2B — Thursday, November 5, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

My whiskers are melting off 

my face from sweat. I am a last 
minute, Rite Aid-eared cat, and 
any bit of feline allure I once had 
has flown out the window by this 
point. As I’m squeezing my way 
past Alex from “A Clockwork 
Orange,” Tom Cruise from “Top 
Gun” and a disarmingly good 
Edward Scissorhands, I can’t 
stifle the thought that I look 
a little basic. This is, after all, 
the Blind Pig’s Halloween Band 
Masquerade — an event built on 
the power of the costume. But all 
great concerts bring salvation. 
This one is the perfect amount 
of dark: the stage, or whoever’s 
being resurrected on it, is the 
solely lit star of the show on this 
chilly Devil’s Night. I can hear 
the next band setting up while I 
stumble downstairs to the 8 Ball 
Saloon to use the little-kitties 
room. Rage Against the Machine 
is coming.

***
The bar looked a lot calmer 

in broad daylight some two days 
earlier, when I sat down — sans 
whiskers — with manager Jef 
Porkins to chat about all things 
spooky and musical. In the 15 
years he has been working at 
the Blind Pig and adjacent 8 Ball 
Saloon, the Halloween Band 
Masquerade has been around for 
eight. The concert’s structure is 
pretty typical: gussied-up people 
saunter in around 9:20 p.m., 
grab a drink and listen to diverse 
sets brought about by some great 
local bands. What’s so spooky 
about that? Well, there’s the 
fact that all the bands are in full 
costume, boasting their best 
impersonations of musical icons 
and replicating those pioneers’ 
most adored songs.

“There was a band called 

Shellac in Chicago,” Porkins 
said, beginning the origin story. 
“They’re fronted by Steve Albini, 
who’s probably the most famous 
of the three of them. And they 
did a set as the Sex Pistols for 
Halloween once. I’ve heard it; 
it sounded terrible, but it was 
really funny. I thought it’d be 
funny to do shows like that, 
and just dress up as a band that 
nobody could see anymore and 
not be able to repeat it.

To put that thought into 

motion, Porkins formed a band 
co-op called Arboco, in which 
roughly 12 local bands started 
to book shows together, pool the 
money earned from those shows 
and set it toward making each 
other’s records. The Halloween 
Band Masquerade is Arboco’s 
most successful (and now only) 
spawn.

“We did more shows, just like 

regular shows throughout the 
year. But this one became such 
a big show, and we were able to 
get so much money from it, that 
we were like, ‘Let’s just do that,’ 
” Porkins said. “We have three 
more records to put out, but we 
only have money for two, so this 
year would be the last year we 
would have to do (the money 
pool). Then after that, if we keep 
doing it then we’d just split the 
money like a normal show.”

Porkins’s band, Scissor Now!, 

is a member of Arboco and one 
of the five performers set to jam 
at the event this year — as Led 
Zeppelin. The bands get to pick 

who they want to be, which is 
always a lengthy, deliberative 
process.

“Every single year, we’re 

loading up (after the show), and 
we’re like, ‘Next year, I want 
to be this.’ We came up with 
Zeppelin really early, I think in 
like February. I was screwing 
around, playing ‘Dazed and 
Confused’ on the bass, and the 
drummer just started playing 
it, and she (lead singer Jessica 
Bratus) 
started 
singing 
it,” 

Porkins said. “And then we 
listened to it, and we learned 

the other parts and we played 
it, and then I was like, ‘Do you 
guys want to be Led Zeppelin?’ I 
had no idea they were gonna say 
yes.”

Since Porkins is a bass player, 

I cheekily asked him how he’s 
going to pull off the non-descript 
charm of Zeppelin bassist John 
Paul Jones. 

“We don’t have a guitar 

player, so I’m splitting the signal 
from my bass and making it 
sound like a guitar, as well. And 
I’m gonna wear a Jimmy John’s 
uniform,” Porkins paused to 
laugh, “because it’s Jimmy Page 
and John Paul Jones.” 

Porkins values the way the 

Halloween Band Masquerade 
has challenged him over the 
years, 
pushing 
his 
musical 

boundaries by forcing his band 
to emulate artists to a T. 

“To listen to all of those, 

and learn all these songs that 
I’ve always wanted to play 
and 
understand 
them 
more 

intimately, I think I’ve grown 
as a bass player — playing like 
Black Flag. I was in a band called 
Suicide by Cop and we did Black 
Flag the second year. And I just 
decided I wasn’t gonna be a 
slouch and I’d actually learn how 
to play like these very technical 
bass lines — for a punk band, at 
least. And it went really well.”

One 
of 
the 
unifying 

characteristics of the concert 
series is that bands are never 
replicated: once Led Zeppelin 
has played the Blind Pig, it 
can’t play again, so long as the 
masquerade 
continues. 
Why 

is this an impenetrable rule? 
Porkins laughed again.

“I think everybody would do 

The Misfits every year,” he said. 
“The other rule was that you 
can’t do a band that somebody 
could just go see right now 
anyway. But that’s kind of fallen 
by the wayside, as well, because 
Motorhead is still around — 
somebody did Motorhead. Daft 
Punk’s still around, and we did 
that. But I mean, if you’re gonna 
present it well and be good at it, 
why not?”

This year’s lineup is completed 

with Counter Crosby as Pink 
Floyd, 
Volcano 
Worshippers 

Hour as Rage Against the 
Machine, Cyrano Jones as The 
Kinks and JUNGLEFOWL as 
Björk. Porkins mused on the 
plight of artists who perform 
covers.

“That’s the one thing about 

this band (Led Zeppelin). The 

other bands, we try to do it 
straight, like they did on the 
record, things like that. For this 
one, we pretty much just have to 
make it our own. That’s what we 
do when we do covers, anyway. 
We change them a lot. Either 
you change them and make them 
your own, or you nail it.”

***
When 
Friday 
night 

approached, I began to realize 
how badly everyone wanted 
to nail it as I waltzed into the 
historic venue, cat ears just shy 
of “on fleek.” I stopped a woman 

wearing skin-tight bellbottoms 
— with a faux protrusion in the 
groin area — in the lobby. It 
turned out to be Jessica Bratus, 
the lead singer of Scissor Now! 
I complimented her on the 
accuracy of her below-the-belt 
Robert Plant simulation, and 
she smiled and pulled out the 
empty water bottle responsible 
for it. A local small business 
owner, 
Bratus 
relishes 
the 

ability to mimic the looks and 
moves of legends on stage every 
year.

“At this show, I have so much 

respect for the levels that the 
bands take it to. People are 
really professional about the 
band that they’re covering, so I 
think that the best part of this is 
watching other people,” Bratus 
said. “Also, for me personally, 
it’s taking on the role of who I’m 
performing as. I watch videos 
— I watch dance videos, like 
lots of performances, so I can 
emulate the moves that they do 
on stage. Robert Plant, he does 
a lot of nifty little moves and a 
lot of wrist-flicking, chest-out, 
hips out, shoulders back.” We 
snickered at the position she 
had wiggled herself into. “It’s 
really funny,” she said.

Then 
Björk 
walked 
past 

me, in swan dress and all. 
Melissa Coppola, second-year 
graduate student in the School 
of Music and lead singer of 
JUNGLEFOWL, was Björk. 

“It’s nice to, like, get in 

character 
— 
you 
know 
— 

pretend I’m from Iceland,” 
Coppola said. She had already 
begun to adopt Björk’s staccato 
mannerisms at that point — and 
it only got better when she took 
the stage.

JUNGLEFOWL opened with 

“Earth Intruders,” which was 
eerily on point. Coppola, or 
Björk, would lower her body to 
the floor in throws of passion, 
shout out Icelandic-accented 
sentiments to the audience. 
Neon lights were rife as she 
sang “Birthday,” a Sugarcubes 
(Björk’s 
first 
band) 
song, 

which was one of the night’s 
highlights.

The Kinks came out next 

with their blue velvet jackets 
and white doily collars. “Lola” 
was the closer and the crowd 
favorite, of course — the whole 
audience was screaming to 
“Now I’m not the world’s most 
passionate guy … ” by the end. 
Cyrano 
Jones/The 
Kinks 

finished, and I realized my 
whiskers were melting off.

***
When I assumed my place 

after the bathroom, among 
vampires 
this 
time, 
Rage 

Against 
the 
Machine 
was 

mulling about the tiny stage. 
The lead singer of Volcano 
Worshippers Hour had put on 
a grandiose Zack de la Rocha 
wig, crisp white shirt and black 
armband. He was traipsing 
around, aggression brewing and 
building, until finally his band 
dropped the opening chords to 
“Bulls on Parade.”

The crowd erupted: moshing 

started in the front, and we 
couldn’t keep our bodies from 
thrashing to the screams of 
who we thought was the actual 
de la Rocha for the majority of 
the set. As far as we (the Tom 
Cruises and the cats alike) 
believed, 
Rage 
Against 
the 

Machine was in Ann Arbor — 
and for one night only.

Finding the best tacos in Ann 

Arbor can be hard. Not because 
there aren’t great tacos around, 
but the place where they’re 
sold is so easy to miss. In an 
especially 
nondescript 
strip 
mall 

on 
an 

especially 
nondescript 
section 
of 

Packard 
road, 
four 

miles 
from 

central 
campus, 
sandwiched 
in 
between 
a 

barbershop 
and 
a 
Middle 

Eastern 
market, 
is 
Tmaz 

Taqueria.

A white cockatoo perches 

outside, preening himself in 
the hopes that a customer will 
toss him a scrap of tortilla or a 
nugget of chicharrón. Judging 
by the serene silence of those 
eating, 
punctuated 
only 
by 

an occasional moan or scrape 
of fork against plate, it’s not 
looking likely.

I have been to Tmaz many 

times, 
for 
their 
defiantly 

spartan tacos — just two corn 
tortillas, 
filled 
with 
meat, 

chopped 
onion, 
a 
sprinkle 

of cilantro, with some lime 
wedges and hot sauce on the 
side. But today, I arrive hungry 
for answers. Most pressing: how 
did this amazing little place end 
up in Ann Arbor, Michigan?

The interior of Tmaz is 

expansive and brightly lit. It 
used to occupy just the narrow 
space next door, which now 
contains the open kitchen and a 
few tables. In May, it expanded 
to include the former grocery 
store next door, where a long 
curving counter and ice cream 
cooler share space with more 
tables and banks of shelves 
containing Mexican sweets and 
dry goods. A faint echo of Latin 
pop drifts out of the kitchen.

Cesar 
Hervert, 
chef 
and 

owner, 
emerges 
from 
the 

kitchen to greet me. We can’t 
shake hands just yet, because 
he was just elbow-deep in a 
mixture of flour and shortening, 
kneading dough for pastries. 
He excuses himself to wash his 
hands, and we then sit together 
at a spare table. Hervert, a short 
man with a three-day stubble 
and an easy smile, recounts 
the long, sometimes arduous 
journey he and his family have 
taken to achieve their present 
success.

Hervert 
was 
born 
in 

Veracruz, Mexico, on the Gulf 
Coast. His father, who owned 
and managed restaurants, made 
his son mop the floors and wash 
dishes after school.

“I hated it,” he chuckles. “At 

that age, I was like ‘I don’t want 
to do this.’ So when I grew up, I 
decided to teach.”

After high school, he found 

work as a middle-school math 
teacher and started a family. By 
age 24, he had a wife, Anna, and 
two sons, Josue and Kevin. But 
economic prospects in Mexico 
were limited.

“Raising two kids, at a young 

age, I decided to find a better 
way to raise them,” he says.

He heard that the increasing 

Latino 
population 
around 

Detroit 
needed 
Spanish-

speaking teachers. He moved 
his family over 1,500 miles 
north, to Ann Arbor, only to 
find that getting certified as a 
teacher required thousands of 
dollars and endless struggles 
with bureaucracy. To make 
ends meet, he did what he knew 
how to do.

“Having a family, raising two 

little kids, getting into college 
… it’s impossible without a lot 
of money and support,” he says. 
“That’s why I decided to stay in 
kitchens.”

For years, Hervert worked 

in restaurants all around Ann 
Arbor, starting as a dishwasher, 
then prep cook, then line cook. 
His former animosity towards 
the restaurant industry evolved 
into a genuine passion. His 
family was settled, his kids were 
in school. But he wanted his 
own restaurant, and he knew a 
niche that could be filled.

“I 
was 
looking 
for 
real 

Mexican food,” he says. “And 
that’s why we opened this 
place.” 

A small space in a small strip 

mall was available. Hervert 
and his wife signed the lease. 
They christened the restaurant 
Tmaz, after Anna’s hometown 
of Temascalcingo, near Mexico 
City. They drew up a simple 
menu. They had no idea what to 
expect.

“We thought, ‘Let’s just open 

something and see if it works,’” 
he said. “In the beginning, it 
was just friends, and we had 
two tables. And it kept growing 
and growing.”

That was four years ago. 

Now, they’re a local institution, 
beloved 
by 
everyone 
from 

fellow Mexicans to University 
students to workers on lunch-
break.

“I have Muslim customers 

who don’t eat pork, Indian 
customers who don’t eat meat, 
Latinos, 
Asians, 
everyone 

comes 
here,” 
Hervert 
said, 

beaming with pride.

In addition to the food tasting 

good, Hervert wants Tmaz to 
be an educational experience. 
In the United States, where 
more salsa is sold than ketchup, 
and where Chipotle is becoming 
more popular than McDonalds, 
many Americans still have no 
idea that what we think of as 
“Mexican” food is really Tex-
Mex.

“People come looking for 

hard shells,” he says. “We don’t 

have hard shells. People come 
looking for nachos or burritos 
— I don’t have anything against 
them, but I grew up in Mexico, 
and I had no idea what a burrito 
was. I saw Speedy Gonzales 
grabbing a burrito, and had no 
idea what he was doing.”

At Tmaz, what you’ll find 

instead 
are 
those 
simple, 

splendid 
tacos, 
bowls 
of 

menudo (tripe soup), tortas and 
hibiscus-flavored agua fresca. 
When an order for guacamole 
enters the kitchen, the cook 
starts by peeling an avocado.

A few non-Mexican items, 

like pupusas and churrasco, 
dot the menu — nods to the 
local Latino community, many 
of whom hail from Guatemala, 
El Salvador and Honduras, and 
for whom Tmaz has become 
more than a restaurant. The ice 
cream and fruit pops are made 
by a Mexican family in Kalam-
azoo who are trying to start 
their own business. An office 
in the former grocery store 
allows many immigrant work-
ers to send their paychecks back 
home. And Hervert is slowly 
filling in the shelves with ingre-
dients that can’t be found in 
most grocery chains: tomatil-
los, cactus paddles, guava and 
over a dozen types of chiles.

In addition to all of this, 

the Hervert family still work 
together at the restaurant. I 
ask Hervert if he wants his 
kids, now 20 and 16, to take 
over the business.

“I don’t see why not,” he says. 

“But of course, as a parent, you 
want something better, you 
know?”

Josue 
is 
an 
unlikely 

candidate — he wants to be 
a lawyer. But Kevin loves 
working in the kitchen, and 
is applying to local culinary 
schools. 
His 
father 
wants 

him to go beyond the family 
restaurant.

“I tell him to go to different 

places — California, New York, 
Miami — and learn different 
cuisines,” he says, radiant. 
“Then, maybe he can go off to 
Europe.”

Before I leave, I tuck into a 

bowl of menudo. The nubbins 
of tripe are tender, the sauce 
is spicy but not too much. 
The menudo has taken a long 
journey to get here, but isn’t 
tired at all.

Buonomo is preening himself 

in the hopes that a customer 

will toss him a scrap of a 

tortilla. To help him out, e-mail 

gbuonomo@umich.edu.

FOOD COLUMN

Behind the best tacos 

in Ann Arbor

SINGLE REVIEW

 A meaty guitar riff, a 
breathy clearing of the 
throat, a repetition of that 
sultry 
melody, 
and so 
begins 
Grimes’ 
newest 
single. 
Immedi-
ately set-
ting itself apart from much 
of the artist’s previous work, 

“Scream” is an aggressive 
conglomeration of sound. Fea-
turing Taiwanese rapper Aris-
tophanes on main vocals, the 
tone of the track is arresting 
and confusing. In comparison 
to Grimes’ generally angelic, 
falsetto tone of voice, Aris-
tophanes’ playfully taunting 
delivery gives the track a more 
alternative hip-hop feel.
 The only thing that inter-
rupts Aristophanes surging 
flow is the chorus, com-

prised of Grimes’ drawn 
out screams and hissing, 
animalistic panting by Aris-
tophanes. For those listeners 
whose tongue differs from 
that of the Taipei-based 
rapper, the lack of concrete 
lyrics leaves the message 
entirely up to the tone of the 
music. And it is obviously 
one of power, intrigue and 
great things to come from 
Grimes.
- CARLY SNIDER

GIANCARLO

BUONOMO

My whiskers are 

melting off
my face from 

sweat.

A

Scream

Grimes

4AD

Herbert wants 
Tmaz to be an 

educational 
experience.

Our ‘Mexican 

food’ is Tex-Mex.

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

Melissa Coppola of the band JUNGLEFLOW, performing as Bjork.

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

Jessica Bratus from the band Scissor Now! performing as Led Zeppelin.

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