Plastilina Mosh Is Having So Much Fun, It Hurts

The members of Mexican rock-rap duo Plastilina Mosh don’t mind if a fan offers them a beer at the end of a gig. They just prefer that the cerveza not arrive by air.

Keyboardist and singer Alejandro Rosso spent last weekend in the hospital getting 28 stitches in his forehead after someone in the audience threw a beer bottle near the end of a concert in Tijuana. The incident soured Rosso and his partner, multi-instrumentalist Jonas (real name: Juan Jose Gonzales), to the extent that they vow not to return to that city.

Beyond that, they’re writing the experience off as a rock ‘n’ roll war story.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with our music,” says Rosso, 25, whose short hair and broad forehead is covered with a hat-sized white bandage reminiscent of that of a battle-injured soldier. “We knew there was the possibility of getting hurt in front of that [Hippodrome] crowd. It’s known for its desmadres [free-for-alls].”

It’s also possible some audience members missed the humor Plastilina Mosh uses in breaking down sound structures and gluing them back together with “happy accidents,” evidenced on the band’s debut album, “Aquamosh.”

“It doesn’t matter if they didn’t like our music,” Rosso said Sunday after a show at West Hollywood’s House of Blues, where Plastilina Mosh opened for Argentine reggae-punk group Todos Tus Muertos. “We’ve never sinned by making music to please anyone but ourselves.”

After shows at Anaheim’s J.C. Fandango on Sunday and Monday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood, where they open for Cornershop, Rosso will continue his search for a plastic surgeon. Meanwhile, he quipped, he hopes Southern California audiences will maintain a higher level of civility.

“We do silly things on stage. We use cheesy gadgets. That’s our kind of show,” bleached-blond rapper Jonas said. Last week Rosso wore a banana outfit and played a loungy piano solo for “Banana Bar.” Later Jonas came out in a Godzilla costume. “We like to create happy little accidents.”

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Plastilina Mosh, from Monterrey, Mexico, has, like Grammy-nominated Cafe Tacuba, left many people scratching their heads about how to label the group’s cocktail jazz, trip-hop and tropical arrangements of found sounds.

Although some of the duo’s funky rock and rap songs have invited comparisons to the Beastie Boys, its meaningless babble over swirly polyrhythms puts them closer to alternative rocker Beck.

In the rock en espanol movement, which the duo does not consider itself part of--”Maybe we are an example of two guys in Mexico that have a global point of view,” said Jonas--the band could fit on a bill with avant-garde Cafe Tacuba or defunct French group Mano Negra, which experimented with electronic sounds, World Beat and Latin fusion.

It’s with no surprise that Tacuba’s lead singer Anonimo can be heard on “Aquamosh” muttering Japanese words in “Bungaloo Punta Cometa,” or that the Capitol album was produced by Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf--who have recorded Beck and the Foo Fighters.

Beck drummer Joey Waronker helps out in the very Beck-like English-language “Monster Truck,” with its blues harmonica, guitar-looping, syncopated rhythms and filtered voices.

Mosh’s other obvious hip-hop sensibilities, such as turntable scratch sounds made by Jonas’ guitar a la Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, has put them in Mexico’s burgeoning hip-hop camp along side Molotov and Control Machete.

The duo’s collage-pop is generating plenty of media attention. The textured, bilingual single “Mr. P. Mosh” gets regular rotation on modern-rock station KROQ-FM (106.7), a first for a band from the espanol scene.

It’s not going to their heads, though, and Rosso admitted “of course we have plenty of room to grow.”

Rosso and Jonas began collaborating as Plastilina Mosh after playing in bands in Monterrey while in high school.

Jonas worked with a band he describes as “Primus meets Sepultura meets Cypress Hill.” Rosso was studying Bach to Stravinsky, Duke Ellington to Thelonious Monk. The espanol bands they cite as influences include Argentine new-wavers Soda Stereo and Mano Negra.

Lyrically, as with the group’s name, the duo places more emphasis on how words sound than the meaning behind them.

“We use the voice like another instrument,” Jonas said. Unlike many of its hip-hop and rock peers in Mexico, “We don’t like to write lyrics that are understood, or that have political or social sense. We like words that re-create some ambience and atmosphere.”

Jonas and Rosso also hope to get across some of the humor they see in the world around them.

“We want to forget a little bit of the bad times in our country,” Jonas said. “That’s why we sometimes do senseless music and lyrics. We want to make fun of the structure and have a good time.”

* Plastilina Mosh performs Sunday at J.C. Fandango, 1086 N. State College Blvd., Anaheim. 8 p.m. $13. (714) 758-1057.