December 29, 2007
Hola everyone!
Well, if it feels like ages since I’ve been here, it’s because it’s been AGES, really!
Don’t despair, my friends. I’m still around. A year older, and …ooh I was going to say wiser, but scratch that! Anyway, a lot has happened, so I’ll go thru the highlights of 2007.
Let’s talk first about the Event of The Year!
As you may have noticed since it’s been like a fever spread across Planet Rock, 2007 has been the Band Reunion year. To think that show on Vh1 spent all those resources in bringing back together…err… ABC?
Well, in Argentina we had the same thing going, and following on the steps of 80´s giants like The Police and Genesis, our own biggest pop band ever SODA STEREO got back for a Reunion Tour this year.
I, for one, was very happy, since I am a huge fan!
In case you don’t have a clue of who they are, quick facts: They formed in 1982, released 7 studio albums from 84 – 95, also 4 live albums including an MTV Unplugged in 1996, and several compilations. In the late 80s, their popularity in Latin America spawned the phenomenon labelled “Sodamania” by the press, since tens of thousands attended their sold-out South American tours, complete with crazed fainting/screaming girls in major capitals in Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela and of course, Argentina among others.
They split up in 1997 with a series of concerts, and the trio (Gustavo Cerati on vocals and guitar, Zeta Bosio on bass, and Charly Alberti on drums) went their separate ways. Cerati has since then launched a very successful solo career, even winning a Latin Grammy this year for his “Ahi Vamos” album from 2006. Anyway, after 2 years of absolute secrecy and careful planning, the reunion tour called Me veras volver was announced in May 2007.The band was to come back for a series of 22 concerts across South America and the US, exactly 10 years after they broke up.
Tickets sold out in no time. SODA STEREO ended up playing 6 dates at Estadio River Plate in Buenos Aires, with an average crowd of 70.000 people, and many other sold-out concerts in huge venues like the Home Depot Centre in LA, the Foro Sol in Mexico DF, the Estadio Nacional in Chile and Estadio Córdoba in my home town for 48.000 people.
I didn’t get to see them in their final concerts 10 years ago because I was living in Hong Kong at the time, so this time around I was determined not to miss them! I went to Estadio River Plate on November 3rd and again here in Cordoba on December 15th, and was blown away, not only by the music, but also the show’s set up, the lighting, etc. Martin Philip designed the stage set, whom did the NIN 2006 tour, so there was a great display of LED screens and beautiful lighting.
Every show goes for about 3 hours. They played their hits, and what I call “true fan hits” (those hidden jewels in every album that fans treasure the most), with the crowd singing along and cheering every song, even if they didn’t remember it! Yeah, because the funniest fact about this comeback is that a lot of people attending these shows weren’t even born when SODA started out, but they went to the concert for the event itself. It was a must-see, even if you had never been to a rock show before. Strange, right? Anyway, in case you happen to know them, and didn’t get to see any of these concerts, they played songs like Juego de Seduccion, De Musica Ligera, Signos and Zoom.
 Now, back to the rest of the year. The local rock scene has been quite productive in 2007. Several bands released debut albums. Sullivan, a power pop combo led by singer-bassist Carlos Sada (ex Hyperstatic) finally got around to releasing Fauna de Gala, after overcoming health problems, changes in band line-up et al, it’s out, and it’s good. You can hear them on their myspace profile, and check out the album cover, which I designed!
Another new album is the self-titled debut by The Tristes, where local music writer German Arrascaeta sings. It was released in October. They are indie rock with a healthy dose of Ryan Adams/The Strokes influences here and there.
Also from Córdoba, hip-hop act Locotes reunited this year. The guys split up in 2003 just after releasing their debut album, due to personal differences. By all accounts, things are back on track now, since they did their comeback show to a crowd of 500 back in November, and also launched on the same day a new digital/physical EP: Nunca nos fuimos pero ahora volvimos.
In Buenos Aires, our friends from Massacre released their 11th album just a few weeks ago, called El Mamut. The band also came to town in December and played a hell of a show as usual. The record was produced by famed guitarist/producer Juanchi Baleiron, which means the result is a lot more polished than previous recordings, with more focus on getting the vocals up front, and introducing more layers with pianos, and guitar harmonies.
As for Cabezones… remember their guitarist Pichu Serniotti produced our debut album last year? Also remember how their singer was in a car accident with Gaby from Catupecu Machu in Feb 2006? Well, Cabezones is now split into 2 different parts. Singer Cesar Andino, and drummer Ale Collados stayed in the band and kept going with 3 new members from indie bands. So far, they’ve just played a few shows since Cesar is still recovering. The other 3 original members are working on new projects of their own.
Catupecu Machu released a new album Laberintos entre aristas y dialectos, which in fact is a mix of old studio and live recordings plus 3 new songs, as they are still waiting for founding member Gaby Ruiz Diaz to recover from his near fatal accident of 2006. They are playing shows again with a new bass player for the time being.
What have I been up to? Hyperstatic has been quite busy this year! We played a few times in Buenos Aires, to a growing fan base in that city, which I’m happy to report. Back in June, we opened for our friends Volador G in legendary venue La Trastienda, in the traditional beautiful district of San Telmo. Lots of photos here. Also, a bit later in Claps, downtown BA in a mini band festival. Then we played for the 2nd year in a row in the Pepsi Music festival, in Club Ciudad de Buenos Aires in September; an event that lasts 10 days with over 100 bands playing in 4 stages. On our night, the headliner was none other than the Reverend himself, Marilyn Manson; who played just under an hour’s set, and was apparently very angry at the world and the sound mix because he broke about 4 wireless mics. We got to play one of the big stages at around 8pm, so it was awesome. Lots of people got to see us, and we received a great response from the crowd. Other bands that night were Massacre, Los Natas, Cabezones, El Otro Yo, Carajo. More Pepsi Music photos here.
We also just released our second video clip! The song is Bajocero, from the debut album Un Rato Sin Hablar. We did a big launch party on Dec 12th in a packed club called Moog, where the video was played back on a big screen, and then we did our last show of the year. The video was directed by Gaston Rizzi, and produced by local agency Axon. The concept was created by the band, and the script written by Max Gonzalez and the guys from Axon. We’re quite happy with the result! This video is so new, that we’re still about to send the master to our record label in BA so they can get it in rotation on music channels. Anyway, because I’m so nice, you can take a sneak peek here, where you’ll see the making of, and then the clip itself. In a few weeks time, we’ll upload it to our Youtube channel, so keep coming to visit our profile!
The video will be rotating on Much Music, Rock and Pop TV and (hopefully) Latin MTV. I’ll keep you posted.
OK, to wrap things up, I will also add that 2007 was the year of the most international gigs we’ve had in a long time. We had the Yeah Festival with The Killers, Starsailor, and Travis, The Arctic Monkeys played the Luna Park in BA, also Aerosmith, Velvet Revolver, and (yuck) Evanescence (not a fan) at the Quilmes Rock festival in April.
More recently, some idiot led us, the fans, to believe that the Smashing Pumpkins were coming to play the Personal Fest in December, but they mysteriously disappeared from the bill a few weeks before the event. Instead, ex-grunge hottie Chris Cornell played (apparently he did a lot of Soundgarden material, thank God, otherwise it would’ve been a snooze), while the Happy Mondays and Cypress Hill headlined the second day.
The Chemical Brothers rocked Creamfields in October. Also a lot of other acts of very different genres visited throughout the year: Napalm Death, Bryan Adams, Toto, Glenn Hughes, Lilly Allen, Living Colour, Cannibal Corpse, Marky Ramone and Madball to name a few. The final big one was The Police playing two sold out stadium dates on 1- 2 December, but tickets were ridiculously expensive, and for those of us who don’t live in BA, you had to add travelling there, food, hotel…too much. I’ll watch it on TV.
We also missed out on seeing The Donnas live. They had a confirmed date in June, but the show promoter messed things up, so they never came down from their Brazil tour. Another bummer was learning that Juliette and The Licks had played a small, very secret show at a tiny club in BA, a week later! I mean, who the hell got to see them? The press was so lost that most of the local papers didn’t even know that she was actually Juliette Lewis…
Upcoming International shows include Iron Maiden, Interpol, and Bob Dylan all around March 2008. In February we´ll have the 7th edition of the Cosquin Rock festival, up in the valley of San Roque in Cordoba, and yes, Hyperstatic is back playing in it, after a 3-year absence. I´ll have a full report on all the action in March.
That’s it for me, hope you guys and grrrls are doing great, and start a great 2008! As I usually do, here’s a list in no particular order of my favorites of the year: Motion City Soundtrack’s Even if it kills me, Soda Stereo’s reunion tour, shooting our second video clip, re-discovering old KISS albums from the 70s, my loving friends, my very supportive family, and being alive and well!
Rock on!
xoxo
Kari
November 5th, 2006
Hi everyone!
I’m back, still living here in Cordoba-Argentina, after a crazy year!
It’s been a while since my last column as usual, so let’s catch up on all things rock here in South America.
OK, let’s try and get the bad news out of the way first, because hopefully there’ll be a happy ending.
Back in March 2006, Gabriel Ruiz Diaz, the bass player from Catupecu Machu (a hugely popular band from BA) and Cesar Andino, the singer from Santa Fe band Cabezones were both in a car crash, one night after a Catupecu show in Buenos Aires. Cesar suffered from several fractures on both his legs, but luckily he will be able to fully recover after a few months of physical rehabilitation. Gaby on the other hand, was in a coma for several months after. They just transferred him to a different hospital where he’ll undergo specialized neurological treatment. Doctors are very hopeful that he will be all right. A special mention about the Catupecu fan base: I’ve seen thousands of kids wearing T-shirts reading things like “Gaby Hey.” Many of them also stayed outside the hospital night after night waiting for news back in March.
So over the past few months, Catupecu Machu decided to keep on playing, fronted by Gabriel’s brother, singer/guitarist Fernando, with the help of guest bass players, mainly Zeta Bosio formerly of Soda Stereo, and Diego Arnedo from Divididos for a while too.
Just last week, I saw the band at the Quilmes Rock festival here in Cordoba, they put on a very emotional and powerful set, with the aid of guitarist Esteban Serniotti from Cabezones (Hyperstatic´s album producer, by the way).
As for Cabezones, they also decided to keep themselves active through this rough period, so they released their first live CD/DVD called “Bienvenidos” in June, recorded in El Teatro on February 2006, just before the accident. Check out the photos; they had the whole stage painted in white to imitate their cover from 2005´s latest studio album “Jardin de extremidad”.
And the good news (this just in!) Cabezones will be back playing live, with Cesar of course, on December 16th in Estadio Obras in Buenos Aires!
Gustavo Cerati was the frontman of the most popular Argentinean band ever, Soda Stereo, who split up after a 14-year career in 1997, to a sold-out stadium tour across Latin America. Since then, Cerati has released solo albums; his latest (and best yet) came out May 2006, called “Ahi Vamos.” The tour brought him to Cordoba city in June to the Orfeo Superdomo, with around 8.000 fans (including me) attending the show. The band is made up of great musicians like Fernando Samalea on drums (who used to play with Cerati in Friccion back in the mid-80s) and guitarist Richard Coleman from dark pop cult-band Los 7 Delfines. The set showcased mostly all “Ahi Vamos” tracks, and a few from earlier albums, and some revamped versions of Soda Stereo´s classics like Profugos and Toma la Ruta.
 |
In another Cerati-related news, he played in Central Park in New York City in June, to a great crowd of Latin American and Argentinean residents, that by all accounts were more than happy to see him playing live in NYC for the first time. Check out the photo!
Here in my hometown of Cordoba, it’s been quite a busy and productive year for the local bands, as most of them took the matter of being properly released into their own hands. It’s been a hard-to-break habit, as everyone jumped at the chance of releasing their albums in CD-R format in the early 00s, duplicating the art for the CD sleeves in all kinds of shapes and quality, but lately most of the bands realised it was time to give their listeners a better product to buy. The CD-duplicating companies that used to work only for the labels, now give indie bands the chance to release CD copies in smaller quantities, starting at 500 units, a much more reasonable figure for most of them.
So, 2006 has seen many bands releasing albums in proper CD format: Enhola, who released their 3rd album “Viciosa”, the self-titled Praxis debut album (good old-fashioned hard rock), Manumissio with “Humano” (prog-grunge), indie-pop a la Pavement from Ironia with “Me equivoco todos los dias,” and soon to be out ex Hyperstatic´s bassist own project Sullivan with “Fauna de Gala,” a very elegant power pop record, from what I’ve heard.
Speaking of debut albums, my band Hyperstatic just released its own! Yeah, it took some time, but it was worth it. Un rato sin hablar came out on September 13th on Pirca Records/Universal Music, all over the country, in every record store. As far as we know, it’s selling quite well here in Cordoba, and we’re planning shows in other cities to promote it. As I said, it was produced by Esteban Serniotti from Cabezones, and if you go to our official website you’ll find links to listen to some of the songs online.
Back in May we shot our first video clip for the song “Bsides,” here in town. It was lots of fun. We came up with a treatment, and had help from friends who appeared in the video. The idea was very simple, we asked them to come to the set with an object that reminded them of someone they love or or hate, and show it to the camera. In the end, most of them brought stuff from boyfriends, girlfriends, family, and pets they love!
Some of the faces appearing are members of local rock bands like Trigger and Sayon. You can of course, watch it on our own YouTube channel here! The clip is now rotating on TV in Much Music and Rock & Pop TV.
Bsides also became a number 1 single in the 97.5 Rock FM´s Top 50 Ranking in Cordoba a couple of months ago.
To give the album launch a kind of pre-boost, we played in Buenos Aires on August 19th opening for one of our favorite bands, Massacre; whom we became friends with in the past 3 years, as we’ve shared many stages. I usually talk about them, but here’s a quick reminder: 15 years of skate-punk history, 10 albums, and the respect and admiration from every other Argentinean rock band. Imagine our shock when we were introduced on stage by their singer Walas to his own crowd as the “best up-and-coming rock band in Argentina!” No kidding! The show happened in El Teatro, a great venue that looks like a rock theatre, with a 1.500 capacity.
Another big event last month was the 2nd Pepsi Music festival in Buenos Aires, in which we also played. This event is big…. really big. I mean, 10 days, 4 stages, and over 100 bands playing live. To top it all off… we got to play on the same day Iggy Pop and The Stooges headlined, on Friday 22nd Sept. I definitely can’t complain!
That day, we played at 4pm on the same stage as The Tandooris, a garage rock BA band that I highly recommend. They usually play the BA Stomp festival with some US acts once a year. Other bands worth checking out that day, Los Natas, who had to play in the pouring rain at 8pm, then Massacre, and then the great Iggy. I saw him live before, back in 1994, and all I can say is, he’s still got the rock! The Stooges sounded as punk and exciting as ever, playing classics like ‘I wanna be your dog’ and ‘TV Eye,’ to ‘Electric Chair’ from Iggy´s Skull Ring album, a song they recorded together. Mike Watt from The Minutemen played bass…!
Some of us stayed over in BA the next couple of days to check out more bands. NerdKids who are a big hype right now, who released their debut album ‘Bubbleglam’ in May, were quite entertaining. Volador G brought some Bowie-esque pop to the main stage, and as the sun was going down, my childhood heroes Los 7 Delfines rocked it out in style. Gustavo Cerati headlined that night, with an even better show than the one in Cordoba I talked about above.
In the near future, there’s the BUE fest, on November 3rd and 4th, with an indie and new rock line-up. Headlining are the Beastie Boys and Daft Punk each night, also Patti Smith, and NY retro rockers Elefant (did you know the singer Diego Garcia is from Cordoba?) Also the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and TV on the Radio, alongside locals Vetamadre, Dios Los Cria, Los Alamos and more.
Two weeks after that, the Personal Fest, the same one I went to last year and saw Good Charlotte. This year’s is November 17 and 18th, with headliners New Order (yes they’re still alive!), and The Black Eyed Peas on each day. Other artists include: Ian Brown (ex Stone Roses singer), Madness, The Rasmus, The Bravery, and many local acts in Club Ciudad, the same venue as the Pepsi Music.
As for the rumours dept, some of them are pretty exciting and seemingly true, like The Who being supported by none other than one of my fave bands the Foo Fighters on March 17th 2007 in BA. Also Bad Religion in Feb for their 2nd visit to Argentina; Deep Purple in December; and Depeche Mode sometime next year.
All right kiddies, that’s it for me! Hope you have a great end of the year, and I’ll be back at the beginning of 2007 with more news!
Catch you soon!
Kari
January 7, 2006
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´talking 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…!
 |
 |
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
July 26, 2005
Hello all…
Things are pretty hectic down here, hence my slacking on a new update.
 Unfortunately, I can't sit and write without talking about a tragedy that shocked the entire country here last December 2004. I will just try to state the facts, because it will be really hard for me to make someone foreign understand the minds of the Argentineans… really.
Almost all of the most popular big rock bands in the country (Los Piojos. Bersuit, La Renga), have fans who go to their gigs as if they were going to a football match (soccer for the American readers). Meaning the crowd is usually very drunk, in a mob-minded spirit, wearing the band's T shirt as if it were the football club shirt, chanting their songs while waiting in line to get in, etc. On top of all this, which may not seem that different from any other rock concert in the world, the fans also (used to) bring flares to light up during the gig, while standing on the shoulders of their friends, and they would wave around the flare till it got consumed, then they'd throw it away regardless of being surrounded by a crowd. Yes, as incredible as it sounds, this was a very common thing to do, in spite of security confiscating these kinds "fireworks." Someone always manages to sneak some in, sometimes with the help of one of the gig-sponsoring brands. Why, you ask? Because the bigger, louder, and rowdier, the better. I don't know what they were trying to prove…that Argentinean rock was more special, or passionate, or rebellious? Who knows? This attitude was encouraged by the bands themselves, some of them even announced their gigs as a Show de Bengalas (Flare Show).
On December 30th 2004, on the second date in-a-row of Buenos Aires band Callejeros in a club in BA called Republica de Cromagnon, half-way thru the gig, things got too wild and out of control. The singer had to stop the songs several times to ask people to behave. The club was overcrowded beyond its capacity (the organisers were happy as can you imagine), as it had a permit for 1300 people and there were almost 3000 in that night.
Someone lit up another flare which somehow caught fire in the ceiling (covered with that black net fabric people use to cover plants in Winter), and the place started going up in flames. But this isn't what caused the deaths of 193 people. It was the unfortunate fact that the emergency exits weren't open, and most of them died because they couldn't get out of the club in time. I don't want to go into details because that’s not the point of me telling you about this. 193 fans who went to a rock gig didn't come back.
There are too many guilty parties to mention. Callejeros stopped their music career abruptly. (They became too big in a very short time during 2004, and that's part of why that club was too small for them). Now they owe a ridiculous amount of money to the families of the victims, which won’t bring anyone back. The club owner has spent most of this year in prison, and they are still to sentence him. The band manager is also considered guilty and is on trial, as is the security company, some of the public administration officers in charge of giving permit to the club to function as a rock venue etc, and the list goes on.
I personally think that negligence and complete lack of consideration for human life started way back when it became a stupid and irresponsible "trend" to show your support for your favorite band by waving a lit up flare in the middle of the crowd, and sometimes in a confined environment like this club. It should've been stopped back then, if not by the kids (who are too young to see the danger) then by the show's organisers, or the sponsoring brands, or the band's managers. Hell, even the government for a change! I mean, nobody in their sane minds would allow 18-24 year old kids to attend to a concert carrying around FIRE in their hands would they?
But there you go. Since this tragedy, the rock scene in Argentina has radically changed. You are now subject to criminal-like inspection from police officers every time you go to a festival, and all of the venues have been forced to follow strict rules of security (Only now! What about before?) Which led to most of them closing their doors for good, or having to narrow down their capacity from 1000 to 400 people, so now tickets are more expensive.
Everyone is walking on tip-toes when it comes to organising gigs now. In the following months, the first few big post-Cromagnon festivals like Cosquin Rock or Villa Gessell in the summer, were tainted by an overall sad, terrified, and respectful feel both from punters and organisers, who desperately tried to adjust security measures to ridiculous extents. Even the bands onstage chose their set lists carefully so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings, because everyone feels so guilty about what happened. Are they (guilty)? That's the question. The victim's families need to find a guilty subject to get some closure, don't they?
But I'm not a professional writer, not a manager, not a concert promoter; I just play in a band and love to talk about music, so I can't draw any conclusions toward who is to blame. I think no one can really.
So this is it for me now. I'm sorry I can't give you good news, and I'm sorry I can't tell you about how cool the local scene is this time around. I still think it is, but I couldn't just pretend this didn't happen just because we live here in the rock-bottom of the globe and our news, good or bad, doesn't make it to CNN or BBC too often.
But it did happen, and I had to let you know that 193 fans went to a rock gig and didn't come back.
In a few more days I`ll write my usual column, and I promise there will be lots of good news I`d love to tell you about. See you all then.
xxx
Kari
December 4, 2004
Hello all!
I’m back just before the end of the year! In time to tell you what’s been happenning in the Argentinean scene lately, and what’s in store for 2005 summer.
Back in August Hyperstatic invited a really cool band from Rosario (Santa Fe province) called All The Hats to play in Cordoba city. They have one EP and a brand new album "No Signal", and have a tight punk sound in the Social Distortion/Hot Water Music direction. The ‘Hats played with us on Aug 27th in Cordoba for their 1st time here, together with another one of our fave’ local bands SMILE. It turned out to be a good night with all 3 bands showing their different approach to the same kinda style and sound, and we are now invited by the "rosarinos" to go and play in the city of Rosario after the summer. In the meantime, the All The Hats-owned label Basstard Co. have released a punk compilation "Vive Le Punk" featuring bands like All the Hats, Murio de Asco, Nitrominds, Hyperstatic and Arruinado pero Felíz.
As mentioned before, we had an international visit during September, as our good friend Monique from Melbourne, Oz group Band Camp came to Cordoba for holidays, a bit of rockin’ and lots of great coffee…so she says. Mon spent 2 full weeks in between Cordoba and Buenos Aires, and played a couple of acoustic shows where she did some new songs plus some old faves. The 1st show was with Sullivan (Charlie’s - ex Hyperstatic bassist own band) in Villa Allende near Cordoba, and the second one with Hyper in a club in the Abasto area in the city. She also did a radio appearance, co-hosting my usual New Rock segment on Wednesday nights on La Rocka 97.5FM where Mon introduced some cool Aussie rock, and then played a mini unplugged show (Check out the pics with show host CJ, and a photo of the gang out and about in Cordoba).
In the local album releases front we have some good news: Cordoba bands are actually releasing music in a proffesional non-indie, non CD-R copy way! Yeah! We couldn’t be happier, as we are always struggling to be heard among the avalanche of crappy Buenos Aires’ bands who get released just because they are based in the capital city, where all the big labels are. No offense, I mean, there are some good bands there like Smitten, Massacre, Shaila etc, but lately our bands are just way better.
For one, Juan Terrenal, one of the bands with the biggest fanbase in Cordoba, have released their second album Nuestraforma a few weeks ago. The guys have a bit of a cult following, with kids knowing the words to their every song, sporting hand-made JT T-shirts and hanging the band’s logo banners around the clubs where they play and all. The album features 17 songs, it comes in a cool original package, and has a solid rock sound, showing influences from a range of 90s alt-rock bands, and includes a Spanish-sung version of The Cure’s Boys Don’t Cry which has become a big radio single.
Also another growing band who are about to release an album is punk rockers 250 Centavos. I’ve mentioned them before as playing Cosquin Rock together with Hyper earlier this year. They just got signed to the new label Pirca Records (from Cordoba but co-owned by some big BA promoters) and it’s being pressed as we speak, the CD goes by the name of SONRIE..mañana será peor. This is the 1st release from Pirca Records and several other Cordoba bands are said to be signed right after the summer as well…look out for that!
Speaking of recording albums, Hyperstatic just started recording the debut CD! It’s about time, isn’t it? We went to Los Angeles Estudio in Nono, province of Cordoba, at the end of October to lay down drums and bass tracks. The studio is actually owned by Las Pelotas (one the big selling bands of Arg) and we had a blast recording there, as it’s a house in the middle of the mountains, with so much peace and quiet that you are almost afraid of making noises with your guitar! We are currently in the process of travelling to Buenos Aires to finish recording guitars and vocals, if all goes well, with one of our favorite producers. The album should be out in March/April 2005, and we have 2 good solid offers from labels to release it…when it’s all decided, signed and done, you’ll hear it first here!
In the meantime I can tell you that on October 22nd we played at another big festival called La Voz Rock 2004, with Las Pelotas headlining our night, in the new arena-like venue Orfeo Superdomo with am 8000 capacity.
The 1st night Thu 21, the fest opened with Mexican alternative pop from Café Tacuba, classic artists Fito Paez and Spinetta and Ely Guerra also from Mexico.
On Friday 22nd, unfortunately for us, we had to play as a 3 piece as our guitarist Perro had a huge personal problem that same afternoon which made it impossible for him to make it to the show. But we came out, played loud and had lots of fun, plus a good response from the crowd which was almost to the arena’s full capacity at that time.
Right after us, Carajo from BA rocked the stage, showcasing their brand new sophomore album Atrapasueños. The nu-metal trio are luckily shying away from the old nu-metal cliches and are sounding more rock and melodic than before, a welcome change even for the hardcore fanbase.
Then latin rockers Arbol took the stage, giving the most energetic and succesful show of the festival as far as crowd-response goes, with both their singers managing to get the entire Orfeo crowd to sit down and then jump back up all together at their will! They closed their set with all five Arbol members singing a cover of cult band Los Redonditos de Ricota with Carajo playing as the back-up band…impressive.
Kapanga are not to be taken seriously…or are they? They mix rock with latin with cumbia with pop and everything in between. Their singer Mono is one of the most charismatic frontmen in Arg rock. They invited musicians from Arbol to play with them. Las Pelotas closed the night to 7000 raging fans.
On Saturday, Sullivan opened the last date of the festival to a warm crowd, then classic reggae 9-piece Los Pericos proved there is life after surviving the departure of lead singer Bahiano in 2003 after 15 years of career, with guitarist Juanchi Baleiron taking on the vocal duties and doing a great job at it. Babasonicos brought the 3 day fest to an end with their new found fame among commercial radio listeners who only know their hit singles…the rest of the show goes out to us….the real longtime fans!
Oh, I didn’t go for lack of money and, eeerr…days off from work, but on November we had the 2-day Personal Fest in Buenos Aires, with great international acts like the Mars Volta, PJ Harvey, Primal Scream, Morrissey and many others proving the days of no good overseas live concerts in Argentina are gone, thank God for that! The next weekend also in Buenos Aires Creamfields landed in Argentina for the 2nd time, featuring Groove Armada, Paul Oakenfold, Carlos Alfonsin, and Adicta among many others.
In Cordoba, we had a cool intimate acoustic show from former Pavement leader Stephen Malkmus a few weeks ago, and last night we went to see Living Colour, I’m not a fan, but hey are those guys good at what they do!
In the meantime, looking ahead I must report the famous Cosquin Rock as we know it has changed location, after a much publicised war in between 2 of the most powerful live show promoters.
The company who owns the Cosquin rock name (the same organisers of the past 4 years) are moving the event to a big open field near the city of Carlos Paz, Cordoba and it will take place on Feb 4-7, it will feature a main and a smaller stage, merch stands, more food, more toilets (to avoid last year’s embarassment and…stink) and are already announcing some international acts like Café Tacuba and The Wailers plus the usual big names in Argentinean rock.
The other company is having their still-unnnamed festival in the old venue in the city of Cosquin, the weekend after the "original" Cosquin Rock, and promises a more commercial band line-up to differentiate themselves from the other fest. We’ll see how this goes, and if punters will have the money to opt for one or both events, being so close to each other…
OK grrrls and boys, I have to go for now. I’ll be back during the summer to tell you what’s happenning and what’s hot in the scene, till then take care, I wish you all great holidays…
Love
Kari
Remember me, Kari the Coolgrrrls correspondent from Argentina? yeah, it’s me, I’m back! I know it´s been ages since my last update, so let´s skip the part where I explain how busy I´ve been and dive directly into the juicy news about the scene.
I was last seen playing with Hyperstatic at Cosquin rock -the summer fest, so I´ll try to pick up where I left off...
We´ve been playing at some way cool festivals during the 1st half of the year. Back on April 16th we were part of the 1st ever ELECTROROCK FESTIVAL, held at a summer resort by a small lake near Córdoba called Laguna Azul. Clearly the fest promoters hadn´t thought of the fact that summer is actually over by April and that it was gonna be cold as hell out there, but they went ahead anyway in spite of a cloudy and cold forecast. Another mistake was also to start the event at night, because no-one would "enjoy" the natural view of the mountains surrounding the stage while watching the bands… it was so dark you might as well be indoors and not out there freezing your ass for no good reason! But, aside from this the band line-up was promising and varied.
Representing Córdoba some of the most well-known bands played from 8pm onwards, like hip hop acts Doble H and Locotes, killer rockers La Cosa, our Brit-rock influenced mates Enhola and of course Hyperstatic.
Then it was the turn of Buenos Aires´ Los Natas to amaze everyone with their blend of real stoner prog rock with big low-end drums, trippy guitars and...barely any vocals. This is the Argentinean band with the biggest indie worldwide distro, who have toured with Nebula and Queens of the Stone Age.They have also been named Breakthrough band of 2003 by the Argentinean Rolling Stone, so if you ever get the chance of catching them on tour make sure not to miss them.
After a short set by L. Camorra (electronica-pop) it was time to catch the main atraction Babasonicos. I´ve talked about them before when they played at Cosquin rock, so they did pretty much the same show which draws from a long list of hits celebrated by new fans, but they always throw in a couple of obscure B-sides and oldies which are designed to make the early-era fans very happy.
In chronological order I should briefly mention that on May 9th we had the first ever Motorhead show in Cordoba. They kinda played BA with Los Natas supporting them the night before, I say kinda played coz it was a 50 minute set cut short because allegedly Lemmy couldn´t come back out and sing anymore, due to the smoke of the "bengalas" (flares) that fans had lit up in the club during the show. After which about 30 fans decided they wanted their money back and proceeded to invade the stage and trash and/or steal whatever gear they could get their hands on!
In consequence their show in Cordoba the next evening featured rented gear for all Motorhead members since it had been trashed in BA...how embarassing is to be Argentinean sometimes... But the show here in Cordoba was rocking, awesome, deafening, and long enough to keep everyone happy. And they played Ace of Spades. So nobody felt the urge to break stuff!
May 23rd saw the 2nd edition of local bands festival Parañoños II, organised by the punk rock kids of 250 Centavos, they´re the other Cordoba band that played Cosquin rock along with us back in February. Parañoños is mainly all about bringing local bands together in a fair-deal-for-everyone event where each band has 30 minutes of playing time, using the same gear, and nobody has to pay for being part like it happened last year at a series of sad events called Paralocos organised by a greedy bastard local producer not worht mentioning...The Parañoños festival turned out pretty good, with a big crowd response. We played almost at the end, just before 250 Centavos´ closing set. Other bands on were eNeDe- La Tracktora - Inauditos — Macroporno - Corsario Negro and Enhola.
Speaking of headlining a festival, that´s what Hyperstatic did a month after that in local club Al Azif, at an event called Sakate La Leche II organised by local rock website CbaRockUnder. First up was melodic punk rockers Smile, who surprised everyone with a tight set, cool tuneful vocals and catchy guitar lines, plus an obvious but welcome Lagwagon influence. Then 3-piece Fusion attacked our collective ears with a blend of nurock/metal/pop that didn´t work on every song, but overall it was a good show. RH+ relies a bit too much on their charismatic singer and lacks on strong songwriting, but they´re really young and still got time to improve.
Our pal band Enhola had the hard task of converting a mainly punk crowd with their poppy tunes, but were smart enough to choose their most straight up rockin numbers, which complete with their upbeat fun attitude onstage got them a good response in the end, proving experienced tight bands like this deserve respect beyond their style or sound.
Then it was our turn to close the festival, and I must say we were surprised to see how many new fans turned up to support us! It was cool coz most of them knew our songs so the gig was awesome, also we´ve been playing a new Foo Fighters cover called My Poor Brain which has become a real crowd favorite, and after having to come back to play 2 encore songs, (on request: our Smashing Pumpkins´Cherub Rock cover) we finished up with our own oldie Sleepwalking with Ariel from Enhola guesting on guitar. Rrrawwwwkin´!
On the releases front in town, we’ve got some cool interesting ones like the debut album of Locotes, the only hip hop band that’s rapped live with Gustavo Cerati (former Soda Stereo, biggest Argentinean band ever), opened for Mexicans Molotov, and got away with no instruments at all but DJ Fede Flores smart programming/production. You can download different mp3s every week at their site.
Also a 2nd compilation was issued by indie rock website Ynsanity from Córdoba. 30 local bands appear, blending all kinds of genres into one cool double CD release, bands like Manumissio, Locotes, Downward, 250 Centavos and (yours truly) Hyperstatic were part of it, the CDs also come complete with an interactive CD-Rom section with photos and info about the bands.
To finish up, last Saturday 3rd July we played again with our friends of Massacre from Buenos Aires, along with Enhola at a party organised by the 2 coolest most popular long-running radio shows in town: Cualquiera (where I spin some new rock every Wednesday night) and Al Abordaje. There was a cool press conference in the afternoon for the 3 bands where there was talk of repeating the same party in Buenos Aires by the end of 2004. At night in Casa Babylon, all 3 shows were rockin’ good, with a full capacity crowd, check out some photos…that’s me and some cute guys from Enhola and Hyperstatic, plus friends.
Looking ahead, we’re gonna have an international visit from my friend Monique from Melbourne’s Band Camp, so stay tuned for reviews on some gigs with her and some heavy partying guaranteed. Also CG writer Melody has told me her band Thee Coronados will be dropping by in November to play the BA Stomp fest.
I’ll catch up with all of you next time, till then, rock on!
xxxx
Kari
March 12, 2004
Hello everyone!
Here I am about to enter the end of our Southern summer, but before that I’m gonna tell you all about the biggest Argentinean summer fest: Cosquin Rock 2004!
Someone out there might remember last year our band Hyperstatic played at the fest, and as I said before we won the band competition last December to go there and play again.
Alright, so to refresh your memory and put you in situation, Cosquin Rock is THE summer rock festival in Argentina, held in the city of Cosquin in the province of Cordoba, right in the heart of the country.
This year it ran over 4 days from 5-8 Feb, with over 55 bands on, and featuring for the first time some non-Argentinean bands as well, like Mexicans Molotov, La Vela Puerca from Uruguay and Ultramen from Brazil among others.
Here we go then!
On Thursday 5th Feb two of my bandmates picked me up to go to Cosquin Rock’s first day. We arrived there at around 7pm, it had started a few hours earlier and we caught the last few songs by Massacre from Buenos Aires, they’re a cult skaterock band and it was a real bizarre thing to watch them play in a huge mainstream festival, but they went down well and their fans made them feel at home.
After this, and wearing our musician backstage passes good for Friday night, we made an attempt to get through an access to the VIP area, and we made it! Hey, who wants to be squeezed in the crowd when you can be at the bar mingling with rock celebs. networking, and drinking for free?
I must say the fest organisers changed the beer sponsoring from last year, to an alcoholic beverage very popular here called Fernet, which is really supposed to be a digestive kinda drink, and you take it mixed with Coke and ice. To me It’s awful but hey, it was free!
From the photographer’s pit we got to watch some more shows. Like Catupecu Machu who are as hyperactive and rocky as usual in spite of having a new drummer and a new technoey sound, but it’s their earlier stadium rock tunes what really gets the crowd going. Check out our photo with Fernando, their singer/guitarist.
Intoxicados from Buenos Aires play straight up rock with a twist of the Stones, lead by singer Pity Alvarez are beginning to get a massive band status this year, judging by the fact they’re playing a nightime show unlike 2003, also people know the words to all their songs, and there’s a lot of "banderas" (flags) in the moshpit showing the band’s name.
Attaque 77 is still going after 16 years…and still playing the same music. Punk rock shouldn’t be this boring, but they’re as popular as ever so I might be wrong. …excuse me while I yawn…
Anyway, by the time Bersuit starts playing their headline show we leave. All I can say is they’re huge, they’ve been going on for 14 years, and who am I not to like them? Friday’s bill is so much my kind of fest!
Friday 6th noon, we leave from Cordoba city in a bus with other bands from different provinces. This time around, we get to Cosquin early at around 2pm. After dropping our gear in the dressing room, some of us go upstairs to the stage while Babasonicos is beginning to soundcheck. It’s packed with drumkits and cool amps and cabs of all kinds, what you call a rocker’s heaven! After failing to fugure out what kind of fx pedals Mariano from Babasonicos uses to get that retro guitar sound, we are NOT kindly asked to remove ourselves from the stage by a roadie. Fair enough.
Back in the VIP area we somehow managed to score an interview for Much Music (for those non-Canadian of you, it’s like the Argentinean MTV). So they made us choose one of us to talk on behalf, and of course I was pushed by my bandmates to the set…alright alright! I’m going. Hernan is the VJ who interviews me from behind the camera, but I have no idea what I answered coz, strangely, I got a bit nervous! They we gave them our show´s set list and marked the song we wanted them to shoot for the festival’s TV special, which is being aired on during Feb/March on Much Music to Latin America. We saw it, and we looked pretty cool on TV, I must say.
After setting up our gear and doing a bit of soundcheck onstage, we hung out in the dressing room till the first band started. Then we were called to go up to the side of the stage, and since the whole day started a bit late luckily when we got on to play there was already a huge crowd inside, probably over 6000 people at around 5pm. It’s said that over 24,000 made it to each day of the festival…Cosquin Rock is getting bigger and bigger every year!
And then we played! We had a 20 minute set, and we played 5 songs that went so fast it was over before we noticed! The Much Music cameras shot the song Bsides like we asked, and we had no tuning, sound or monitor problems ! WOW! The second time around is so much better!
When we got off stage I was congratulated by living legend Vitico, bass player of 80s hard rock band Riff, which was really bizarre coz he looked like someone’s dad in a leather jacket!
Then there was the press conference where we got asked a lot about having won twice the band competition to play at the fest, to which we answered "we hope next time we get invited and skip the trouble of being hated by the bands that lost!". Then we did a lot more interviews for radios and websites from all over the place, also handed out tons of Hey, Wait! singles to the press.
The rest of the day/night was spent in between the pit watching bands and the bar getting free drinks and posing with some stars, as well as getting our photo taken with the fest logo, coz we never know when is the last time we con our way into one of these!
Now, on with the shows I got to see.
Cabezones from Santa Fe were the first ones to rock the place at around 7.30pm, opening with Hombre Paranoico from 2001’s Alas album. They have a new second guitarist who gives lead guitar Esteban much more space to lay down those dark ambient chords in the air, while singer Cesar is becoming one of the best vocalists around with great emotional tunes and that rare ability to connect to the audience without having to scream like a pig, something you don’t see often in the darker side of hard rock/emocore bands these days. Later on at our dressing room Esteban asked us for a Hyperstatic Tshirt which we glady gave him, so we hope to see him wearing it!
Power hardcore trio Carajo may not be as imaginative as Cabezones, but they have a powerful show going, lead by former A.N.I.M.A.L. bassist Corvata now turned lead singer too. Towards the end of the show they pulled a funny stunt by promoting their single "Sacate la mierda" (Wipe your shit off) by throwing at the crowd dozens of toilet paper rolls with the band logo printed. Everyone went mad, turning the stage into a harmless good ol’ war field of toilet paper! Check out the photo.
After shows by ALMAFUERTE, LA 25, LA VELA PUERCA from Uruguay and CALLEJEROS, it was time to check out Grammy winning superchilangos Molotov!
The Mexicans did pretty much the same show we saw here in August, but were funny and effective as always. Wearing their usual black Tshirts with prints like "Los Bitles", the foursome ran thru’ their hit list for everyone’s delight, while bassist Micky Huidobro’s hilarious anti-Bush comments in between songs in a Helium-like voice fx were cheered by 23,000 people. They closed their set with classic hit Puto. (Chech their photo "holding" one of the festival’s organisers)
Babasonicos have reached after 12 years a point where they are a one of a kind band, they play whatever style they want and get away with it because of their now massive loyal following, thanks to some radio hits like Delectrico and Los Calientes. Disco, hip hop, metal, electronica, retro, folk, they are all that while sounding unmistakably Babasonicos, lead by crooner Adrian D’argelos who has the crowd in the palm of his hand, they’re by far the coolest most original Argentinean band.
The next day we checked out show by Arbol (Latin-reggae-hardcore-rock mix), Los Pericos (a classic reggae band that live sounds perfect like a CD, if you’re into that), Pappo (our own blues guitar hero who’s played with everyone including BB King), and Los Violadores (real scruffy punk rock).
And that’s what I remember seeing live! It was over 55 bands, a total of 100.000 people on 4 days taking over a small town, not enough toilets for the 20 thousand crowd everyday, ridiculous beer prices, the usual sound problems and star ego-tripping (Charly Garcia and Bersuit complaning about everything onstage) but for now it’s over, and I hope to see it again next year…as a guest band! No more band competitions please….too stressful!!
You can check out all the photos in our band website, now in English too.
Catch ya all later!
xxxxxxkari
PS: Thanks to all at Coogrrrls for including Hyperstatic on the new compilation CD!
Hey, would someone please tell me what the hell happened to 2003 that it´s already ending and I just noticed!?? Must´ve been so busy I didn´t realize that this week we got Xmas eve... and it´s that lovely time again when we (don´t) look forward to seeing that flashy-dressed aunt we don´t see all year asking why are you not married at your age, and that dodgy cousin that´s always trying to chat you up, and your sister´s inlaws who look funny at you coz they think you´re too weird and probably into drugs or something coz you play in that rock band, and also struggling to find a taxi after midnight to get the hell out of your place to your friend’s party which always leads to being stuck at home coz there’s no such thing as a free cab on Xmas eve…Gotta love the holidays!
Buy hey, it´s a good feeling to leave a year behind and get ready to rock the new one! So let´s get cracking on what´s been happening in the last months of  2003 in Argentina´s scene.
We´ve had some international acts like Mexican alternative pop Cafe Tacuba who played back on October 19th in Cordoba. This is a band that´s really hard to put a style tag on, and they´ve just released Cuatro Caminos which is their excellent 5th album that won them international recognition, they are amongst the best 50 albums of 2003 by Blender magazine. Also in Buenos Aires there were hugely sucessful shows by German punk rockers Die Toten Hosen and Canadian techno-punk chick Peaches. Speaking of Buenos Aires, there was a huge spring fest there called Quilmes Rock which brought over 70 bands together over 7 nights featuring the best bands in Argentinean rock like El Otro Yo, Gustavo Cerati, Las Pelotas, Divididos, Juana La Loca, Attaque 77 and special appearances by Die Toten Hosen and Cafe Tacuba, and also some indie acts like Los 7 Delfines and Leo Garcia. The fest had over 110.000 people making it the biggest rock fest in Argentina in a long time.
On the new albums front we got some interesting releases like the brand new InFame by Babasonicos. Their much awaited 7th album was launched live here in Cordoba on Nov 29th to a 5000 bouncing crowd on a hellish thunderstorm night that made it impossible to many advanced ticket holders to reach the venue. InFame follows the lead of previous album Jessico (their 2001 platinum album) adding powerful radio-friendly production (from ex Butthole Surfers Andrew Weiss) and a whole bunch of groovy retro tunes clashed with electronica leftovers in Beck style, but also think of Dick Dale’s surf guitars meet The Music with a touch of cheesy cool disco drum beats and some irresistible acoustic ballads and we’ve got one of the albums of the year. There´s also new records by Los Piojos "Maquina de Sangre" (with a 70.000 crowd on the CD live launch) and La Renga "Detonador de sueños", both bands are currently the biggest selling acts in Argentina, closely followed by Las Pelotas with their new album "Esperando el milagro" and Attaque 77 with Antihumano. This makes 2003 a big come back for rock music in the country, and I couldn´t be happier to see teenagers getting into rock instead of Ricky Martin-like crap or lame pop reality show "stars" a la American idol.
But enough about them, let´s talk about us! Hyperstatic that is. Well let me say that we´ve had a hell of good year. We released a single last month called Hey, wait! which is now # 1 on various rock radio Top 5 charts in town, this is the preview of our 1st full length album which we´ll be finishing up during the Southern summer, with an April 2004 release if all goes well. We launched our brand new website designed by yours truly and I promise to finish the English version pretty soon too! We´ve also had some great fun gigs over the past few months, like on September 19th we travelled to Ucacha, a town South of Cordoba province, to play at the Primarock Ucacha festival. This is the home town of our pal band Enhola. We had a blast from the moment we stepped on the tour bus at 8am that Friday, Enhola, Hyper and another local band: Herederos. The 4 hour trip was spiced up with hooliganish 70s tacky hits chanting, battle of the worst cover song on a 5 string beat up acoustic guitar and some uncalled for toilet humour...me being the only female in the bus had to try and be brave! Later on there was some jamming and switching of instruments during the laid-back sound check in the afternoon (there I am trying to remember how to play drums), and lotsa food and more beers. We headed down to the local FM radio for an interview, and can you believe we also signed authographs on CDs? Hah! That´s the good thing about playing a small town! They make you feel a celebrity. The show was awesome, about 1000 people came from all nearby towns, and it seems we´ll be doing it all over again in Feb 2004 for the summer edition.
To top a great year off, last night guess what happened?!?!? Anyone remember back in Feb this year we’d won a slot at this huge summer fest Cosquin Rock? Well, this year we entered the band competition with our new single and they pre-selected us again...and we played last night...and we WON AGAIN! yes! We´ll be going to Cosquin Rock 2004 next February for the 2nd year in a row! So, you can expect another major story on the crazy festival´s 4th edition from an insider: me! YAY! And I think we get to play on the same night as the great Mexican band Molotov (see my previous update) alongside the aforementioned Las Pelotas, Babasonicos and many other big ones. Mmmh, note to self: remember to bring the camera and actually TAKE photos instead of getting too drunk to pose with celebrities (like last time).
And before I go, I´ll leave you with my favourites of 2003 in no particular order and for whatever reason: Ryan Adams "Rocknroll", getting a new cool part time job, finally finding the definitive band line-up, The White Stripes "Elephant", my weekly radio spot on new rock, Fountains of Wayne "Welcome Interstate Managers", and as always, my friends.
OH! and I almost forgot to mention Metallica who get the biggest fucking BOOOHH!! of the year for last-minute cancelling their sold-out BA show for being alledgedly "tired" of the tour, and then playing a Japan string of shows instead, that same week. That obviously was more lucrative for them as tickets in Japan, as we all know, are the most expensive ones on Earth. Way to go James and Lars! You can be sure that this lost them 99% of their once loyal Argentinean fans, who have been voting this screw-up as Worst Event of the Year on the Argentinean Rolling Stone and other magazine and website polls. Hah. Talk about Saint ANGER!
And this is it for me! I hope you all have great holidays and stuff yourselves up in food and drink champagne till you learn fluent Danish, and I´ll catch you next year.
xxxxKari
September 9, 2003
Hello all!
Shame on me! I've disappeared for yonks this time around! I promise I'll try not to let it drag so bad next time, I've been having some crazy busy months here.
So, let's get cracking on the news update on Argentina's rockin' scene.
First of all, I've been down to see some great shows in town. Back in April we had the chance to catch up with Argentinean Pop Hero Gustavo Cerati. He used to front Soda Stereo, they were THE Argentinean pop band who made it big in Latin America and South of the US back in the late 80s, so he's still worshipped in countries like Bolivia, Chile, Mexico and Colombia. Soda Stereo's 15-year-long career earned the label of "Sodamania", they split up in '97, and since then Cerati had pursued a solo career. His latest album "Siempre es hoy" (It's always today) released last year spawned several hit singles, and he toured Argentina on the back of the album for the 1st time in 3 years.
This concert took place in a huge basketball court in Cordoba city, with a cool 3-D bubble-like backdrop and mellow lighting. They played most of the new album -5th solo album, by the way- plus some new almost unrecognisable versions of Soda Stereo's biggest hits to the delight of the audience who, like myself, were around their late 20s-early 30s and for a moment there…we felt 15 all over again!. New fans however couldn't complain since he included most of the outstanding tracks of his solo records. He also invited local rappers Locotes to, well, rap on a bit of a song. Apparently he invites local rappers in every town the tour takes him to, as a way of getting closer to new scene we think. Head down to Gustavo's website to check out some vids and songs if you feel curious.
In our own HYPERSTATIC camp we got some big news. Remember last time I talked about our summer fest show back in Feb? Well, right after that we had a major line-up change, with Charlie (bass) and Ariel (guitar) leaving the band to focus on their own musical projects: Sullivan and Enhola respectively. Of course we knew about this since last year, but they both wanted to play until the fest date coz that was the line-up that won the right to play there, after all!
So from March onwards we've played with our 2 newest rockin' members: Jorge on guitar /bvs from the band Mandril and Pablo on bass who used to be a bandmate of mine back in mid 90s. They both have brought a much more intense rockier weight and sound to the band, which is what we were after, and the new band's sound has earned us on the press the nickname of the Local Foo Fighters – no kidding!
That said, let me tell you about our 2003 gig highlights so far! On July 8th we played for the 2nd year in a row at the Cine Club Municipal (arty cinema/theatre) as part of the series of unplugged concerts that happen every Tue night. It went so well! We had guests from our friends Enhola and also our ex bandmembers. We included some new songs, revamped oldies and played a couple of covers like Say it ain't so from Weezer.
 That same week on Sat 12th July, we were the special guests at Enhola's new album launch at Torre del Rio Bar, which is a cool club in an old water tower facing the river. Enhola's new CD is called Planea, and yours truly handled the album artwork duties, which you can check out at their website. The guys have gone all retro 70s rock on this one, ditching entirely the electronica influence and dodgy samplers, replacing them by lotsa Hammond and old Moog sounds, taking them closer to Supergrass and Ride. The room was packed that night, and both me and Jorge guested on guitar with Enhola rocking out the venue.
Also in July (it was a hectic month!) we played at a radio show's anniversary party in my fave venue Casa Babylon. "Si Supieras" is the radio show where I got my "new music" segment every Thursday night. The show was turning 3 years old and celebrating it big by inviting Francisco Bochaton from BA and melancholic metallers Cabezones from the city of Santa Fe, who were also launching their 3rd album in town, called Eclipse (Sol). I've never seen Babylon so crowded! Over 600 people turned up to the party.
Cabezones had been touring Mexico the whole of last year so their local fans were eager to catch up on their new stuff, which sounds more melodic yet stronger and more personal than their previous, more derivative material. Singer Cesar Andino owns the stage with little effort, black-clad and with his hair just dyed blonde and wearing lots of black eyeliner, he sung so in tune on top of the wall of noise built by guitarist Esteban that one could only wonder if their mixer was a genius to make such a huge contrast happen so easily. Great band, great show.
 In August 2nd, and for the 1st time in Argentina we had Mexican band Molotov touring the country. They formed in Mexico city in '95, have 4 albums and have just released Dance and Dense Denso, which has earned them 4 nominations on the upcoming 4th Annual Latin Grammy Awards. Molotov has toured with Deftones, Quicksand and on the Warped Tour, They are currently touring Latin America, but will return for more US dates in November (NY, Houston, Miami etc).
Now, what's all the fuss about, you ask? Well, for starters they are 3 parts Mexican, one part American. While gringo drummer Randy Ebright brings the cross-culture vibe and language to the mix. his Mexican partners Micky Huidobro and Paco Ayala both play bass AT the same time (imagine the sub-lows in their rehearsal space) and guitarist Tito Fuentes gives the whole thing the Latin groove and furious riffs it needs. On top of this, all 4 band members sing! Well, rap mostly. You could easily be forgiven for taking Molotov as another rap-funk-metal band, but hey, they throw so many elements into the mix it's actually hard to label them.
The show was 100% fun, let's make it clear from the start. Their lyrics are hilarious, with topics ranging mostly from politics to sex to chicks to dealers and pimps to sex again, and more protest against the Mexican government, all with such a great taste for rhyming funny and smart words it makes you want to translate their songs to your English-speaking friends so they can have a laugh too. Luckily they have some songs sung in English as well by Randy, who steps out of his drumkit to rap and dance around onstage while Paco plays drums. Definitely a band worth checking out if you're up for a having a real fun blast at a rock show…you know, instead of bumping into yet another shoe-gazing depressed bunch of nu-metal kids sponsored by a skate brand singing about their twisted childhood...is anybody else SICK to their stomach by them!???!?!?! Please someone tell that chick in Evanescence we are not buying…
OK kids, time for me to go. I'll try to come back before the end of the year! Sorry again for slacking on my updates!
Y'll take care and will catch ya soon.
xxxxxxKari
April 19, 2003
Hola everyone!
Well I should probably start by apologising on delaying my update too friggin' long, but I've just had a busy summer! And I'm back to give you all the scoop on the biggest summer rock fest in Argentina "Cosquin Rock 2003".
The festival ran over 4 nites, with an average of 12 bands on each night, including Catupecu Machu, Las Pelotas, Divididos, Los Piojos, Charly Garcia, Bersuit and lots more. The fest is held at the city of Cosquin, province of Cordoba, about 1hr-drive from Cordoba's capital city where I live. Cordoba province has a long-running history of big summer festivals, due to its beautiful landscapes, mountains and rivers, it's one of the biggest tourist attractions in the country, especially to visitors from Buenos Aires who just love getting away from that crazy city and relax here in laid-back sunny Cordoba. hey! I hope I've convinced you to come and visit…
Cosquin Rock is all about the biggest names in Argentina's rock, as well as giving the smaller bands (like ours) a chance to break it and be seen by thousands of people who travel from all over the country for the fest weekend. The city of Cosquin gets invaded by rockheads, neo-hippies, punks, freeloaders, Kumbaya-singing campers, harmless wandering drunks, non-official fest merchandise resellers, and mad fans wearing their fave band's T-shirt fighting over which band rules the most, while queuing up to get in. These mobs are self-proclaimed band "tribes" coz they are really proud of belonging to a certain band's creed, and are way too enthusiastic about it! The biggest tribes are fans of Los Piojos, La Renga and of course Los Redonditos de Ricota whom I think are the ones who gather all tribes into a big fat one.
Going back to my previous update, you'll remember our band Hyperstatic participated of the Pre Cosquin band competition, and won a slot to play at the fest, so our gig was planned for Friday. Here we go.
Friday the 7th, 2.30pm. There was a free bus leaving for Cosquin from the city for all the bands, us included. Unfortunately, we had to wait for all the sleepy and lazy-assed guys from visiting bands staying at the hotel, to grace us with their presence and get in the bus. So at about 4pm we finally got on our way. There were members from Intoxicados, Karamelo Santo, La 25 (they brought their dog all the way from BA) El Otro Yo etc. It's a nice hour-long trip through sierras (mountains), small creeks and rivers, the weather was kind of dull and cloudy, but quite hot.
We arrived at 5.10, and were dropped just behind the stage. The venue is a huge "plaza" right in Cosquin's centre, and this year they got rid of the fences at the back to fit more people in, so 3 of the surrounding streets were also part of the festival area. (Check out the aerial photo…)
With backstage passes proudly hanging from our necks, we got in the VIP area, and were shown to our dressing room. Then chaos kicked in, coz we were told we're on 2nd, and the show was starting at 5.30 so we needed to get our asses onstage NOW to set up before the 1st band started. OH SHIT. Where the hell is our roadie? And our lead guitarist?! They traveled on their own, and it took them ages to get thru every festival access control in Cosquin. So we had to go and start setting up ourselves, since the backstage area is actually underneath the stage, there's miles of stairs and corridors to get up there, but somehow we managed just in time. Then we came back down again and changed clothes in ridiculous record time. Our roadie Pato and Ariel (guitarist) showed up then, so we started breathing out again …
At exactly 6.05pm we got onstage, plugged in (no such thing as a soundcheck here, it's a festival and you do what you can) and to my horror I realized I hit my guitar on the way up so it got out of tune! Tuned in with Pato's help in a second that seemed like ages, and started the 1st song praying that it'll be ok. Luckily, it was!
Hyperstatic is one of the few bands in Argentina singing 90% in English, and playing at a massive mainstream-oriented fest like Cosquin Rock, we had to prove everyone and ourselves that we could get away with it. Argentinean rock crowds aren't exactly patient or open minded, but somehow, there was no problems.(We expected to get bottled and/or heckled) But I'm happy to say the gig was awesome from the 1st song on!
About 2.500-3,000 crowd watched our gig, a lot of them came running from the back of the plaza to see us. (The fest's full attendance reached 17 thousand each night) A group of teenage grrrls screamed from the start until I paid attention and asked what is it? They wanted me to throw some guitars pics at them, so I did. Gotta be nice to the fans, he he. We ran thru' an adrenaline-driven 25 minute set, breathless but rocking out still, and we even included a cover of a classic Argentinean 80s pop band all punked-up, which got everyone singing along. (Los Abuelos de la Nada "Asi es el calor" for the Latin readers information). The comments from people and press afterwards was that we got a good kickin' loud mix, thanks to our mixer Ale Yunes, and that we were one of the most interesting and original bands of the whole festival. Get a load of that!
After the show there was a press conference in a big tent set up on the side of the stage, so we sat for half hour answering q's from press from all over the country. We also recorded a few radio and TV greetings, the "Hi I'm Karina from Hyperstatic and you're listening to…" kinda thing, which was pretty ace! Then we posed for a few photos as well.
Back in the VIP, we mingled with all the bands, there was a great vibe back there, people popping in each other's dressing rooms etc. There was a lot of CDs and press packs exchange, we got to meet all kinds of music industry people as well as getting invited over to play in other cities in Argentina. Check out our drummer Alberto posing with Sokol, singer in BA's Las Pelotas, Thursday's closing band…
I think I forgot to mention that it was a beer-sponsored festival!! So beer was free for all the bands, all throughout the night, needless to say we got merrily wasted, as you can see on our backstage pics…There was also lotsa food, pizzas, etc. This is the life, folks!
As for the shows, the one we enjoyed the most was of course El Otro Yo. We got to see their set from the pit between the stage and the crowd, no one stands in your view, and you get the most DEAFEANING VOLUME! WHAAAAAAAAT?!? I CAN"T HEAR YOU!!. El Otro Yo played mostly songs from their recent "Colmena" album, all powerpop and catchy punkrock style, and got all the kids singing along like crazy.
Attaque 77 bears a 15 year-long career on their backs, they still sound as basic punk rock á la Ramones as they did back then, but they have a massive loyal following. For their last song they invited the other bands to come up to sing their classic "Donde las aguilas se atreven", see photo…
Divididos closed the evening with a 2 hour set…oh my. It was SO loud -and a bit tedious too if you ask me- but their fans didn't give up their support for a second (I eventually went backstage again and drank more beer and mingled with rockstars a bit more, hah!). The power trio played hits from all of their albums, with their trademark Hendrix-ed guitar wall and pounding bass they ran thru classics like Ala Delta and Sabado, as well as a few Sumo tunes. (80s cult band)
The next day, Sat 8th, I went up there again, met some friends and watched a couple more shows by means of my backstage pass…gotta love it.
Worth mentioning are Babasonicos. They basically get away with any kind of song list even if it isn't festival-approved -i.e. lots of hits- and also with their particular pimp-ish retro look they should get heckled by the ever intolerant tribes in the audience, but Cosquin fest's crowd has learned to accept their quirkness and embrace their originality. They gave a helluva good show too. Talking afterwards to singer Adrian D'Argelos he revealed their new album will have a bit more dance-based tunes as well as vintage rock sounds, and confessed to be listening to a lot of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Music.
That evening's closing act was none other than Charly Garcia, the true Argentinean Hero of rock, mostly because of his endurance that anything else right now. You know how you wonder how Iggy Pop is still alive with the lifestyle he's had? Garcia is the same. But as always, he gave people a run for their money with an entertaining hits-filled show. Besides, he's the only rockstar at the fest who asked for a white limo and a red carpet leading to his dressing room! How much more deliciously decadent can you get? Catch the photo of his memorable entrance on stage on a specially requested wheelchair…
Alright everyone, hope you're having a great start of the summer if you live up there…catch ya next time.
Loveyall
KARI
|
