By Tamia Vides
August 8th, 2024
Almost a week ago, Psyched! Radio SF and Great American Music Hall partnered up to host a night of “haunted sounds and eerie sound effects”. Bands, Spaghetti Cumbia, Xocé Román, and Son Rompe Pera took to the GAMH stage illuminated by trippy visuals from Tsar Koshka. A special DJ set by Discomóvil Salazar was featured as well.
Spaghetti Cumbia, from Los Angeles, helped set the scene for headlining act, Son Rompe Pera, by performing an electric and powerful western reggae cumbia set. Guitarist Bobby “El Gallo Digital” Guerrero, and bassist, Pablo “El Maniacs” Paredones, jumped off stage and played amongst the crowd. Dancing with audience members and cutting the rug while singer-percussionist, Marcel Campos, somersaulted and break danced shirtless on stage. Spaghetti Cumbia is a band to keep your eye out for.
From the ages of 11 and 13, the Gama brothers began to play music with their father, José “Batuco” Gama. Kacho, Kilos, and Mongo, ran around the city center of Naucalpan de Juárez, Mexico and busked. They continued to play with their father throughout the years, wedding gigs and local festivals. Eventually they gave up on school and turned to music. Inspired by punk, rockabilly and psychobilly, Son Rompe Pera discovered that the marimba was what separated them from other bands. In 2017, while in Chile, the revelation came to them, Mongo explained during their interview with Psyched! Radio’s, Wenceslao Bruciaga earlier that day.
“We realized that you can do really cool things with the marimba and we still keep learning…”
There, they learned how marimbas were made, and that from other types of wood and resonators they could produce richer sounds, incorporating that into their music. Their intention was and is to not limit themselves under a single genre, but instead to play Mexican-fusion cumbia which has lent itself to being experimented with. They have already created genre bending music which is the foundation for their unique sound. Remember the name: Son Rompe Pera.
On August 8th, 2024, the Gama brothers, and family, filed onto the Great American Music Hall stage, one by one (for the second time). The San Francisco audience erupted into noise and chaos for them. With a blistering start, brothers Alan “Mongo” Gama, and Jesús “Kacho” Gama, doubled on the marimba, their mallets ricocheting blindly across the wooden bars. José Angel “Kilos” Gama growled and sang:
“Rikiti con! Rikiti sah! Bailemos la cumbia, esa cumbia buena!”
His voice became more and more excitingly menacing as the tempo accelerated. His voice held the power of a ringmaster. Metal elements of his intonation alluded to the audience that something more was to come. Could things get even more sweaty?
“OH SHIT! ….. OH FUCK!” Kilos yelled.
For a brief two minutes the band broke into a ska and garage beat, smoothly transitioning back into marimbero cumbia.
Drummer, Richi Lopez, opened “Los Chucos Suaves” with a be-bop jazz, big band styled solo which, by the power of the musical gods, he somehow segued back into the regular chu-chucu-chu rhythm. The bridge into the breakdown transformed the party punk-cumbia into a psychobilly cumbia. Mongo, setting down his mallets and picking up his guitar, rolled into the bridge after a hard stop and led the band into a crunchy rendition of their song “Cumbia is the New Punk” that had the crowd chanting and spinning. Kilos invited the audience into a hard style mosh with a finger splitting bongo solo. The pit opened up in the center of Great American Music Hall and out came the spirit of music.
After each song they stripped more layers of clothing from their bodies as they let the music from their childhood spill from their fingertips, down their temples, for it all to drip onto that stage floor.
Songs like “Chucha” and their cover song “Reina de Cumbias” evoked a powerful energy from the crowd. Son Rompe Pera was once scouted in the streets by a Chilean band manager, Timothy ‘Timo’ Bisig. In 2013, he invited Son Rompe Pera to share a stage with Mexican legend, Celso Piña, the original composer of “Reina de Cumbias”, and another group, Sonido Gallo Negro. On August 8th, 2024, Kacho stood on the Great American stage alone beneath the spotlight playing the marimba for that very same song.
The crowd was silenced and in awe. Light visuals by Tsar Koshka danced across Kacho’s bare chest making each bead of sweat glisten like crystal suspended by the strings of music. Everyone was so struck they held their breath. Kacho got down onto his bent knees and played for the people. That night, Son Rompe Pera played as though they were in the final throes of ever performing on a live stage again. They left San Francisco longing for their musica sabrosita.
Son Rompe Pera can be found on all platforms, be sure to listen to their 2023 album, Chimborazo, which exemplifies a lot of their modern punk-cumbia fusion. This band has an energy and sound that cannot be captured digitally. For those who seek to truly understand the essence of their music, experiencing it live is the only way to grasp the full extent of their artistry.
As the echoes of Son Rompe Pera’s final chords faded, the Great American Music Hall was left drenched in a sweat-soaked, marimba-infused haze. San Francisco’s night of “haunted sounds and eerie effects” proved that when it comes to genre-bending brilliance, Son Rompe Pera are the real deal—leaving a crowd that now knows there’s no substitute for the raw magic they deliver. Spaghetti Cumbia’s electrifying performance only set the stage for the Gama brothers’ unrelenting sonic rollercoaster, ensuring that their names will be whispered with reverence in music circles for years to come.
Story written by: Tamia Vides
Editor: Guillermo Goyri