Prowling, Howling

If you look closely during tonight’s Grammy telecast, you might see a familiar pair of shades bobbing in the audience. And behind those sunglasses you will find Cesar Rosas, singer and guitarist for Los Lobos, the East Los Angeles roots-rock band seven times nominated for a Grammy, and three-time winners.

Rosas won’t be at the Grammys because of Los Lobos, however. He’s part of a team of musicians on an album by Los Super Seven, nominated this year for best Mexican American musical performance and best recording package.

Fellow Lobos David Hidalgo (vocals, guitar) and Steve Berlin (producer) also worked on the Super Seven project, along with singers Rick Trevino, Freddy Fender, Ruben Ramos and Joe Ely, and accordionist Flaco Jimenez.

The Super Seven nomination is one reason Los Lobos, who’ve been together for 25 years, seem to be everywhere lately, and stronger than ever. While newer, louder bands such as Quetzal and Ozomatli have snared the Chicano rock spotlight of late, the members of Los Lobos continue to grow in unpredictable ways, both individually and as a group.

Each member of the quintet is involved in at least one outside project. Rosas and Hidalgo both have independent tours coming up--the first time any Los Lobos members have done so without the others.

According to Berlin, who joined the group in 1982, this new energy grew out of a brief period of uncertainty the Lobos experienced two years ago, when they ended their 19-year relationship with Warner Bros. Records. Feeling that the label was no longer putting resources into promoting the band, the Lobos left, without another contract waiting.

“I think all of us just got involved in other projects partly because we didn’t know what would happen to us as a band,” says Berlin, who is producing an album for the Celtic-influenced Canadian group Great Big Sea.

Los Lobos eventually signed a new contract with Disney’s Hollywood Records last fall, and just finished recording their first album for the label. Titled “This Time,” and produced by Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake, the album is expected out June 15. In a break from Los Lobos tradition, Hollywood plans to push it heavily in both the mainstream and Latin markets here and abroad.

Warner Bros. Records rarely promoted Los Lobos in the Latin music market because, Berlin says, “it was just assumed that we’d be successful there, and that was a mistake.” The existing Lobos fan base is primarily non-Latino. According to bassist Conrad Lozano, the band sells more concert tickets in Seattle and Chicago than it does in Los Angeles.

Warner Bros. Records spokesman Bob Merlis did not want to comment about the Los Lobos defection but did say his company had enlisted a “Latin marketing firm on at least one occasion” to help sell Los Lobos in the Latin music market. That occasion, Merlis said, was the “La Bamba” soundtrack album, which became the label’s top-selling recording of 1987.

Cameron Randle, senior vice president for Latin music at Hollywood Records, said his company will be able to generate high sales for Los Lobos by pushing them simultaneously in two markets.

“Los Lobos are signed here as mainstream artists,” Randle said. “But the distinction will be that they will be marketed to the Latin market at the same time--not as an afterthought or a supplement. We’ll make these guys available to Latin media in places they’ve never been to, like Miami,” where Los Lobos will appear on Spanish-language television shows, such as “Sabado Gigante,” for the first time. In addition, Spanish-language singles from the album will be concurrently released with English ones.

“We are in the ironic position of introducing this legendary Latino band to the Latin market,” Randle said. “It’s ridiculous that they’ve never been marketed to that constituency before, but they haven’t.”

Members of Los Lobos are pleased with the new approach.

“It’s a cool thing,” Lozano says. “We’ve never had a strong Latin audience.”

Meanwhile, the side projects the Lobos turned to in their period of uncertainty continue.

In addition to his Super Seven contributions, Hidalgo is part of a duo called Houndog, formed with Mike Halby, a multi-instrumentalist who played with the ‘60s rock band Canned Heat. Houndog’s self-titled debut album, a bluesy, avant-garde studio concoction, comes out March 16, on Columbia Legacy.

“Dose,” the second album by the Latin Playboys, a musically adventurous alternative-leaning band Hidalgo formed with drummer Louie Perez, Froom and Blake, comes out Tuesday. Perez says that people ask him how he knows “where Los Lobos begins and Latin Playboys ends.” His answer: When he and Hidalgo write songs, they decide as they go which band gets what song.

“I don’t want this to sound bad, but the Playboys stuff has a little more gray matter behind it,” Perez says, referring to the complexity of the compositions and the technology the Latin Playboys make use of. Hidalgo and Perez plan to tour with the band.

Perez is also writing a Chicano rock opera based on the Orpheus myth, called “Song of Orfeo,” for the Mark Taper Forum Latino Initiative; it is expected to be ready for the stage next year.

As for Rosas, he has his own, just-released Rykodisc solo album, “Soul Disguise,” and plans to tour. Even Lozano, who describes himself as the “follower” in the group, has a side project--a rock band with his 25-year-old son, a drummer.

Berlin says that the independent side projects are not taking anything away from the vitality of Los Lobos. In fact, he is convinced they have had the opposite effect.

“It keeps everything very healthy in the band,” Berlin says. “To a certain extent, bands are like their own planets. If you spend all your time on one, you get limited. In some ways, I feel it’s been a broadening experience for all of us to focus on other projects.”

The new energy shows on the upcoming Lobos album, which seems more experimental with language and song form than their 1996 release, “Colossal Head.” Berlin says that the booming Spanish-language rock movement has freed Los Lobos up somewhat.

“We used to feel like we were the only ones out there doing this stuff,” he says. “And now we don’t feel as isolated.”

Still, don’t the Los Lobos guys get tired? After all, Lozano has a grandson now. And they’re all . . . how old? “We’re all under 100,” Berlin says. “Leave it at that.”

“I joke around and tell my son to hurry up and make a lot of dough so his old man can come off the road,” Perez says. “Being on the road is the hardest part. The two hours on stage is the payoff. It’s the other 22 hours that beat the crap out of you. I moan and groan, but I got a job I love. And honestly, if there were more hours in the day, we’d all find other ways to fill them up.”

* The Grammy Awards air at 8 tonight on CBS.

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Tracking The Wolves

David Hidalgo

Los Super Seven

Latin Playboys (album due Tuesday)

Houndog (due March 16)

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Louie Perez

Latin Playboys

Playwright, “Song of Orfeo” (in development)

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Steve Berlin

Producer for albums by Los Super Seven, Great Big Sea and the Tragically Hip

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Conrad Lozano

Member of a bad with his 25-year-old drummer son

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Cesar Rosas

Los Super Seven

“Soul Disguise” (solo album released Feb. 2)