Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: Tommy Guerrero (2001)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
Tommy Guerrero is an American skateboarder and musician who released two albums on Mo’ Wax in the early 2000's.
Tommy Guerrero began skating in 1975 following the influence of his older brother Tony who took up the sport first. By 1976 they were both trying out for a local skate team and while Tommy’s routine was good, it was Tony who got picked to join the team. Other than skating, the brothers bonded over music, and started their own Punk band Free Beer in 1981. Tony played guitar and Tommy played bass, with Mike Cassidy, Dan Magee and Steve Tatum filling out the lineup, and between 1981–1983 they toured, playing shows with bands such as DOA, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, and Bad Religion. Free Beer made some appearances on Punk compilation albums too, but soon skating took over.
At the time, Tommy Guerrero was skipping school and spending his days skating, and in 1984 he began his professional skateboarding career when he joined the skate company Powell Peralta, and became one of the original members of their Bones Brigade skate team. The team, which also included Tony Hawk among others, appeared in several skate videos together, such as Guerrero’s debut in 1985 Future Primitive, and they also featured in films such as 1987’s Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.
In 1990 Tommy Guerrero left the Bones Brigade and Powell Peralta, and in 1991 Guerrero and his friend Jim Thiebaud founded their own company Real Skateboards as part of Deluxe Distribution. At the same time Guerrero had invested in some music equipment, buying a drum machine and Portastudio four track recorder, and he began exploring Jazz sounds via Hip Hop, as he explained:
I started getting more into making beats in around 90 or 91. I had a little sampler and I had my gear, I’d sample myself and sample snippets of parts and stuff so I would always go round looking for jazz records. This was because all the hip hop back then, A Tribe Called Quest who were one of my favourites sampled a lot of jazz. You would go searching out these records, back then when it was hard because you couldn’t just google something, you had to go and dig and find it. That is what really got me into jazz.
In 1995 Tommy Guerrero retired from professional skateboarding, focusing on his companies Real Skateboards and Forties, as well as his music. That same year Forties, a clothing company started by Guerrero, released the skate video Amigos which featured a soundtrack created by Guerrero, recorded in his bedroom, and which is one of his earliest solo recordings. That same year New Breed Records featured his music on their Fat Jazzy Grooves compilation series, which Guerrero recorded under the name Beats Of San Francisco.
At the end of 1996 New Breed released Beats Of San Francisco’s Black Sheep Blues EP, featuring six songs written and performed by Tommy Guerrero. Meanwhile, James Lavelle had heard the music in Amigos thanks to Andy Holmes, a skater who was also label manager at Mo’ Wax and, as Guerrero would later explain, he soon received a call from Andy Holmes:
…they were like, “Hey Tommy, you should release this.” It had never even occurred to me. I was never going to release music; that was never the point. My first record was never meant for consumption…
While Mo’ Wax took their time getting back to him, Tommy Guerrero released his debut album Loose Grooves & Bastard Blues in 1997 on Galaxia, a record label run by Thomas Campbell. One day while in Japan James Lavelle heard it and wondered why Mo’ Wax hadn’t put it out, and so Mo’ Wax reached out to Guerrero and told him they wanted to put out his next project. Interestingly in 1998, when Guerrero appeared in an advertisement for G-Shock watches he was mentioned as a Mo’ Wax artist, though he wouldn’t officially appear on the label until 2000.
The reason for the delay appears to be that when Guerrero first signed to Mo’ Wax the label was part of A&M Records, but in 1998 that deal ended and Mo’ Wax made a new partnership with XL / Beggars Banquet. This led to many Mo’ Wax artists such as DJ Shadow becoming part of A&M/Polygram or their sublabel Island, and Guerrero spent a year dealing with lawyers from A&M before starting to record new music, with his album A Little Bit Of Somethin’ finally released by Mo’ Wax in 2000.
The new album contained fourteen songs, two of which were previously released by Galaxia, and it peaked at #8 on the UK’s Official Jazz & Blues Albums Chart Top 30, the only Mo’ Wax release ever to appear on the UK’s Jazz charts.
Reviews for A Little Bit Of Somethin’ were good, with The Irish Times (April 14, 2000) calling it “an alluring set, all short and sweet instrumental takes which are a little bit jazz, a little bit hip-hop, a little bit soul and more than just a little bit special…You may not look at skateboarders in the same way ever again.” Guerrero was heaped with praise, with All Music likening it to the Beastie Boys’ instrumental work, and both MTV and The List comparing it favourably to Money Mark and Tortoise.
A Little Bit Of Somethin’ was followed by the EP Junk Collector in 2001, which was described by Mo’ Wax as “Five more tracks of his trademark lo-fi stylings”, and which notably also featured artwork by fellow skateboarder Mark Gonzales. Guerrero and Gonzales had known each other since the 1980’s, before they both became professional skaters, and in 2001 they teamed up to release an album as Guerrero y Gonzales, featuring music by Guerrero and readings of poetry by Gonzales.
In 2002 Guerrero reflected on his career so far:
My first dream was to become a professional skateboarder, and it happened…My second dream was to become a musician, and it’s happening. Not that I’m going to get huge or anything. I’ve already achieved more musically than I ever thought I would. That’s pretty cool.
Tommy Guerrero’s next solo album Soul Food Taqueria was released by Mo’ Wax in 2003, and it featured guest vocals from Quannum’s Lyrics Born and artwork by Stephen “ESPO” Powers, with the album dedicated to Margaret Kilgallen who had created the artwork for Guerrero’s A Little Bit Of Somethin’, and who tragically died in June 2001.
Soul Food Taqueria was met with positive reviews, with The List complimenting the abums “more advanced guitar-playing, songwriting and production skills” while Guerrero retained “ that raw, lo-fi edge”. Similarly, Exclaim praised the improved production skills, and called the album “the soundtrack of the summer.” All Music felt the standout track was Gettin’ It Together, featuring Lyrics Born, calling it “the sole hip-shaker among a gaggle of moodier pieces”, but overall they felt the album “lacks the proper spice”, and they awarded it 2.5/5, seemingly preferring Guerrero’s previous album which they gave 4.5/5.
Soul Food Taqueria was Tommy Guerrero’s final album with Mo’ Wax, and one of the labels final releases as the label closed down at this point, something that left Guerrero frustrated, as he explained in 2011:
I wish Mo’ Wax had never hooked up with Beggars Banquet and A&M and James Lavelle was so young when he did that and it all went downhill from there. Mo’ Wax was such a good thing. Beggars didn’t understand that it was the whole that mattered and not just the music. It was the music as well as the packaging…It was great. James was coming from a hip-hop background. It was all about aesthetic, audible, philosophy, culture coming out of hip-hop culture of graffiti and turntablism. And Beggars didn’t get it. They were saying it wasn’t cost affective. I wish James Lavelle could get it back because there was nothing else like it. Ever.
Following the closure of Mo’ Wax, Guerrero has continued to release albums on Galaxia, Quannum, Toy’s Factory, and his own Too Good record label. This has included over ten solo albums, and several singles and EPs, and in 2011 Guerrero had his first chart entry in the USA with the album Lifeboats and Follies, which peaked on Billboard’s Contemporary Jazz Album Chart at #21, and the Jazz Album Chart at #35. These have been his only solo appearances in the Billboard charts, but in 2003 Guerrero contributed to Lyrics Born’s album Later That Day which entered the Billboard Independent Albums Chart.
Alongside his collaborations with Mark Gonzales, and appearances on albums by Lyrics Born, Tommy Guerrero has been a member of bands Jet Black Crayon, Blktop Project, and Lord Newborn & The Magic Skulls, the later of which also featured Money Mark and Shawn Lee. But outside of his music, Tommy Guerrero has also kept busy in the skate industry, and is currently the Art Director for Krooked skateboards, a company founded by Mark Gonzales in 2002, where Guerrero’s role has been translating Gonzales’ drawings into artwork for skateboards, merchandise and advertisements.
Both of Tommy Guerrero’s Mo’ Wax albums were reissued for vinyl in 2017 on Be With Records and Too Good, with most of his solo work now available digitally, and in 2019 Guerrero released two new albums. February saw the release of Dub Tunes, released on Ed Banger Records in France and featuring remixes of three songs by Trevor Jackson, which was followed by Dub Session, released for Japan in May.
In 2020 Tommy Guerrero and Josh Lippi teamed up as Los Days for an album titled Singing Sands, and at the end of the year Tommy Guerrero’s latest solo album Sunshine Radio was accidentally released on iTunes, before its official release in January 2021. The album was recorded across 2019–2020, and for the albums release Tommy Guerrero wrote, “Sunshine Radio hopes to spark a bit of joy as well as a moment to reflect and consider the fires of the world. Take a sonic respite from the endless noise.”
