Will Mainstream Say Si to Tijuana No!?

Corn tortillas flew like Frisbees into the ring, showering the competitors in a faux bout of lucha libre--Mexican wrestling--at a recent art opening in downtown Los Angeles.

Watching from the sidelines, Luis Guerena, singer of influential punk en espanol band Tijuana No!, could not let the moment pass.

“Don’t you realize that there are people outside of these gates begging for food?” the enraged punkero shouted to the mostly Mexican American audience gathered for the exhibit of lucha libre-inspired art. “Have you forgotten your roots? Your families left Mexico because they didn’t have enough money to buy a tortilla!”

Tijuana No! is the most fiercely political of all Mexican rock bands; its name protests the flight of Mexicans to the United States via their Baja California city.

“We see ourselves as an extension of the voice for the poor and the disadvantaged,” said Teca Garcia, the band’s percussionist and Latin folkloric music specialist.

To deliver their message, the versatile sextet uses a potent hybrid of Afro-Latin folk-punk that bounces from reggae to hard-core, world beat to ska--layered with scratchy male and sultry female vocals.

Now, with two critically acclaimed albums in the Latin market on the BMG label and a third on its way, the band wonders if mainstream American audiences will say si to the Tijuana No! sound.

“We think it’s important that as many people as possible listen to our music,” said Guerena, the band’s primary songwriter.

Tijuana No! hopes to accomplish the coveted crossover, and toward that end the border band will open tonight for one of its musical models, 2-Tone giants the Specials, at the Galaxy Concert Theatre in Santa Ana.

With their provocative lyrics--sung in Spanish, English and Spanglish--and stage magnetism, it’s no wonder Tijuana No! grabbed the Specials’ attention as they played alongside another legendary ska band, the Selecter, at a recent San Diego performance.

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Joining Guerena, 38, and Garcia are Ceci Bastida, vocals and keyboards; Jorge “Borja” Velasquez, bass; Jorge Jimenez, guitar; and Alex Zuniga, drums. The 7-year-old collective started as a group of friends with shared ideals. Guerena met Zuniga about a decade ago at a fund-raiser (featuring Black Flag) Guerena had helped organize for rebels in El Salvador and Nicaragua. Today, the band sings about the Zapatista and Tupac Amaru guerrilla movements in Mexico and Peru, respectively.

The title of the band’s next album, “Contra-Revolution Avenue,” is a play on the name of Tijuana’s commercial strip Avenida Revolucion (an oxymoron, the band members say).

“Tijuana No! has always been versatile, always experimenting and putting everything we knew musically into our sound,” Guerena said. “Until the quality of life for the underclass improves around the world, we will always sing about political awareness.”

* Tijuana No! opens tonight for the Specials at Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. 8 p.m. Tickets are $15. (714) 957-0600.