El Vez is an enigma wrapped in a gold lamé mariachi suit. Known worldwide as the Mexican Elvis (since 1988), he has famously toured with such musical icons as David Bowie, Kiss and Bob Dylan. And on Dec. 17, the nonstop touring impresario returns to Santa Cruz with his holiday show, a guaranteed Christmas Espectaculo that is both irreverent and oddly spiritually moving.
But more than all that, El Vez, aka Robert Lopez, is and always has been a revolutionary in music, fashion and lifestyle.
Growing up in boring Chula Vista, a suburban city south of San Diego, Lopez was part of the original seminal punk rock movement, playing alongside X and unbelievably with The Germs at their very first show (they were, notably, the first LA hardcore band to make a full-length album). “I started playing when I was 16 in a band called The Zeroes and we had a gig at The Whisky a Go Go,” says Lopez from the road, somewhere between gigs.
“We played with X, The Screamers, The Weirdos, Germs—I was all part of that. We did a couple records on Bump Records, singles, and it was great to be 16 and be part of punk rock. The early parts of punk rock, before it became all bullshit. It was a very creative time. And at 16, being an outcast in high school in Chula Vista, but having friends of likewise interest in LA was pretty great,” Lopez recalls like it was yesterday.
Though it’s a bit of a trope to say it, 1976 was a different world. No internet, no MTV, and no easy way to find out about the burgeoning youth arts culture, the new gender-busting music that was careening off the staid complacency that had settled into suburbia after the post-’60s turmoil.
“I liked art better,” Lopez says, reflecting on those heady times.
“I knew about John Waters. I knew about Salvador Dali, at that early age, and I wasn’t into sports. So it was a different time. My band was my cousin, a friend, and another member of The Zeroes, who is now my brother-in-law, because he married my sister.
“We’d read Circus Magazine and see, oh, there’s something going on in New York City. Oh, there’s something going on in England,” Lopez recalls. “There was a TV show called The Real Don Steele Show, I remember, in 1974, it was like an American Bandstand, only it was glitter rock bands, and so the New York Dolls were on there. I got to see the New York Dolls when I was 14 at an all-ages club, so I was aware of music.”
Starting in the early 1990s, Lopez’s alter ego, his “other,” El Vez, began doing Christmas shows. It satisfied a niche in the market for those who believe in holiday spirit but eschew all the corporate marketing that has infused the last months of every year. With three Christmas albums under his wide belt buckle, Lopez has something special for this run of shows. “It’s a rerelease of Merry Maximus, which was originally on CD, but will be on vinyl for these shows. It shows that traditional Christmas doesn’t have to be a white Christmas—it can be a brown,” Lopez says, laughing, which evinces a certain knowing that change is needed.
“There is a part of the show called The Unhappy Hour, because Christmas is always a year in review. El Vez can show the sad, but the message is to fight on and continue, and he gives hope,” Lopez stresses. And how can you not have hope when you see El Vez dressed with giant feathered wings, in a white sparkling jumpsuit?
“So there’ll be politics, but mostly fun and Christmas. And I got a great new band, The Centuries, that I really enjoy working with—it’s new youth injected into the show,” Lopez asserts.
Opening act Duderella is not to be missed, with LA’s stoner/punk in-your-face duo: vocalist-bassist Dan Reyes and drummer-synth wizard Chris Magallon. Come early, stay late, get your nog on and witness the future of music, evolution and revolution with El Vez.
El Vez and the Centuries will appear at 8pm on Dec. 17 at Moe’s Alley, 1535 Commercial Way, Santa Cruz. $20/adv, $25/door. moesalley.com
