Chaos in Tejas Live Shots

Photo by John Anderson

Los Crudos

Martin Sorrondeguy had just finished screaming. Los Crudos' music stopped too, abruptly. "For those of you who come up here, it's really wet and slippery," the band's singer advised his stage divers. "Just be careful." The Fifth Street corridor just east of I-35 proved the perfect arena for Los Crudos Saturday night. Hardcore punks who came to subculture stardom playing warehouses and school gymnasiums around Chicago in the Nineties, Los Crudos remains one of the most politically conscious Latin American groups, a band speaking the gospel truth to disenfranchised minorities because its members themselves grew up marginalized. No surprise, then, that the group – reunited once more after a 2009 disbandment – set forth its mayhem on a stretch of road that, on one side, served as Chaos in Tejas' smelly, black-vested epicenter and, on the other, played host to Queerbomb, Austin's fourth annual "gorgeous blast of LGBTQIA representation." "I've said it before and I'll say it again," Sorrondeguy, himself gay, told fans during a quick break. "There's no fucking shame in being exactly who you are." That makes Los Crudos the most badass breakneck punk band to ever set fire to a stage in 45-second sound bites while also managing to be spiritually motivational. Sorrondeguy sings like he's combusting, leaning back and barking into the microphone, then throwing his fist into the air and ducking his head forward. He bows down to thrust the mic into a fan's face and bodies up against stage divers just before they take flight. "It's charming," the Men guitarist Nick Chiericozzi confided to me from the crowd. "They're living right there in the moment."