Hacienda – Big Red and Barbacoa
Monday, May 17, 2010
On their second album, Big Red and Barbacoa, Hacienda pick up on the vibrations sent out by their West Side San Antonio predecessors The Sir Douglas Quintet. Like the SDQ, Hacienda combine rock, blues, country, Tex-Mex (shorthand here for a whole lot of border idioms), Cajun, and a host of other musical ingredients. It’s a delightful stew that producer Dan Auerbach from the Black Keys captures perfectly.
Hacienda pushes all kinds of rock n’roll buttons. The Everly Brother’s influence is felt in the Villanueva Brothers’ close, fraternal harmonies on “Who’s Heart Are You Breaking,” but the band’s instrumental punch is closer to a cross between Los Lobos and T.Rex. “I Keep Waiting” sounds like the Flamin’ Groovies finishing up a Brian Wilson track from a late Sixties Beach Boys session. “Hound Dog” sustains the Wilson Brothers/Hawthorne surf vibe, sounding nothing like its Big Mama Thornton namesake.
“You’re My Girl” takes an Everlys song and fattens it up with Rockpile vintage guitar sound and arrangement, as well as some Dave “Baby “ Cortez Hammond organ grooves. “Mama’s Cookin’” reels and rocks like a Cajun Little Richard negotiating an outtake from The Basement Tapes.
Guitarist Dante Schwebel is a master of the sort of rockabilly, Carl Perkins-style twang that George Harrison specialized in, “As You Like It” mixes the Carl/George picking with the honkin’ sound of Hubert Sumlin. Hacienda use fat, distorted guitar sounds that connect Fifties rock and contemporary sounds and remind us that in terms of guitar sounds Sumlin (Howlin’ Wolf) and Jimmy Rogers (Muddy Waters Band) pretty much invented the dirty guitar sounds that everyone from John Fogerty to Johnny Thunders has expanded upon.
“Big Red” and “Barbacoa”, the two instrumentals for which the album is named, honor a favorite beverage and the delicious slow-cooked (pick a meat, any meat) tortilla filler. “Big Red” is an instrumental that unites the Tennessee Two and NRBQ. “Barbacoa” simmers with a rolling groove that’s equal parts Fats Domino and Billy Swann. These Booker T. and the M.G.’s conscious instrumentals are the kind of workouts that help extend sets on hot, sweaty Saturday nights, something I ‘m sure Hacienda know a little something about.
Big Red and Barbacoa is elemental stuff — songs about good love, good love gone bad, good living, and hard times. It’s musical comfort food with more than a touch of spice.
Reverberating: 8.2
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