Strolling Up to theVisitors Center of the Beige Castle

Album: Cruzados, After Dark, 1987

Acquired: I can't tell you where I got this tape, but if you want to know when and why I did, keep reading. If you don't want to know either of those things, please come back tomorrow or the next day, by which time my feelings will no longer be hurt.

Best Track: There really isn't one.

Lasting Memory: I bought this album shortly after it was released in the spring of 1987 solely because I took Spanish as my required language at Norfolk Catholic High School, Home of the Crusaders.

In Spanish, of course, "Crusaders" is "Cruzados." Every day in Senora Harrison's Spanish class, I stared at a greenboard emblazoned with the slogan "Viva Los Cruzados." It was subliminal I tell ya.

I only listened to the tape a couple of times 20 years ago, and I broke it out for the first time since then today because those are the rules for this blog. I will not duck any comers, even the mediocre ones.

And this album is screamingly mediocre. Crusaders, by definition and mythology, storm the dark tower. The Cruzados, by constrast, took a day trip to the local mall's Santa's Castle.

The Cruzados' sound rests somewhere between that of the Bodeans' and Los Lobos' -- all the members of Cruzados were L.A.-based Latinos -- but it lacks the fire of the former and the technical skill and cultural rootedness of the latter. It's almost like the songs have been seived.

I'm currently typing and listening to a Creed song on the radio. I'd wager that Cruzados would trounce Creed in a bland-off then have a punchers' chance of getting past Daughtry in the semis.

The Cruzados' stuff is so bland, it seems to have actually become immaterial. The words and notes have literally disappeared rathed than just gone out of print. For instance, you can by After Dark on Amazon and on Yahoo! Music, but you can't hear any song samples.

So its back to the tape rack to be forgotten for Cruzados. Fortunately, the next selection is one of the best roots rock records ever recorded. As a teaser, check out this video. It's one of the very few MTV ever outright banned.

Up Next: The dB's, Like This, 1984