Mad Men

[January 7th, 2009]

The Chicharones, who appear as illustrated, Ren Stimpy-esque pigs on their album covers and don outlandish costumes for live appearances, have always flirted with the notion of being a concept band. The trio’s 2005 debut, When Pigs Fly, opens with a voice-masked narrator introducing “a tale of courage, trickery and sustenance” over mariachi music and screaming townspeople. The effortless and often hilarious party hip-hop that follows, though—as thematically wide-ranging as it is—never really fleshes out the plot.

That’s all about to change, says Chris Tafoya, who moonlights as rapper Sleep. “We’re going to do a trilogy,” he mentions matter-of-factly—just after explaining that he’ll soon challenge the Guinness Record for World’s Fastest Rapper, a title he is confident he can take. The story arc for the Chicharones’ epic South Side Story will begin with an album centered on ’50s rock-inspired beats, with the next two albums moving through musical decades and moving the story along at the same time. “Everybody I’ve ever worked with has talked about something like this—a hip-hopera. I think me and [Chicharones’ partner-in-crime Josh Martinez] have the ability to actually do it, and that’s what’s keeping us together.”

As a founding member of the Pacific Northwest’s quintessential hip-hop crew, Oldominion, Sleep was always an unrelentingly austere MC. His solo albums, 2002’s Riot by Candlelight and 2005’s Christopher, are darkly introspective and personal. “I had gotten into this really serious frame of mind with music,” he says. “I think I was too serious.”

Collaborating with Martinez was an eye-opening experience for the Portland MC in more ways than one. “To tell you the truth, it threw me off guard at first. I thought he was Latino.” “Josh Martinez” is actually the stage name of the pale-skinned Matthew Kimber, born and raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia—a far cry from Sleep’s upbringing in Navajo and Hispanic neighborhoods in New Mexico.

Despite the disparity in their backgrounds, the two shared an off-kilter sense of humor and a desire to express themselves without façades. “We met in the middle,” Sleep says. “His stuff was a little more lighthearted than I wanted to take it, and my stuff was way darker than he wanted to take it.”

Eight years, two albums and two EPs later, the Chicharones are still making beautiful, if unusual, music together. Late last year, Martinez relocated from his Vancouver, B.C., home to Portland, putting all three of the group’s members—DJ Zone rounds out the trio—in the same town for the first time. The Chicharones sing as often as they rap, and the mood ranges from heart-wrenching to, well: “When you go to the Chicharones Show/ All the girls look like Charlie’s Angels.”

And indeed, it’s in concert where the group truly shines. If the Kid ’n Play-style dance moves, lounge-singer costumes and air guitar theatrics (often to the tune of “Eye of the Tiger”) don’t convince you that the Chicharones are the hardest-working hip-hop group in Portland, you’ll know it by the end of the set, when Sleep drapes Martinez’s folded-over body with a towel and attempts to escort him offstage (Martinez, à la James Brown, gets a second wind and accosts the mic stand once again). One begins to see how a group this inventive and energetic could pull off the proposed concept album triumvirate.

But an epic trilogy takes time to execute, so the Chicharones will release an appetizer, the new EP Swine Country, this Saturday at Berbati’s Pan. The disc may be crafted out of South Side Story outtakes and loose ends from both MCs’ solo projects, but it’s a cohesive and formative release nonetheless. The opening, “Go Fuck Yourself,” is much sweeter than the name implies, offering a sample of the ’50s fare the group intends to sample in its next effort, and harmonizing sweetly, “Some day I’ll get where I’m going/ And I’ll never forget this moment.”

The entire premise of rapping over a surf-rock sample would be a bridge too far for most rap groups, and harmonizing the hook to En Vogue’s “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)” in the middle of the song would seem almost unfathomable. But that’s what keeps the Chicharones on top of their game: A desire to go above and beyond what the rap game currently has on offer. This Saturday’s release show promises to push that envelope even more, though Sleep is careful with the details: “I’m a magician, and so is DJ Zone.”