Jumpstart appeals to all ages

San Marcos — The play list of Jumpstart, a Central Texas band of all varieties, might just blow your mind.

There are 289 cover songs on their current list — everything from Van Morrison to Smokey Robinson to Selena to Frank Sinatra. Songs from the 30s to today. The band, which plays mainly corporate gigs, weddings and private parties, has a song or two for every taste and age group.

As frontman Mike Murillo says, they may not play a lot of one particular style, but they do play just about all styles. Jumpstart will perform at 7:30 p.m. tonight outside the San Marcos Activity Center as part of the ongoing Summer in the Park Series.

“We’re there for everyone,” Murillo said. “What I’ve always told the band is people are paying their hard earned money to hear us. We deserve to give them the product they want. People come to hear music, to put everything else on hold and just relax a little bit.”

Performance comes naturally to Murillo. The Austin resident has been in the music business for most of his adult life, and been entertaining since childhood.

“Even before I was six years old, the family used to come over and play Elvis records, I’d grab my toy guitar and sing ‘You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog’ for everyone. I’ve been singing and playing as far back as I can remember,” Murillo said.

He was also exposed to all kinds of music as a child growing up in Seguin. Murillo says most mornings he’d wake up to the blaring radio playing old country tunes. His father would crank up the radio the rest of the day. By noon, there’d be Tejano music and then German polkas by evening.

His sister introduced him to the Beatles, and his father to music from the 20s.

“My dad, like a lot of parents who were involved in World War II, was into a lot of the Big Band Swing stuff,” Murillo said. “He had a lot of those albums to remember the good old days. He also ran a Knights of Columbus Hall, and on weekends they’d have big country and western dances. I got a lot of exposure to different music in a lot of different ways.”

That helps in a band like Jumpstart. Murillo says that he and the seven other band members spend a lot of time outside regular rehearsals studying certain styles and methods and keeping their chops up on everything from Swing to Salsa.

The band also stays tuned into local radio regularly, keeping a close hand on the pulse of Top 40 Radio. If they like a song, they’ll work it up.

“I also like to stay in touch with the local dance community. There’s several professional dance studios in Austin that teach all kinds of dancing,” Murillo said. “I stay in touch with these people and ask them what the songs are that people are really wanting to dance to.”

It’s through a local dance studio that he ran across “Sway” by Michael Buble, a tune that makes itself onto most of Jumpstart’s current set lists.

Murillo started Jumpstart in 1988, a year after he’d “given up” on the music business. He went looking for other musicians like him who wanted to play music and be successful, but not try to make a living of it every day.

“After I thought I’d given it all I could to get that rock star contract, I’d kind of had it with music, and I did for a year,” Murillo said. “But the music was just too much a part of me. I started looking around for folks, we started jamming and getting together, and before you knew it, we were shaping a sound.”

And since then, they’ve been working up song after song. Lots of ‘em.