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. DO YOU GET ‘HAMILTON’ REFERENCES? Join Daily Arts! TO REQUEST AN APPLICATION, E-MAIL CHLOELIZ@UMICH.EDU.