El Primer Instinto and Café Tacvba

Taking their influences from popular 80’s alternative rock bands such as The Clash and The Cure, Café Tacuba are very proud of their native heritage and infuse traditional Mexican folk music into their sound. Throughout their career the band have been fortunate enough to release enough material to allow them to experiment with various genres as they incorporated ska, punk, electronica and hip-hop into their discography.

In the early beginnings, the band selected their name paying homage to a local coffee house of the same name which had a long history surrounding it’s involvement with the Puchuco music scene, a major stylistic influence of the band. Café Tacuba would develop their music playing in their garages and local shows, eventually finding themselves part of El Hijo del Cuervo- a cultural club comprising of local musicians and writers in Mexico City.

Constantly playing small shows around the city they were spotted by Argentinian producer Gustavo Santaolalla, in influential figure in the Spanish Rock movement at the time. In 1990 the band signed to Warner Music Latina and released their debut self-titled album two years later which became a huge success in their homeland, Mexico. The album featured some of their biggest hits “La Chica Banda” and “Labios Jaguar” and catapulted them into Latin charts and soon acquiring a dedicated following.

On 5 August 2007 Café Tacuba played a forty-five minute set at the popular US festival Lollapalooza and loved so much by the audience that they ended up playing three encores!

With four Grammys under their belt, Café Tacuba have paved the way for alternative Latin rock, taking their music across the globe sharing the stage with world class acts Incubus, Beck and Los Lobos.