The cultural cuisinart - cuisinartist? - known as El Vez (aka Robert Lopez) really must be seen to be appreciated. Like musical revues from days of yore, his concerts are more than mere performances - they are shows. El Vez, his crack band (the Spiders from Memphis), and his comely back-up singers (the Elvettes, what else?), mount a multimedia production with little more than homemade props and a few gallons of sweat. By mashing up rock classics (punk, glam, and, of course, a big hunk o' Elvis Presley) with Hispanic history and high camp, they teach a little lesson while tearing the roof off the sucker. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll become more culturally competent.

El Vez' Christmas shows, especially, are truly phenomenonal. In comparison, Merry Mex-Mas (1992) is merely a souvenir. All the same, several songs convey the magisterial madness of El Vez having fun onstage, especially "Feliz Navi-Nada," wherein he fuses PIL's "Public Image" to Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" at the genetic level. This sort of thing is El Vez at his finest; hearing those two songs played in tandem is absolutely the last thing we would expect. But El Vez not only dares to do so, he pulls it off with demented aplomb.

The rest of Merry Mex-Mas isn't nearly that brilliant, though it's damn fine entertainment all the same. Lopez recasts Presley's "Santa Claus Is Back In Town" as a paean to Latin pride ("Santa Claus Is Sometimes Brown"), and he does much the same with Bing Crosby's White Christmas ("Brown Christmas," as if you hadn't guessed). In tribute to his low riding brethern, El Vez transforms Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride" into a hopped-up car anthem a la "Whittier Blvd" (by pioneering Chicano band Thee Midnighters), then eases gently into "Christmas Wish," a holiday romance sung to the tune of "Sleepwalk" (an instrumental by Latino guitar duo Santo & Johnny).

But then, El Vez turns the whole concept on it's head by reclaiming two (benignly) racist songs as his own. The first, "Donde Esta Santa Claus," dates all the way back to 1953 (as performed by little Augie Rios) and is just a Latin-flavored variation on the kiddie records like "Nuttin' For Christmas" and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" so popular at the time. El Vez performs it with spirit, if little else.

The second song, however, is more telling. "Pancho Claus" is the creation of Lalo Guerrero, known as the "Father of Chicano Music." Released as a single in 1956 (backed with the equally uproarious "Christmas In Mexico"), "Pancho Claus" tells the "Night Before Christmas" story from a peculiarly Mexican-American perspective - dignified, cacophonous, self-mocking, but funny. In Guerrero's mix of pride and parody, we hear what El Vez would become; his rendition of "Pancho Claus," in fact, is startlingly faithful to Guerrero's original, just faster and louder.

In 2002, El Vez released a sequel called Sno-Way José. Six of the ten songs are new recordings, while the remaining four were (poorly) recorded at one the Barrio King's aforementioned Christmas shows. Nothing here touches "Feliz Navi-Nada," and I'd be lying to say that some of the novelty hadn't worn off. After all, Lopez has been plying this schtick for a long time. After starting off in seminal L.A. punk bands like the Zeroes ("Don't Push Me Around"), he adopted his "Mexican Elvis" persona in the late 1980's. But, with his relentless energy, wry optimism, and wacky juxtapositions, he still makes it work after all these years.

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