Los Chavos

On building a new album from many cultures

I’m sure there’s a name for the syndrome whereby people who are prone to conducting interviews just cannot stop themselves from whipping out various recording devices at opportune and inopportune moments in order to capture pearls of wisdom from artists and performers.

So it was in late August when Los Chavos had just sweated, samba’d, grooved and funked a heaving crowd to a stand-still at the Polish White Eagle Club in Canberra for the Canberra Musicians Club’s regular Friday night gig.

At sometime between midnight and 1am, as the band was loading out the side door, I did indeed whip out the trusty Samsung and away we went, starting with some sort of four-way first bump with various band members. Which always works goodly on audio.

Speaking of which, thank me now that this written text. We’d all punished the Polish beer a tad by this stage.

Bill Quinn: I feel I should know this, but what does ‘Los Chavos’ actually mean?

Rafael Florez: Pretty much, “The Guys”. Or “The Dudes”. It’s based on a Mexican TV show called “El Chavo del Ocho”.

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