Mocos Locos

Latin Beat Magazine, Nov, 1998 by Jesse Varela

LOS MOCOSOS

Mocos Locos

(Aztlan)

A new musical shade is emerging from the streets of the San Francisco Mission District that spawned Santana and Malo with the '90s snot-nosed-cholo-punk-Latin-rock of Los Mocosos. On this debut album, there's a surprising continuum that mirrors the barrio's immigrant Latino roots as well as fusing new school swing and ska influences to shape a slamming collection of urban Latino themes.

Led by singer/percussionist Piero El Malo (of Freaky Executives and Los Angelitos fame), the band includes diehards like bassist Happy Sánchez (who co-produced the disc) and percussionist Karl Perazzo (from the Santana band). Sterling instrumentalists like reedman Norbert Stachel and trombonist Marty Wehner, along with the turntable wizardry of DJ Choko, pepper the brass heavy textures with new jazz solos and scratchin' action that fills out the dancehall virtuosity of the ensemble.

But it's Piero, with his gritty tenor voice, who, turns it out with a surprising "vals" (waltz) version of Vicente Fernández's popular Volver, Volver. Anthems like Brown & Proud slice lyrically into the anti-Latino sentiments leveled in recent years at "la raza," A ska version of Herb Alpert's The Lonely Bull and the James Bond theme Thunderball really work as groove wallpaper, and if "The King of Ska" doesn't pull you out of your seat, check your pulse.

Mocos Locos jumps with a vibrant youthful vigor that's laced with an in-your-face consciousness. The band adds a refreshing Bay Area twist to the New Chicano Groove that's largely been groomed by Los Angeles bands like Ozomatli, Quetzal, and Yeska. Los Mocosos draw from the street-edged musical trajectory of the Mission, catalyzing from veteran barrio musicians who walk bar-to-bar singing their songs to '70s Latin rockers now faded lo oldies but goodies glory. This is the new barrio sound, but it may be the last musical wave as the housing policies of Mayor Willie Brown are pushing out the residential heart and soul of the neighborhood and turning it into condo complexes for yuppie Silicon Valley implants with bucks.