El Grupo Sexo Is Defunct, but Its Musical Ideas Live

“Up Periscope,” the new album by El Grupo Sexo, is making its way in the world as an orphan. The well-regarded county band that gave birth to it died in December during delivery.

“The last day of mixing (the final stage of recording, during which musical parts are blended in their final form), the band broke up,” said Dave Hansen, vice president of Dr. Dream, the local record label that recently released “Up Periscope” in conjunction with the Hawthorne-based Chameleon Music Group.

The cause of Sexo’s split, according to recent interviews with three former members, was a failure to communicate. That is ironic because, for most of its existence, El Grupo Sexo ran itself as a seven-way debating society.

“We liked to argue all sides,” said Jason Mann, the singer-guitarist who wrote or co-wrote most of El Grupo Sexo’s songs. “That was a normal situation for us. We could talk about tuna-fish sandwiches for two hours if we wanted. We had a lot of fun like that. Bob Brown (who co-produced “Up Periscope” and Sexo’s 1986 debut album, “Mom’s Home”) would throw out topics to get us going.”

The breakup, Mann said, resulted from “a missed communication just snowballing into seven years of frustrations coming out. A lot of the pressure came from me wanting to take a stronger leadership role, but I wasn’t handing down any mandates. Actually, we just turned into stupid jerks. From all seven sides, it just snowballed into something ridiculous.”

Mann said he would like to reverse the damage and reconstruct the band: “For me, it’s always a possibility. I don’t know about the other guys. I’d like to get it back together, but I don’t see much chance of that happening.”

Tony Atherton, a member of Sexo’s hot horn section, said Mann would have to be the one to begin a reconciliation. According to Atherton, Mann’s actions in the band’s final days--including suggesting that several other members might be expendable--were a primary cause of the split.

“He was trying to cut out certain people, and he hasn’t explained himself at all,” he said.

A bid to patch up Sexo’s blowout, in a band meeting at the time of the breakup, ended when Mann left without saying anything to clear the air, Atherton said.

“There’s a lot of work to be done, and (Mann) hasn’t done the work (to heal the personal rifts that split the band),” he said. “And it seems the scars are going to stay.”

After El Grupo Sexo collapsed, Mann formed a new band, Butcher Shop, which he said is now going through “restructuring.” Atherton and two other former Sexo members, saxophonist Vince Meghrouni and guitarist John Karasawa, are working to form a new band. Another alumnus, Don Carroll, is playing with Meghrouni in an experimental jazz band called The Fabulous Toby, while Sexo drummer Miles Gillett is in Gherkin Raucous, a rock band that has begun to generate a buzz locally.

There is one thing that Mann, Atherton and Meghrouni agreed upon in separate interviews: They like the way “Up Periscope” came out, and they regret that the band fell apart before it got a chance to tour behind the album.

“It’s really a shame, really unfortunate timing on our part, because I think with proper promotion, it would do very well,” Mann said.

“Every time I hear the album, I get angry and sad at the same time,” Atherton said.

Dr. Dream, facing the uphill task of promoting a record without a band to go with it, is trying to give “Up Periscope” some promotional push on college radio and with reviewers for alternative rock publications.

The reception so far has been good, said Hansen, Dr. Dream’s vice president. Two years ago, “Mom’s Home” made it onto the College Music Journal charts, the leading barometer of college radio play. The good will and name recognition that it built has helped “Up Periscope.”

But prospects are limited without a band to bring the music to new ears with live shows. Hansen said he would be happy if sales reach the 5,000 mark. The main benefit now for Dr. Dream is “a positive association for the label,” Hansen said--meaning that if reviewers and disc jockeys like the El Grupo Sexo album, they may be more inclined to pay attention to releases by the label’s other acts.

There is a lot to like on “Up Periscope.” Like “Mom’s Home,” the outlook is irreverent and ironic, with a germ of seriousness underlying El Grupo Sexo’s joke-about-anything attitude.

“Mom’s Home” was like a tour of a musical Animal House, an antic album where the cast of characters was apt to go off in any direction. The fun was in seeing what twist Sexo would throw next into the possibilities of horn-driven funk-rock delivered with punk attitude that set the band apart from the Prince-influenced school of funk-rockers.

With “Up Periscope,” the band’s musicianship receives equal billing with its fun-house attitude. There is a good deal of tight, focused playing going on, even amid the chaotic party atmosphere of songs like “Hit the Deck.”

When Sexo decides to play in a straightforward, up-tempo jazz mode on “Sprechen Sie Be Bop,” a bristling saxophone showcase, the instrumental workout is impressive. This being El Grupo Sexo, though, it is not entirely a straightforward exercise in hot playing--a loud belch punctuates the moment when heated sax soloing ends and a cool guitar bit begins.

The Sexo ethos comes out best on side one. On “Hit the Deck,” the band pokes fun at the expectations of audiences who want their rock ‘n’ roll idols to hand down grand statements from on high (call it the U2 Syndrome).

Next comes a cover of Tower of Power’s “What Is Hip?” a song that comments on the emptiness of being consumed with fashion and trends. “Wo Dude,” an excursion into thrashing, metallic rock, tells what’s billed as “A True Story”--a tale reminiscent of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” in which songwriter Mann tweaks--but with affection--a metal fan who copes with the boredom of school days by “partyin’ hard” to Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent. The metal dude’s outlook may be trivial, but at least he has fun with the music he likes in a way that escapes the message-cravers of “Hit the Deck” and the self-conscious scene-makers of “What Is Hip?”

Not that Sexo is incapable of being serious. “Feet First” is a Stan Ridgway-style character monologue that offers a twist on the typical psycho-killer scenario: Although the villain of the piece is a sociopath holding 13 people at gunpoint, he is no raving maniac but a calm, collected control freak.

“Waiting” ends the album with visions of tragedy and apocalypse, but it remains funky, despite all the ominous imagery.

“Up Periscope” slips when Sexo fails to hit its full potential intensity. “Your Eyes,” a straightforward romantic song, needed a punchier vocal to go with its jazzy, danceable funk. The same problem surfaces on “What Is Hip?” and several other songs where hot playing overwhelms the singing. “Dr. Zeus, King of the Gods” attempts to stage a clash between metal and free jazz, but it doesn’t sound titanic enough.

Overall, though, “Up Periscope” was a progressive step for an adventurous band that had an unusual blend of instrumental acuity, good ideas and humor.

Related story in Guys & Galleys in today’s Orange County Life.