On Saturday Oct. 22 the Capitol Theater in downtown Olympia will host a Los Angeles-based band that crosses musical boundaries, meshing rock, Americana, folk, funk, hip-hop and much more.  Quetzal Flores created the band Quetzal in the early ‘90s to push the limits of Chicano music - and he definitely ended up doing so, finding plenty of musical success in the process.  Although Quetzal the band has not been to Olympia, Quetzal's singer, Martha Gonzalez, and bassist, Juan Perez, have - performing in Olympia with Laura Rebollo's band, Ensamble Marinero.  Gonzales says Olympia's audience is what Los Lobos would call "music lovers." - people that are open to listening, internalizing, participating and witnessing a concert. Gonzales admits she is looking forward to seeing familiar faces and tugging at a couple hearts.

When asked about his musical influences growing up in East L.A., Flores says the Smiths had a profound impact on him.  "Their commitment to original, organic music and lyrics that challenged the status quo deeply resonated with me," he says, also going on to credit Los Lobos as a huge inspiration.  "I grew up watching (Los Lobos) play at weddings and birthday parties.  Then I heard the Kiko album and my life changed forever.  That album made it very clear to me that this music thing was to be taken seriously," explains Quetzal.

Flores tells me that his band's music has always been too complex and diverse to label or fit into a genre for the purpose of mass marketing.  "We play music that is a reflection of growing up in the barrio while having constant interaction with other communities in struggle," says Flores.  "The perfect example of this musical experience is Ritchie Valens' ‘La Bamba.'  It's a rock n' roll song based on a traditional song from Veracruz, Mexico.  In this song you feel a young brown kid from Pacoima unapologetically flexing his love for black American music and his desire to connect to his Mexican roots at a time where blacks and Mexicans were still being persecuted and lynched in California."

Quetzal's new album, Imaginaries, will be released in spring 2012 on Smithsonian Folkways label.  Flores tells me "imaginaries" are the spaces being created all over the world that activate the imagination in a collective effort to re-member (the opposite of dismember) humanity.

Check out Quetzal this Saturday at the Capitol Theater, as the band brings its talents to Olympia for the first time ever. 

[Capitol Theater, Quetzal, Saturday, Oct. 22, 8 p.m., $20-$25, 206 Fifth Ave., Olympia, 360.754.6670]