Catching the bus: Calexico

John Convertino speaks slowly and deliberately, not surprising for a man whose band, Calexico, captures the languid pace of the Southwest. The band’s songs are full of sparse acoustic passages and mariachi horns, the kind of music often described as “cinematic,” with good reason. Calexico’s most recent album, “Feast of Wire,” inhabits the same washed-out sonic space as its predecessors, a position informed by alt-country, rock and Latin music as you’d expect from a band named after a border town.

But Convertino, whose band is based in Tucson, once called Los Angeles home. Hearing him recount his favorite day in L.A., though, suggests he was never completely comfortable here. “I used to get up early in the morning and take the bus all through Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Westwood and the Palisades, and it drops you off right at the beach,” he says. He’d walk down to the beach, then take the Santa Monica line back home. “It was a great day,” he says.

Though Convertino’s own road trip listening is a bit more obscure (he says he’s been digging “Eastern European gypsy music recently”), he acknowledges that Calexico’s music makes the perfect soundtrack to that kind of bus ride. “A lot of times, I’ve heard people say they like to listen to our music while they’re driving,” he says, “and that makes total sense, because we’re driving all the time.”

-- Jeff Miller

Calexico, El Rey Theatre, 5515 Wilshire Blvd., L.A. Today, 8 p.m. $19.50. (323) 936-4790.