‘LOCO’ BAND GOES CRAZY FOR CALYPSO

The summer after they graduated from Torrey Pines High School four years ago, a bunch of Del Mar surf rats came down with a rather severe case of tropical fever.

“It all started when someone got his hands on some old Harry Belafonte records,” rat-pack leader Tim Cagle said. “There were six of us, and when we first heard that music we went wild.

“We began dressing in Hawaiian shirts, wearing tiki pendants and drinking out of pineapple mugs. We made a tape of calypso music and started taking it to parties.

“We’d stand around in the center of the room and sing along, belting out the words like a male choir. Before long, this whole crazy social sect had developed around us.”

Today, Cagle and his singing buddies are the nucleus of Borracho y Loco, a 10-member tropical dance band whose Spanish name, in English, means “drunk and crazy.”

Their sound is a musical trip through the South Seas. It can be as raucous as a tree full of screeching parrots, as sensual as a swaying hula dancer or as vibrant as a rumbling volcano.

Vocals are now the sole responsibility of Jacob Brewer. Aside from the basic guitar, bass, keyboards, drums and saxophone, the other band members play such tropical percussion instruments as the congas, the bongos, the African split and kick drums, and the timbale, or kettledrum.

Borracho y Loco’s repertoire, too, has expanded from vintage calypso covers such as Belafonte’s “The Wedding Song” and “Juanita, Sweetheart from Venezuela.”

They now play more than a dozen originals that incorporate elements of Caribbean soca, Latin salsa and African ju-ju.

“The music of the tropics is a natural for Southern California,” said Cagle, who plays timbale and other percussion instruments.

“It’s happy, it’s uplifting, it’s extremely rhythmic and danceable,” he said. “And from the response we’ve gotten, it’s exactly the sort of music the kids want to hear.”

Indeed--the kids, and everyone else, can’t seem to get enough of them. In the three years since the band was officially formed, they’ve been appearing regularly around town. They’ll be at the Belly Up tonight and at the Distillery West on Aug. 13. Both are in Solana Beach. They also perform at colleges.

This summer, they recorded the sound track to the “Surfer Magazine” special on ESPN, the national cable sports network. In October, they’ll release their debut album on their own label.

“After a year of singing at parties, we decided to add instrumentation and become a real band,” Cagle said. “So we got together with some of our friends who were in other bands and started holding these informal jam sessions.

“We knocked down a set of eight old calypso numbers and entered a talent contest at a local bar. We came in second, which was all right, considering we didn’t even try.

“So we figured the time had come to get serious and become a regular working band.”

At first, Cagle said, he wasn’t sure how well Borracho y Loco’s music would go over in a nightclub scene dominated by discos and Top 40 cover bands.

“We thought this music was mostly something we were into ourselves, and it would be hard getting the kids to listen,” Cagle said. “But because we were enjoying ourselves so much on stage, each one of our gigs turned into a mob scene.

“Everyone just got sucked into the whole atmosphere of dancing, of partying, of having fun.”

Cagle and his fellow band members, all in their early 20s, pride themselves on being one of the few local groups to make a living playing mostly original music.

“In most cases, you have to play Top 40 if you want to work regularly in the clubs,” Cagle said. “But for some reason, we’ve broken that mold.”

Lead guitarist Brian (Bron) Tieman said, “I think the reason we’re successful is that we play happy music, and people need to be cheered up.

“You know, it’s really heavy that a lot of the music we play comes from countries with so many bummers, like poverty. Despite all their problems, these people put out music that’s completely happy, and I think that’s a great way to go.”

Cagle said he would like to see Borracho y Loco land a recording contract with a major national record company.

“That’s why we’re putting out our own album, which I consider the first step,” he said. “But for now, I’m content to play around here because people really seem to appreciate us.

“About eight months ago, we played a wedding reception. Afterward, a man from Trinidad came up and said he was amazed at how well we were playing the music from his homeland. He said, ‘I can’t believe a bunch of white people have so much rhythm.’

“That kind of shocked me, because it all seems so natural.”