Diego, wearing boots and a mohawk pompadour, is a psychobilly we met at the famous, slightly saturated Chopo market. It's a rocker's paradise where you can buy everything from raggae gear to anarchist patches to old records, leather jackets, and goth make-up. Diego comes to the market on Saturdays to listen to live music and hang out.
I asked if I could take his picture and he said, "Claro."
El Chopo has been around for more than 20 years. It's the meeting point for all music-based alternative youth movements in Mexico City, inspired heavily of course by movements in the U.S. and U.K. The scenes that gather here are divided into infinite subgenres that would take the patience of a seasoned anthropologist to properly sort out.
"Psychobilly is a little more about slamming, hitting, jumping, it's a way of getting everything out," Diego says. "There's a lot of pressure here, you need an escape." Diego is in a band himself, and is a huge fan of Los Pardos and Los Gallos.
This crew of friends were moshing to the live bands in lucha libre masks. They said they had a group MySpace page. In the late afternoon, I met an older woman standing just outside the market with her daughter. She told me she met her husband at El Chopo waaay back in 1982.
It's changed a lot, she said. "It used to be a lot more punk."