The Krayolas - Little Fox (2007)

When I learned of the passing of Augie Meyers earlier this month, I was reminded that I had this 4 track EP sitting on my shelves. Meyers, as a founding member of the legendary San Antonio group the Sir Douglas Quintet, helped invent Tex-Mex roots rock music back in the 1960's. The Krayolas were heavily influenced by SDQ, so this collaboration more than makes sense, it was practically predestined.

With a few clicks, I quickly found an article about the release from the San Antonio alt-weekly, the Current: Fox Force Five. But since the leader of The Krayolas, Hector Saldana, is a friend o' the blog, I simply reached out to him for his memories of Augie Meyers and the story of how this EP came about. So I'll shut up now as we go directly to the source for more info:

Augie Meyers was as pure a musician as they come. He was known for his sound on the Vox Continental combo organ, but he was also excellent and very musical on the accordion, could play rhythm and lead guitar and was downright elegant on the piano. He was also a really good singer.

Augie was a fan of the Krayolas since our teenage years. He had a show or segment on KEXL-FM radio in San Antonio where he spun local records and I remember going over there with our bassist and organ player Barry Smith with our 45 “All I Do Is Try”/”Sometime” – and he played it, which was a big deal. In the mid-1970s, the Krayolas always included “She’s About a Mover” and “Mendocino” in our sets.

“Little Fox” was completely out of the blue. Augie had listened to “Best Riffs Only” – the compilation of our old 45s – and really liked it and the cover artwork. I ran into him, and he told me he had heard it and that he had a demo of a song from the Sir Douglas Quintet days that was never released called “Little Fox.” He said he would play on it and gave me a cassette of a song that didn’t have the word “fox” in it, didn’t have a chorus, had horns and was kind of long. When I mentioned this to Augie after listening to it, he just said, “Make it sound like the Krayolas.” I arranged it. I turned the horn melody into the Rickenbacker 12-string riff, shortened it and wrote a chorus with “Little Fox.”

Augie is the one that took us to Blue Cat Studios. We recorded it live and listened to Take 1, which sounded great but I thought it could be shorter, so I cut a verse and we did it again. It sounded great. I remember during the first playback, I told my brother that I was going to say, “Take it, Augie!” before the organ solo just like Doug Sahm. We laughed. I almost lost my nerve during the take, but I went for it. It’s a cherished memory. We cut a handful of other songs that I had written for the Krayolas. “Little Fox” was originally in English. I asked my mom to write an additional set of Spanish lyrics for it, and that made it perfect.

Augie had so much fun, too. He said we should make an album. That’s how “La Conquistadora” album¹ came about. He played Vox organ, accordion and piano during the sessions. We also made a Christmas video with Augie to my arrangement of the Rudolph song -- “Tex-Mex Rudolph.” Augie played accordion and Vox organ on it. Of course, “Catherine” and “Alex” were soon played on Little Steven’s Underground Garage on SiriusXM channel 21 – and we ended up playing showcases together at SXSW – including the only time Little Steven Van Zandt broadcast from SXSW. Augie came up for a couple of numbers on that one, including the Kinks “Who’ll Be the Next in Line” and “Little Fox.” At our first SXSW, the crowd went nuts when the Krayolas and Augie Meyers tore into the Dave Clark Five’s “Any Way You Want It.”

One of my favorite memories is Augie playing Vox organ with us at my birthday party at a club called The Cove.² We did a lot of fun gigs and recording sessions together. I visited with Augie quite a few times near the end of his life, and I cherish those visits, too. We talked about his childhood and music and the many musicians he loved. On one of my last visits, I played him a mix of the Krayolas newest Christmas song, “Maria Believes in Christmas Again.” He had hoped to play Vox organ on it but it just couldn’t happen. But as he listened to it he was telling me what he would overdub on it when he felt better.

I was there for his last public gigs and helped him on and off the stage. I cherish that so much. We all loved the guy. He remained humble, down to earth and always with a joke at the ready. It’s a huge loss for San Antonio. He was one of the greatest musicians Texas ever produced.

A song I wrote that Augie played Vox organ on called "Exit Salida" is currently in Top 100 Most Played Songs ranking on SiriusXM Outlaw Country. They started playing it in rotation last week in tribute to Augie. The Krayolas and Augie again.

Thanks, Hector. As for the music on this 10 minute CD, check it out for yourselves as the other tracks are quite good as well; I particularly enjoy Rescue Roses. Samples here: https://thekrayolas.com/music/little-fox/

¹La Conquistadora is also on my shelves and will appear here in the future. Check this space.
²The Cove is the one of my favorite eateries and the only combination organic restaurant/bar/car wash/laundromat/live music venue that I'm aware of.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but I sure wish I could have been at that SXSW show.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Happy Go Lucky (2022)
Savage Young Krayolas (2020)
Best Riffs Only (2007)

The Krayolas - Happy Go Lucky (2022)

"Rock & Soul in Technicolor"

This gem of a CD arrived in my mailbox this week and I haven't listened to much else so I figured I'd go ahead and throw together a post about the thing. It's a restored, reassembled, remastered, rejiggered, repackaged, reissue of the 1982 debut album from the San Antonio garage band known as "The Tex-Mex Beatles." As band leader Hector Saldana explains:

"Happy Go Lucky" is the 21st century edition of The Krayolas' 1982 debut album. It features new mixes for everything, new color photos, a new title, extra songs, liner notes, a bonus track. It is not a straight-up reissue. Think of it like the differences between the American and British album of the early Beatles with different track listings. "Happy Go Lucky" is closer to the original planning, rehearsals and vision. It includes 8 of the 10 songs from the original 1982 album.

I never thought it would ever see the light of day or be preserved and properly mixed. The multitrack tapes didn't exist as far as we knew. They surfaced in Houston after Savage Young Krayolas came out. I do think that the music holds up because it was made with a lot of love and fun in our hearts -- and it definitely lives up to its new title, "Happy Go Lucky."

Trouser Press wrote that the 1982 debut LP was...

an impressive start for this Mexican-American pop group from San Antonio, Texas; their music has a joyous, unpretentious quality that makes every cut a treat. Basing their sound on the ’60s — there are traces of Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Box Tops, Monkees and, of course, the Beatles — the Krayolas stood apart from others sharing the basic pop impulse by using brass on seven of the album’s ten tracks. The horns never get in the way, but instead add a soulful edge to the sweet innocent voices. A consistently pleasing album.

And if only they'd heard these new mixes. I have a vinyl copy of the aforementioned 1982 debut album so I was already in love with these tracks, but lemme tell ya: the new mixes sound fantastic, especially the vocals and the West Side Horns. Great tunes with lots of hooks and energy. They call it "bubblegum soul" but I'd call it lively power pop as run through both '60s and '80s British Invasions via the Texas rock tradition of Sam the Sham, the Sir Douglas Quintet, and other San Antonio garage band legends.

And dig these crazy duds:

Photo shoot February 13, 1982. From left: Barry Smith, David Saldana, Hector Saldana, John Harris. After the photo session, the band played a Valentine party gig and sang the songs from their newly recorded debut album onstage for the first time.
Photo credit: Bill Daras. Copyright 2022 Box Records Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

So just weeks after recording this album on January 4-6, 1982, the band could be found playing live in Houston:

The Krayolas singing “Happy Go Lucky” for the first time onstage at a Houston gig on February 13, 1982. The previously unpublished photo shows Barry Smith on combo organ (left), drummer David Saldana singing lead out front, John Harris on drums and guitarist Hector Saldana.
Photo credit: Bill Daras. Copyright 2022 Box Records Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

I was only 15 years old at the time, had no way to travel the 80 miles from my house to the historic venue, and had no date for Valentine's Day, but I feel confident in saying I would have loved the show. Saldana recalls the "party got pretty wild and was raided by Houston police." Good times, indeed.

Flyer for the 2nd annual St. Valentine’s Massacre-ade Ball and Birthday Blowout at the Magnolia Room in downtown Houston on February 13, 1982.
Photo credit: Courtesy Bill Summersett. Copyright 2022 Box Records Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

I encourage you to get over to thekrayolas.bandcamp.com, check out some tunes, and spend some money. You won't be disappointed.

Tracks: This new release has 12 tracks compared to the original album's 10. My top picks are Happy Go Lucky (which includes a tasty sax solo from Louie Bustos), the energetic rocker All Of The Time, the beautiful chord progressions and Brian Wilson-esque harmonies of Don't Give Up Hope, and the unabashedly hook-laden pop of You're Not My Girl.

The 1982 album remakes of Aw Tonight and Cry Cry, Laugh Laugh are not included on this release and were left on the cutting room floor. Cry Cry, Laugh Laugh is one of my favorite Krayolas tunes, so I'm a little disappointed in its absence, but I've got other recordings of that track. In the place of those two cuts are two songs written for the 1982 album: a mid-tempo love tune, Love Is Gonna Getcha, and the decidedly New Wave-ish penultimate track, Dorothy. Track 6, Al Coda No. 1, is a fantastically fun mash-up of other tunes created as a tribute to the horn arrangements of trumpeter Charlie McBurney, the leader of the original West Side Horns.

Track 12, We the People, is a folk-pop bonus track inspired by Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and closes the album on an uplifting message that's still relevant today.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: More on my introduction to The Krayolas and their music can be found in this previous post. In 1982, my knowledge of local garage bands was very limited to select Houston bands such as The Judy's and The Dishes; I missed out on this good stuff back then but I'm glad it finally found me.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Savage Young Krayolas (2020)
Best Riffs Only (2007)

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)

The Krayolas - Best Riffs Only (2007)

So I'm sitting at Sam's Burger Joint waiting for the Marshall Crenshaw show to start and the pre-show music playlist included the song Cry, Cry, Laugh, Laugh sending me (and every other Crenshaw fan nearby) scrambling to pull out their phones to identify the song. The day following the show (which was a most excellent concert, btw), I discovered The Krayolas are a local band from right here in San Antonio and I was immediately down that rabbit hole. Yada, yada, yada, and I eventually found a copy of this 2007 compilation CD. I'm happy to have found a copy because it's tough find, even in San Antonio.

"It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up." - Ferris Bueller

Here's the skinny from the CD liner notes:

Even though I had kinda fashioned myself into a New Wave wannabe Johnny Slash guy in 1982, if someone had handed me the group's debut album, Kolored Music, back then, I would have loved it and pestered all my friends to give it a listen.

Update: the band restored, reassembled, remastered, repackaged and reissued that 1982 debut album in 2022. Check it out here: The CD Project: The Krayolas - Happy Go Lucky.

The band doesn't yet have their own Wikipedia page, but here's a little info on the band from Texas Monthly magazine: https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/hector-saldana/. They've also got their own website: https://thekrayolas.com/ and a Bandcamp page: https://thekrayolas.bandcamp.com/

In 2014, the Krayolas were inducted into the Texas Music Office’s South Texas Music Walk of Fame. That walk of fame can be found in an off-the-beaten-path location on Market Street in downtown Corpus Christi. This past summer, on my way to the Executive Surf Club (I recommend the Executive Surf Burger), I spotted The Krayolas' star:

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: 16 tracks, 51 minutes. My top picks are All I Do Is Try, Aw Tonight, Sometime, Happy Go Lucky, Rhymes Of Tomorrow, Sunny Day, Dorothy, You're Not My Girl, and, of course, the aforementioned Cry Cry Laugh Laugh. There's also a holiday waltz, Christmas Time, which would be a fun tune to include on your next Xmas playlist or mixtape.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: see above