The Rise & Fall Of East LA’s Best Unknown Band, The Mexicats

Sometimes the stars that burn the brightest, also burn the fastest. Such was not the case with The Mexicats, a band some friends and I started back in the 1990s. We were more of a meteorite caught inside a black hole. However, where a lot of bands have started from the bottom and crawled their way to the top, this band started from the bottom and decided to burrow in deeper. The middle would have been too arrogant of a goal.

So who were the Mexicats? In its core the Mexicats were five members of a guilty party. Mr. Chavez was the rhythm guitarist of the band. He carried the mystique and charisma. Then there was Mr. Villa on bass. He happened to be the anchor of rhythm. On the maracas, percussion, electric spoons, and anything that was not nailed down was Mr. Balbuena. All you had to do was give him in inanimate object, and he would make it work. Mr. Castro was the most vital part of the band. First off all, he had the most musical expertise, second only to Mr. Villa, but he also had the garage apartment needed to rehearse. Mr. Castro would play guitar, but would also play bass, drums or whatever we needed to fill in that Phil Spector-like “Wall of Sound.”

Then there was me. I was the lyricist, lead yeller and occasional singer. I would plug in the Radio Shack microphone into the amp and let loose tirades on everything from space cholos to JFK Jr. I had all the talent of Jim Morrison’s corpse and twice the sex appeal. Mr. Chavez coined the term “noisicians,” which is exactly what we were. There was magic created inside that musical space. We called it “pfunk,” which is not a nod towards George Clinton and the Parliament-Funkadelic collective. The sound we had on our hands was something between that was not quite punk and at the same time not quite funk. We had something in our hands, which was not ready for the public’s consumption but at the same time was quite an intense experience.

We did not have music songs in the traditional sense. We were above that. We were avant-garde. Most, if not all, of our songs began with Mr. Chavez asking for a consensus regarding the instrumentation. The choices always were “Fast Blues” or “Slow Blues.” Fast Blues would usually inspire a profanity-laced tirade against the Reagans, helmet laws, or Taco Bell. Slow Blues would evoke the sexiest croons filled with profanity laced propositions that would have probably gotten us arrested if ever performed in the confines of society. I’m no Barbra Streisand. I’m even less of a Celine Dion.

We could have been huge. We could have been as big as Dexys Midnight Runners. However we were crippled by a number of setbacks. First off all, apparently you need a certain amount of talent to be a musician. None of us could read music. Secondly, we never thought about recording any of the music. We would rely on memory, which was not the best of plan since we relied on intoxication to light the trail to inspiration and motivation. Finally, Mr. Castro was being pressured by his parents and the neighborhood to pull the plug on the sonic nightmare. He would fake earaches, just to get us to end jam sessions.

We had a revolving door of drummers and other real musicians who donated their time to get us out of the garage and into the glittering mainstream. Their talents were exhibited, and surely wasted, but appreciated nonetheless. Some people believe that one day, the Mexicats will regroup and perform on top of a rooftop somewhere in East Los Angeles – but then again some people believe that Elvis Presley is still alive.