banda lamento show

The invaluable if annoyingly pop-uppy radioNOTAS alerts me to the existence of a new song, “El Señor,” by Banda Lamento Show de Durango. (I also see they’re playing Waukegan late this Saturday night, roughly a mile south of the church where I play early Sunday morning — i.e., I can’t see them. Have a good time and tell ’em I say hi.) Lamento Show, you’ll remember, were the wildest of duranguense bands and also the happiest, wearing ironic hipster ponchos and hauling around a little boy on a burro for their mascot. Unlike some of the buttoned down heartachers in this genre, listening to Lamento Show felt like getting away with something. True story: when I called their label nine years ago looking for press photos, the PR person I spoke with had no idea who they were.

When you get a chance, listen to their 2005 Platino album La Noche Que Murio Chicago, named after the Paper Lace song covered therein. This album is our generation’s Disco Tex and His Sex-O-Lettes: canned crowd noises, nonstop dance songs running one into the other, and a feeling that, despite the songs’ apparent simplicity on paper, the players can do whatever they want and anything could happen. By comparison, “El Señor” is reined in, but whoever’s singing enjoys his swanky vibrato enough to give it a big
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