In a garage lit with rainbow Christmas lights in South Central LA, sixty or so freaks of every variety are packed like sweltering sardines. Their hands grasp a gas station pre-mixed cocktail in one hand and a balloon filled with nitrous oxide in the other. Some have spent hours smattering their eyes with colorful gradients and swapping out accessories until they’re undeniably on point while others slapped on some sweats and a tank top with the sole intention of getting down. A loud and distressing crackle abounds as the DJ fumbles with the PA as three others jump in to attempt sound check. At long last a lanky man in a jumpsuit donning pantyhose as headwear, a petite cholita punkette, and a futuristic lubricant attendant festooned with a platinum Edgar haircut begin chanting rhythmically about how work sucks ass.
¿La Pregunta? is the brainchild of Taco, and he’s been a stalwart of queer brown punk locally for years. However, the geography of his influence changed rapidly shortly after the pandemic lockdowns ceased. After his youthful anarcho-punk band Argument? dissolved, he created a collective to express statements affecting low-income communities using humans, movements, customized clothing, objects, and sound. But after a few years of touring this act and making it all the way to Tokyo, he asked his pal Daniel James Halaby to aid him in refining a musical direction for the project while the world stood still in a novel fear of pathogens. But balancing out the testosterone and adding some much-desired upward vocal frequencies took Taco asking Angee Zavala of beloved outfit Destruye y Huye to parlay his shouted duel.
Thus, the contemporary ¿LP? evolved into its current crest, somewhere between twerking to reggaeton in a villainous alley and push moshing your most taboo sexual urges around in a crude circle until one of them falls, flailing on a beer-soaked concrete floor. Neither gayness nor politics ever left the project, they just grew to be easily digestible, concealed in a danceable party package that slips under the eye of the passive straight rocker until the fumes of freakdom rise like amyl nitrate to the nostrils, completely deceiving their target.
I sat down with the trio on a markedly cold May afternoon deep in Huntington Park, CA to get the full scoop. Inquiring about their influences yielded some surprising results:
“Hit Parade and Nitzer Ebb for me” says Taco.
“Honestly, Lil’ Kim. She’s just so sexy and sick and empowering as a tiny woman. But also Alaska and Siouxsie”, states Angee.
“Where the music aspects aren’t really punk at all, the attitude and the lyrics are punk. The electronic aspect comes from when I was a kid. Rob Zombie and White Zombie’s techno albums and late 90s and early 2000s cheesy really bad techno electronic shit I just ate that up when I was a little kid. I started making electronic music what, four years ago, and I think that was always in the back of my head; just using samples and horror movie shit and weird fucked up things,” stammers Daniel.
“Anarcho Crass bands that were electronic dance music at the same time. Plus like Björk too. She comes from a Crassy background and started doing more electronic dancey music.” adds Taco.
“I think the way we structure the songs is still very punk – like verse, chorus, verse, chorus,” says Angie.
“No solos. Just simple electronic caveman shit,” concludes Daniel.
Daniel, who produces the beats hadn’t had experience making electronic music before ¿LP? He was just dicking around on loop pedals, making weird sounds, and had just recently bought a synthesizer. When he and Taco became friends he suggested they should collaborate because ¿LP? had only been Taco’s solo project, which was comparatively formless and took on new multimedia shapes every time he performed, boasting some early collaborations with members of Blazing Eye and D.O.V.E.
The early songs were about relatable topics such as sex, unhealthy relationships with food, drug problems, and mental chaos; which are still somewhat present but are accentuated with more specificity with the addition of Angee who sings from a Latina woman’s perspective, navigating the world as such, and the aim of injecting confidence into that demographic of audience should they be listening. She had only been in punk bands like Destruye y Huye but was invited to sing on the song “Miedo” after which she was invited to every practice, eventually assuming the role of the third permanent member and providing a perfect complimentary feminine counterpart to participate in the call-and-response style motifs.
“Two piece is a couple, three-piece is a party,” states Taco.
The band recalls their early days shoving McDonald’s in Daniel’s mouth as a metaphor for junk food addiction at dirty warehouse shows and how far away from that they’ve strayed while maintaining their roots, playing with some of their more polished favorite contemporaries such as Choir Boy, Kontravoid, and Riki. They just dropped their debut record and want to move on to new material like every musician but even more than that, they’re excited to tour as much as possible, make connections, and inspire the young punks who might silo themselves in one small branch of music instead of experimenting with all outlets for self-expression.
“I think the Tik Tok punks are great. This type of shit would’ve blown my mind as a fifteen-year-old and I’m stoked there’s kids into it. They’re on some 90s shit these days and I think it’s cool as fuck.” adds Dan.
They just released their debut album on Fall Down Laughing Records, documenting the first of what is to be a long string of releases punctuated with endless touring, stories, and clowning in the years to come. We don’t think we’ve seen even a tenth of what this group is capable of.
