Baseball fans thrill to stories about phenoms. You know the drill: Some teenage kid from the sticks is unveiled at training camp, standing six feet, six inches of all muscle. He can throw a fastball 95 mph or run like a wildebeest or blast laser beams 100 feet out of the deepest part of the yard, from either side of the plate.
San Angelo's Los Lonely Boys are the musical equivalent. The three Garza Brothers, who range in age from 18 to 22, play sizzling original, Latin-tinged blues rock, with lyrics sung in two- and three-part harmonies. Their level of musicianship has the cagey veterans (not only here, but in Austin and LLB's onetime hometown of Nashville as well) on the scene scratching their heads. That befuddlement turns to sheer wonder when they see Los Lonely Boys close their show with some of the most breathtaking showmanship in the state. As each brother does his thing (one with his guitar behind his head while doing a weird variation on the Charleston, one twirling his drumsticks, the other throwing his bass in the air, catching and fretting it in perfect time, also while doing the Charleston thing), Los Lonely Boys look like nothing so much as the inner workings of some wondrous medieval town clock.
This is the trio's first headlining show in Houston, which is a good thing because there's a dwindling pool of pickers and singers here willing to follow the Boys up. It also marks a step up from the rookie leagues of club undercards to the AA ball of weekend, big-city club headliners. So if you never got to see Jeff Bagwell do his thing back at New Britain, you can catch this rising star now. You'll chalk up a good story for the grandkids, because it won't be long before these phenoms hit the bigs.
