cell indicators and use them to focus on bombs to the realm the communication is coming from.

In a world of cynical advertising and marketing and phony rise up, it’s heartening to see a musician truly threat their life to make a distinction. It’s about as punk rock because it will get.

“It’s a circuit, 10 or 15 locations to play — a tour!” Carrasco stated. “Of us are dancing, and it’s good to see that power. I’m not getting it right here. It’s extra subdued. Over there, it’s like again to the ’80s — it’s extra intense. … I am going the place the power is.”

San Antonio Connection

Like a lot in Carrasco’s life, the Ukraine tour occurred as a result of he was keen to observe the power — wherever it led. That very same go-with-the-flow method landed Carrasco at Zaz Studios on West Commerce Road in 1976 to document with the crème de la crème of San Antonio musicians.

Born Joe Teutsch within the tiny city of Dumas, Carrasco moved to San Francisco as a teen, then returned to Texas, nonetheless attempting to dial in his sound as a musician and songwriter. Then, in 1973, after catching San Antonio icon Doug Sahm carry out at Austin’s Cleaning soap Creek Saloon, Carrasco discovered his musical North Star.

Like Sahm, Carrasco was exploring a high-energy coupling of Tex-Mex with rock ’n’ roll.

“Doug was the good factor that ever walked into Austin,” Carrasco recalled. “There was both the Willie Nelson factor or the Rusty Weir factor, however Doug Sahm had soul. That cool San Antonio factor. That’s the place I used to be at, as a result of I used to be enjoying Tex-Mex.”

Carrasco was performing with Shorty y Los Corvettes on the time — Tejano icons in their very own proper — however he was seeking to strike on his personal. After teaming up with the late Speedy Sparks, Carrasco linked with a cadre of San Antonio musicians, together with the drummers Richard “Eh Eh” Elizondo and Ernie Durawa.   

Each Sparks and Durawa later went on to carry out as backing musicians for the Texas Tornados, the supergroup that included Sahm. 

“Richard was the striptease drummer of San Antonio,” Carrasco stated. “He was the Penguin — he had 4 fingers, and he’d say, ‘Gimme 4.’ And Ernie, properly, he was a professional, like a rock ’n’ roll professional. And hastily, it was an actual band.”

At Durawa’s urging, Carrasco booked a recording date at Zaz. On the time, the studio provided a particular deal: $250 to document a single and press the vinyl on a machine within the storage.

“There was a storage with a mud ground,” Carrasco stated. “All these pressers making albums, 20 or 30 of ’em, on this dust ground … . I’d by no means seen how a document was made.”  

After convening at Zaz and rehearsing at close by Chano’s Dugout Restaurant, Elizondo and Durawa started calling in the very best SA gamers, together with Augie Meyers, Charlie McBurney and Rocky Morales.

“It took 27 circumstances of beer, lots of weed and people guys have been consuming bennies, you understand, benzedrine,” Carrasco stated. “And we had a single!” 

At Elizondo’s urging, Carrasco named the band El Molino — and a legend was was born.  

The album would go on to grow to be a necessary doc of San Antonio’s West Aspect Sound.  Meyers put out the discharge by his Texas Re-Wire label, and it got here out on Large Beat/Chiswick in England. Elvis Costello was an early supporter.

“They launched it, and Elvis Costello had a radio present and began enjoying it,” Carrasco stated.  “He was beginning to get huge, in order that’s how I bought on the radar.”

If El Molino put Carrasco on the radar, it was his subsequent band — Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns — that put him by the stratosphere — no less than for some time. The band had a shock hit with the music “Occasion Weekend,” and subsequent got here MTV movies, a serious label document deal, worldwide touring and a long time of Tex-Mex rock ’n’ roll.  

Carrasco might not be packing the identical venues he used to, however he’s nonetheless cranking out the Tex-Mex sound he’d captured so way back on West Commerce Road.

Life-or-death depth

Quick–ahead practically 50 years, and Carrasco, now in his early 70s, nonetheless thrives on an power that’s pure rock ’n’ roll. Partly, he’s getting it by enjoying adjoining to Ukrainian battlefields. The life-or-death depth is exhilarating.   

“I don’t do that to get wealthy or be a pop star,” Carrasco stated. “I gave up on that. That’s what we’re doing: saving canines and saving lives in Ukraine. Preventing Russians.  It’s unusual — one thing I by no means thought I’d do. However I’ve seen what the Russians do. Each night time at 9 o’clock, the entire nation has a second of silence. And each morning a funeral. So intense.”

Carrasco additionally maintains an depth exterior his affinity for Ukraine. He maintains a busy touring schedule with frequent stops throughout Texas, France and Mexico. He could have fallen off the nationwide radar, however his music remains to be important and vibrant — a blast of puro SA garage-rock power.  

The performer additionally launched a lately unearthed recording of his band at its final peak: Danceteria Deluxe, a snapshot captured in New York Metropolis in 1980. It’s a timeless doc of pure celebration music, serving up an intoxicating mixture of early B-52s, the Sir Douglas Quintet and ? and the Mysterians.

As of his final correspondence with the Present, Carrasco was holed up within the mountains above Puerto Vallarta, the place he owns a bar. The current cartel violence left him with out electrical energy, he defined in a textual content message:  

“Hey Invoice-been kinda loopy spherical right here in Jalisco 😬😬 — 🙏🙏 no electrical energy yesterday — no web — bridges blocked-burnin oxoxo shops — complete lockdown in all places — folks staying inside no site visitors — we’re staying within the mountains — preserving our heads down🙏🙏🌵 — for now🙏🙏🙏🙏 — will preserve u posted🙏🙏” 

Extra proof that for all his dedication to good instances, Carrasco stays a fearless rock ’n’ roll legend.

These wishing to donate to Carrasco’s marketing campaign to purchase emergency automobiles for Ukraine can achieve this at missionaidforukraine.co.uk or at considered one of his reveals.

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