7. The Bad
Back in the capital, I travel via public transport to visit Omar Chaban’s famous clubs. Cemento is gone, replaced entirely by a government building. República Cromañón however, has left a marked trace.
The massive structure sits immediately beside the rail station, so that you cannot miss it once you depart. There is still massive visible fire damage. The area has been heavily memorialised. On the side of the building, people have been painted trying to escape flames. They point fingers, and the place they point to has stencils of the faces they blame – among them the Mayor Aníbal Ibarra, and owner Omar Chaban. One giant figure has had the Callejeros logo stencilled to his chest – the band that played on the fatal night. Here too, graffiti is used to put forward opinions. Ibarra the assassin says one. Others memorialise individuals or comment on the incident. Cromañón– Never Again is scrawled over the wall. We cannot forget, nor do we want to, says one piece, below a pair of shoes with wings. Shoes have become a key symbol of this tragedy, having been scattered around the scene of the fire, left behind as people scrambled to escape. Many of these shoes have been hung up, stuck to walls and displayed.
Here too is a more official looking series of tributes, including glossy posters, murals of names, a dedicated memorial space with religious symbols and photographs of the people whose lives were lost. However, this area as a whole feels unfinished and unpolished today, blocked off from the road by temporary fencing, some of the posters crumpled and damaged, the mural of names still unfinished with outlines still waiting to be filled in.
The massive structure sits immediately beside the rail station, so that you cannot miss it once you depart. There is still massive visible fire damage. The area has been heavily memorialised. On the side of the building, people have been painted trying to escape flames. They point fingers, and the place they point to has stencils of the faces they blame – among them the Mayor Aníbal Ibarra, and owner Omar Chaban. One giant figure has had the Callejeros logo stencilled to his chest – the band that played on the fatal night. Here too, graffiti is used to put forward opinions. Ibarra the assassin says one. Others memorialise individuals or comment on the incident. Cromañón– Never Again is scrawled over the wall. We cannot forget, nor do we want to, says one piece, below a pair of shoes with wings. Shoes have become a key symbol of this tragedy, having been scattered around the scene of the fire, left behind as people scrambled to escape. Many of these shoes have been hung up, stuck to walls and displayed.
Here too is a more official looking series of tributes, including glossy posters, murals of names, a dedicated memorial space with religious symbols and photographs of the people whose lives were lost. However, this area as a whole feels unfinished and unpolished today, blocked off from the road by temporary fencing, some of the posters crumpled and damaged, the mural of names still unfinished with outlines still waiting to be filled in.
Tonight I am meeting with Carolina and Marcelo at a spooky diner called Macabras Cine Bar, a themed space built around classic horror cinema. The duo perform as the electronic post punk act El Mal. They are young and dressed in simple, stylish black clothes, every bit dark punk superstars in waiting. Their music is minimal and electronic, and owes a debt to the early goth scene of the 1980s, with influences including Joy Division and Argentine bands Euroshima and Mimilocos. The band has existed in some format for six years, but the current manifestation as a duo between Carolina and Marcelo is only two years old.
The duo very much wear their influences on their sleeve, falling with passion into the currents produced by those who came before.
“The drum machines, that kind of sound drives me crazy,” Carolina says. “Of course, when I was younger I listened to post-punk, and some deathrock too. Obscure. That's what I enjoy, when music has that intentional darkness.”
“In my case,” says Marcelo, “I like a lot of British music. English bands from the 80s, are what I like most.”
The band usually begin putting their own tracks together with Marcelo’s use of a drum machine.
“And then we mess around,” says Marcelo. “With singing and space, voices and effects.”
Their main focus is on creating music, more than live performance. Part of this is due to their current focus of putting together a new album. But this is also due to their preference for playing to audiences in a particular space. Last year they played at a place called La Asamblea, a space inhabited by squatters.
“We like the ideas going on in that place. We want to contribute to that.”Marcelo says, and turns to Carolina. “You wanted to say that the government is closing down some places.”
“Yes,” she says. “So we prefer to play in places that have some idea of resistance.”
They are speaking of course of the long, slow pressure that has been forcing shut performance venues, official and otherwise, ever since the tragedy of Cromañón. When I came in 2013 there seemed to be a broad consensus that we had hit the depths of this process, and a new creative tide was starting to be allowed to rise. But that optimism is now subsiding.
“For a moment it seemed it was over,” says Carolina. “But now, it seems-”
“It seems like this kind of persecution is starting again,” finishes Marcelo.
This return of difficult times comes, at least in the view of present company, with the continued rise of power for one of the key figures of previous hard times: Mauricio Macri. Macri was Chief of Government in Buenos Aires from 2007 to 2015, at which point he became the President of Argentina – a role he was to fulfil until the end of 2019.
(As an aside, my favourite factoid about Macri is that he dressed as Freddy Mercury at his wedding, only to accidentally swallow his fake moustache, requiring medical intervention from his Health Minister.)
The continuing pressure on the Under is attributed by some to Macri’s policies, forcing it to keep mutating and adapting to survive.
“There's always a bunch of places where you can play,” says Marcelo. “But they change. Three or four years ago there were a few venues where you could play, and now there are some houses where things are going on.”
The government alone is not to blame for the shifting musical landscape. Marcelo and Carolina also see themselves as resisting the commercialisation and cynical business orientation of music venues.
“There are more owners that are not interested in music… their interest is how many people will go to your gig rather than a real, genuine interest in culture,” says Carolina.
“In the past you could go to a place and say, 'This is my band, I'll give you my record and if you like it we'll come play here,’ ” Marcelo tells me. “They’d listen and go, 'Yeah, I like it.' And it was because they liked the band - they didn't give a fuck if you were public or not. If you were going to make a lot of money or not. Now it's more like a business. In the 80s there was a spirit. This spirit has been fading away for a long time.”
There is a modern split, he tells me, between the places with some kind of ideological dedication to music, culture, art, liberation, places like squats or places with some kind of Anarchist or Antifascist affiliation, and more commercial venues whose interest is purely financial. He names one location, La Cultura del Barrio, as an example of a venue of the first kind.
“The gap between them has gotten bigger.”
“That's why we don't like to play in these official venues,” Carolina says. “Because there is no spirit.”
I ask if this leads to less overall time spent performing.
“Yes,” Marcelo says. “It really is like that.”
“Well, we don't play at places where I feel like there's some kind of energy wasted. It’s not worth it to play in these places. So we prefer to spend our energy in something that represents a resistance to this.”
“The drum machines, that kind of sound drives me crazy,” Carolina says. “Of course, when I was younger I listened to post-punk, and some deathrock too. Obscure. That's what I enjoy, when music has that intentional darkness.”
“In my case,” says Marcelo, “I like a lot of British music. English bands from the 80s, are what I like most.”
The band usually begin putting their own tracks together with Marcelo’s use of a drum machine.
“And then we mess around,” says Marcelo. “With singing and space, voices and effects.”
Their main focus is on creating music, more than live performance. Part of this is due to their current focus of putting together a new album. But this is also due to their preference for playing to audiences in a particular space. Last year they played at a place called La Asamblea, a space inhabited by squatters.
“We like the ideas going on in that place. We want to contribute to that.”Marcelo says, and turns to Carolina. “You wanted to say that the government is closing down some places.”
“Yes,” she says. “So we prefer to play in places that have some idea of resistance.”
They are speaking of course of the long, slow pressure that has been forcing shut performance venues, official and otherwise, ever since the tragedy of Cromañón. When I came in 2013 there seemed to be a broad consensus that we had hit the depths of this process, and a new creative tide was starting to be allowed to rise. But that optimism is now subsiding.
“For a moment it seemed it was over,” says Carolina. “But now, it seems-”
“It seems like this kind of persecution is starting again,” finishes Marcelo.
This return of difficult times comes, at least in the view of present company, with the continued rise of power for one of the key figures of previous hard times: Mauricio Macri. Macri was Chief of Government in Buenos Aires from 2007 to 2015, at which point he became the President of Argentina – a role he was to fulfil until the end of 2019.
(As an aside, my favourite factoid about Macri is that he dressed as Freddy Mercury at his wedding, only to accidentally swallow his fake moustache, requiring medical intervention from his Health Minister.)
The continuing pressure on the Under is attributed by some to Macri’s policies, forcing it to keep mutating and adapting to survive.
“There's always a bunch of places where you can play,” says Marcelo. “But they change. Three or four years ago there were a few venues where you could play, and now there are some houses where things are going on.”
The government alone is not to blame for the shifting musical landscape. Marcelo and Carolina also see themselves as resisting the commercialisation and cynical business orientation of music venues.
“There are more owners that are not interested in music… their interest is how many people will go to your gig rather than a real, genuine interest in culture,” says Carolina.
“In the past you could go to a place and say, 'This is my band, I'll give you my record and if you like it we'll come play here,’ ” Marcelo tells me. “They’d listen and go, 'Yeah, I like it.' And it was because they liked the band - they didn't give a fuck if you were public or not. If you were going to make a lot of money or not. Now it's more like a business. In the 80s there was a spirit. This spirit has been fading away for a long time.”
There is a modern split, he tells me, between the places with some kind of ideological dedication to music, culture, art, liberation, places like squats or places with some kind of Anarchist or Antifascist affiliation, and more commercial venues whose interest is purely financial. He names one location, La Cultura del Barrio, as an example of a venue of the first kind.
“The gap between them has gotten bigger.”
“That's why we don't like to play in these official venues,” Carolina says. “Because there is no spirit.”
I ask if this leads to less overall time spent performing.
“Yes,” Marcelo says. “It really is like that.”
“Well, we don't play at places where I feel like there's some kind of energy wasted. It’s not worth it to play in these places. So we prefer to spend our energy in something that represents a resistance to this.”
As the night moves on, we discuss a little more about Buenos Aires’ musical history.
“In Spain, after the dictatorship of Franco, there was a movement. In Spanish it's called 'El Destape'. It means 'to uncover'. Uncover everything, show what's behind. Something to uncover comes to your mind, show your body with paint on top, unveil what is underneath… after 40 years of dictatorship they finally found freedom, so to speak, and a lot of crazy things started to happen in theatre, music, films, in art, in general. And here something like that happened… In the last years of the dictatorship, during the first years after it finished, there was something innovative and strong going on.”
The Argentine movement was not quite the same as the Spanish, perhaps in part because the Argentine Dictatorship was already severely weakened by the time it fell apart. The population was wearied by the bloody campaign of terror, and the dictatorship’s neoliberal economic reforms had been catastrophic to the economy. In a last-ditch effort to look impressive, the regime militarily took control of the Falkland islands, but was humiliatingly defeated by Britain (ironically, making Margaret Thatcher the dominant figure in a story about the downfall of Neoliberalism!) Licking their wounds, the regime finally sank into the dustbin of history in 1983.
Even during the last days of the dictatorship, this type of musical excitement was beginning to develop. Showing cajones the size of watermelons, the first Argentine punk bands were tuning their guitars as early as 1979.
“It was pretty difficult to be a punk in those days,” Marcelo tells me. “You could be arrested in the street because of your clothes. Because of your face. You got arrested for having a mohawk or something like that.”
He tells me one example of the types of stories that would float around in this period, one that perhaps contains more truth than fact.
“The drummer of a punk band, he was wearing punk clothes or had a mohawk. He finished playing the gig; he was going back home; he was stopped by the police and detained for 24 hours. And when he left, he entered another neighbourhood, and there were more police. And they stopped him again. For 24 hours. So, then he was released, and was walking again and stopped again. So there were stories like this: 'It took me four days to get home because I kept being stopped by police.' ”
“There are stories where the police entered a gig and started to beat everyone,” says Carolina.
“In the 90s, you wouldn't be stopped for being a punk, but outside Cemento they used to stop people. They would ask for your ID and if you didn't have one, they would take you to the police station.”
“They made up excuses to stop you but in fact it was because of your look. They didn't bother 'normal' people.”
“If you were a punk or had a different look. I was never taken to a police station, but I was stopped a couple of times.”
For a young punk fan at the end of the 90s, it was natural that Marcelo would come across Cemento.
“During the 90s, Cemento was a place that provided this kind of experience, where you could see different things that were going on in the city,” he tells me. “There was still a spirit of resistance that was a continuation of the 80s, when the punk scene started and the country was still under a dictatorship. Chaban wasn't a punk but he was in this scene. Usually there were bands playing, there were also theatre and performances, a lot of things.”
Carolina namedrops one group in particular, La Organización Negra. I’m sent a video of their performance, a dark and aesthetically dense avant-garde performance making use of grotesque and painful imagery. This is just one of many theatrical moments that took place at Cemento, a venue that opened with Chaban and his wife riding in like Valkyries on a chariot
“In Spain, after the dictatorship of Franco, there was a movement. In Spanish it's called 'El Destape'. It means 'to uncover'. Uncover everything, show what's behind. Something to uncover comes to your mind, show your body with paint on top, unveil what is underneath… after 40 years of dictatorship they finally found freedom, so to speak, and a lot of crazy things started to happen in theatre, music, films, in art, in general. And here something like that happened… In the last years of the dictatorship, during the first years after it finished, there was something innovative and strong going on.”
The Argentine movement was not quite the same as the Spanish, perhaps in part because the Argentine Dictatorship was already severely weakened by the time it fell apart. The population was wearied by the bloody campaign of terror, and the dictatorship’s neoliberal economic reforms had been catastrophic to the economy. In a last-ditch effort to look impressive, the regime militarily took control of the Falkland islands, but was humiliatingly defeated by Britain (ironically, making Margaret Thatcher the dominant figure in a story about the downfall of Neoliberalism!) Licking their wounds, the regime finally sank into the dustbin of history in 1983.
Even during the last days of the dictatorship, this type of musical excitement was beginning to develop. Showing cajones the size of watermelons, the first Argentine punk bands were tuning their guitars as early as 1979.
“It was pretty difficult to be a punk in those days,” Marcelo tells me. “You could be arrested in the street because of your clothes. Because of your face. You got arrested for having a mohawk or something like that.”
He tells me one example of the types of stories that would float around in this period, one that perhaps contains more truth than fact.
“The drummer of a punk band, he was wearing punk clothes or had a mohawk. He finished playing the gig; he was going back home; he was stopped by the police and detained for 24 hours. And when he left, he entered another neighbourhood, and there were more police. And they stopped him again. For 24 hours. So, then he was released, and was walking again and stopped again. So there were stories like this: 'It took me four days to get home because I kept being stopped by police.' ”
“There are stories where the police entered a gig and started to beat everyone,” says Carolina.
“In the 90s, you wouldn't be stopped for being a punk, but outside Cemento they used to stop people. They would ask for your ID and if you didn't have one, they would take you to the police station.”
“They made up excuses to stop you but in fact it was because of your look. They didn't bother 'normal' people.”
“If you were a punk or had a different look. I was never taken to a police station, but I was stopped a couple of times.”
For a young punk fan at the end of the 90s, it was natural that Marcelo would come across Cemento.
“During the 90s, Cemento was a place that provided this kind of experience, where you could see different things that were going on in the city,” he tells me. “There was still a spirit of resistance that was a continuation of the 80s, when the punk scene started and the country was still under a dictatorship. Chaban wasn't a punk but he was in this scene. Usually there were bands playing, there were also theatre and performances, a lot of things.”
Carolina namedrops one group in particular, La Organización Negra. I’m sent a video of their performance, a dark and aesthetically dense avant-garde performance making use of grotesque and painful imagery. This is just one of many theatrical moments that took place at Cemento, a venue that opened with Chaban and his wife riding in like Valkyries on a chariot
Marcelo’s first visit to Cemento occurred when he was around 15 or 16.
“I was going to a gig. I couldn’t understand what was going on in the whole place... I was just having a look. I wasn’t' there in the 80s which was the craziest time of the place, but what I can say about it is the place was aimed to counter culture.”
He recalls times spent waiting outside Cemento for a band, maybe drinking a beer, and seeing Chaban. “He was there, he always was there. But - how do you say it in English, you say 'bath robe?' Yes, Chaban was in a bath robe, dressed like that. I remember him coming to me and my friends. We were 15. I remember him saying, 'Kids, don't stay outside, in the street, come inside, because the police can come and take you.’ He was protecting us because the police used to come by, helping us to avoid the police on the streets, outside Cemento... So I remember him, the very few times I saw him, as like someone who was trying to protect.”
I talk about my trip to Cromañón. Marcelo has never been past the destroyed building, does not want to see it. República Cromañón was not just a sound upgrade on Cemento, but a new concept. While Cemento was underground and Avant Garde, República Cromañón was an explicitly mainstream venue that targeted an entirely different crowd.
“In the end of the 90s, some rock music here started to be mixed with - it sounds really strange - with a Football style hooligan thing,” Marcelo says. “For example, bands started to sing like if they were in a football stadium… These types of songs started to get mixed into the music of some bands. So there started to be a mix between football fans and rock fans.
‘Before that rock used to be very underground here, except for a few bands. And Chaban was part of this underground thing. But when this kind of football thing started, that was also big business. Rock started to be more popular. It became economically a bigger business. And Chaban took part in that. He opened a place like Cromañón that was intended to be a place for these kinds of bands. And finally the result was this; the mix of this kind of public. Maybe if you’d talk with some of them, they would say 'I'm not a football fan’ – but I mean the kind of behaviour. I'm doing like an analysis, a sociological analysis of their behaviour.
‘This disaster, Cromañón - it wasn't only the fault of the government or Chaban. It was also the public who did this. Finally, the person who set this fire was someone who attended the gig. And it wasn't an exception: they used to do these kinds of fireworks every time, because it became a characteristic that bands played with fireworks, and if you are doing that in an enclosed space, there is a big risk, and apparently - I wasn't there - but apparently Chaban said that same day on stage, 'Please don't do fireworks in here, because it is dangerous.' They did it one more time, and it was a disaster. So this is the other side of the story... The government didn't take care of us, and the organiser didn’t take care of us, but we are people, we are the public, and the public itself set the fire.
“I would be at some gigs,” Carolina says, “some friends were playing and they shared the line up with a band of this music style of Los Callejeros. We were in a very small venue. The audience set off flares like this, and we couldn't breathe. There was so much smoke, and I remember thinking, 'Are you an idiot, doing this inside here?'… They had turned that into some kind of ritual.”
“Exactly. It wasn't a gig if there was no fireworks"
The question of blame is one that has paralysed Argentina ever since the event. Chaban himself acknowledged his role in the fire, but others never did. The country was forced to grapple with the difficult reality that Chaban’s mode of business was not a radical departure from the dominant practices of bribery, corruption and haphazard regulation.
“When you talk to people, everyone blames someone else,” says Marcelo. “In reality what happened is they looked for someone to be guilty. So he (Chaban) was chosen.”
“The people claiming for justice for Los Callejeros are fans of the band” says Carolina. She is referring to the graffiti that litters the city, proclaiming ‘Justice for Callejeros’. The band were brought to court and imprisoned in October 2012, released for an appeal in August 2014, and have been awaiting the results since. “But as a singer, if I see that in my gig; that's not OK, setting off these fireworks in a closed space. It's my fault. I wouldn’t allow it.”
“As musicians, they would encourage this,” says Marcelo. “It's not that it happened once, a crazy guy came and started this fire. It was all the time, every gig, and I think they carry part of the responsibility.”
Today, Carolina and Marcelo continue to navigate the modern trends of Buenos Aires and its musical threads. The police presence that was so visible in the 90s feels like it is creeping back – personally, I am staggered by the flashing blue light that seems to flood every dark place in Buenos Aires, a presence that seemed barely noticeable when I first came to this city three years ago.
The band have also moved with the modern trends of technology. Like every other band, they promote their shows with Facebook. They feel more neutral on needing to use it than some of their contemporaries.
“Those years when we didn't have Facebook and we had to hand out the leaflets - I’ve lived these years and it was nice for some reasons and not so nice for other reasons.”
Like many other bands, El Mal continue onwards more for love than money. Their logo – an upside down crucifix – is designed to express their general sentiment of resistance. Perhaps this stubborn push forwards against the odds is part of the key to El Mal’s long career.
“We are not making a living from this, but we are working on it,” says Carolina. “I see it as almost everyone here, making music because of the passion of doing it. It's a way of resistance.”
The band have also moved with the modern trends of technology. Like every other band, they promote their shows with Facebook. They feel more neutral on needing to use it than some of their contemporaries.
“Those years when we didn't have Facebook and we had to hand out the leaflets - I’ve lived these years and it was nice for some reasons and not so nice for other reasons.”
Like many other bands, El Mal continue onwards more for love than money. Their logo – an upside down crucifix – is designed to express their general sentiment of resistance. Perhaps this stubborn push forwards against the odds is part of the key to El Mal’s long career.
“We are not making a living from this, but we are working on it,” says Carolina. “I see it as almost everyone here, making music because of the passion of doing it. It's a way of resistance.”
... |
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