El Vez

Lo-fi loser-chic got you looking for a little pizzazz? Democrat-Republican fisticuffs making you wish you could sleep through this election year? Break out the glitter and forget democracy! It’s time to submit to the new revolutionary regime of El Vez. El Vez may not be the King, but he’s undoubtedly “El Rey” of Mex-Americana. For the last eight years, he has wowed crowds worldwide with revues that combine the histories of American music and Chicano culture, putting the tequila in musical shots, the salsa in grits, and the Memphis in the Mariachis.

While in high school in San Diego, Lopez first spraypainted his “placa” on music history as rhythm guitarist and vocalist in the seminal southern California punk band The Zeros. Relocating to Los Angelos in 1978, Robert maintained his presence in the local punk scene, in bands such as Catholic Discipline (featured in Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 film, Decline of Western Civilization) and Bonehead.

But it was not until his mid-1980’s stint as curator and publicist at Melrose’s La Luz de Jesus Gallery that Lopez received a sign for his calling. Having organized themed happenings for shows by such iconoclast artists as Gary Panter and Robert Williams, Lopez conceived El Vez at an opening of Elvis-related folk art in 1988. Playing Colonel Parker to a local Elvis impersonator, Lopez was inspired to go one better, and, on a dare, went to Weep Week- the annual celebration of Elvis’ birthday- in Memphis. There, as “the Mexican Elvis,” he scammed his way into a booking at the Elvis impersonator mecca, Bad Bob’s. By the time El Vez stepped off the stage, a Los Angeles Times reporter had picked up his story for a feature. Appearances in the nationally syndicated NBC kids’ TV show “2 hip 4 TV” and in the series “Hunter” quickly followed- all before playing a single gig in hometown L.A.

Since then, El Vez has brought the gospel of Elvis Love and Chicano power to cities big and small, reconquering the Southwest, the original thirteen colonies and all territories in between, all the way back to the Old World. Flanked by the Lovely Elvettes- Gladystia, Priscillita, Lisa Maria and Que Linda Thompson- and the dangerously schooled Memphis Mariachis, he’s left peace, caliente love and inter-ethnic understanding in his wake. El Vez’s antics have been repeatedly reported in the Los Angeles Times, and in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, Option, Mojo, Chicago Sun Times, Atlanta Constitution, La Opinion, Britain’s Melody Maker and NME, and Germany’s Berner Woche and Der Standard.

From his first recordings, El Vez has proven himself a virtual PhD in American music history, shamelessly and seamlessly quoting above and beyond the mammoth Elvis catologue. In his previously-released live album “El Vez is Alive,” he takes us deep in “En el Barrio,”- a takeoff on “In the Ghetto” which fuses Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and the Beatles “I’ve got a Feeling.” In “Graciasland,” released in 1995, El Vez reached a new level of virtuosity, beginning “Huaraches Azules” (his version of “Blue Suede Shoes”) with Hendrix’s “Wind Cries Mary” and stitching “The Godfather Theme,” “Maggie May,” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” into the anti-gang ditty “Now or Never.”

El Vez, “an incredible simulation of Elvis, does not slack on the visual component of his show. Numerous outfits – some shows feature as many as six costume changes! – include an orange bell-bottom jumpsuit made of Mexican blanket fabric, a white 1972-style suit with a sequined Virgin de Guadalupe stitched on back, a patriotic red-white-and-green one with the Mexican eagle and serpent conveniently hovering over his crotch, and, of course, the obligatory gold lame. Says El Vez, “Gold is my favorite color.”

Now, on his first Big Pop release, G.I. Ay Ay Blues, El Vez is ready to make you shimmy into the Revolution. He’ll coax you to say “Say it Loud, I’m Brown and I’m Proud!” (no matter what your color) while proclaiming himself an O.H. (Original Hybrid) in “Soy un Pocho.” Let him count the ways that immigrants into the U.S. are “Taking Care of Business.” Dousing revultion within and outside the U.S. with a hunk of glitter rock, El Vez once again takes up subjects outside the usual pop fodder, switching musical references almost faster than the ear can follow. A neglected character from the Mexican Revolution gets (New York) Dolls-ed up in “The Arm of Obregon,” (in RealAudio), an overexposed surrealist icon anthemized in the balad “Frida’s Life of Pain,” and the Conquest-era figure “Malinche” is complemented by Ono-esque operatic shrieking. “Cesar Chavez ‘96,” a paen to the late Chicano labor leader, is reprised in an angry, raspy, fuzzed-up rendition. “Mexican American Trilogy” reclaims patriotic Dixieland strains as in intro to a cholo rock opera (via Andrew Lloyd Webber) in “Whip” and “J.C. Si Lowrider Superstar.”

“G.I. Ay Ay Blues” may take glitter mariachi to the revolutionary front of contemporary Chicano life in the U.S., but it represents only one stop in the many travels of El Vez. According to Lopez, just like any other hard-working immigrant, “you can put him on stage, behind a counter, in a picket line, or heading the Revolution.”