Joe King Carrasco and the Crowns

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 praises from rock critic Lester Bangs and the New York Times’ John Rockwell.

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 and play 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.

By the end of the summer, Joe King Carrasco & the Crowns signed a recording contract with Stiff Records in England and embarked on the Son of Stiff Tour with Tenpole Tudor, Dirty Looks, the Equators, and Any Trouble, playing the United Kingdom, Europe, and the northeastern United States, promoting their debut album and the single "Buena," a Top Ten hit in France and Sweden that charted in the Top 40 on the BBC.

While overseas, the band filmed a video of "Buena" in London, and taped television appearances in Spain, France, and Germany. In January 1981, the band issued their first US album on the Hannibal label for music impresario Joe Boyd, appeared "Saturday Night Live," and were one of the first featured acts on a new cable television channel called MTV. Later that year, JKC and the Crowns made their West Coast debut at the Whiskey-A-Go-Go behind their Hannibal EP "Party Safari" and shared the stage at Hollywood’s Cathay de Grande with a new band called Los Lobos.

Joe King Carrasco & The Crowns played a critical role in exporting the Austin sound and Texas music around the world, while establishing the band as one of the most popular music-makers in the Lone Star state in clubs, at Spring Break in South Padre Island, and in storied venues such as Red Rocks in Denver, the Agora in Cleveland, and the Ritz in New York, where they shared played dates with the Talking Heads, the Police, REM, UB 40, the English Beat, and the Go-Gos.

Thirty years later, the band that exported Tex-Mex Rock-Roll around the globe has reunited. After a round of Texas dates in the summer of 2011, Joe “King” Carrasco & The Crowns recorded and released a new album QUE WOW (Anaconda), performed as an official band at South By Southwest 2012, played the Austin Music Awards (along with a guy named Bruce Springsteen, among others), where they were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, and are going out on an extended run of road dates. New fans are discovering what old hardcore fans knew back in the 80s: Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns rock their Tex-Mex like no one else before or since.

Written by JOE NICK PATOSKI