Little King makes regular stop in the Borderland.

It’s always a sheer pleasure to cover Little King whenever they roll though West Texas, for the most part everyone in the band has ties to El Paso, Texas in some form or another. The band is a three-piece consisting of Ryan Rosoff on Guitar, Manuel Tejeda doing the honors on Bass and Scott Marestein on percussion, but of lately, accompanying them has been El Paso’s own David Hamilton on Cello, Christina Hernandez playing the Violin and El Paso’s sweetheart Jessica Flores on Saxaphone, so needless to say, Little King has grown to a six piece or the last two time I’ve seen them anyway. Behind every great song is often one or more talented songwriters and that is certainly the case with Ryan Rosoff, he’s the driving force behind this band for the past 26 years, to the bands credit, 2 EPs and 5 Full Length studio albums, let’s not forget 2 singles released this year, Silver Tongue and Amber Waves Goodbye, both can be found on Spotify.

Little King’s style is rooted in Rock and has come to also incorporate elements of Rhythm and Blues peppered with a little Metal, just make things interesting, so let’s add some Strings and Sax to the mix and I must admit, there is an Ebb and Flow of the styles of music Little King produces, this band is the perfect escape from all the nonsense happening in the world, Little King takes you to a happier place, the perfect escape is the understatement of the year, its truly magical.

A 90 minute set and 12 songs hammered out, Keyboard Soldier got the ball rolling, crowd moved up front and these six musicians rocked out to groove inspired songs with insanely fantastic riffs and leads for the next hour and a half. With red lighting surrounding the band I found it complimenting to Ryans fiery guitar playing, a true journeyman that you can get lost in watching him play as I did on that epic night, all stops were pulled out, it was business, business among friends, from Eddy Garcia running sound, Pissing Razor’s drummer and former drummer of Little King, to David, Jessica and Christina, myself and anyone who is anyone in the El Paso Music scene has in attendance, it was a family affair if you will, a short 3 city tour, El Paso, Tucson and Anaheim was the reason for this outstanding reunion and a reunion it was. Time has been set aside for more song writing as per my conversation with Ryan this morning via the phone, living in Tucson is the perfect place for just that, needless to say, we’re all looking forward to new music from you guys and another trip to El Paso, until then.

Story and Photos by Tim Schumann

Set List-

Keyboard Soldier

Bombs Away

Collateral Damage

The Skin that I’m in

Mea Culpa

Melpomene

Amuse de Q

Narcissus and Echo

Set It Down

How Could You?