With a gut busting dose of barrio humor and the powerhouse musical chops of veteran old school punk rockers, Manic Hispanic is brown, down, and coming to your town. That’s right, the band that has brought us classic albums such as The Menudo Incident, The Recline of Mexican Civilization, and Mijo Goes to Junior College is playing a very especial concert this Friday at Slim's in San Francisco, as part of a week long tour celebrating Cinco de Mayo.

Alright, now hold on—before you get your San Francisco PC panties in a bunch, listen to the story of Manic Hispanic before you go all loco. This muy bueno super group features members past and present of legendary Southern California punk bands the Adolescents, Cadillac Tramps, Agent Orange, the Grabbers, the X-Members, Final Conflict and 22 Jacks.

In this side-splittingly hilarious band, they take old punk anthems and rewrite the words, barrio-style. The previously mentioned album titles are parodies of Guns N Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident, the early ‘80s punk documentary film The Decline of Western Civilization, and the Descendents’ seminal album Milo Goes To College.

In these pranksters hands, classic songs like Social Distortion’s “Mommy’s Little Monster,” the Ramones’ “The KKK Took My Baby Away,” and the Clash’s “I’m So Bored With The U.S.A.” become “Mommy’s Little Cholo,” “The I.N.S. Took My Novia Away,” and “Bored With You, Esse.”

In “Get Them Immigrated,” a parody of the Offspring’s “Keep ‘em Separated”, the song is complete with a mariachi horn replacing the middle-eastern sounding guitar riff, and in “Uncle Chato’s Garden,” (Bad Religion’s “Atomic Garden”) they sing of a Cinco De Mayo party where ‘everyone in my barrio is invited.’

All of the band members either have a Hispanic background, or grew up in and around the barrios of Southern California, so any accusations against them for being offensive are pointless—and besides, its all about having fun.

“I can see where people might be offended, but it’s a joke, and if you can’t get the joke, whatever,” says Steve Soto, aka El Hoaky Loco, guitarist for Manic Hispanic.

Soto, who has been part of the punk community since the late ‘70s, has played in bands including the Adolescents, Agent Orange, 22 Jacks, Punk Rock Karaoke, and Joyride, along with Manic Hispanic.

About 10 years ago, all of the guys that eventually formed Manic Hispanic were on a tour together, with their different bands, and kept joking that they should start another band, for fun.

“Originally we were going to do all Freddie Fender covers and just do ‘em punk rock, and then I forget how it morphed into what it became,” Soto laughs.

“There’s a photo from that tour, we actually took band photos before we ever played a note together.”

Soto says that they might never have actually started the band except for an incident with his former band, Joyride, which was booked to play a show at a club in Southern California when the day before the show one of the other band members got a weeping ulcer, and they had to cancel. Instead of forfeiting the entire gig, Soto and friends got together, decided to start Manic Hispanic, practiced for an afternoon, and played their first gig the next night. A few weeks after that, they recorded their first record, all in a day and a half.

In the ensuing years, the band has occasionally recorded, and played scattered gigs, always leaving people cracking up at their twisted humor, and vato stage attire and demeanor. Not everyone has always gotten the joke though, as they learned the hard way a few years ago at a Cinco de Mayo club gig in Long Beach.
Unbeknownst to everyone else, their singer, Gabby, (from the Cadillac Tramps) had brought a cap gun to the gig, and was going to pretend to shoot another member during the set. Shortly before they were about to go on, Gabby was standing off to the side of the stage smoking a cigarette. One of the employees of the club came up to him, and told him he couldn’t smoke there. Gabby told him he was about to play, and basically told him to back off. He then turned around, and the employee saw the cap gun sticking out of his pants, thought it was real, and called the cops.

“We got about 5 songs into the set, the power went out, and then all of a sudden these cops come running in,” says Soto.

There had been a fight in the crowd at the beginning of the show, so they thought that the cops must have been coming in to haul the brawlers away, but they soon learned that was not the case.

“So we’re standing there because the power is off, we’re just kinda holding our guitars, and all of a sudden the cops clear everyone from the front of the stage and circle the stage. They’ve all got their guns drawn, and holding flashlights in our faces, and going ‘put your hands in the air!’ screaming at us,” says Soto.

The cops demanded to know who had a gun, to which nobody answered, because they didn’t know what they were talking about.

“They had brought the gang unit, because the call was made that there’s these cholos on stage, and they have guns. So the cops were freaking out, because we were all well spoken guys, just dressed like cholos--we were like ‘what’s the problem, officer, what’s going on?’’ laughs Soto. “I asked one guy, ‘Can I take this guitar off,’ because it was just hanging around my neck, and I was really afraid that it was going to fall off--he was like ‘If you fucking move, I’ll shoot you.’”

The cops then took the band one by one and searched them, a procedure that did not sit well with Soto or the other guys in the band.

“I have avoided run ins with the law all my life, and that was the first time I’ve ever been thoroughly searched, and I never want it to happen again, because that guy should have married me after touching me like that.”

After searching the stage, the police finally discovered the cap gun, which had a large red plastic tip, and was obviously not real. Needless to say, both the cops and the club worker were embarrassed.

Manic Hispanic is currently working on a new record, tentatively titled Tijuana Calling, which is sure to continue the group’s slapstick sense of humor and fun attitude towards their music.

“It’s definitely a fun crew of guys to be around, and obviously it’s not like our serious bands or whatever, but it’s the most fun--it’s fun to just be able to get together with your friends and crack jokes.”