NASHVILLE, TN. (Top40 Charts/ Western Publicity) From the mountains of Mexico to the Mississippi delta to the garages of 1960s
America to the Hollywood silent film studios of yore, The Copper Gamins cover some major musical ground with just guitar, drums and vocals (and the occasional less-than-fully-strung mandolin). With a sound that ramps up primitivism into a modernist atomic blast, they play what The Big Takeover hails as "raw cacophonic trash rock with wild child naiveté" with "dirty, unrepentant 'bash the blues to hell' delinquency." They've announced their new album Los Niños de Cobre, out March 19th on San Antonio's Saustex Records. They have a passel of shows in San Antonio and Austin to celebrate.
It's just what comes naturally to singer, guitarist and songwriter José Carmen and drummer Claus Lafania. The result is "a kinetic ball of lo-fi goodness," as Rank and Revue described their 2012 debut EP on Saustex Media. Now with their 17-song strong first full album, Los Niños de Cobre, the duo splash their south of the border hot sauce onto the American roots'n'rock gumbo and offer up organic, visionary music.
The Copper Gamins glean inspiration from a spectrum of sources, be it the Disney movie "Snow White and the
Seven Dwarves" (the slow mesmeric blues "Hold My Name"), Oscar Wilde (the passionate anarchic love song "Nightingale"), the logical nonsense of Lewis Carroll and Latin American literary magical realism (the simmering stop/start trickster's tale "Silver Monkey") or the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema ("Angelitos Negros," a classic originally sung by screen idol Pedro Infante in the 1948 movie of the same name). And of Carmen's avatar, Charlie Chaplin, and their shared gamin muse, doe-eyed actress Paulette Goddard.
Or as Rank and Revue observes of these musical naturalists, "they hail a musical style as roots to
America as you can get. But like very few before them, they put a nice twist on the genre." Reared in the nearby Central Mexican towns of Metepec (Carmen) and Zinacantepec (Lafania), the two high school friends started playing music in teen bands that covered Latin and English-language pop songs - Carmen then on drums and Lafania on guitar - but after graduation went off in search of something truer to their souls.
Daunted at securing gigs at Mexico, they headed north to
Texas and barnstormed music clubs in San Antonio and Austin. The San Antonio Current was duly impressed by one gig, declaring the twosome "one of the most explosive, groovy openers of any show I've seen this year. His thing is to deconstruct the blues into a rhythmic mass that, when it's actually finished, works like a cannon." They also caught the ear of Saustex major domo Jeff Smith, who offered to release the band's recordings in the U.S.
Recorded like the EP on minimal analog gear, Los Niños de Cobre is a tribute to the fertile artistic creativity that comes from such limited technical options. By coincidence their line-up mirrors that of such successful guitar/drum duos as The
White Stripes and The
Black Keys, but at the same time reminds more of artists like instrumental rock guitar pioneer Link Wray, garage rock cult heroes The Sonics, punk-blues visionaries The Gun Club and fellow twosome Flat Duo Jets. And in the end, they've fashioned a singular sound that is like no one else but themselves.
"It's hard to describe," admits Carmen of their style. "It has some punk elements, some garage rock things, some folk. But mostly what we just try to sound like is just blues. I mainly create songs that I think would make Paulette Goddard, if she were alive, want to be my wife." And even though the sweetness and naiveté underneath it all is matched by raw and raucous dynamic tensions that create what the San Antonio Current calls "spectacular high points," the aim of The Copper Gamins is to fashion the musical equivalent of a Chaplin silent film: Something "really simple and really beautiful."
THE COPPER GAMINS LIVE:
Friday March 1st 8pm - Beethoven Maennerchor opening for Los # 3 Dinners.
All ages, $2 cover.
422 Pereida St San Antonio, TX 78210 ph. 210.222.1521 beethovenmaennerchor.com
Saturday March 2nd 7pm - Live on KSYM-FM w/ Brian Parrish "Casbah Radio"
Tuesday March 5th 9pm - The Blue Box (at The
Pearl Brewery) with Apache '65.
21 +, No cover.
312
Pearl Parkway San Antonio, TX 78215 www.blueboxatpearl.com
Saturday March 9th 3pm - Antone's Record Shop w/ The Beaumonts (album release party)
2928 Guadalupe St #101 Austin, TX 78705 (512) 322-0660 https://antonesrecordshop.com/
Saturday March 9th 10pm - The Frontier Bar w/ Big Foot Chester
2421 WEBBERVILLE ROAD • AUSTIN, TEXAS 78702 • (512) 243-7153 https://www.frontierbaraustin.com/site/
Wednesday March 13th 2pm - Hole In The Wall Day Party
2538 Guadalupe Austin TX 78705 https://www.holeinthewallaustin.com/
Wednesday March 13th 10:30 pm Karma Lounge
105 East 5th Street (Between Congress and Brazos) Austin,
Texas 78701
512-469-0504 www.karmaloungeaustin.com
Official SXSW showcase - Saustex & Cosmica present:
7:30 The Beaumonts (Lubbock, TX - Saustex)
8:30 Hickoids (Austin, TX - Saustex)
9:30 Churchwood (Austin, TX - Saustex)
10:30 The Copper Gamins (DF, Mexico - Saustex/Cosmica)
11:10 Gaby
Moreno (Guatemala/Los Angeles - Cosmica)
Midnight Pinata Protest (San Antonio, TX - Saustex/Cosmica)
1am La
Santa Cecilia (Los Angeles, CA - Cosmica/Universal Latin)
Friday March 15th 1:30pm - Dog & Duck Pub
406 W 17th St Austin, TX 78701 (512) 479-0598 https://www.dogandduckpub.com/
Saturday March 16th 3pm - The 04 Lounge
Saturday March 16th 5pm - The
Nomad Bar
1213
Corona Dr Austin, TX 78723 (512) 628-4288 https://www.nomadbar.com/
