A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
LA LOM stands for the Los Angeles League of Musicians. It's a band that wants you to dance.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA LOM'S "DANZA DE LA LOM")
MARTÍNEZ: The debut album from this Instrumental trio of drums, bass and guitar offers a nostalgic, romanticized portrait of Los Angeles. NPR's Milton Guevara has been listening.
MILTON GUEVARA, BYLINE: The album is a musical time capsule. LA LOM takes you back with their '50s, '60s kind of vibe.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA LOM'S "LORENA")
ZAC SOKOLOW: I think our music really reflects a lot of the kind of diverse influences that are around the city.
GUEVARA: That's guitarist Zach Sokolow.
SOKOLOW: We play a lot of cumbia, but we also kind of have a background in a ton of different styles of music - a lot of soul and rockabilly and classic Latin music like boleros. And we sort of mix it all together and make it our own.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA LOM'S "LORENA")
GUEVARA: The album is a tour of their LA, with songs named after their streets and neighborhoods, like Figaroa and El Sereno.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA LOM'S "EL SERENO")
SOKOLOW: We find a lot of inspiration in the people on the places we play around the city.
GUEVARA: Sokolow says that he, drummer Nicholas Baker and bassist Jake Faulkner usually come up with the melody first. Then if it reminds them of a place, they name it - like Angels Point.
SOKOLOW: It's this beautiful viewpoint where you can see the whole skyline of the city and Dodger Stadium, and just a really nice place to drive up there, sit in the back of your truck and kind of watch the city.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA LOM'S "ANGELS POINT")
GUEVARA: The song "Moonlight Over Montebello," Sokolow says, came from another distinctly LA backdrop.
SOKOLOW: We named that after this wonderful place we play sometimes. It's out in Montebello, which is pretty far East LA. They have great DJs, and it's really all about the dancing. There's just something really beautiful and romantic about playing for all the different people from Los Angeles and, you know, driving through the city at night on your way home from a gig and listening to the radio, and I'm always listening to that for inspiration.
GUEVARA: The band got its start playing classic Latin covers at hotels and bars around town. And Sokolow says he and drummer Baker drew on the music they grew up with.
SOKOLOW: Some of the first music that we played together when we were starting out was a lot of classic Latin music from the '30s. It was something that me and Nick realized that we had in common when we first met and started gigging. Nick's grandmother comes from Durango in Mexico, and my grandfather is from Buenos Aires in Argentina. Through them, we learned about a lot of the old tangos, and Nick knew about a lot of the classic Mexican boleros.
GUEVARA: Musical heirlooms passed down to a new generation through LA LOM's rhythms and melodies.
Milton Guevara, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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