Spellbound

Since 1999 Bobby Moon (keys, percussion and vocals) and Paul “Pablo” Thomas (keys, guitars, percussion) have been working together in and around LA as SPELLBOUND. A regular  release schedule has endeared them to a coterie of fans who enjoy their take on Latin music with (occasionally) a blue-eyed soul undertow and, we’re told, their live shows in and around the City Of Angels are always sell-out affairs!

Hear what Spellbound have to offer via their just released, latest album, ‘Especial’. The concise new 9 tracker features plenty of new material, like the energetic ‘Party In la Calle’ which opens proceedings and updates of old material like ‘Destinado’. New or old, what you’ll hear is a unique blend of pop, salsa, Latin rhythms and blue-eyed soul –  best illustrated by the track ‘ Mi Nuevo Son’. Learn more and find out more @ www.spellboundband.com

How did you come by your stage name?

Bobby: Paul and I were trying to brainstorm on ideas.. picking up books.. shouting out names as they came to us. Finally, I picked up a Funk & Wagnalls dictionary and Paul picked up a Smiths record pointed our fingers down at our respective chosen words. We both said, “Spellbound”..

A Spellbound nadie le quita lo bailado. La verdad es que Paul “Pablo Thomas y Bobby Moon, dos talentosos y buenos amigos, se han dado gusto y graban a diestra y siniestra, y no hay fin para su creatividad y entusiasmo. Y, al hacerlo, dejan en el camino música alegre, contagiosa y original. Así lo demuestran en “The Main Hustle”, su más reciente y picante producción.

Todo aquel que, como yo, haya escuchado las grabaciones de Spellbound debe estar al tanto que lo que Thomas y Moon han realizado, a lo mejor sin querer queriendo, es documentar lo eclético que es el sur de California en lo que se refiere al ambiente musical. Las diez piezas incluidas en “The Main Hustle” son evidencia de esto. El compacto arranca con “Stankey”, un tema funky con sabor a boogaloo y toque de electrónica, con solo de sax de Scott Martin. Otros temas funk son “Hold my Own”, “Dippin’ in your Business”, “My House of Cards”, “Early Riser” y “Let’s Harmonize”.  Por otro lado, tenemos el rock & reggae “María Mañana” y la balada “You made me better”. El sabor afrocaribeño lo pone “Deme una hora”, con la voz de la rumbera cubana Candi Sosa, donde Thomas brilla con su guitarra eléctrica y el gran Art Webb nos dispara un solo de flauta. Aquí, señoras y señores, hay para todo el mundo.

Cada vez que reseño un trabajo de Spellbound, tengo que pensar y pensar, y usar mi limitado diccionario musical mental. Cuando se unen tantos ritmos, especialmente algunos de los sesentas y setentas, a veces cuesta trabajo recordar, y uno termina cuestionándose a uno mismo. Y de eso se trata: preservar los sonidos de ayer y presentarlos nuevamente de manera creativa y como novedad. Vamos a ver qué traen Paul y Bobby próximamente. (EEG)

Spellbound  (US)

Current availability:

Selfish

Mellotron used:

Roger Manning's M400?

The L.A.-based Spellbound, founded by Bobby Moon and Paul Thomas, are described as 'a fusion of funk and tropical grooves', with which I find it difficult to argue. Amazingly they've been around for over twenty years and have a dozen or more releases under their collective belts, while remaining little-known to the general public. Well, I'd never heard of them before... United Front does what it does well, probably at its best on opener Witch Doctor, the irritatingly catchy Girl's Got A Reputation and Soul Salsa.

Roger Manning Jr. plays (presumably) his own M400 on the album, with some dirty string stabs on Soul Salsa (and its alternate version) and a more 'standard' string part on Next Girl, showing us what a real Mellotron actually sounds like, compared to the sampletastic hordes currently battering down the city gates.

The years get away from us, don’t they?

Paul “Pablo” Thomas and Bobby Moon started writing and playing music together some 30 years ago when both were living “on the hill” and attending Palos Verdes High. At first there was the group Life After Death, and then later, at least by 1996, the two friends formed their own band, Spellbound, and released a self-titled CD on their own Selfish Recordings label..

Bobby Moon and Paul “Pablo” Thomas started their musical friendship when they were students at Margate Intermediate School in Palos Verdes. In high school, wearing black eyeliner and donning spiked hair, they formed a band, Life After Death, inspired by punk rock coming out of Los Angeles in the 1980s..

Funky Latin Fiesta: Spellbound

By Rudy Mangual

Paul Thomas and Bobby Moon are the founders and leaders of the Los Angeles, California-based Latin funk band “Spellbound.” For more than a decade the prolific duo has been independently producing cutting-edge alternative original music with a Latin tinge and mucho sabor. The following conversation took place during a video shoot of Hot Sauce, one of the tunes on Thomas and Moon’s latest CD, Poolside Fiesta.