There’s a charmingly sweet photo on the cover of Thee Sinseers’ new record, Love Stories.
Facing the camera and grinning wildly is a stout man with lush black hair of seemingly Hispanic descent. His arms are clasped around the waist of an equally ebullient shorter woman with shoulder length black hair with her own arms hugging her waist. Both are dressed in white, standing in front of a white car, and the picture is slightly out of focus. And it seems to come from an earlier time.
But it’s not a staged photo, AI-generated picture, or one of those “found snapshots” that sometimes find immortality as the cover of an album. No, this one has particular meaning to bandleader, founder, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and vocalist Joey Quiñones.
“Those are my parents!” Quiñones says happily via Zoom. “And we’ve got the bass player’s parents on the back. That was so special to have them represented there, because we spend so much time on the road.” He adds that other bandmates’ parents are pictured elsewhere in the album package.
Quiñones says that father told him the snapshot was “from 1979,” right after the pair got out of high school. “He said ‘I’ve got a better picture of the car.’ And I said, ‘Of the car and not my mom?’” Quiñones laughs.
Hearing the songs on Love Stories for the first time, one could be easily forgiven for thinking that they are lost cuts by some obscure ‘50s/’60s doo-wop group with instrumentation. As this writer initially believed.
But it turns out that Thee Sinseers is part of a wave of new Chicano Soul groups who write and record with the trappings of the music of yesteryear, but with a modern sheen. A loose group which also includes Thee Scared Souls, the Altons, Los Yesterdays, Jason Joshua & the Beholders, and Trish Toledo.
What makes Chicano soul a genre identifier different from the more prevalent Black soul or even “blue-eyed soul” he believes comes down to the reference for another genre. Quiñones is a self-proclaimed big reggae fan, and some of his earliest appearances on record was singing backup for reggae bands and performers.
Some reggae groups of the ‘60s and ‘70s were trying to emulate American soul of the same era. He adds that something about the weather in Jamaica made those vinyl records “spin a bit wonkier and slower” and was adapted.
“To call it Chicano soul is also part of our environment and identity. Our community and culture and the civil rights movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s. We grew up listening to those stories. It’s not necessarily a sound, it’s a feeling,” he says.
And that doesn’t necessarily extend to only bands made up of one ethnicity. Quiñones points to the band War—which included six Blacks and one white Danish member—as beloved by the Chicano community for their incorporation of Latin themes and music (and not just for the epochal automotive lifestyle anthem “Low Rider”). In fact, Quiñones puts his forearm up the Zoom screen to show his tattoo of the smiling man from the cover of War’s 1975 album Why Can’t We Be Friends?
Chicano soul music will also be the flavor of the day at Cactus Music on Saturday, November 7, at 3 p.m. The store will host a special event featuring a talk and book signing by Chicano soul historian Ruben Molina for his new tome The Dreamy Side: Rhythm and Blues and Chicano Culture in 1950s Los Angeles. The talk will be moderated by Dr. Alex La Rotta and also feature a Chicano soul DJ set.
As to what makes Love Stories different from the group’s 2024 debut, Sinseerly Yours (other than it focuses on balladry more), Quiñones says it’s about having more control and planning over the writing and recording.
“It took years for the first one to write, record, produce, and distribute. And there were two release dates. There was an urgency and a sense of pride in that because it was first,” he offers. “But this time we really had time to focus on the songwriting mainly and the songs. And in this record, you hear a band that’s been on the road for two or three years and is a well-oiled machine.”
Words like “retro” and “throwback” are quick identifiers of the sound of Thee Sinseers, and Quiñones gets that. But he thinks it can also apply to how members of the group grew up together in school marching bands, then playing in the pub scene of East Los Angeles, and growing together as musicians, family, and friends.
“We take pride sitting in a room together playing the songs and creating the sound and really a moment. I don’t feel like we’re doing ‘content’ ever—we’re writing poetry. And that’s an old approach. And we wear vintage clothes, but in [real-life] I’ll wear my punk rock shirt that I’ve washed a thousand times.”
Along with Quiñones, the nonet also includes Adriana Flores (vocals), Christopher Manjarrez (bass), Francisco Flores and Bryan Ponce (guitars), Luis Carpio (drums), Eric Johnson and Steve Sherman (saxophones) and Jose Luis Jimenez (trombone).
In addition to the two albums and a handful of singles with Thee Sinseers on the soul-based Colemine Records, Quiñones also releases music under his own name, often accompanying himself on guitar. He says he’s been asked often what makes a specific tune in his mind more for the group or more for him (and he also writes for other artists) but can never really pin it down.
“Sometimes, a song just fits a certain place. So, I’m always trying to disassociate from what I write and look at it as a picture and where it’s best [hung],” he says.
The band has toured Texas several times since their 2019 formation and performed in another group called Upground as early as 2004 at SXSW in Austin in which Quiñones played trombone as a teen. He says Houston in particular gives them a “warm reception,” and members of the city’s car culture always show up at gigs.
As for 2027, Thee Sinseers plan more concert tours and festival shows, as well as going back into the studio for their next record.
“We always set these little, small goals to expand, and it’s just about meeting more people and going to more towns,” he sums up. “And the cool thing is seeing grandparents, parents, kids, and even babies at the shows. It’s great that we can touch the entire family.”
Thee Sinseers play at 8 p.m. Thursday, October 29, at the Heights Theater, 339 W. 19th. For more information, call 214-272-8346 or visit TheHeightsTheater.com. The Charities open. Sold out, but waitlist is open.
For more information on Thee Sinseers, visit TheeSinseers.com.
