All of the mirrors and cameras on a car help to form the complete visuals needed to know not only where we are going, but what is all around us. Our brains and eyes seem to fluidly bounce from looking through the windshield, to the side mirrors to the rearview mirror all to keep us going but none designed to be the only reference.
On Alejandro Escovedo’s latest album, Echo Dancing, the distinctive artist uses a large catalog of previously recorded songs as markers, like the images in our mirrors, to set the path for a new journey as he and his team completely reimagine the tracks using the originals as their point of origin.
Escovedo will perform in Houston at The Heights Theater on Saturday, June 1 along with support from Will Johnson.
Escovedo mentally began the process for Echo Dancing after hearing Calexico break down his song “Wave” on the 2004 release of Por Vida A Tribute To The Songs Of Alejandro Escovedo and part of a fund raiser organized for Escovedo’s health issues at that time.
Hearing what Calexico had done to “Wave” planted a seed in Escovedo about how he could break down his songs differently and explore his own catalogue with new ears.
While on tour in Spain, he began to dip his toe into the water of this concept playing “Sensitive Boys” with only a piano player. “I thought it was amazing like that so I knew I wanted to do that,” says Escovedo who included the track on Echo Dancing.
Escovedo also knew that for whatever he was going to do, he wanted to it in Italy with Don Antonio on keyboards and Nicola Peruch on guitar in their scenic recording studio, a repurposed 15th century stone mill overlooking a valley of vineyards and orchards.
“It really was a true collaboration,” says Escovedo who had previously worked with the two on his 2018 release The Crossing. Escovedo would present the duo with the original songs, three to four songs a day, and then the group would see where it took them.
“Nicola was usually the one that would set all the rhythm patterns and then we would make sure that the tempo was a comfortable one, the key right and all that kind of stuff and then we would just record it. We were doing like three to four songs a day so it was going rather quickly.”
The result is not a retrospect of Escovedo’s career but more a rebirth where he and his team took the songs to a brand new sound tapping into new wave European dance and Escovedo’s New York City past all while maintaining that edge and punk rock sensibility that makes Escovedo who he is as an artist.
“That’s where I started,” says Escovedo of his punk rock roots in the ‘70s which saw him starting The Nuns, his first band ever, in San Fransisco.
“We were really only a band as a fluke in a way because we just wanted to make a movie about the worst band in the world and we thought we could play the band because we thought we looked really cool and we didn’t know how to play so we learned a couple chords. The film never happened but the band happened.”
The band’s success saw him move to New York City where he worked with Judy Nylon, lived in The Chelsea Hotel living and breathing the musical movement of that time fueled by post punk, glam rock and new wave.
“I got into that world and that world was amazing and really this record kind of reflects that New York, Suicide, Judy Nylon, DNA, James Chance, all that stuff that I was surrounded by and got to be a part of is really what this record is about.”
Comparing the 14 tracks side by side from their original form to what they became on Echo Dancing is a fun exercise in listening where fans can find similarities and celebrate the differences.
It is natural to wonder if the process could have made Escovedo squeamish at times as people all get used to hearing things a certain way, especially when it is their own creations but like everything, Escovedo got very comfortable with the process.
“In looking backwards into the songs that I had written and thinking about my career up to this point, making this record really kind of opened the door to a totally new world in a way and a new way of singing and presenting the songs. It was more than just trying to do old songs, it was really kind of how can I get myself to a different place also and as uncomfortable as that may seem, sometimes it was really worth it.”
Escovedo admits that he never went into this project thinking about doing better versions of his songs, but just doing something different which proved to be exactly what his artistic soul needed to keep on living, creating and to regenerate his zest for performing in post COVID times.
Escovedo describes his time at home during the lockdown as a return to his youth, hanging out at home, listening to records, reading, unwinding with a little grass and jamming on guitar. Despite the respite from touring and a return to an adolescent like freedom, he began to wonder what was next.
“After COVID I really wasnt sure what I was going to do. During COVID I had played with the thought that maybe I would never do it again. Maybe I said everything I needed to say, maybe I had run out of ideas, maybe I’m just not into it anymore. Then surely but slowly, I started to play again and then I decided to just break it down and that was an adventure so that kind of set the ball rolling into this whole new thing that we were capable of doing.”
He describes how the whole process of deconstructing his songs got the ball rolling in his mind of all of the things he was capable of doing with a smaller band. “Making his record was a huge turn on for me and really inspired me. It just made me want to play even more. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this good about making music.”
Escovedo has proven throughout the years and many cities he has called home, from his birth in San Antonio to his time in California, New York and Austin, that he is capable of absorbing and producing so many different sounds while simultaneously paving a new way for latino artists as well.
Coming from a large musical family that always encouraged him and his siblings path to music, even sitting down as a family to watch The Beatles take over the world on Ed Sullivan, it’s no wonder that Escovedo seems capable of writing a song that could fit in multiple genres while ultimately remaining a rock and roll poet.
“The people have been so receptive to this sound,” he says of his Echo Dancing tour so far. “We still have strong conection with the audience and at the same time my audience is amazing. They love music and they have been supportive of a lot of things that I’ve done. They’ve all been very, very patient and wondeful.”
Alejandro Escovedo will perform with Will Johnson on Saturday, June 1 at The Heights Theater, 339 W 19th. Doors at 7 p.m, tickets $24-416.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
