The Santa Barbara Independent August 23, 2001 --Tony Balbinot and Micky Rae
Mods and Rockers
The Cadillac Angels just returned from a tour of the UK. The band is based in Santa Barbara, California, and has released seven CDs so far. The Angels have perfomed their Americana Roots Rock from coast to coast and also in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and have more than 1,000,000 miles of touring under their belts.

"Encore!": When you hear of Belfast, what comes to mind? The IRA, car bombs? Well, yeah, that's no surprise, but what about rock 'n' roll? Stay with us now. It's August 9th, 2001, and as Santa Barbara puts Fiesta to bed for another year, the Cadillac Angels are at a club called The Rotterdam in the heart of war-weary Northern Ireland, and a party is just getting started.

Inside, a young rock legend in Belfast named Brian leads a band called the Sabrejets through a roof-raising set. The Cadillac Angels' guitar player, Tony, is outside tryin' to fix his guitar amplifier that blew up the night before down in Dublin. We get to play loud over there! When the "Jets" finish their set, Brian comes outside and tells Tony he can use his rig. In the guitar player world, where sharin' amps is about as likely as sharin' girlfriends, Brian saves our show. Wow, a big star without a big star attitide!

We weren't prepared for the crowd response in these United Kingdom venues. "Enthusiastic" would be a gross understatement. They woudn't let us stop playing! In Liverpool, guys with silver mohawk haircuts and pierced cheeks and noses pressed hard against the stage were stompin' their big black motorcycle boots in time to our music.

Edinburgh, Dublin, Leicester and Wrexham were the same. Even London, which has a reputation for tough crowds, heated up and had the place exploding 15 minutes into our set. We were all soaked to the bone with that magical rock 'n' roll sweat that I can only equate to that of a long distance runner's cabalistic second wind. When it hits you, you feel like you can play forever - and we could have.

So how do you measure the great gigs? By the bad ones, of course! Which brings us to Swindon, England. We were warned by the fans in London about going into "teddy boy" country. Teddy boys live, eat, and breathe that whole '50s thing. And, like we've been trying to tell writers and journalists in this country, the Cadillac Angels are NOT a '50s band. Nobody knows that better than the Neanderthal bunch of Elvis wannabe Teddy Boys in Swindon. They wanted Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis songs, or they weren't going to have a good time. So we just took the money and ran on that gig!

The great thing is, we've been asked back to every venue we played in the UK except Swindon! Next year, we'll be in Scotland for their huge Americana Festival. It only took the Cadillac Angels about 10 hours to get to London from Santa Barbara, but it took some years of dedication to the craft of original music to get invited to the festival.

So now when I think of Belfast, I think of my new friend Brian. I think of rock 'n' roll.


Irish Evening Herald August 8, 2001 --Eamon Carr
Angular triangle with a twang
"We form our own Bermuda Triangle," guitarist Tony Balbinot tells the audience at the Cadillac Angels debut Irish gig. And this roots Americana trio cover a lot of ground where weird stuff happens.

Songs about Cadillacs, more Cadillacs and gals (Cindy Lou and Jolene amoung 'em) are given a surf beat, a twang guitar riff and a bass-fiddle slap unheard since the heyday of Bill Black.

With more stylish shapes than an anglepoise lamp, the results are hypnotisin'. Students of the retro groove, these Angels filter predominantly 60s LA bluster through 50s Memphis craziness with just a splash of pre-beat boom Joe Meek. This is guitar strangler Link Wray doing Telstar for Dick Dale. The ghost of Presley haunts I Walk Alone. Feel Like Rockin' brings the house down.

And the trio's seismic, shimmying version of The Rumble is the stuff of legends. With a variety of albums to pick their set list from (including Hellraisin' Arizona) the Cadillac Angels have a set that rattles along with more conviction than Fulsom Prison.

Tonight those turbo engines roar in Connolly's of Leap and then its the turn of Belfast to witness Micky Rae's hardcore double bass antics.


Los Angeles Times March 30, 2001 --Bill Locey
No Day Off
Cadillac Angels take a break from the road for a local gig. In what is virtually a home game for those raucous road dogs named after a car, the Cadillac Angels will be throwing an all-ages CD release party tonight at Rocket Fuel in Ventura. One of the few bands in the area that actually survive by playing music, the Santa Barbara-based Angels, formerly the Roadhouse Rockers, have been around for a long time. Their latest album is "Playing With Fire."

The Angels are a danceable result of long-term partnership between front man-singer-guitar player Tony Balbinot and upright bass player Micky Rae. The band used to play retro rockabilly, but the Angels have broadened their horizons over time to become a sort of roots rock-hillbilly-surf band, having been influenced by the likes of the Beatles, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Duane Eddy and one of Balbinot's idols, legendary guitarist Link Wray.

The band tours incessantly, but when at home, the group has sponsored the Rockabilly Roundup, which this year became the American Music Bash. It's been one of Santa Barbara's most successful charity fund-raisers for a dozen years. As to the venue, Rocket Fuel is a retro coffee shop that seems time-warped out of 1958. Located in a mall on Johnson Drive in Ventura, the place is small, and because any live band can get mighty loud, the fans inevitably end up standing out on the sidewalk.

Balbinot discussed the gig and more during a recent interview.

Your new album "Playing With Fire" has a 1999 date on it; what's up with that?
That's when it was recorded, but it's only now being released in your kneck of the woods. That's our newest release, and I believe, that's No. 7, and we have No. 8 in the can. We're negotiating with an independent label in Phoenix, Hayden's Ferry Records.
How often does the band play?
We do about three gigs a week. We've had two weekends off in one year during the last 12 years. I haven't taken a vacation in a long time because I love what I do and I love to travel. You get to see lots of things. It looks like we'll be going to England in June and maybe Italy in August, and we're going out on the road again in May with Wanda Jackson.
What's the secret of surviving on the road?
The secret is don't drink and work ... and eat right, exercise and keep your head clear. If you eat right and exercise, then you can get up, because we don't have drivers and we don't have roadies. If you have to drive 10 hours, you don't party, then get up, because then your show's going to stink.
Who goes to see the band?
It depends on where we're at. In Arizona, which is our home away from home, we attract college-age along with blue-collar; and I mean heavy blue-collar like biker types. The bikers have been really loyal to us ... In the Midwest, there's really a lot of young women that look up to Micky Rae. They see pictures of her standing on her bass and they think "Wow," because she really iws in a man's world. I know for a fact we've lost some gigs because the other guy that plays upright bass doesn't want her on stage. You know, musicians are insecure anyway, and we've got those guys who think women don't belong up here. It's mostly those die-hard rockabilly types.
What's the story on this gig?
Well, we need a gig in Ventura that was all ages. In other towns, we end up with kids hanging around out front that can't get in. I think that's kind of strange because if you're 18, you can vote and get drafted but you're not old enough to go into a club and see a band.
How long has the band been together?
Mick Rae and I have been playing together for 15 years now, and the drummer, Cowboy Bob, has been with us for two years. We don't even talk about the other band much anymore. That was a whole different group. It was a four-piece that did a lot of covers. We do a couple of covers now, but we pretty much do all originals. We've put out five albums as the Cadillac Angels, and at the last count, I've written about 340 songs.
So why are you the Cadillac Angels and not the Rambler or Yugo Angels? Because a lady almost killed me in a Cadillac. I was riding my bicycle after a band rehearsal and this old lady who could barely see over the top of her steering wheel ran me off the road. So there I was sitting on the curb, and all I could seeare these angels with bobbing heads in the back of her car as she drove off. It was like a rolling shrine. She had four or five Virgin Marys, a bunch of plastic Jesuses on the dash and all those angels. She didn't even see me. We were looking for a new name anyway. We had found 12 other bands with the name Roadhouse Rockers, so you can sort of say I stumbled or fell onto that name.
What do you think the band sounds like?
Well, Hayden's Ferry is an Americana label and some DJs seem to think of Americana as more country-sounding, but Dave Alvin tends to think that any American music is Americana. When we fill out our applications for festivals to describe our music, they'll list all these categories for the style of music you play but there's always one category that's not there - rock 'n' roll. So I just call what we do rock 'n' roll.
So is the Ameicana category a good thing, or have people just run out of adjectives?
Well, I think Americana is a good thing if they stay at it. You can go into some of the bigger record stores, and there's an Americana section. You'll see any number of bands we've shared the bill with - everyone from Trish Munoz to Dave Alvin. I mean, how do you classify someone like link Wray? I remember his song "Jack the Ripper" from a long time ago. We played with him twice and I managed to get a private sitting with him backstage after a gig in San Francisco. He was very nice, and he asked me how long I'd been listening to his music and I told him that actually my mom got me hoked on electric guitar. I told him she had come all the way up here too. He said, "Get her in here, I like moms." So he sent the security guys out there to get her. After they introduced themselves, my mom told him, "Well, you keep practicing and one of these days, you'll be as good as my son." He turned to me and said, "See, that's why I like moms - they're always in your corner." He got a big kick out of that while I was feeling about 2 inched tall.
Along with Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and very few others, your band is one of the few successful groups from this area I can think of - how do you manage to survive?
Micky Rae and I have supported ourselves playing original music for about eight years now. Sometimes I forget that. Once in a while, someone will come up to me in a record store or somewhere and congratulate me for what I love and making a living off it. You get into anything long enough, and you don't necessarily take it for granted, but it's just kind of the rut you're in. Then when someone on the outside is cheering for you, it's kind of like, "Oh yeah, I forgot - a lot of people don't like what they do."
That's right. A lot of people hate their jobs.
But I really do love mine. I had a point in time where I'd be thinking "What am I doing in this bar?" because our environments change so quickly. One day I'll be at the most prestigious club in San Francisco and the next night, I'm in Coalinga at somebody's 50th birthday party. But then again, these people hired us because they want to hear what we do and not our version of somebody else's songs. And that's hip and i will go to Coalinga and do that because I'm more at ease with that now. We're still getting to play the songs we've written and the songs we've worked hard to develop. We're not up there playing Buck Owens. I'll play anywhere anyone wants to hear what we do.
What advice do you have for aspiring musicians?
Don't let people pull you down or pollute your mind, taking the wind out of your sails, breaking your spirit. People do that sometimes unknowingly, unconsciuosly, probably beacause they're unhappy. It's not easy going against the grain. The other day I drove past the old Burroughs Corp. building in Goleta where I used to work, and three or four of the supervisors had strokes and are dead now, and for what? It was a cockeyed approach to life, and a cockeyed sense of priorities.


Review of "Playing With Fire"
This is the eight album by roots-rockers out of Santa Barbara, who actually make a living playing music. Big fat bass lines by Miss Micky Rae makes it happen, and twangy, economical guitar leads by Tony Balbinot make you remember it all. Everything has a slight '50s retro feel to it, but the songs are hook-filled and roadhouse ready. Sort of like the Blasters meet Duane Eddy, these Angels score with "Lena Marie," "I Walk Alone," and - hell, there are no weak cuts here.


Rock & Blues News October, 1999 --Angela McCormick Owen
Cruisin' with the Cadillac Angels
Many Rock & Blues News readers may recognize the Cadillac Angels as the striking Santa Barbara trio that is Wanda Jackson's backup band. But the Queen of Rockabilly knows that the Cadillac Angels are a mighty, mighty band on their own, too.

Fourteen years ago, roots/rockabilly/surf guitarist and singer Tony Balbinot and bassist/vocalist Micky Rae first hit the rehearsal space and then the road. Drummer and Angelo Evan Richards, now completes the trio. The Cadillac Angelshave wowed folks in just about every honkytonk, night club, roadhouse, festival, and theater in the country. Or maybe it just seems that way. Check the odometer on the van and then decide for yourself.
As every musician knows, selecting a name for a band is never easy. It is, in fact, a huge responsibility very much like naming a child. After one particularly heated "naming the band" argument, Tony hopped on his bicycle and rode downtown to his Santa Barbara bank. As Tony recalls, "I rode around the corner, and there was an old lady in a '52 or '53 Cadillac coming at me. It was chock full or religious statues, a veritable rolling shrine with all of these angels and ornaments and stuff on the back console, and it came chugging up at about five miles per hour. She could barely see over the dash, and she nearly ran me over. I fell of my bike, rolled on the curb, and she kept on chugging by, completely oblivious to the fact that she almost took my life. As she passed by, all I could see were these angels with bobbing heads in the back of the Cadillac." Still shaken and dazed, Tony went home and called Micky Rae with the bands new name.

The Cadillac Angels have made a name for themselves in part by sharing bills with such notable talents as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Link Wray. As previously mentioned, they have toured as Wanda Jackson's opening act and backup band, a gig that still do from time to time. In fact, they had the honor of playing that very configuration with Wanda Jackson at the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in April.

"That was really something," says Tony. "We pulled up, got out of the van to load out, and right there is Paul Burlison with Billy and Rocky Burnette, and D.J. Fontana. They were all just standing there, leaning on their cars. We were in awe."

While enormously respectful and reverent of the golden age of rock and roll, the Cadillac Angels are not a nostalgic act. In fact, they seamlessly meld roots, rockabilly, and surf into a rockin' genre all their own. As Tony says, "A guy in Jerome (Arizona) once said to me, "I have never heard this kind of music before in my life, but it sounds really familiar to me." "Sometimes we run into a problem with the purest rockabillies," says Micky Rae, "because there aren't many women that have played stand-up bass. Sometimes the hard-core rockabilly guys think that I shouldn't be up there because I am a woman." Tony adds, "Personally I feel like Micky Rae should be more of the focal point of the band. She sometimes gets overlooked in the interviews and reviews. But her picture has been featured in Hot Rode Deluxe magazine, Chevelle, Hot Rod, Biker, and an upcoming issue of Thunder Press, the Harley-Davidson magazine. She's also a really good singer, a fine vocalist."

Touring hasn't always gone seamlessly, either. A couple of years ago, en route to a Wanda Jackson gig, the Cadillac Angels were involved in an accident in which their van was struck and rolled three times on a freeway in Kentucky. "We could hear the front axle breaking and the tie-rods snapping," says Tony. "A truck driver pulled over and helped me pull Micky Rae out of the crushed van. The audience waited for two and a half hours while we were being patched up at the emergency room." When they arrived at the theater, still in shock but ready to play, they were given a standing ovation by the packed and patient house. "Luckily someone there has a stand-up bass," recalls Micky Rae. "We didn't know it at first, but when we opened up the bag, the neck of my bass was completely cracked. We also didn't know it at the time, but we were completely in shock. When I look at the pictures from that night, it is pretty obvious that we shouldn't have been up there."

With seven self-released CDs under their belts (five of those as Cadillac Angels), the band is now actively looking for a record label to help them get their own brand of "the devils music" out to more people. Their most recent release, Playin' With Fire, has been such a huge success that the band are now ordering up their third pressing.

With twelve rockin' original tunes, Playin' With Fire, is a masterpiece featuring Tony's jangly, insinuating guitar licks, Micky Rae's throbbing, old-style bass slapping and plucking, and Evan's muscular, cool-man skin hitting. Tony's Elvis-meets-The-Blasters vocals, and Micky Rae's sultry, sexually-liberated Patsy Cline style of singing round out Playin' With Fire and makes it a must-have for all lovers of American music.