Santos Inocentes
Hey all!
Woah! It’s damn’ hot down in Arg, lemme get the fan on, and let’s get right into the news…now, I’ve been to a lot of gigs in town lately, but on 
Fri 27th Sept I had a real blast at my first Santos Inocentes show, at Ultra Pop Bar. This BA outfit formed around ’97, and have opened for acts as diverse as Deftones, Green Day, Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and Love and Rockets. I think the secret to the Santos Inocentes huge hook is that they got a bit of pop, rock n’roll, alternative and mainstream all mixed into their sound. They use samplers and machines, while trashing those geetars with a punk attitude. They got a bit of techno and industrial without losing anything in the tunes dept, and song’s choruses stick to ya long after they’re finished. And hey, they put on a hell of a show too! 24-year-old singer Axel Baez looks like a million bucks onstage, with his furiously red dreadlocks, inciting the punters to jump up and scream their lungs off along with him like there’s no tomorrow morning, he surely knows how to work the crowd. The whole band looks a bit 70s-punk-meets-NIN, complete with skirts, shirts n’ties, and safety pins, it’s a weird combination that bizarrely…works. As a live act, Santos Inocentes is all about the pure fun of rock, like ‘don’t worry about the shit in your life coz tonite you can be insanely happy!’ kinda thing. Besides, you can tell they’ve been on the road a long time, coz they seem relaxed and having fun themselves onstage like all their fans down there. Their 2000 album
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“Megaton” was personally chosen by none other than Madonna to be her record label Maverick’s first Latin release in Puerto Rico and the US. Since then, Santos Inocentes have been touring their asses off and gaining mad following in countries like Puerto Rico and Mexico. Now they’re headed back to the States and Mexico for yet another tour, before entering a recording studio early 2003 for the “Megaton” follow-up. Meanwhile, check’em out at www.santosinocentes.com
Then there was our new EP launch! Hyperstatic released “Spin the sun” in September, and on Sat 5th Oct we did the official EP launch playing at Coronado Bar in Cordoba. On the previous days, we managed to appear in every radio show we could squeeze our sorry selves into, plugging the EP and the gig, plus we got a couple of good write-ups on local papers. It’s what I call my favorite kinda week! For the gig, we got our friend Hernan from Enhola guesting on keyboards for a few songs. We played the entire EP, including the little acoustic CD closer “For tomorrow”, that we never get to play live coz it’s too quiet for the full-on electric set, but that nite we got away with it! A lot of the punters kept screaming asking for the “Spin the sun” song, which has been getting much airplay locally, and it seems that it paid off quite nicely, then. Towards the end of the show, our friends from local radio show “Si Supieras”, approached the stage and kindly handed us a bottle of champagne, how cool is that? They knew we not only launched a new CD, but it was also our 1st anniversary as a band with this new line-up, lots to celebrate! Check out a few photos of that nite, eeer, general drunkness hopefully not pictured…
Also a couple days later, on Oct 8th, it was my birthday! AUCH! I hate getting older, luckily, friends are there to make you laugh about it…One of the nice presents I got from my friends was the newest album from Arg stoner band Los Natas. These guys are the least Arg-like band around, coz they’ve toured the States more than they did in their own country, since they formed in 1993. They’ve also played and made friends with none others than the Queens of the Stone Age. The new Los Natas album “Corsario Negro” is truly awesome, it’s a trip as low-end and heavy and dark and retro-sounding as you can go, it was produced by Billy Anderson (Melvins, Red House Painters, Fantomas) here in BA. It’s just been released in the US and Argentina simultaneously by Detroit’s stoner rock label Small Stone, so try and find’em in your local recs store… They’re worth the cash!
Another fun thing I got up to these days was singing live guest vocals with Manumissio, a cool local rock band with a big influence from Alice In Chains and Tool. It happened on Sunday 13th Oct at Coronado Bar. A radio show came up with the idea of bringing 6 bands together on one nite, to play 5-song acoustic sets. It was recorded and filmed, and will be released soon as an interactive CD featuring audio and video from that nite, distributed by a local indie label. So, the Manumissio guys invited me up to do backing vocals on a couple of their tunes, and it was lotsa fun! They are currently recording their 1st independent full-length album, after a couple of EPs released in the past year…more news on them soon.
One of the big events musically-speaking in Arg these past few days has been the only major international act visiting our country on 2002, and that’s Red Hot Chili Peppers. They played on Oct 16th at River Plate football stadium in Buenos Aires, in front of no less than 65 thousand crazy Argentineans! Yours truly didn’t make it for lack 
of dough, but friends who did go tell me it was amazing, they played a hits-filled set for over 2 1/2hs, as well as most of the “By the way” album. My friend Rana from BA band Timmy O’Tool managed to personally pass on copies of the Argentinean tribute to the RHCP CD called “Aji Puta Pario” to Anthony, Flea, John and drummer Chad Smith, who’s pictured here with Rana…
And that should be it for now folks, I’ll catch you a bit later with more updates on this side of America’s rock scene…don’t forget to eat your cereals and listen to Pixies’ records as often as you can.
xxxx Kari
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