Mariachi punk from LA
Mariachi punk? Yes, a made-in-the-USA invention by the band Mariachi El Bronx (who are in Southern California, not New York). Given the growth of the Mariachi movement throughout the United States, it was inevitable.
Mariachi El Bronx is the mariachi alter‑ego of Los Angeles punk band The Bronx, created when the group decided to explore the Mexican tradition they grew up with in Southern California. Instead of treating mariachi as a novelty, they immersed themselves in it. Band members locked themselves into rooms and watched instructional videos, studied regional Mexican styles like norteño, son jarocho, huasteco, bolero, and corridos, and worked with musicians tied to Mexican and Chicano lineages, including guitarrón player Vincent Hidalgo, son of Los Lobos’ David Hidalgo.
All that study and work has produced a music that is lush and intricate with familiar mariachi violins, rich trumpet lines, and layered vihuela and guitarrón rhythm, led by Matt Caughthran’s vocals, which eschew hardcore shouting for storytelling and deep-throat romantic crooning – a neat trick for a punker rocker. An even neater trick is that it is its own, self-contained and self-confident thing – in no way a novelty act.
Oh, and the songs cheerfully celebrate heartbreak and cruel love, death, and other bright and sunny topics.
On stage, Mariachi El Bronx perform in full charro suits with trumpets, guitarrón, vihuela, and violins, but keep the emotional directness and grit of their punk roots. They sing mostly in English while respecting mariachi’s rhythmic and melodic rules, also a neat trick for a punk band that grew out of a genre with a disdain for rules.
The core lineup is overwhelmingly male, but women are part of the band’s makeup and its history. Violinist Rebecca Schlappich spent nearly a decade touring and recording with MDN, handling violin and backing vocals. More recently, violinist Laena Myers joined as a current member on violin and backing vocals. Plus, the band has gleefully collaborated with the all‑female Mariachi Reyna de Los Angeles.
So what does this cross-border musical mashup sound like? Well, their most recent release, “Live in Tijuana,” is a good place to start. It brings barroom-dancing energy with very funny social-satire lyrics. Lots of accordion, trumpets, and harmony, delivering country-like lines with a wink – or sometimes a leer.
Even better, their 226 album Mariachi El Bronx (IV),gives you a full tour of their tight musicality, slightly off-kilter songwriting, and bubbling-over joy at and Lurch-like topics. The album is 12 songs that will make you dance and laugh, starting with the lead song “Forgive or Forget” with its hook: There’s always a price to be paid for desperately dreaming and wasting away.
That segways into a norteña-mariachi-punk dance number, “Bandalaleros” with its anti-war warning, a norteño-style corrido played with mariachi instrumentation. It blends traditional corrido storytelling with modern norteño energy and a punk-edge attitude.. That song segways, sort of, into “Songbird” about the woes of a songwriter, when you have nothing but a blank page. For singing about writer’s block, the 8 composers/lyricists listed in the credits did a pretty good job.
“El Dorado” is a galloping norteño/mariachi hybrid, built on a two‑step groove with bright trumpets, strummed guitars, and a sing‑along chorus. The lyrics lament about being in love with an impossible girl; it tries to be funny, but unfortunately, it is full of Mexican stereotypes that kill the buzz. It may be satire, but it’s hard to tell.
“All Things” laments “a love story that is destined for the cutting room floor.” No stereotypes here, just a desperate, interesting interior dialogue about love and trust – or the lack of either – set to a fast beat with mariachi violins 9nin a dance style.
“Life can be so hard/Love can be so cruel” is the theme of the slow-dancer “Fools Gold,” a dramatic bolero‑ranchera ballad with big melodic choruses and dripping vocal emotion, while Matt Caughthran laments loving a woman who would let him sink in quicksand.
“The Takers” is a slow, Western bolero with a strong norteño undercurrent and a long lead-in. It moves at a measured, clip‑clop tempo – you can almost hear the horses neighing – spotlighting strings and accordion more like a lonely cantina ballad rather than a straight ranchera or corrido. With cheerful lyrics like “We’re the last thing you will see before you die”, you can just kick back, hum, and smile.
“RIP Romeo,” Romeo and Juliet tells us that amor es muerte (love is death) and love is just future regret. It’s a slow‑burn mariachi bolero that turns Shakespeare’s doomed lover into a modern heartbreak saint, not quite what The Bard had in mind, but it makes for a great song.
“Gambler’s Prayer,” “El Boarrachi,” and “Tie You Down,” all pick up the pace, but continue the not exactly bright and sunny themes – “For a drink, there’s nothing he won’t do,” and “ Just Let It Bleed” are some of the songs’ lines that gve you an idea of the lyrics that are bracketed by fun dance music.
“If death is a song that everyone will sing/is dying the answer to everything,” from “Into the Afterlife”? The wrap-up song pretty well wraps up everything. A mournful bolero and a processional canción de despedida song are tongue-in-cheek, as is virtually everything on the album. You can join the weeping, laughing parade in your mind as you soak in the philosophy and the melody.
All in all, a fun, clever, entertaining, cross-border album that I enjoyed, and I think you will too.
Patrick O’Heffernan
