Joe King Carrasco and The Crowns

In the late summer of 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 critical praise from New York's music press including Lester Bangs and John Rockwell of the New York Times.

Thirty years later, the band that exported Tex-Mex Rock-Roll around the globe has reunited, toured across Texas and gone back into the studio to record an album of all new material QUE WOW! performed at South By Southwest and were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame. Once again, their rolling Party Weekend roadshow is touring the nation, demonstrating to old fans what they had heard all those years ago was no mirage, while turning on a whole new generation of fans to the obvious: Joe "King" Carrasco & the Crowns rock like no one else before or since.