Pop Music Reviews : El Vez: Thin Mustache and a Slender Joke

A blast of recorded mariachi music, the glint of a spotlight on a gilded sombrero, and there’s El Vez (Robert Lopez), the self-appointed Mexican Elvis, bouncing on stage at the Music Machine on Saturday. El Vez, who sings with a Jose Jimenez accent and sports a mustache so thin it makes Wayne Newton’s look like Rollie Fingers’, performs recast Elvis stuff: “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Chihuahua,” “(Hunka Hunka) Caliente Amor” . . . like that.

He pumped and sneered and ran his fingers through his hair with a confidence that could only have come from watching “Blue Hawaii” many, many times on TV.

Backing him up were four women in abbreviated El Coyote waitress-style outfits and mile-high bouffants, also a fairly faceless bunch of Hollywood rockers. (A decade ago, Lopez was in the Zeroes, a midlevel band from the prehistoric age of L.A. punk rock.) The result was generic new-wave-era pop, a sight gag inflated into a 40-minute set, wholesome wackiness that was puffy, not stuffy. Pee-wee Herman was a one-joke act too, but at least his joke was funny. El Vez will be at Cafe Largo on Saturday.