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Café Tacuba (often spelled Café Tacvba) is a Grammy Award and Latin Grammy Award-winning musical group from Naucalpan, Mexico. They were founded in 1989, and since then have had the same musical lineup:
Mexican folk music player Alejandro Flores is considered the 5th tacubo, as he has played the violin in almost every Café Tacuba concert since 1994. Since the Cuatro Caminos World Tour, Luis "El Children" Ledezma has played the drums in every concert but is not considered an official member of the band.
Previously known as "Alicia Ya No Vive Aquí" (a tribute to Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore), the band took its final name from a coffee shop (el Café de Tacuba) located in downtown Mexico City, which opened in 1912 and had its heyday in the 1940's and 1950's, and was representative of the Pachuco scene from the time, something the band would certainly acknowledge as an influence. The Café de Tacuba is still in operation on Tacuba street, in Mexico City's Historic Center.
In their first shows (prior to the release of their first album), people would scream "¡Pinche Juan!" ("Fucking Juan!") to Rubén because that's the name of one of the band's first underground hits, so he kept the name for the release of the first album. Two years later he got bored and changed it to "Cosme" (a disused name in Spanish) for the release of "Re". Since then, he has changed his name for every album and world tour.
Formerly graphic design students, Rubén, Joselo and Quique design their own album covers.
Their musical style covers a wide variety of genres, though it is most commonly labeled as Rock en Español. Their music has been heavily influenced by Mexico's indigenous population and folk music traditions, but also by punk and electronic music and other bands on the Mexico City scene. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of their music is Albarrán's nasal voice, which, combined with his impressive lung capacity (as demonstrated on "La Ingrata", a homage of norteño music), makes for a very distinctive sound. They sing entirely in Spanish but have a significant Anglophone following regardless.
The song "Chilanga Banda" has a hip-hop beat under a stream of Mexico City slang, "María" is a 'bolero' balad about a somewhat romantic ghost, "El Fin de la Infancia" a brass-heavy 'banda ranchera' sound that reflects the influence of 'banda sinaloense', "Desperté" has a tango-driven melody that could have been stolen from a latinamerican soap opera and "El Borrego" is pure speed metal.
Every studio album released by the band so far has been produced by Gustavo Santaolalla except for Cuatro Caminos which was produced by Santaloalla, Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, Weezer) and Andrew Weiss (Ween). Cuatro Caminos was featured on several Top Albums of 2003 charts, including Rolling Stone, New York Times, Blender Magazine and won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Latin Rock/Alternative Album.