Los Mocosos (from left): Steve Carter, keyboards; Happy Sanchez, bass; Victor Castro, trombone; Manny Martinez, vocals; Gabriel Sandino, guitar; Shorty Ramos, saxophone. ([name of photographer] photo) | ZOOM |

        Trying to classify the band Los Mocosos doesn't quite work — musically or ethnically.

        That's what makes the seven-piece ensemble happy.

        That's also what makes the band happy to play at a celebration of diversity.

        Los Mocosos, which recently released Shades of Brown, will be just one of more than 100 performing artists at this weekend's CityFolk Festival in Dayton.

        We talked by phone with lead singer Manny Martinez about the San Francisco-based band: its name, its music, its power to make people get up and dance.

        Question: How do you translate Los Mocosos, and why that name for the band?

IF YOU GO

What: Los Mocosos at Dayton's CityFolk Festival    When: 4:30 and 9 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday    Where: Reynolds & Reynolds Dance Pavilion (visit www.cityfolk.org for directions and the complete festival schedule)    Tickets: Included in admission to festival. $5 per day, $12 for the entire weekend; Ages 17 and under free.    Information: (937) 223-3655 or e-mail: cityfolk@dayton.net.

        Answer: I'll give you both the technical and the literal definitions. Literally, mocosos means snotty-nosed. But as far as it relates to this band, a lot of Latino families use mocosos as a term of endearment toward their children. For us, it's like little rascal or something like that.

        Basically this band wasn't really supposed to happen. It was just like a mischievous act of Happy's (Sanchez), our bass player who put the band together. He was in charge of putting together a compilation, and he snuck one of his own tracks onto the compilation like the little mischievous kid he is.

        Then he needed a name for the band and figured mocosos would be the most outrageous. It's also appropriate since most of the guys have known each other since they were mocosos.

        Q: How would you describe your music?

        A: It's definitely a crossover of many different genres of music with an underlying Latin root to everything that we do. It might be in the lyrical content or the way we're singing in Spanish. There's an incorporation of rock, blues, jazz, funk, ska, whatever we can get our hands on musically. But it's always with the underlying Latin thing. It would be nice to say it's Latin funk or Latin soul, but you just can't do that.

        Q: What kind of experience do people get when they see Los Mocosos perform?

        A: I was talking about this last night. We've been extremely fortunate because we've pretty much won over every crowd we've played in front of from the Mission District in San Francisco to Little Rock, Ark.

        People will experience a cultural thing just by looking at this band. We're all ethnically diversified. Just look at us, and it's like a walking United Nations thing.

        We have a lot of energy, too. I guess everyone will take something different away from the show. But you can't help but move and groove to our music. You might want to help it, but you can't.

        For a lot of people, it starts off as something curious like “What the hell is going on here?” But by the second or third song, they're not really tripping on what we look like anymore. They just get into the music, and that's the beautiful thing about it.

        Q: What does that do for you as a performer, to look out and see the audience reacting that way?

        A: I think, “It doesn't get any better than this.” As an artist, it's great to be able to incorporate everything that I love musically. We live in a time of labeling: It's either this or that. To be able to transcend that and break musical barriers, I think it's wonderful. It just lets me incorporate both of my cultures. Yes, I am a Latino. But, yes, I was born in the States. And, yes, I have an extremely strong cultural upbringing, but it's an American upbringing as well. It's nice to be able to bring two worlds together.
       

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