Lucky Diaz and His End-Lish Love Make Music

Times are good for Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band. Bilingual customer base, critical acclaim, and a national ad featuring one of their songs. Lead songwriter Diaz has shouldered a big burden the past couple of years and it all paid off – apparently in spades.

The band features Lucky and his wife, Alisha Gaddis. Their new CD, LISHY LOU AND LUCKY TOO serves as the pilot for a hoped-for "throwback" kid's TV show. The characters blossomed from family car ride "road trips." They are one step behind Ralph Covert, who shot the pilot to his TIME MACHINE GUITAR last year and is crossing his fingers for a deal.

While listening to the CD, an anecdote came to mind, about comedian/UFC commentator/comedian Joe Rogan. He was on a radio show talking about why he stopped dating actresses. "I was struggling as a comic and living with an actress working as a waitress," Joe recounted. "The day my manager called to say I was hired on NEWSRADIO, I hung up and told her the good news." As Rogan tells the story, her response was not one of exultation for his success. Instead, she moaned, "When is it going to happen FOR ME!?"

Now let's all step back while I distance myself from the anecdote and say that categorically, Joe Rogan is no Lucky Diaz. And vice versa. But LISHY LOU AND LUCKY TOO indeed showcases his wife in the comedic sketches, which are throwbacks to an earlier era, with outdated puns and a host of characters ready for their time in the spotlight (you can find them by clicking through to the band's website).

It's intriguing to watch a band put so much on their plate and see how they balance it. Lucky Diaz and company released the spanish-language CD FANTASTICO! earlier this year and LISHY LOU AND LUCKY TOO goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction. They come off as a band of these modern times, while at the same time casting themselves almost as a band out of time.

The problem is that after the kids have seen Spongebob and Phineas & Ferb, just how far back can you throw them? The CD features a number of catchy songs, such as "Thingamajig," "Pockets," and "Duck Ellington." It's fun pop for kids. But the sketches went over the head of my two-year-old and my 12-year-old seemed not so amused. But good luck to them; there are so many niche networks that they might catch on somewhere.

LISHY LOU AND LUCKY TOO is available October 1 from their website, Amazon, and iTunes.

Here is the video for the group's song, "Thingamajig":