The boys of Kardoid play music from their ranchera-loving parents’ nightmares. Mostly Mexican-American teenagers native to Chicago, these four up-and-coming rockers prefer Slipknot and Molotov — bands that can sound like planes taking off in their Midway Airport neighborhood — instead of the rural ballads and bandas of México lindo y querido. But when I telephoned guitarist Ivan Duarte at home, his mom answered excitedly in Spanish that he was busy practicing, as she passed the phone through a wash of feedback and amp distortion. “They really don’t like the music we play,” Duarte says of his family’s more traditional tastes. “But now that we’re getting attention, they have a little more respect for what we’re trying to do.”


In a city bred on blues, where immigrant-descent musicians might make more money playing regional music from the motherland at cotillions and weddings, a rock invasion has been cooking (literally) in Latin kitchens around town since the late-’90s. Balancing underground cred and word-of-mouth publicity with a strong web presence, Chicago Latinos have put together their own tight-knit network of indie radio shows, Mexican-restaurant rock venues, e-‘zines (www.tepoch.com), and rockero tiendas vending paraphernalia and spreading news about shows. With a cable-access program in the works, the scene continues to reach beyond neighborhood, musical category, and linguistic frontiers that once kept choices limited to a few touring shows at the same venue every year. Now, Latin rock is in the Loop.
In a desolate area near a “chicken shack” bar at Lake and Halsted, Rooster Blues & Bar-B-Q (www.roosterblues.net) used to bill itself as “the only blues club in the West Loop area.” Now, the Rooster can claim fame as the most centrally located professional venue for Latin rock in town. Owner Rufus McCullum built the club in 1999, from a cold-cut factory and print shop where he set up two stages, wooden benches and bar stools, exposed-brick decor, and a kitchen serving barbecue and shrimp. Turns out that the blues did not draw enough throughout the week, so McCullum diversified the calendar, which he is still tweaking with underground hip-hop, house music, Chicago Samba, and blues-rock. When Rooster cook and booking manager Francisco Villa suggested rock-en-español, McCullum was skeptical. “We still want something more like cumbias and salsa, for people to dance to,” says McCullum, “but we finally tried the Spanish rock [starting in November], because that’s what Francisco likes, and it’s working out.”
McCullum doesn’t like everything he hears on Saturday nights, but the weekly shows have so far drawn a growing crowd for four bands per night that typically mix it up, from industrial-goth to speed metal to garage rock. Promoter Antonio Cordova — a 21-year-old Ace Hardware worker called “Vampiro” because of his strangely sharp canine teeth — has been working shows at La Justicia Restaurant and Rooster from the get-go, building on his experience throwing high-school house-parties in his basement at home near Midway. He appreciates McCullum’s gamble on Latin rock and loves the venue for its pro sound system and capacity.
Band managers and musicians alike tend to consider Rooster a coup for its setup and location ñ a near-downtown club that takes bands outside of well-worn grooves at such places as La Justicia Restaurant (www.justiciarestaurante.com), a beachhead for local Latin rock at 3901 W. 26th. Though the place is not set up for rock shows, Cordova has managed to squeeze usually four bands and a standing-room-only crowd every Friday night into the first floor area of the eatery, which has a full-service dining area on the second-floor that also caters to Latinos by screening boxing and soccer matches. Meanwhile, downstairs, such local favorites as Zamandoque Tarahum have been known to incite crowd surfing that pushes the capacity of La Justicia beyond your average taqueria. La Justicia has been central to the local scene, for its recognition and location in the community and for allowing all-ages shows.
Similarly, Los Cazos Restaurant started to showcase bands on Saturdays in late 2001, at 5945 W. Fullerton, usually starting at 9:30 p.m. for a $7 cover. More typical club-shows popped up subsequently on Saturdays at Rooster and Club PM (in “The Dirty Worm Room” rock corner) on 2047 N. Milwaukee. Restaurant-style venues continue to be popular, though, with new weekly shows spilling out into the south suburbs: Pepe’s in Calumet City (943 River Oaks Dr.) and El Cortez in Blue Island (13414 Western Av.). Instead of mariachis strumming margarita-sipping traditional music, places like La Justicia are forging new connections between casa, cocina, and cultura. “Even white people are showing up at La Justicia these days,” says Cordova.
For example, Evergreen Park guitarist/songwriter Larry Kahn couldn’t stand the heat, so he went to the kitchen. With a history of collaborating on Christian Spanish rock projects, Kahn says he used to play mostly in English-language venues, but he prefers the respectful reception from such spots as La Justicia. With nods to classic and grunge rock, his band Loner is not particularly Latino (with white, Asian, and black musicians) but enjoys the benefits of assimilation as a spin-off from locals Biblia Negra. On Saturday, February 2nd, Kahn and musicos from as far away as Aurora converged on Rooster for the first major “Expo” of local Latino bands that have been involved in the recently developing scene.
With an egalitarian spirit based on a sense of community, the Expo lineup was the result of a lottery drawing that randomly assigned a 30-minute spot to each band participating. Using Rooster’s twin stages advantageously for quick set-up and transitions, the Expo proved to be a shotgun-sampler of the various tastes, languages (Spanish or English, and in some cases both), and styles that mingle within the local scene — bands that are just as likely to cover The Who as JuanGa. Starting at 4:30 in the afternoon and going on until the wee hours of the morning, the “Expo” drew more than 800 in attendance for $10 entry to see 20 bands and to shop at tables set up with CDs and t-shirts from rock shops located on the South and West Sides and in Rogers Park.
30-year-old manager Sandra Treviño — who grew up listening to norteño, classical Mexican trios, and Tejano — summed up her band Descarga and the scene when she said, “There are so many styles that it doesn’t even make sense to categorize it all as just Spanish rock.” As the show lurched forward with only minor technical problems and set-up tangles, Treviño conducted interviews on video in the Rooster chill-out lounge for a cable-access show she’s putting together called “E.N.E. (Errores No Eliminados),” while jewelry-makers hawked wares in the crowd and low-profile bootleggers handed out flyers with CDs available for pirate recording and sale (“La pirateria es buena”). The bands, more than can be recaptured here, included:
Alebrije: Classic ’80s-metal instrumental licks dueled with Ronnie James Dio-esque vocal delivery when this band took stage, and though their music made it seem like the last 22 years of hard-rock evolution had disappeared, it was a juicer for the crowd. Typical of young Latin tastes, that ’80s sound never went out of style.
Descarga: With a clean, focused effort, this quartet of Chicago-born Mexican-Americans contrasts elements of international pop-flavored vocals against harder-edged rhythms. With a gig at NYC’s 2001 Latin Alternative Music Conference under their belt, Descarga capture bits of the Chicago alter-Latino psyche with the savor of Caifanes and Foo Fighters. (www.descargazone.com)
El Guapo: The live backing band for local hip-hoppers Los Marijuanos, El Guapo boast a diverse list of venues and lineups, including a spot with Survivor, .38 Special, and Night Ranger in South Barrington a few years ago. With a straightforward pop/rock-in-Spanish sound, they’ve found their way onto Mancow and Q101. Guitarist/vocalist Mike Lopez was instrumental in organizing the first Spanish rock showcase at last year’s MOBfest — this year they plan to expand to three.
Kardoid: This rookie band’s sound is raw, sometimes sloppy, but spirited, turning Molotov’s “Puto” into an even more frenetic experience than the original and pelting out speed-metallish growler-rock with songs titled “Maldito” and “Desmadre.” (www.kardoid.com)
Monospit: “Blah blah blah,” reads the bio scrawled on construction paper that the band handed to me. Their point: “This is not about us — it’s about the music.” Hailing from Aurora, Monospit mixes punk attitude with hard-rock execution for an aggressive, energetic performance. (www.monospit.com)
Norge Glass Company: The drummer’s parents showed up to see this trio whip out bass-driven metal licks and high-nasal punk vocals in one of the more aggressively inspired sets on the Expo bill. The older white folks and chicas-in-black alike were treated to Norge’s rough channeling of the Jesus Lizard and Big Black.
Planeta De Crystal: Their cover of the classic Who cut, translated as “Mi Generación,” comes off as a mini-manifesto for local Latin rock and update of ur-rockeros Los Locos Del Ritmo: “Todo el mundo me quiere pisotear/Porque me gusta desmadrar.” With traces of trad-Mexican son, PDC are evocative of ’80s power-pop. (www.planetadecrystal.com)
Vendima: Citing influences from Rush to Siouxsie to Sheep On Drugs, Vendima grinds out tunes with melodramatically dark names like “Hasta Morir” and “Oración” that amble along with heavy bass, synth programming, and Exene-like, pedal-distorted vocals from lead “Vixen” Brenda, who wears bilingual goth-influences on her sleeve, whether Mephisto Walz or Santa Sabina.
Zamandoque Tarahum: Having experimented with Afro-Cuban and folkloric Mexican music, los Bros. Amaro put together a rock combo whose name is inspired by the Mexican states of Chihuaha and San Luìs Potosì. Out of the Expo lineup, ZT had the crowd slamming and surfing to some of the more unique sounds and more overtly political lyrics on showcase, mixing New Wave-ish rock and African percussion a la Santana. (www.zamandoquetarahum.com)
Juan “Fito” Salinas, rhythm guitarist for Uno De Mas, speaks for many of his fellow musicians when he says: “All of us, at some point or other, have been outcast — all of my friends growing up were into rap music, but now the Spanish rock scene is a place for me to get away.” From Little Village to the Loop to the far North Side, local Latin rock is becoming less a retreat and more a visible part of the Latino community.
With growing demand and independent ingenuity, local Latino rock continues to transgress boundaries just as its sources come from all over the world to make it here in Chicago.
March 2002, Illinois Entertainer

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