As a crush of enthusiastic dudes knocked into me in spastic reverie while watching Made in Mexico at a house show last week, I recalled how, mere hours before, the room had been empty save for a heap of cases and equipment and an inexplicable grocery cart filled to the brim with VHS cassettes of Korean porn. Prior to that, I had walked down a quiet residential street, approached the address I'd been given, found a handwritten note pinned to the door of the house ("Go around back for the show"), and followed its instructions, only to discover I was going to be That Guy: the dude who shows up for a party at the exact time the flyer says to show up. D'oh.It was worth that minor agony for the ecstasy that was Made in Mexico's strange, intense aggregate of Latin grooves and noise rock. (This is, after all, a Providence band with former members of Arab on Radar and La Machine.) The bulk of the set was material from their new Guerillaton (Skin Graft), where they've turned down the AmRep knob and cranked up the Third World percussion. In this pumped and packed Allston basement, that meant mayhem.
Dead Kennedys punk battled with exuberant salsa madness, especially during the crazy extended drum breaks of "Gran Colombia." Guitarist Jeff Schneider — in a bandana and playing a guitar shaped like an AK-47, complete with a bandolero strap — spewed out crinkly and brittle shards while vocalist Rebecca Mitchell (half Elvira goth chick and half Yma Sumac) flipped casually and continually from seductive and emotive to demonic and aggressive. She climaxed with a new song, "Yes We Can," the band pausing for her to loose a torrent of wordless trills and ratchet the insanity up until, I shit you not, a kid to my right smashed a beer can on his forehead in revved-up glee. ¡Ay caramba!
Related:
Shady neighbors, Rootin' tootin' Hooten, Faulty Conscience | Good Enough for Punk Rock, More 
- Shady neighbors
“You can actually make something out of nothing because we had shit, then we somehow whipped up this fucking fury — Arab On Radar,” says Jeff Schneider.
- Rootin' tootin' Hooten
Once a month, in the cramped A-frame attic of a house in Allston, folk singers from around New England gather to sing for each other.
- Faulty Conscience | Good Enough for Punk Rock
Of the innumerable punk bands who will release their debut full-length this year, Allston's Faulty Conscience will surpass the majority with their aptly titled Good Enough for Punk Rock .
- Sweet Dichotomy
No Age are a punk duo from Los Angeles. A week ago Monday at the Middle East downstairs, their clothes helped explain what they were up to.
- Kicking the habits
Anyone familiar with Wagner's œuvre with the Raveonettes (who come to the Paradise next Thursday) should be surprised by the idea that, having created something awesome, he's ready to move on to something different.
- The house that Gonzo built
There’s a circus-like house in Allston — complete with an indoor basketball court, movie-projector room, pillow loft, and multiple art installations — whose ethos can best be summed up with a bit of poetry, which is printed out on labels on the wall of the second-floor bathroom.
- Slideshow: Bajofondo at Middle East downstairs
Photos from Bajofondo at the Middle East downstairs
- Slideshow: Gaslight Anthem at Hurricane O'Reillys
Gaslight Anthem, live at Hurricane O'Reillys, March 17, 2009.
- Things fall apart
As hipster, electronic, indie-rock, and rap cultures converge, MCs are taking cues from their other-genre contemporaries who rely on everything from stage props and antics to self-mutilation in the quest to entertain.
- Save yourselves
The media-propagated notion that the Canadian sextet Fucked Up are "saving hardcore" seems silly.
- Classing up the joint
A substantial portion of the Paradise's clientele Friday evening wouldn't have looked out of place at a fancy dinner party. Thanks to the World/Inferno Friendship Society, punk rock and snazzy fashion sense are no longer mutually exclusive.
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Pete Wentz, Dead Kennedys, Dead Kennedys, More
, Pete Wentz, Dead Kennedys, Dead Kennedys, Allston, Rebecca Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Arab on Radar, Arab on Radar, Jeff Schneider, Jeff Schneider, Less
