Joe ‘King’ Carrasco & The Crowns – Tuff Enuff

16th December 2022 · 1980, 1980s, Music, Punk

This is one of the odder oddities of the punk era, even by the oddball standards of Stiff Records. Digging it out from my collecton, I have a confession to make – I had mentally filed the band as Joe ‘King’ Carrasco and the CLOWNS.

Joe Carrasco (real name Joseph Teutsch) started out playing what he called Tex-Mex rock’n’roll in local bands in the late seventies, influenced by sixties groups like the Sir Douglas Quintet and Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.

His first album blended native Tex-Mex tejano or conjunto music (whose button accordion came from German immigrants like the Teutsches) and old-skool psychedelic RnB with its cheesy Farfisa organ sound, courtesy of female keyboard player, Kris Cummings.

As punk exerted an influence he soon switched styles to what he cleverly called ‘Nuevo Wavo’, and switched names (from Joe Carrasco and El Molino to Joe Carrasco and the Crowns), fusing lively Latin rhythms with the energy of the New Wave.

Soon his success on the stages of New York, performing in a red cape and crown, convinced our own Stiff Records, ever alert for a new trend, that they could market him as a novelty act.

The singalong single Bueno (video below) had all the ingredients of a novelty hit apart from one – nobody bought it – but the B-side here is as punky as you could imagine a Tex-Mex fellow every getting.

There was even an album, which I also have, with the ambitious title Mil Gracias A Todos Nuestros Amigos and including a track with the memorable title Caca De Vaca – which hopefully requires no translation.

It proved too arch for anyone except me, though Carrasco somehow persuaded Michael Jackson – yep, Jacko – to sing backing vocals on his next single, a surprisingly enjoyable excursion into what he called “tequila reggae” – more Men At Work than Marley – called Don’t Let A Woman (Make A Fool Out Of You).

Ever the maverick, in the mid-eighties Joe moved to Nicaragua and began making political music addressing the problems of central America; he now lives in Mexico, still touring regularly and running a dog rescue charity.