Texas native and music innovator Joe King Carrasco just can’t stop moving. One listen to his signature sound blending sounds of Tex-Mex and ’60s garage rock, tells the listener that this man gets around.
“You gotta do something,” says Carrasco who recently returned to his home state of Texas for a tour including a performance on Saturday, May 2 at Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge. “You can’t sit around.”
Sit around he does not. Recently, Carrasco and his wife, Nicole Farnsworth, have been working hard bringing his music to war torn Ukraine and raising money to help provide rescue vehicles to Ukrainians on the front line.
“During the summer we had raised enough money for a rescue vehicle. Each rescue vehicle saves about 40 lives so Nicole drove that vehicle from England all the way to the front and we delivered it. About a month ago a Russian drone hit nearby, and the shrapnel killed a kid in the backseat of the car, but the car still runs.”
Carrasco teamed up with Mission Aid For Ukraine, started by British paratrooper Adrian Simpson, bringing emergency supplies and vans to soldiers and citizens there. Last year Carrasco toured Ukraine with UK rockers Hardwicke Circus playing shows and raising funds during two tours across the country.
“I hooked up with them in Poland in Kraków,” he says of Hardwicke Circus describing himself as “the old guy in the band.” Carrasco and Hardwicke Circus connected through the label he was on at the start of his career, Stiff Records.
“We went over in June, played about ten cities and played these concerts. They were really into it,” says Carrasco enthusiastically. “It was really wild. It was like going back to 1980s in Austin. During the day we would play schools and hospitals then for soldiers down in the front. I think we went to Kyiv three or four times.”
“Ukraine looks like Columbus between Houston and Austin or Bastrop,” he laughs. “It’s so weird it feels like you’re in Texas and it’s a circuit there you can play.”
He describes the enthusiasm in the crowds across Ukraine, people hungry for live music and rock and roll. “People get this misconception that it’s fully bombed out everybody is running but life goes on they keep making it happen.”
Carrasco and his wife also work to raise funds for animal shelters in Ukraine through the organization United In Hope, a cause close to their heart as they also contribute to helping dogs in their home of Puerto Vallarta through Viva Perros.
This is not the first time Carrasco and his wife have traveled for a cause greater than themselves. During the Nicaraguan war, both lived there to fight for the Sandinista party. When asked if they see similarities between both wars they agree that they do only this time explains Farnsworth they are able to get right to the front line.
It is nothing short of impressive to hear their stories of resilience and humanity, of walking across the Polish border and exploding drones. Carrasco’s way of life and music have always co-existed in a way that he seems to have been made to do and his recent efforts are reflective of his eclectic past.
Born Joseph Teutsch and raised in Dumas, Texas, Carrasco was bit by the traveling bug, a desire he says ran in his family, at a young age. He and brothers would often head out to Mexico to explore all the country has to offer making his unmistakable sound.
This fusion of influences led him to create Joe King and El Molino featuring Texas legends Speedy Sparks and Augie Meyers and later Joe king and The Crowns, a project that went on to record his biggest hit “Party Weekend” which launched him into the world of MTV and worldwide fame.
Carrasco’s high intensity performances and recordings put him on the map as a quintessential Texas rocker who honors the roots of this state.
In the past six months, Carrasco has had to bid farewell to Meyers and Sparks, two old friends and collaborators who helped shape Carrasco’s sound. “I wrote a song called “All My Friends Are Dying, Ain’t Feeling Too Good Myself,” says Carrasco.
“I just keep going. I haven’t really fully processed it because I’ve been moving so much. I try to stay busy but yeah, I think about them every day of course but the main thing there is just keep moving onward through the fog.”
Joe King Carrasco will perform on Saturday, May 2 at Shoeshine Charley’s Big Top Lounge, 3714 Main. For more information, call 713-529-9899 or visit ContinentalClub.com/Houston. $18
