POP MUSIC REVIEW : Manic Hispanic Has Holiday Fun Roasting Some Punk Chestnuts

Punk parody still awaits the coming of a Weird Alberto.

For now, Manic Hispanic has taken on the kitschy mission of filtering punk classics through a vato’s perspective peppered with Chicano slang, Spanglish mangling of lyrics, and fun-poking, not-politically-correct references to stereotypes about barrio life. But the all-Latino band from Orange County, whose key players are moonlighting members from three earnest, ethnically integrated punk-pop contenders--Cadillac Tramps, Joyride and the Grabbers--were far less concerned with incisive satire or parodic musical transformation than with having a good, rowdy, no-brainer time with songs they grew up loving.

Manic Hispanic’s 70-minute set Friday night at the Foothill featured songs from Punk Rushmore--classics by the Damned, Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Ramones and Iggy Pop--along with choice selections from Wire, Sham 69, Dead Boys, Eddie and the Subtitles and others that would reside in a connoisseur’s collection.

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The Mexi-fied modifications were modest. “Borstal Breakout,” from Sham 69, became “Barrio Breakout,” “Police on My Back” turned into “Migra on My Back,” with the Clash song’s “Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday” count-out refrain rendered in Spanish rather than English.

But the lyrics that Mike (Gabby) Gaborno delivered in his wry, authoritative bark--or at least those that could be made out clearly amid the band’s properly brawny attack--didn’t indicate much thought or effort given to reshaping these oldies into something distinctly new, or especially funny. The songs had not been fully rewritten from a Manic or a Hispanic point of view; they had merely been given comically intended dashes of homeboy attitude and street talk. Gaborno, who fronts Cadillac Tramps, didn’t try to create a new persona for his parody, a la El Vez, the “Mexican Elvis” who has an all-Presley repertoire. He was more or less his usual big-bellied, arm-flapping, crudely Falstaffian self, except with a bit more Spanglish talk and a thicker accent than you would get at a typical Tramps show.

Flanking him were supporting singers Steve Acevedo, who works the business and touring end of punk, and Cadillac Tramps road manager Sonny Lujan, a bearded, bald fellow with an even more expansive belly than Gabby. The players were rhythm guitarist Maurice Torres and drummer Ruben Rivera, two Grabbers who are regular members of Manic Hispanic, and a couple of highly qualified Anglo substitutes deputized into La Raza for the occasion. Lead guitarist Jonny Wickersham of Cadillac Tramps and bassist Randy Bradbury of One Hit Wonder filled in, respectively, for regulars Steve Soto of Joyride and Warren Renfrow of Cadillac Tramps.

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The band brought to the punk archive the bite, enthusiasm and firepower it needs. But if you’re fooling around with the lyrics to old songs, why not try to revise a bit of the music as well? When Gaborno introduced a number as “A traditional ranchero song . . . so be ready to throw down your hats and do the dance,” he was just being facetious. But it would have been something to have heard a Mexican-folk rendition of the song that followed, Johnny Thunders’ “Chinese Rocks” (which was transformed, with a characteristic flash of imagination, to “Mexican Rocks”).

The set’s only departure from the punk canon was a closing rendition of “Feliz Navidad,” a Jose Feliciano song Manic Hispanic covers on the new Doctor Dream Records Christmas compilation, “Santa & Satan: One and the Same?” It began gently, but soon had the pit denizens “doing the dance”--the slam dance--to the unlikely refrain, “I want to wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.”

Maybe more satiric wit will be evident when Manic Hispanic delivers the all-covers album that is planned for next year on Doctor Dream. For now, one large onlooker in the audience who said his name was Lip had it just right when he poked your reviewer and offered his own approving analysis: “A bunch of Mexicans playing fun songs--that’s all it is, man.”

They are fun songs, and Manic Hispanic plays them con gusto .