Los Straitjackets is kind of a mutant instrumental surf band whose members perform in black T-shirts and Mexican wrestling masks. They're given to long song intros in Spanish, punctuated with one or two words of English, such as "Itchy Chicken."

However, the non-singing Jackets recently put out an album called "Sing Along With Los Straitjackets," so they appeared Tuesday with rockabilly vocalist Big Sandy of Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino Stage with Sprecher Brewery.

This being a Los Straitjackets event, nothing unfurled along conventional lines. The very dapper Big Sandy sang a bunch of malt-shop rock standards like "Good Golly Miss Molly," "Tallahassee Lassie," "Mother-in-Law" and "Lonely Teardrops," but he sang them in Spanish.

Adding the final measure of kitsch pageantry were the World Famous Pontani Sisters, go-go girls in beaded red bikinis with Zorro masks and tiny red sombreros. They sort of resembled voluptuous pinatas. The high point of the evening came when they returned in white go-go boots and blue tutus for an interpretative dance accompaniment to the Straitjackets' deconstruction of "My Heart Will Go On."

- Dave Tianen, Journal Sentinel staff

Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 3, 2002.