We recently played the Hole Note acoustic club which is held upstairs at Hole In’t Wall, Hebden Bridge. It was a great, fun gig with a fantastic audience, some great acts and just an all round brilliant atmosphere.

The whole (hole!) night was reviewed by Andrew Sugden of the Yorkshire Gig Guide. Here’s our bit;

Then it was time for Pancho Ballad (sic) and the Banditos, a great band featuring drums, spanish guitar, two trumpets a trombone and lots of fun!! They play a sort of Mexican Scar from Bolton with a BIG BIG SOUND. Fun songs, Mex-Bolton Perkins soup Song with funky rhythms, story telling donkeys, cut throats and war, haircuts and hats. They have a fun boozed harmonic appeal cut from superb tight musicianship; and the hole Note Audience loved them, dancing spontaneoulsly, cheering, shouting and clapping to the collision of Mexican Bolton rhythms.

I love this review, he was obviously taking a lot of very quick notes. It comes across like a William Burroughs gig review (if he ever did them). You can read the whole article at the Yorkshire Gig Guide.

Even better, he also filmed our first two numbers and here it is for your pleasure!

Lucha Libre, the opening track from Five Songs For Oscar, has been featured on the CD Baby Music Discovery podcast - http://musicdiscovery.cdbabypodcast.com/

This podcast showcases the best of the music that can be purchased at CD Baby and we’re honoured to have been included. Go listen, maybe even subscribe through iTunes.

And don’t forget, if you like that song, there are four more that are just as good on the E.P.! Click here to buy it…

A few months ago I put the word out that the Banditos were looking for an animated video for The Cut-Throat of Old Mexico. By complete chance, an animation studio called Pew 36 were looking to make a video in the Spaghetti Western genre – perfect timing!

After a few emails between Adam Comiskey (the producer and director) and I, we agreed to put the project into motion. Done as a trailer for the as yet unmade movie, ‘Pancho’, the video shows zombie gunslinger Maverick McGore battle against a town overrun by cactus monsters and an evil sheriff.

We’d like to thank Adam and his studio for the great work they did on the video and are keeping our fingers crossed that the movie gets made, as we’re going to try to persuade him that we need to do the whole soundtrack! Enjoy the video below.

Hola amigos.

I’m very excited this week because the work on our new E.P., Five Songs For Oscar, is almost done. All that’s left to do is the mastering process, which I’m doing myself so fingers crossed and hope I do a good job.

The recording process has been remarkably stress free and the Banditos did a great job recreating our unique sound on record. To celebrate we had our Christmas outing last night and my head’s still a bit sore. Many things were discussed (most of which I can’t mention on this public forum due to reasons of taste and common decency) but one thing we were all in agreement with is what a great year we’ve had. Just two gigs but a lot of changes, a lot of work and now an excellent E.P. to prove that we were actually doing something all the while we were away from the gigging scene.

We should be a lot more visible next year as we try to put as many smiles on as many faces as we can. Hopefully the E.P. will continue to provide the smiles once we’ve packed up and gone home. Speaking of which, here’s something that I hope will also bring a smile to your face…

If you don’t want to miss news of the E.P.’s release I suggest you look over at the columns to the right and join the mailing list. You also get a free song to download and just as soon as I pull my finger out there’ll be a special Christmas tune to all subscribers.

Thanks for reading,

Pancho