Los Lobos to ‘disconnect’ at Musco Center

One of Los Angeles’ quintessential rock bands is visiting Chapman University’s Musco Center for the Arts for a less amplified, more stripped down performance.

Los Lobos — the veteran quintet from East L.A. that mixes rock, blues, Tex Mex, folk, country, R & B and traditional Spanish and Mexican music — will perform at 4 p.m. Sunday at the 2-year-old concert hall, which was designed specifically to highlight its nimble, sensitive acoustics.

The group, founded in 1973, will perform selections from its most recent record, “Gates of Gold” (2015), as well as songs from its 2013 album, “Los Lobos: Disconnected in New York City.”

“That record is acoustic, not electric,” said Steve Berlin, saxophone player for Los Lobos and occasional producer for the band, about the latter live collection. “It’s not quite unplugged, but it’s certainly not electric. There’s more texture to the songs.

“You get to hear the quality of the songwriting — it’s certainly different when there’s a three-electric guitar onslaught. The lyrics sometimes get obscured beneath all the volume.”

Los Lobos will take a similar “disconnected” approach during its concert at Musco, a student-focused venue that hasn’t really hosted any straight-ahead rock bands up to this point. Australian blues, funk and soul band the Teskey Brothers will open Sunday’s show.

Berlin joined Los Lobos at the invitation of producer T-Bone Burnett in 1983, and has been a core member ever since. In addition to playing saxophone, keyboards and harmonica, Berlin produced the outfit’s 1984 breakthrough, “How Will the Wolf Survive?,” and still crosses the country for 100-130 gigs per year with the band. He used to live in Venice, but now makes his home in Portland, Ore.

“Frankly we like the music we make,” Berlin, 62, said about Los Lobos’ longevity. “Even when we’re pissed off at each other, which happens, by the end of a show, we’re like, ‘What was that all about?’ The guys were adults when we started. They have families and children. They weren’t callow youths. They had responsibilities. They had to be a little bit more businesslike when most bands start out and go crazy.”

The members of Los Lobos — David Hidalgo, Louie Pérez, Cesar Rosas, Conrad Lozano and Berlin — believe in loyalty. “They’re still on their first marriages for the most part,” Berlin said. “It’s not like we’re shopping for a better deal, like some people.”

“Gates of Gold” is a topical album, dealing with many issues of the day, including immigration.

“We’re a Mexican American band, and no word describes America like immigrant,” Perez, the group’s primary wordsmith, said at the time of the album’s release. “Most of us are children of immigrants, so it’s perhaps natural that the songs we create celebrate America in this way.”

Richard Bryant, executive director of the Musco Center, said he booked Los Lobos, knowing that they weren’t aiming to rock the house and leave patrons with their ears ringing.

“Los Lobos are out there right now, deconstructing some of their great stuff, slowing it down and letting you get into it,” Bryant said. “We thought that was pretty exciting.”

Bryant recalls Los Lobos during the mid-1980s, when their No. 1 single “La Bamba” was ruling the charts.

“They were in my top 100 — a Chicano East L.A. band, too. We adored them, and we all followed them,” Bryant said. “Coming out of Los Angeles, they were paradigm shifters. We paid a lot of attention to that stuff.”

Bryant said the Musco Center specializes in acoustic music but can handle amplified sounds with absorptive pennants on the side walls. He added that it’s important for the institution to reflect what’s going on in surrounding communities.

“We live in a Mexican American town, and next door to a Vietnamese American town,” he said. “It’s an attractive way to engage more fully. Out of this fusion of Mexican tradition and Mexican American tradition comes Los Lobos. They sound like Los Angeles, and thereby America, and thereby the world.”

The opening act, the Teskey Brothers, also embody a down-to-earth, DIY aesthetic similar to Los Lobos, according to Wesley Pinkham, audience development manager at the Musco Center.

“They’ve hitched their wagon to that Stax record sound — raw Americana, with that mid-century Memphis flavor,” Pinkham said. “It’s an analog, needle-on-vinyl feel.”

If You Go

What: “Los Lobos Disconnected”

When: 4 p.m. March 18

Where: Musco Center for the Arts, Chapman University, 415 N. Glassell St., Orange

Cost: $30-$75

Information: (844) 626-8726 or muscocenter.org.

Richard Chang is a contributor to Times Community News.