Campus Rock
Hi grrrls and boys!
I know, I know, it´s already the end of the year! But I´m here to give you a big catch-up on the Argentinean scene, so you don´t feel left out.
It´s been a strange year for all of us here, if you read my last column about the Cromagnon tragedy you´ll know what I´mtalking about. But somehow, the scene kept going, with less live rock venues mind you, and a lot more regulations on live shows and all (as it should!), but here we are.
Let´s go in somewhat chronological order…
Back in April, our band HYPERSTATIC played in a big festival called Campus Rock, at the Siglo XXI University in Cordoba, right across the Cordoba airport. It was 2 days where bands like Attaque 77, El Otro Yo and Karamelo Santo rocked the huge stage on Saturday 23rd April, also bringing along the big comeback of hardcore metal classics A.N.I.M.A.L., some local bands opened up that day, like Juan Terrenal and HYPERSTATIC´s guitarist own band MANDRIL. Sunday´s festivities had to be postponed till Monday 25th, due to a huge weather change (storm, wind. lightning, the whole thing, my friend!). The festival returned that Monday but the line-up was abruptly downsized, being HYPERSTATIC the only Cordoba band left, to open up of course…lucky us! Anyway, the good thing was that our set was longer, and we had a great response from the crowd. Right after us other artists playing were this big reggae/ska instrumental band called Dancing Mood from Buenos Aires, they play versions of rock classics with a great horn section and get people singing along the tunes, it´s funny to watch! Also Puerto Rican singer Mimi Maura who plays a mixture of salsa, reggae and pop featuring members of Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, stoner rockers Los Natas, and closing the evening were Las Pelotas, the massively popular alternative band from Buenos Aires, whose members actually have been living in the Cordoba sierras area for years now, with their recording studio set in the town of Nono.
Other hightlight shows this year were Catupecu Machu playing in September in La Vieja Usina in Cordoba. Catupecu is a powerful live rock number, they have 5 albums, have won Latin MTV video awards in the past, sold thousands of albums in South America and had a huge Number 1 hit at the end of 2004 with the song Magia Veneno which is still topping charts now, from the El Numero Imperfecto album. It´s a hard working band, they own a recording studio where they spend months crafting their albums´sound, their style ranges from alternative rock to big acoustic songs, with a bit of a funk influence from the bass player who is a huge Primus and RHCP fan. Their show was really good in all aspects: sounds, lighting and setlist. The Ruiz Diaz brothers (guitarist and bassist) front the band with an amazing amount of energy, jumping, making people sing, running up and down the stage like it´s their last show ever, and they do this every on every show coz I´ve seen them live a lot. They usually tour Latin America, I recommend catching them!
Babasonicos also released a new album a couple months ago, it´s their 8th studio album to date called Anoche (Last night), with a career that started in 1993, they´ve become increasingly popular and actually a bit of trend-setters when it comes to the music style. I´ve talked about them in previous columns, so you probably know they blend everything that comes their way and make it sound Babasonicos-like! Disco, pop, rock, a bit of glam, retro, hip hop and even hair-metal. They chose Cordoba as the city to launch the new album live instead of Buenos Aires, because they think we´ve always been big supporters all the way, so they played back in October at the Orfeo arena. The show was heavily based on Anoche, which got released a couple weeks before the show, but the punters knew the words to the songs as if they were already classics! A special mention goes to the lighting set which gave the show an international feel, sadly not matched by the sound mix which in my opinion lacked rocking VOLUME…!
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Now this is the part I like to call “shameless self-promotion”, coz I´m going to talk a bit about my own band HYPERSTATIC, alright? But we have some important news to share, so bear with me.
A quick mention to our unplugged show at the Cineclub Municipal in Cordoba back in August, a theatre gig we´ve done for the 4th year in a row, we´re becoming classics in this event, called Ensayo de Orquesta, where bands get to play a more intimate, almost acoustic kind of show. We divided the set into half acoustic, half (subdued) electric, had a great turn-up, threw in a Garbage cover, some old songs´ versions and some new ones too.
On the album front, as you know, we started recording in Las Pelotas´ studio in Nono on Dec 2004, well, this year we spent mostly organising ourselves as a band, our goals, our direction etc. So mid-July we decided to finally hire a producer to finish up the album. The producer is Esteban Serniotti, guitarist in Santa Fe alter-metal band Cabezones, who´s been offering to work on our album with us for some time, we´ve become friends since we´ve shared some good shows in town and festivals with them in the past. So we recorded all guitars and vocals in BA with him, re-recorded bass tracks and used the drums from the Nono sessions. The 11 songs (4 of them in Spanish, the rest in English) were finished around September. During this time, we got called by a new record label called Pirca Records (owned by the manager of none others than Bersuit, the biggest sellling Arg band for years now), and after a few meetings, we GOT SIGNED!
YES!
Told you I had important news!
So Pirca Records, who are a small label with Universal distribution, will release our debut album on March 2006. The CD is called Un Rato Sin Hablar (“A while without talking” is a close-enough translation), the mixing is done, we need to travel to BA soon for the mastering, then video-clip shooting. If you´re curious, we´ve put up a preview of the album of the song Bsides on both our Pure Volume and My Space pages. Here´s a sneak peek at the album´s cover…
Another good fact this year in the Argentinean rock scene, is that we got back on our feet a bit –economically-speaking -, at least enough for international bands to come down to play live again, something that was hard to accomplish in recent years, specially since the December 2001 “three-presidents in one week” disaster….
So, a few weeks ago, I travelled to BA to see Nine Inch Nails. I´ve always loved this band, and luckily they didn´t dissapoint me. Trent Reznor is great live performer, and his new band rocks as much as any of the other line-ups he´s toured with before. Among the crowd in the legendary Luna Park arena, I saw former Soda Stereo leader Gustavo Cerati, members from El Otro Yo and other rock celebrities.
The next day I scored some free tix for the second edition of the Personal Fest (the funny name comes from the Arg cell phone company sponsoring the festival). I caught Day 1 of the fest, which last year brought Morrissey, and I got too see a long list of bands. It was an outdoor festival, with 4 stages, and an electronic music tent featuring Thievery Corp. and Felix Da Housecat among others. The alternative stage showcased artists like Leo Garcia and Chile´s pop band Lucybell, the 2nd stage had Cabezones, Catupecu Machu, and Plastilina Mosh from Mexico. The main stage had 3 acts on that Friday Dec 2: Macy Gray, Good Charlotte and Simple Minds. 
Talk about an eclectic line-up! If you wan my oppinion, I found Macy Gray to be extremely boring and commercial, but a lot of people attended the festival that day just to see her. The other big part of the crowd went to see Good Charlotte, it was made of kids in black Tees and wearing make-up tears in their faces. The video music channels have a lot to do with the impact of punk pop here in Argentina too, and GC is selling as much as My Chemical Romance, whose album was released here around June, thanx to the heavy rotation of Helena on Latin MTV. GC did the impossible to win the crowd by having learned a lot of common lines in Spanish, they sounded a bit weak, but I guess it was an entertaining show in all. Simple Minds did a fairly good show, although they made us feel a little old when they played Don´t You Forget about me and those dreadful 80s memories came rushing back! Jim Kerr can still sing very well, so that was a good point. The next day of the festival ( I didn´t go) Duran Duran was the closing number, I would´ve loved to see them again!
Looking ahead in our summer (yes, it´s scorching hot here right now) we´ll have the 2nd edition of Gesell Rock in January at the seaside city of Gesell. The 6th installment of the now infamous Cosquin Rock fest at its new venue in front of the San Roque Lake, a 40min drive from Cordoba city, happens at the end of Feb. It goes on for 5 days with literally TONS of bands from all over the country plus some international guests to be confirmed.
I´ll tell you all about it, of course, right here!
OK people, gotta go. Before I do, as every end of the year, here´s a few of my 2005 favourites in no special order: The All-American Rejects “Move along” album and Fall Out Boy´s 2nd one, my new “vintage” guitar amp which rocks the hair outta everyone who dares stand in its way, my band getting finally signed to a label, and all the new friends I made thru´ the year…!
Catch you soon! Happy Holidays!
Xoxoxox Kari
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