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BACK TO THE LAIR Los Lobos are coming home. After exploring their Mexican-American heritage with two projects-songs for the movie La Bamba, including the No. 1 title hit, and an album of traditional Mexican music, La Pistola y el Corazon-the group (abobo) returns to flat-out rock on The Neighborhood. While the September release deals heavily with the East Los Angeles area the band hails from, drummer-lyricist Louie Perez says the group didn't start with a theme in mind. ''It grew into that over the past year,'' he explains. ''There was never a master plan. As a group, we seem to work on an organic level. It drives our management nuts.'' In fact, most of the songs on the album were written before Perez and singer-guitarist David Hidalgo came up with the title cut, about a struggling family in the inner city. At that point, Perez says, ''It made the other songs make sense.'' 3 BR, 5 HRD RCKRS Aeroforce One, the fan club for Boston band Aerosmith, has launched a letter- writing campaign to local officials to have the group's old apartment made into a historic landmark. From 1970 to 1972 the quintet lived at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue, Apartment 2B, in a three-bedroom space. Jeff Myerow, a 28-year-old Boston-area housepainter and musician who has seen the group over 40 times, came up with the idea. ''I think it would be real cool to make a landmark out of it,'' Myerow says. ''Aerosmith is one of the biggest success stories to come out of Boston. I think they should turn it into a museum with (band) relics.''
ZEP IN A BOX Former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is overseeing a boxed set of that supergroup's work. The four-CD (or four-cassette) project, as yet untitled, is tentatively scheduled for a late October release. Among the 54 cuts will be three unreleased performances, two taken from live BBC broadcasts: ''Traveling Riverside Blues'' and an eight-minute instrumental medley of ''White Summer'' and ''Black Mountainside.'' Band members Robert Plant and John Paul Jones approved the music selection and extensive liner notes along with Page (drummer John Bonham died in 1980), and Page supervised the digital remastering of the original session material. ''I think he wanted to make sure the music sounded as good as it possibly could,'' says a spokesman.
STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS Success may have warped other rock & roll artists, but not Was (Not Was), below. They were already producing zany postmodern funk before their 1988 album, What Up, Dog?, launched two major hits, ''Spy in the House of Love'' and ''Walk the Dinosaur.'' The same blend of smooth soul, riveting dance-floor rhythms, and psychotic monologues dominates the new Was (Not Was) album, Are You Okay?, only in a less exaggerated fashion. ''I think we found ourselves a niche instead of trying to out-eclecticize ourselves,'' says David Was (ne Weiss). After playing the songs from What Up, Dog? on an extensive tour, Was says, ''We decided not to be the Sybils of the music business, with seven distinct musical personalities on the same record.'' Was and his musical partner Don Was (ne Fagenson) also exorcised some of their diverse tendencies by producing other acts, including the Bob Dylan effort due next month. On his own, Don Was has produced Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time, as well as new albums by Iggy Pop and Bob Seger. Next year David Was hopes to do a solo record, to include ''all the bad behavior that no longer fits on our album because of our burgeoning career.''
