Gigs and Competitions
Hi all!
Too busy sleeping siestas in the warm sun, I suddenly realized it was already September and yes, spring is almost here, any Aussies reading this would share my feeling, YEAH! That damn’ winter is almost over, this is the time to drag our asses back to the gym to try and make last year’s bikini fit, cut down on the chocolate cookies, and lay off that beer bottle with the exception of Friday nites out (yeah, right) Sadly, higher temperatures means less clothes, which equals showing a bit more of what we proudly acquired during winter, hidden under layers of sweaters, and…O MY GOD I’ve gone all teen mag editorial!! Sorry. Anyway, I thought I’d try and picture the happy mood we’re all in here, coz there’s lots of ace stuff happenning, and it goes like this….
Gigs anyone? We got’em plenty. B.A. bands keep pouring into town. Aug 9th was the chance to catch El Otro Yo (The Other Me) live at an old disco turned rock club called Captain Blue in Cordoba’s Abasto. E.O.Y. is a band to look out for if you ever visit, they formed over 10 years ago amidst the fuzz of alter-rock , and play a blend of after-punk and noise rock with a tad of Japanese pop flavour somewhere in there. (El Otro Yo toured the US in summer 2001, in the Watcha Tour in Boston, NY, Chicago, LA and more, anyone caught this tour at all? Let me know!) The band features a cool fronting duo formed by singer/guitarist Cristian and younger sister Maria Fernanda on dreamy vocals and pounding bass, completed by huge Ramones’ fan Ray on drums, and
 |
 |
Maria Fernanda’s husband Ezequiel on keyboards and noises. The foursome somehow seem to have found the eternal youth formula coz they still sound like back in the day, they haven’t lost a bit of their trademark teen raw energy on stage, while at the same time sounding tight and polished as the experienced grown-up rock band they really are. E.O.Y. rocked out for 90 minutes playing songs from their 7 albums to date, including a few new ones from their upcoming “Colmena” due out by the end of 2002. The crowd, (mostly 20-somethings wearing adidas sweats and purple shades), went off from the 1st song on, singing madly along the whole set, with the occasional stage invasion. A special mention goes to the cool matching jumper suits the whole band wears onstage, complete with name badges in case you still don’t know who’s who. (check out the photos) You can visit the band’s own website at www.elotroyo.com I’ve been informed you can find their previous album “Abrecaminos” in the US too -with a different cover art from the Argentinean release, see pic- an album I highly recommend if you ever come across it…great stuff!
Meanwhile, our band HYPERSTATIC has been real busy of late. For starters, we played an unplugged gig on Aug 6th in a cool small theater in town called Cine Club Municipal. They’ve been having bands playing the ‘quiet’ format on Wed nights since April this year, which has been great to catch the local acts out of their usual smoky club environment and putting on a different kind of show. We took it seriously, and went all the way! The stage set featured a huge cardboard 
rocket, a sun and stars with a band logo all taken from our new EP’s cover, we also brought in some comfy sofas for the 1st bit of the show. We slipped in a couple of covers (Depeche Mode, Smashing Pumpkins) as well as some new songs, and had guests on keyboards (from Enhola) and a cello player too. It was a packed venue much to our surprise, and soon there will be bits of streaming video from the concert in our own website.
Another exciting news is we finally released our new EP! It’s called “Spin the Sun”, and so far we’ve been getting lots of radio airplay in town, and also on national rock radios like “Rock & Pop FM” from BA. On the 1st week out we ranked at number 3 at a local newspaper’s Top 5 New Rock Releases, right between Oasis and The Breeders new records. The CD is selling steadily at record stores in town. We’ll be doing the official EP launch playing live on Sat 5th October, with special guests and a couple of surprises. By the way, you can listen/download tracks from our new disc at www.mp3.com.au/hyperstatic
A huge THANKS is in order, and it goes to my mates from Band Camp in Melbourne, Oz for putting up a link to the CoolGrrrls website in their own band site! So be nice yourself, & check them out at www.bandcamp.com.au They’ve just released a new single called “Don’t blame me”, and you can watch the video on the website! Two real cool grrls and a handsome drummer playing a perfect indie pop tune in a one-take very original vid, what are you waiting for? Check the Campers out now!
Meanwhile back in Argentina, there’s a few good things music industry people are doing for new bands. A band competition called El Nacional is being held at the moment, supported by music channel Much Music (Argentina) in which 100 new bands from all over the country have been pre-selected on the strength of a demo, and whose members are all under 23 years of age. At the moment the 100 bands are having 60secs of a taped rehearsal rotating 24hs a day on Much, so people can get to know them and vote for their fave band. The 1st prize is the production of a professional video clip and then 3 months of heavy rotation on Much Music, not bad for a start!
Also another very cool band competition is Rock En Obras. Obras is a big arena in Buenos Aires city, we call it the Temple of Rock, all the great overseas acts have played there over the years (Iggy Pop, Ramones, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bad Religion etc). This is organised by the venue promoters and Rock & Pop FM from BA. The thirty-two pre-selected bands have played live in Obras over 4 consecutive weekends during Aug, all nites we closed by renowned Arg bands. There’s now 5 bands that were selected from those concerts, and we’re very proud that rockers Juan Terrenal from Cordoba are one of them! They will play a final gig to determine who’s the winner on Oct 6h at Obras. The big prize consists of recording and release of a full-length album thru’ Universal, promo campaign, management and heaps more. Now we only need more record labels to stop releasing shitty Popstars-like bands, and start opening their collective ears to all the great new bands currently rocking the country….You can check streaming videos of each band’s live performance in Obras at www.uol.com.ar/rockenobras
OK everyone, that’s about it for me. I’ll be back with news on all the spring fests and parties. Did you know that in Argentina the 21st September is a school holiday ‘cause it’s the official start of the Spring Season? Well, It’s a ridiculous country, but we love it anyway!
Till then!
xxxx Kari
Leave a Reply