It’s cold as balls out in the Bayview on Cesar Chavez Street near Highway 280. Still, musicians are coming and going from Secret Studios like it was a busy gas station. Because of the weather, they’re smoking in the halls and hanging out in the usually empty convenience store. A cacophony of music bleeds through the building.

Inside Room Five, the mixing room of a small, yet powerful, recording studio is warm and relatively quiet. You can only hear one of the rehearsing bands through the wall. In front of the room’s comfy black couch, Adam Mori paces in white Timberland sneakers on the blue, grimy carpet. He pauses and rubs his short black hair with both hands.

“Somebody was saying that there was too much reverb on one of the songs,” Mori says, half dancing around the room, pointing to the ground to accent his comments. “This one sounds a little reverb-ed out.”

Mori has worked all day, toiling for Bank of America. But tonight, he is the sax-player for the SF-based live 12-piece hip-hop band the Bayonics.

They’ve been around for about five years now, and have built a steady following in San Francisco. They’ve developed a sound that, true to their claims, really represents SF and the Bay Area – incorporating a mixture of hip-hop, salsa, rock, R&B, reggae, reggaeton and, most of all, funk. They play the Elbo Room almost monthly, and they draw crowds at the Temple Bar in LA. They’ve played the Mission’s Carnaval multiple times and they recently rocked Palo Alto’s Black and White Ball.

Yet, they just haven’t blown up. The simplest answer why not is that they haven’t ever released an album. There are the usual reasons why not – funding, losing band members and good ol’ stoner laziness. Moreover, they are taking their time, really trying to bring a unique, quality product to the plate.

They’ve been refining the album in late-night sessions – some times ‘til dawn – at studios around the Bay Area. Parts of the album were recorded at the Room Five studio, but the group has recorded everywhere from top-of-the-line million-dollar studios, to band members’ bedrooms, to a “straight-up utility closet.”

Inside Room Five’s recording room, a huge upright piano, a vibraphone and an organ sit dormant in the dark. An organ just like this one sat in the backyard of a house party after a Bayonics show on June 6, 2006.

The house party is at a spot called the Pink Palace. It’s a three-story house in the Mission on Cesar Chavez and it’s packed with people. A DJ is spinning the most random things, ‘80’s rock, recent hip-hop and house. Every type of person is there: hipsters, gangstas, rockers and skaters. And the Bayonics are a band as eclectic as this house party.

The party is funky, too, and it’s spilling out into the backyard and out onto the sidewalk. The backdoor’s wooden stairway is cramped with girls in shiny, loose blouses, guys in hoodies of every color, and one guy wearing a mohawk. At the bottom of the stairs is the old organ. It’s a clear summer night, and the organ is all right for now, but the winter will be hard.

Much like this degrading organ, the Bayonics are a musical organism trying to maintain integrity while, around them, the party rages in a hard world.

Technically, the Bayonics began on Boxing Day of 2001. Vargas’s brother had given him an electric bass guitar for Christmas and, even though he didn’t have an amplifier, Vargas started writing immediately. The band’s first song, “On the Grind,” was clacked out on the day after Christmas.

At the time, Vargas was in a group called “Mala Fama” which basically means bad rep.

“Mala Fama’s how we started, dude,” says Vargas while working at a hip North Beach hat shop. Classic soul tunes bounce around the vaulted ceilings as he digs through a box of hats. “Mala Fama was a Salsa band. [It] was Pete, Ben Ezra, Chepo, my boy Gino…”

Vargas’ raspy voice sounds a lot like Tone Loc or Miles Davis. Tourists and North Beach natives stroll in and out and Vargas greets them with a friendly, “How yah doin’?”

Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” is on the stereo now as Vargas explains the birth of Bayonics, originally called Natoma, named after their first practice space.

“Yeah, Natoma started when me and Brian, B-Laz [Brian Lazarus], our old bass player stayed after practice one day at Natoma Studios and I got on bass and he got on guitar. An’ we wrote our song called ‘To the Fullest’ together. It’s an old-school funk jam.”

Today, the Bayonics have Vargas, Adris “Dris” Beasley and Mario “Jún” Gallardo Jr. on vocals, and their styles compliment each other. Vargas brings a versatile mixture of soulful singing and quick-lipped rappin’. While Gallardo, who’s tall, broad shouldered, wears cornrows and oversize basketball jerseys, comes heavy, hard and sparse.

Beasley is a character. He and Vargas are real cut-ups, quick with a joke or a silly voice. He has a unique rappin’ style, combining charismatic speech with a rap that rhymes in unusual places. He also throws in references to Looney Toons and Jumanji.

Conga player Jose “Chepo” Barajas and Pete “Pedro” Gomez hold down the drum section. With his backwards baseball cap drawn down tight across his brow and blank expression, Barajas looks like the last person you’d ever want to approach. But, like most of the band, the minute you break the ice or offer a hand to shake, he melts and smiles. Percussionist Eric “E.” Mendez is the newest member of the group.

Sax man Mori, and trumpeter Jody Scott sum up the horn section. Scott looks and dresses like a hippie crossed with a B-boy – shorts, a thin beard and a Fedora. Mori sports a mustache and always looks like he’s deep in thought. As one of the bands unofficial music directors, he probably is.

Bass man Bob Menacho, a busy musician playing in several groups, has played with the band for about two years.

The band also recently brought aboard two brothers they refer to as “the Germans.” Erik Stern plays some mean timbales and Hans Stern can drop some dope Latin piano montunos. Perhaps it’s because they’re only a quarter German and they're vato-ed out Mexican dudes that grew up around music.

Most of the band members have a mixed, or hyphenated, ethnicity. Which fits the city by the Bay like a glove. Creating a real SF sound has, for the Bayonics, meant learning and incorporating numerous styles of music. And getting that sound has meant having 12 people.

The band has had a bit of a rotating cast. Most of the players have been working-class and money-makin’ has forced a number of musicians to leave. A fresh and promising teenage trumpeter, Josué Caravantes, had just joined when he and his family moved to Turlock (He’ll still appear with the band, but on a real limited basis). Vargas grew up in Hercules and SF, working for his parents’ company, delivering. Beasley grew up in SF’s Ingleside, and works at a last chance group home.

The band addresses their struggles in songs like “Time Over Money,” “World Wide Hustle” and “Sko Livin’” (as in “San Francis-Sko”). On “Time Over Money” Vargas sings against a pulsing bass hook: “This load of cash / can only last / in this game / aslongasyou move fast… we all strivin’ for something better / Go on an’ get that cheddar.” The refrain is straightforward and clear: “It takes time to make all that money. So money takes up all of you time.”

Perhaps “World Wide Hustle” says what they’re about most succinctly: “We’re livin’ in a world-wide hustle / An’ that is why we livin’ it up.”

And the band is about good times. They’re a party band when it comes down to it. Their live shows, especially at the Elbo Room, are the pit stops of a raucous funk bus, spilling riffs and beats onto a grinding dance floor. Couples bump and grind, salsa dance and cram the bar. The guys that come for the rappin’ stand around muggin’, sippin’ Hennessey.

The three MCs strut around, rocking back and forth in sunglasses and fedoras, throwing arms in the air – getting their hardcore on. Mori seems disinterested one minute, playing like he’s somewhere else. The next, he’s high-steppin’ around the stage. Guitarist Carter hides under his baseball cap, usually looking down at his guitar pedals or over to the MCs. Hans Stern is like death, glaring out from behind the keyboard, holding down the groove. The drummers watch each other, pointing and smilin’ when they surprise one another with a funky fill. Menacho chicken-bobs his heads, eyes darting intently at the other players.

The members balance their hardcore lifestyles with a comedic sensibility, and that all-important relaxed West Coast attitude. On the street and on stage they wear stone-cold faces, but as soon as they’re in a comfortable setting they’re really just a bunch of jokers, serious about having good times. Watching them rehearse is like watching kids play.

On another cold night, in a different Bayview studio, seven members of the Bayonics are cookin’ a new tune, and their windowless practice space is getting steamy hot. They’re playin’ straight salsa with a funk twist. Around the room are posters from the bands shows. There’s also a gold embossed poster of an organ. Two of the walls are solid pink; the other two are white. The carpet is blue shag and the ceiling is a mixture of sound tiles, with pegboard covering most of a large hole above the entrance. Someone keeps knocking on the door.

They’re writing new material even though five members aren’t there. They’re focused on setting horn lines against drum breaks.

“No,” Chepo, the conga player says to Eric Stern, the timbales player. “Brrrrrrrr. Bat!”
Erik Stern gives it a try and Chepo nods. Now they just have to fit it into its little niche in the break.

Vargas is playing bass tonight. Menacho is touring Colorado with the John Howland Trio, a folk-rock jam band that sounds a lot like Jack Johnson. A friend of Vargas’ from El Salvador showed up tonight out of the blue. He’s dancin’ around and yelling suggestions at everyone as they play. Between jamming, he and Vargas (converse in Spanish, laughing and slapping hands. The players drop in and out – finding their rhythm and decide how to relate to the others.

They work for a while, but some one keeps knocking. It’s the drummer from another band that shares the studio space. They want to use the room.

“We’ve been here since 8:30,” says the other band’s drummer.

“Yeah, but it’s Tuesday though, baby,” says Vargas in his mellow, raspy voice. The dry-erase board does say pretty clearly that the Bayonics have Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hans starts the piano groove, Vargas drops the bass line, and he band gets back to it.

Chepo holds up a single finger to Erik Stern and mouths, “First break.”

The band hits, Mori plays the horn line and Vargas lays out on the bass. The drums have the ball, solo for the end of the bar. “Brrrrrrrr. Bat!” Stern hits it.

After a rehearsal, Vargas, Mori and Mendez went to one of their late-night grub spots. While waiting for their pupusas (a tasty corn bread and cheese dish from El Salvadore), Vargas is chops it up, doing his best impression of an old Jewish woman shopping at Ikea.

“Oh my gawd,” he says flapping a hand limply. “I was there for three hours. And would you believe – (he cups a hand to his mouth and whispers) you have to put it together yourself.”

Their humor has kept them going for a long time. They’re in the game for the kicks as much as anything else, but they are getting to a point where they’re ready to be done with the album.

And that’s what brought Mori to the Room Five Studio – doing final mixes with Derek Bongaarts, the bands producer and house manager. Bongaarts sits in front of the mixing console, wearing a large, black wool jacket, his black ponytail hanging above the chair. He hits ‘play’ and takes a bite of his roast beef sandwich.

The two work as a team, coupling Mori’s musical ear with Bongaarts’ technical abilities. Mori always know what he wants to hear, what needs to get tweaked. And with Bongaarts, it’s never a matter of how to do it, just what a pain in the ass it is. And they work well together; they’re often on the same page.

“Is that reverb…?” Mori begins.

“Yeah. Changing it,” says Bongaarts, knowing the question before it’s asked.

“Thank you,” says Mori.

Bongaarts’ reply is a simple groan: “…huhaaagh…”

Samba guitar and vibraphone, scratchy with static, drizzles softly through the studio’s fancy monitor speakers. Bongaarts pulls most of the band out of the mix and the room is filled the noises of sparking lighters, people inhaling swiftly and the burble of bongs – all echoing out into some great void. What sounded like the background fizz and pop of a vinyl recording turns out to be recordings of paraphernalia in progress sent into an old-school tape looper. The same type of machine used on the first dub reggae.

“That thing is the shit. Analog tape delay,” Bongaarts says later, pulling the device from among the racks. “It’s a dub song, so it’s gotta be like we went ape-shit with the effects.”

For now, he sits silently at the board and puts the rest of the band back in. A house beat thumps behind the guitar. Then heavy tom-tom drums and rallying horns destroy the old samba record as the funky eclectic sound of the Bayonics knocks the room.

“Yahyah, yahyah, yaaaaaow. Greetings! Ladies and gentlemen!” announces Vargas through the speakers. “You’re listening to the sounds of Bayonics. The Bayonics crew – representing the Bay Area!” The drums boom and the horns blast. The MCs trade lines and the groove drops into dancehall reggae, dripped with dub-style.

“Blaze ‘em up! Blaze em up!” cries Dris while Vargas sings soulfully: “The sensemia.”