Victoria based gypsy folk group The Tequila Mockingbird Orchestra have played all over the world, but they’ve never played Lethbridge.
“We played South Country Fair last year but that’s the closest we’ve come to playing Lethbridge,” said guitarist/vocalist Kurt Loewen taking a couple days off from a  quick tour of the Lower Mainland, B.C., adding they’ve played around Lethbridge in place like Twin Butte and he’s played here  with other bands, including a seven piece Latin band called Buena Buya.

“I’ve been through Lethbridge many times because I’m from Calgary,” he continued adding he is looking forward to introducing new fans to the band’s music as well as meeting friends they met at South Country Fair.

“I guess people can expect to dance, smile and sweat with us. We’ve been described as folk music coming from a lot of different places in the world,” he continued adding nobody in the band is actually  from a Latino or Spanish background, they just love the music.
“We just think Latin music is sultry and sexy. And Spanish is the language of love,” Loewen said.

“Three out of the five band members spent some time in Latin America or Spain. And Ian (Griffiths) our accordion player wrote a lot of the ska and gypsy songs,” he continued, adding  the band listens to a lot of different music. Loewen cites Corb Lund and Bob Dylan as his primary musical influences.

“The last CD came out in 2009, so it’s almost two years old. So it isn’t really new. But we’ll be playing two new songs— ‘The Otter Song,’ and ‘Mountains or Rivers,’ he said of the show, which is part of a Western Canadian tour which takes them around Alberta, including stops in Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton and Jasper.

There are a lot of videos of the band busking in Europe, but the band doesn’t have roots in busking.
“We’d been together as  a band for about eight months and we wanted to go to Europe, so we bought plane tickets over there,” he said

“It was like band boot camp. We were already playing shows at night and we busked during the day. We made hundreds of Euros busking and made a lot of contacts because we met thousands of people, so we want to go back there,” he continued.
“It’s just a matter of your attitude towards actively getting up and wanting to get out there and meet the people there,” he said adding they plan to record a new CD later this year. But for now, they are looking forward  to the Lethbridge show.
“We’re looking forward to playing Lethbridge and meeting some of the people we met at the South Country Fair.,” Loewen continued adding they would like to play the South Country Fair again.

“There’s only eight or nine weekends in July and August, so we hope it works out,” he said.
 the show begins at 9 p.m., Jan. 26 at the Slice. There is a $10 cover.