The Krayolas - Savage Young Krayolas (2020)

"Known as the Tex-Mex Beatles, the Chicano garage rockers have garnered flattering comparisons to the Fab Four, Bob Dylan, the Who, Nick Lowe and Warren Zevon."

I first heard of the San Antonio-based garage band The Krayolas back in the summer of 2019 and wasted no time tracking down a copy of their debut vinyl, 1982's Kolored Music, and then quickly followed that up with a purchase of Best Riffs Only, a 2007 compilation CD. Savage Young Krayolas was released in November of this year but contains recordings from over 40 years ago and captures a young band with their earliest efforts to merge new wave-ish power pop with '60s British Invasion rock 'n' roll. In addition to the bands listed in the press clipping above, I think a Knack comparison works well and I've heard tell they spelled Krayolas with a K as a tribute to The Kinks. Plus the Savage Young Krayolas album title is an homage to an early Beatles recordings bootleg album titled This Is The... The Savage Young Beatles. In any case, this CD clocks in at a wild 32 minutes and is well worth your time.

A band member can almost always explain an album better than I can. Here's some edited excerpts from a wonderfully detailed email sent to me by band member Hector Saldana (guitars, vocals):

Savage Young Krayolas presents for the very first time the analog tapes audio professionally restored, mixed, mastered. For example, all of Best Riffs Only was slap-dashed together with existing mixes, rough mixes, demos and TV mixes on quarter-inch tape. That’s why the audio in 2007 was a little flat and two-dimensional. The new project went back to the original source material: the two-inch multitrack analog tapes. 

It contains never released recordings. They are “Roadrunner” and “Three Girls Flying in From Mexico City” (both featuring the late Barry Smith onlead vocals), a cover of The Kinks' “You Really Got Me,” stripped-down virtually vocals-only version of “Sunny Day” and the 2007 recording of “I Just Wanna” with Augie Meyers (Sir Douglas Quintet, The Texas Tornados) on combo organ that was part of the La Conquistadora album sessions but was not included on the record. 

As a musician, it’s nice to hear my brother’s drums resonate and the electric bass guitar and electric guitars louder in the mixes. The difference is in the audio fidelity with a balanced sound. The mixes were done by engineer Jonathan Harter at Harter Music - experts in historic audio preservation and archival projects. My only instructions were to make it sound like he would like it – and to crank up the drums and bass (I was always disappointed in the thin sound of our vinyl singles and recordings and how they never sounded like what I was hearing in the control room playback). A lot of that had to do with the fact that we were so young so our opinion on the mixes were not taken seriously. A perfect example is “Cry Cry, Laugh Laugh” which now includes my trippy guitar solo (which I had totally forgotten) that the engineer didn’t include in the original mix for whatever reason. Not to mention that studio time was expensive in the 1970s and we were always rushed and watching the clock. I have a distinct memory of practically running out of the “Gator Gator” session at ZAZ Studios with the two-inch tape and rough mix in hand and telling them we’d be back – we never did.

Savage Young Krayolas was conceived as tribute to Barry and to those youthful days. I think Barry would’ve loved it that the songs he sings have been getting radio airplay around the country. And for me, “Sunny Day” is a revelation. The mix on “Best Riffs Only” is pretty cluttered; and the final mix on the later maxi single with more instruments is even a more cluttered mess. Hearing it with the voices out front is how we used to practice it and we just went overboard. What’s pretty amazing is that it’s only two tracks of voices. It was recorded Beach Boys style with all of us gathered around two microphones and getting a blend, and then double-tracking it.

It’s the debut album that could’ve been. And the new audio is really fresh and clear and powerful.

Even forty years later, the passion for the music is obvious, no? And deservedly so; these catchy originals are retro and forward-thinking at the same time with hooks for days. And Hector is right about the audio being fresh and clear - this CD sounds great.

How do you take your power pop? Well-crafted? Melodic? Hooks? Canny lyrics? Energetic? All of the above? Look no further. Get yourself to the group's bandcamp page immediately (https://thekrayolas.bandcamp.com/) and join me in the better-late-than-never club.

The group's early 'spacesuit' concert attire.
Seen in action here.
(And where can I buy one of those t-shirts??)

Tracks: Nothing to skip here. The first six tracks are fantastic and sound terrific in the car, pedal down, volume up (can personally confirm). My favorite Krayolas tune remains Cry Cry Laugh Laugh (track 5 here), but my earworm over the last few days has been the chorus of You're Not My Girl (track 2). And Sunny Day is every bit the "revelation" described above. The disc closes with the manic Gator Gator and the hilarious closer, Three Girls Flying In From Mexico City. Those last two are mentioned in the liner notes:

Falling on our backs at just the right moment, we’d do the gator as we played. That “Animal House” dance moved once ignited a frenzy inside the Goree Unit women’s prison in Huntsville, when we unwisely jumped off the stage to gator. Dozens of female inmates leapt from their seats, swarmed us and joined in. Immediately, the power was cut off. Afterward, a few of those unapologetic women helped us roll out our amps. Just like we dreamed it.

“Three Girls Flying in From Mexico City,” a long-lost recording from summer 1979. Written by Barry, it was inspired by the fallout from my dad taking my three teenage sisters to Acapulco. Upon returning, the girls dumped their boyfriends because they’d found new ones in Mexico. As older brothers, we found it all pretty amusing. Oh, the phone bills.

There's a point in the cover of You Really Got Me where you hear the ad-libbed lyrics "stronger than dirt" which I hadn't heard in years but immediately remembered from old Ajax TV ads. A perfect rhythmic fit.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but I'm dreaming of an imaginary 1982 double-bill at Rockefeller's in Houston with The Krayolas and The Judy's. Heck, throw The Dishes in the mix as well. Wowza - what a show that shoulda coulda woulda been.

Billboard, November 28, 1981, p. T-7

Previously revisited for the blog:
Best Riffs Only (2007)