Staying Cool With Hacienda

Several years ago, whilst schlepping advertising for music trade magazines, I had the pleasure of spending some time in San Antonio. A nice city, San Antone: friendly people, good food, a winning basketball team, a decent music scene.

The only drawback was that my trips were always to conventions that happened during the last week in July. If you've ever been in San Antone during July, you know that it gets hotter as the day wears on and it's one of the few places (that I've visited, anyway) where the breeze cooks you instead of cools you.

Perhaps it's all that time spent indoors trying to stay cool that turned Hacienda into such a strong group of musicians.

Hacienda was the brainstorm of cousins Abraham Villanueva and Dante Schwebel, who started playing together back in 2004. By 2005, having had trouble filling out the rest of their band, they teamed with Abraham's two brothers, Jaime and Rene, and what is now Hacienda took shape.

A digital recorder, the support of Black Keys' Dan Aurbach and a few years later, the Hacienda family is making some noise. Their first album, Loud Is The Night, drops on September 16th and should be at the top of your "buy" list.

As Rene Villanueva explains on their website, Loud is the Night "combines the creative arrangements of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, with the personality of the Band all rolled into one."

It's a pretty fair assessment but you can decide for yourself: listen in on their MySpace page.