[i]June 26, 2024[/i] [i]The CCPS went live on June 26, 2007 with this tape from Huevos Rancheros as one of two posts that heralded the arrival of this project. I had no idea where the CCPS would go or what it would turn out to be at the time... so the original post was perhaps a bit lacking. So 17 years later, I'm here to give you a bit more insight into this great recording - one which stands as one of my favourite things to every come out of this this city. Actually, I'm just going to lean on James Martin's original VOX article from November 1990 - that article captures a lot of the story of the recording and also a few bon mots from the fabulous trio. As a side note, James Martin is also partly to blame/thank for the start of the CCPS - it was his fledgling blog, Golden Rock - a compendium of Calgary's 80's bands, that inspired me to start with this project with this tape.[/i] [i]- Arif Ansari[/i] [center][img width=435px]//7ca49eb9f67ba1319ef136f9d52cd8b8.cdn.bubble.io/f1719415709964x463046027704961900/richtext_content.png[/img][/center] [b]SCRAMBLED HUEVOS[/b] Special lost quotes from the Huevos Rancheros interview: Easy B: “Don, what color is your gaunch?" Don McSwiney (dropping his pants): “It's white." Rich: “Mine's white." Brent: “We’re gay." Huevos Rancheros' food doctrine has two parts: (1) never refer to pizza as “za.” The preferred term is “pie.” (2) if you eat right before bedtime, the food immediately turns into fat. Food is one of the few things that Huevos take seriously. Sure, the instrumental trio are all veterans of the local scene ("I was kicked out of Joe 90, and I'm proud of it," announces guitarist MC Easy B), but they don't see Huevos as their goal in life. ”If Huevos broke up tomorrow," begins bassist Thee Evster, ”we'd be sad because it's been fun, but it wouldn’t break any of our hearts." MC Easy B says he had ”wanted to start an instrumental band just to play. We'd all been in serious bands and they'd all messed up, and I thought, 'we're just gonna have fun.' It's gone far too far: way further than we'd thought it would go. Because we don't have any expectations for the band, we’ve already surpassed them." The epitome of Huevos going too far is their cassette, Huevosaurus. This six song package o' fun was originally recorded just to "explore some fifties style miking techniques," but has since found its way onto the streets. As explained by Richie (the drummin' wonder), Huevosaurus was "recorded one afternoon in my Mom's garage. We were fuelled by chocolate chip cookies that my Mom baked fresh." “The cookies were great," adds Thee Evster. “Rich’s morn is integral to the band. She's darn important and we love her very much." Although they once roamed the Earth in droves, instrumental bands are now an endangered species. Though not ashamed for lacking a vocalist, MC Easy B is vehement on one point: ”We're not a surf band. We do have a couple of surf songs and we all think surf music is really cool, but we' re a lot more garagey, Texas- y. Our big heroes and influences are 4 Big Guitars From Texas, Link Wray, the Ramones, Evan Johns and the H-Bombs, and reverb.” Thee Evster adds.” When people describe us they say ’uhh, kinda like The Ventures and Shadowy Men,' - but what other instrumental bands do people know about? Shadowy Men are great, but we don't sound like them." Easy B is quick to offer reasons for not having a singer. “A) One less person to share beer with. B) We can be a lot more spontaneous and have fun, which was the original idea." “And C) We can play anywhere," finishes Thee Evster. ”We don't have to be miked, so we can play house parties or anyplace else." When asked to compare Huevos to a movie, Richie answered, ”We're more like a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon.” After much debate, the band settled on "What's Opera, Doc?" as their cartoon equivalent. "The Rabbit of Seville" was a close second. In addition to original instrumental gems like ”Blonde Girl in a Blue Volare (@100 MPH)," "Latin Ranch" and "Huevosaurus," the cassette includes a cover of Led Zeppelin's ”Misty Mountain Hop." Originally, “Mistery Mountain" (as Huevos renamed it) wasn't even supposed to be recorded. ”We were trying to get ’Latin Ranch' down," begins Richie. ’'We'd played it ten times but kept messing up, we had to take a break, but we kept the tape rolling, and Easy B broke into 'Mistery Mountain.' It was just one take.” In fact, all of Huevosaurus is one take, with the exception of some of the ”woodly woodly" parts which were over-dubbed. The fact that Huevos Rancheros is an instrumental band may lead people to think that the band has nothing to say. MC Easy B concedes that the band isn't interested in political statements, but it does have a purpose. ”We want people to realize that there are a lot of good bands in Calgary, and we're just sick to death that no one pays attention to them. It also pisses us off that serious bands give up way too soon. They get popular, make a tape, and then they break up." Thee Evster continues on this thought: ”And they don't get out of the city. That's the key: you gotta play out of town. Calgary's a great city, but you’ve got to play elsewhere, even just going up to Edmonton on a weekend.” Easy B and company throw their support behind all local bands. ”One aspect of Huevos is we' re not into cutting down other bands. We want the Calgary scene to be a positive thing. Even if we think another band really stinks, we like’em." Huevos Rancheros are first and foremost three amigos. “We hang out all the time,'' says Richie. “That's the bottom line. We're trying to have fun on stage, and we hope that the audience gets into it." “That's right,” agrees Thee Evster. ”We've played live more than we've practiced, we've sold a lot of tapes, we've played with out of town bands, and we've just had a lot of fun with it. We've (gotten together to practice) so many times when we don't really practice; instead we just look for neat stuff in Rich's garage. That's what the band's about." “I'm still looking for that Peter Pan lunch box," adds Richie. [i]James Martin[/i]
