Las Ovejas Electricas
EP, Download
Not Silent/Area1234, 2004

This is a project that my friend Al Valdes (my King James collaborator) and I recorded back in August of 1999 with our spouses as extra vocalists. It’s also the first and only time we recorded on something better than a Portastudio. Most of the tunes are Al’s (he paid for the studio). These four songs are the only ones released so far, and we didn’t get to that until 2004. We have four more in the can, plus a few Portastudio demos that I’m going to try to convince Al to let me put out as a full-length project.

Stream:
Donde Esta Tu Biblia? (new wave/ska)
Donde Dios Me Tenga (pop punk)
En El Mundo (new wave)
Vida Loca Vida Poca (grunge)

Dig Marquito’s Cigars, Rum and Grace. Dealing with Cuban culture and Christian culture and just general pop culture from a cool perspective. My favorite post since I started reading the blog about six hours ago has to be the one about the demise of WMCU.

Here’s the glorious 20th anniversary reposting of the six-minute garage noise grunge-out that is Movies About Jesus, which Al Valdes and I recorded on Portastudio in 1987. Have fun with this because I just got a flood of freelance and won’t be around too much in the next few days.

PLAYERS:
Al Valdes: guitar R, drums
Julio Rey: guitar L, bass, vocals

The music was squarely based on “T-Bone” by Neil Young and Crazy Horse (from their 1981 proto-grunge masterpiece re-ac-tor). Three bluesy chords and a lot of cat-strangling out-of-control guitar solos. I’m on the left channel and Al is on the right. The lyrics are from back when I thought making movies about Jesus amounted to making graven images of Jesus. See how many Jesus movie references you can pick out. I’ve been performing this song solo at recent open mics. I improvised a couple of new lines bringing the song up to date. (06.07.05)

Jeffrey Hunter hasn’t resurrected yet
The guy in Lake Wales walks off the set
Afro Superman is living day by day
Hippie superstar has gone the black hole way

I don’t want to see His face down here
I don’t want to see His face not yet
I don’t want to see His face in my brain
Movies about Jesus

Three weeks ago He looked like Zappa
Church slide show, He looked like my friend
English miniseries tried to show Him flying
Brian left my crying

I don’t want to see His face until He shows it to me
Blessed is he who has believed without seeing

1. Donde Esta Tu Biblia (new wave ska rock)
2. Donde Dios Me Tenga (pop punk)
3. En El Mundo (new wave)
4. Vida Loca Vida Poca (punk rock)

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Label

PLAYERS:
Yami Valdes: vocals
Kristina Flor-Rey: vocals
Alberto Valdes: vocals, keys, guitar, drums
Julio Rey: guitar, bass, vocals

Produced by Las Ovejas Electricas
Recorded at Capstone Music by Marc Golob, 1999
Mixed by Alberto Valdes and David at David’s facility, 2003

My latest legacy rerelease on last.fm. Here’s what I’ve written before about the Ovejas.

August 6, 2001:

Las Ovejas Electricas is the latest of several musical collaborations between my childhood friend Alberto Valdes and I. We put out two semi-legendary cassettes in 1987 and 1990 under the name of King James and the Concordances.

Al plays drums, guitar and keyboards. His warped sense of humor has been an inspiration to me for over thirty years. He is as avid a songwriter as I am and also has a 4-track. He also has a Th. M. from Dallas Theological Seminary. Put the two of us together, with the ability to overdub, and we make for a pretty good 4-piece band.

Las Ovejas Electricas is something of a “Rock en Espanol” version of King James and the Concordances. We actually recorded four songs on 4-track in 1991 in Spanish under that name. I put three of them out on the Not Silent Sampler cassette in 1992. Soon thereafter, Frank’s Enemy came into being, we got married (to our wives), etc.

During the rest of the decade, Al wrote and demoed a few songs in Spanish while I pursued Frank’s Enemy. After it ended in 1998, we talked about finally recording some music on proper equipment. We decided to give the Spanish songs a shot.

With Al providing the financial backing, we made it into the now-defunct Capstone Music (where Frank’s Enemy did all its projects) in August of 1999 and recorded basic tracks to eight songs (five of Al’s, two of mine and one collaboration). My former partner in crime, Marc Golob, was at the board. In December we added the overdubs. We decided to get our wives into the act as vocalists, to become something of a Christian New-Wave version of ABBA in Spanish. Al was able to get three of the songs mixed recently, although more recording work needs to be done on most of the other songs.

February 16, 2004:

Las Ovejas Electricas’ first project is finally seeing a true release. Al finally got the eight songs mixed for real last year. Unfortunately he doesn’t know the last name of the guy who’se studio was used and who lent his engineering skills to the task. He was, however, working with the immortal Celia Cruz at the time of her death. So “David,” whoever you are, muchas gracias.

Song-by-song descriptions from 2001 and 2004 (I have more to say on the stuff I wrote myself, unfotunately. Hey Al, want to write for this blog?):

DONDE ESTA TU BIBLIA: This is one of the songs Al demoed out during the 90s on his Portastudio. My big arrangement suggestion was to do the ska riff over the bridges. Al double tracked his vocal. Actually, we did a ton of vocal work on this song. Kind of gives it a “glee club” vibe.

DONDE DIOS ME TENGA: This is one of the very first Spanish songs I ever wrote. The context was somewhat appropriate, as the lyrics are me dealing with the Lead breaking up, which had happened the day before. Trying to face up to the fact that we as Christians are not exempt from human failings and conflict, as well as reasserting the assurance that in the end we will work in harmony in the Kingdom. Doing this Spanish lyric was a liberating experience.

Al and I recorded a demo of this in 1991, which appears on the Not Silent Sampler Cassette I put out in 1992. I changed the chord pregression of the verses on this version. It used to be a Ramones ripoff. Now it’s a Huntingtons ripoff.

Another fun fact: Loogie Soup (alias Frank’s Enemy playing punk) performed this song at all two of its shows in 1996.

EN EL MUNDO: Another one of Al’s 90s songs. The ending was totally random, but somehow the lead guitar and keyboard managed to stop at the same time.

VIDA LOCA VIDA POCA: Here’s how we wrote it: Al had the title and a basic tune that he sang to me. I devised the riff on the guitar based on his tune, then added music for the chorus and bridge and fleshed out the song’s structure. We then recorded the basic track. Then Al wrote the final lyrics before we went back into the studio four months later. His wife Yami sang lead with Al, myself and my wife Kristina on back ups. I added a distorted (courtesy of my Buzz Box) bass and lead guitar and we had our hit (right…).