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Reviewed by David Gomez
On March 15, 2007, Ollin came to Amoeba to help usher in St. Patrick’s Day. Why would East L.A.’s infamous Chicano rockers come to Amoeba to do that? Wouldn’t they be better-suited lets say, for Cinco de Mayo? Ollin has never been one for tokenism and on their latest release, “San Patricios”; Ollin forges a new path through musical borders that only they can cross. Named after a renegade army of Irish, German and Mexican Catholics who fought against the United States during the Mexican-American War, San Patricios is the modern day Ollin; Chicano, Irish Americans, and German Americans playing together in one band singing songs against imperialism. Not much has changed in two hundred years.

A lazy comparison would be Los Lobos meets The Pogues, however there is a big Zoot Suit/Pachuco influence in their music that can only come from listening to hours of Lalo Guererro and his contemporaries. Mixed in are the band’s East L.A. influences of Latin rock and Mexican Banda music that fully marries the Mexican side with their Oomph-Pa-Pa German side. The Irish folk elements are perfectly mixed with the band’s Son Jarocho influences. The band uses a Jarana (a guitar used for Son Jarocho music, native of Vera Cruz, Mexico) accordion, pan whistles, mandolin, violin, electric guitar and bass, drums, percussion and lastly, horns. Each instrument blends in without sounding too excessive.

Ollin holds a three-year tradition of playing St. Patrick’s Day and covering the Pogues “Rum, Sodomy and The Lash” in it’s entirety. For the in-store performance, the band played songs from their new release as well as cuts from The Pogues’ classic album. After watching a few songs I couldn’t help but think that their music would sound better in an intimate setting with a Guinness in hand.

On the actual St. Patrick’s Day, I went to check out Ollin at Spaceland. They did two sets: The first covering their new album and music from their previous releases. The second set was The Pogues covers with each member of the band taking turns on lead vocals. Each band member who sang brought their own flare to the song and you could tell each had picked that particular song because it meant something to them. A smaller venue was indeed a more appropriate setting for them and the Guinness was just right. Maybe Amoeba should start serving beer at their in-stores???

err…on second thought…