PHOTOS: Joe King Carrasco & The Original Crowns with Eve and The Exiles

Sat. 07/21 | 8:00PM @ Antone's (map)

Photos by Jason Jiron

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Event Details

Antone's 37th Anniversary Show

Joe King Carrasco & The Original Crowns

Eve and The Exiles

In the late summer 1979, Joe "King" Carrasco formed a stripped-down four-piece combo to replace his Chicano big band, El Molino. Dubbed the Crowns, organist/accordionist Kris Cummings, bassist Brad Kizer, and drummer Miguel Navarro backed up Carrasco at Raul's, the famed punk club, and the Hole-in-the-Wall, and other University of Texas-area venues in Austin, quickly gaining a following around their revved-up Tex-Mex brand of punk rock, harkening back to the classic Vox and Farfisa organ-driven sound first popularized by the 1960s Texas bands Sir Douglas Quintet ("She's About A Mover"), Sam The Sham and The Pharoahs ("Wooly Bully"), and ? And the Mysterians ("96 Tears").

In November 1979, Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns made their first trip to New York City where Joe "King" almost gave the Lone Star Café's owner, Mort Cooperman, a heart attack when he jumped off the club's balcony onto the stage. The band was such a sensation, they were invited to play the storied Mudd Club downtown, and returned to Austin with critical praise from New York's music press including Lester Bangs and John Rockwell of the New York TImes.

Armed with a 45 rpm single "Party Weekend" b/w "Houston El Mover" that was financed by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, the band returned to New York in the spring of 1980 to record a demo album for Warner Brothers Records, which was eventually released on ROIR records as "Tales From the Crypt," and platy two weeks worth of dates at CBGB's, Hurrah, TR3, which would lead to more bookings at the Danceteria, the Peppermint Lounge, and the Bottom Line, as well as appearances in Washington, DC, Boston, Toronto, Providence, and other cities in the northeast.