The Chavos Are All Right

Photo by Matt OttoThe music life is tough for the kids of Son del Centro. The badass Santa Ana downtown community space Centro Cultural de México pays its rent solely off the gig greens the seven-member group gets. Their acoustic instruments, rickety even when brand-new, cost a minimum of $400, had to be shipped directly from Mexico, and include such seemingly simple noisemakers as a quijada (donkey's jaw) and cajón (a $400 box!). Though most of them are still in high school, they give pro bono classes to children. And then there's the actual music. Son del Centro play son(pronounced "sone"), the furiously loopy 6/8 tunes of Mexico's Caribbean coast that sound like a music box gone berserk. But it's kinda hard to master the intricate style when you're a bunch of Orange County chavos y chavas swimming in a sea of seedy narcocorridos and stale quebraditas.

To add to the harmonious hardship, Son del Centro have to serve as county ambassadors for a wonderful genre that's unheralded even in Mexico. Fernando Ayala—at 34, the only member of the group over 20—remembers how he once walked into Santa Ana's Mexican Consulate desperate to find any son resources. "I had visited every library in the county," says Ayala, "but all I could find were recordings of mariachi. Lots of the librarians I asked—even the Latino ones—didn't even know what son was."

"It's hard to play this music when no one really has heard of it," adds lead singer Luis Sarmiento, 17, whose whiny wails could break crystal but are ideal to front a son group. "But we can try."

Playing son—the only cultural aspect of Mexico in which African, Spanish and indigenous influences coexist peacefully—is notoriously difficult since it's a genre in which conformity and innovation dance together perilously. The rhythms are raga-like in their repetitive plucks and strums on ukulele-like guitars called jaranas; the sonlyric style demands constant improvisation. To master this contradiction, dedicated soneros practice the same song without stopping for hours. It hurts after a while. "Our voices are shot, and our fingertips usually start bleeding after practicing just one song," admits Cal State Fullerton freshman Keli Cabunoc, who attacks her jarana as if she were grating cheese. "But, hey, that's what tape is for!"

Driven by these difficulties, Son del Centro perform to possess their audience. It's something beautiful: men, women and children gravitate toward the stage as the sonerosslowly unwind their songs, flailing their arms in spastic ecstasy. They've wowed the rich at the Bowers Museum, placated punks at sweaty dives and even motivated the bohos at the Gypsy Den to give them a standing ovation.

"One time, we were practicing in the Centro, and this homeless guy walked in," recalls Cabunoc. "He stared at us for a while; then all of a sudden, he starts twirling with joy. Even though he smelled bad and all the air was coming our way, you could tell he was out of this world."