2. In Between Days
Anabel Gorbatt is only 16 years old, but there is no sense of strangeness about stepping out onto the stage with her guitar. It feels natural to her. She is slender, with jet black hair and excited blue eyes. Her band, Turpentine, begins to play. Despite performing to an Argentine audience, she sings the words in English.
This performance is less than a week away from the events that have yet to change the face of Argentine music. This performance would perhaps be one of the last band debuts in Buenos Aires pushed on by the energy of possibility, the sense that what began with those first bold notes might yet inscribe themselves into the history of Argentine music. There is no such sense of possibility in Buenos Aires today, instead a grim but romantic fatalism takes hold. Music is a dead end that musicians pursue because they don’t know how not to.
I am in contact with Anabel over the Internet. Through Facebook, she tells me about the shift in the music scene from that first night onwards.
Since then it has been really difficult especially in Capital Federal to find venues suited for underground bands, she tells me. Most of the places where we could play, still nowadays, for a 50/100 people audience are illegal or poor in sound quality/amenities. And there are not many options if you can’t get to a big venue.
This performance is less than a week away from the events that have yet to change the face of Argentine music. This performance would perhaps be one of the last band debuts in Buenos Aires pushed on by the energy of possibility, the sense that what began with those first bold notes might yet inscribe themselves into the history of Argentine music. There is no such sense of possibility in Buenos Aires today, instead a grim but romantic fatalism takes hold. Music is a dead end that musicians pursue because they don’t know how not to.
I am in contact with Anabel over the Internet. Through Facebook, she tells me about the shift in the music scene from that first night onwards.
Since then it has been really difficult especially in Capital Federal to find venues suited for underground bands, she tells me. Most of the places where we could play, still nowadays, for a 50/100 people audience are illegal or poor in sound quality/amenities. And there are not many options if you can’t get to a big venue.
I first meet Anabel in 2103, while I'm pursuing a story on Discordians – a type of post-modern Chaos worshippers – and have been advised to come to a house party to meet with Discordian and psychedelic music maker Kokote Multiversal who played in band Los Síquicos Litoraleños; a surreal psychedelic outfit known colloquially as ‘El Pink Floyd de los pobres'; the poor man’s Pink Floyd. They have a reputation for strange and vivid live shows that include things like dressing as extraterrestrials or throwing tarot cards at the audience. I meet Anabel as I wander through the house trying to find Kokote amid the vast throng of people crowding into the long thin room.
During this first meeting with Anabel, she tells me of Cromañón, of the fallout, and the incestuous creativity of the modern scene. Our conversation is interrupted when attendees are ushered into a small room where a band is finishing setting up. It turns out that the ‘house party’ description is something of a misnomer; this is a concert, held, like many of the underground events today, in a private residence. As the public opportunities deteriorated, the underground retreated to the private sphere. The Under had too much grit just to roll over and die, so it mutated. When public venues shut down, houses became studios and venues. Bands and friends became production companies and labels. The grass may be dead, but the grass roots go down deeper that one could imagine.
This first band is Astrosuka. The two members feed off each other’s nearly hysterical energy; a girl I am later introduced to as Tatiana pounds on drums and sings vocals, and a guy, Serj, on electric guitar, manipulates the sound through electronic devices. Their sound is harsh, playful and catchy by turns, schizophrenically launching from one genre to another. People sit around, bobbing heads with enthusiasm.
Eventually, when they've finished their tour-de-force, people wander out and I'm able to be introduced to Kokote.
“Right now I’m writing a musical,” he tells me. We talk a little and arrange to meet later for an interview for my Chasing Eris project.
During this first meeting with Anabel, she tells me of Cromañón, of the fallout, and the incestuous creativity of the modern scene. Our conversation is interrupted when attendees are ushered into a small room where a band is finishing setting up. It turns out that the ‘house party’ description is something of a misnomer; this is a concert, held, like many of the underground events today, in a private residence. As the public opportunities deteriorated, the underground retreated to the private sphere. The Under had too much grit just to roll over and die, so it mutated. When public venues shut down, houses became studios and venues. Bands and friends became production companies and labels. The grass may be dead, but the grass roots go down deeper that one could imagine.
This first band is Astrosuka. The two members feed off each other’s nearly hysterical energy; a girl I am later introduced to as Tatiana pounds on drums and sings vocals, and a guy, Serj, on electric guitar, manipulates the sound through electronic devices. Their sound is harsh, playful and catchy by turns, schizophrenically launching from one genre to another. People sit around, bobbing heads with enthusiasm.
Eventually, when they've finished their tour-de-force, people wander out and I'm able to be introduced to Kokote.
“Right now I’m writing a musical,” he tells me. We talk a little and arrange to meet later for an interview for my Chasing Eris project.
There are two more bands to play. One consists of three solo acts performing together, in a makeshift temporary girl-group. As they begin to play in a girlish, sweet, almost indie-folk sound, someone has hooked up a projector to a laptop, and is playing pornography up against the wall. At some point, the video stops, and there is a chorus of demands for a new background video. The closest to the laptop, the duty falls on me to play a new video; awkwardly I press the first of the related videos. They are unimpressed by my selection, and soon change it. The girls finish, and are followed by a third act, El Espiritu Santo, a rollicking Eastern European infused rock band in the spirit of Gogol Bordello. They were formed as a fictional band within a play, I am told, and just enjoyed what they were doing enough to continue performing after the play was over.
Before I leave, Anabel gives me some details for another event a few nights later. I still have some time before my next interview, so I take the chance to attend. At first I think I’m in the wrong place; the heavy metal gate is locked securely shut. It's not long before I watch a series of musicians wander down the street and gain access, and I follow their lead. I am still a little shaken from my journey here, which involved taking a taxi to get away from a guy who stalked me down several blocks, so this fixation on security makes perfect sense to me.
The room is creatively furnished with paintings and a giant fish above the bar. I meet a girl there called Noelia.
“Fortunately, right now there are a couple of places that are open and it’s easier to make a deal to play here in Buenos Aires," she tells me. "There are some other places outside the city but there are many places outside where it is not that easy to play. Sometimes the talent right now is to find places where you don’t have to pay. But for now there’s some places - most of them little places - that are starting to move things. There’s lots of places every weekend. Maybe Mondays, Tuesdays, there’s parties that you can find that you can play so- it’s not that easy but it’s getting easier. All of the fans from the Under scene are trying to achieve a place and make some things easier, and right now it’s becoming a bit easier than a few years ago.”
She finds the attitude of underground bands enticing. With opportunities unlikely to present themselves, bands have to venture out into the world to create their own opportunities. The scene is always creating.
"The underground scene is moving and doing things all the time. New places, new things, new bands and trying to make something happen and become bigger. And I think that’s great: I think that’s the coolest thing. Every time you go to where there’s bands playing, there’s always someone inviting you to the next gig. Next party. So that’s very interesting. They’re working very hard.”
She also tells me about one of the bands not playing tonight, the Di Giovannis, a band who have contributed considerably to the Buenos Aires music scene and recently opened for The Cure's international tour. Later that she taps me on the shoulder and points to a very tall man in gothic attire, who’s just entered. It’s the Di Giovannis' lead singer Alexis, and his bandmate, bass player Victoria. They’re kind enough to grant me an interview, so we wander down the hall to chat.
As cliché as it may be, Alexis describes the performance as a dream and an honor. Lead singer Robert Smith personally invited the band to join them after putting the call out to the internet, asking who should join them on stage. Fans of the Di Giovannis sent through links and songs and as a result, Smith reached out to the band.
“All the people told us that was a miracle because we are a super-underground band here in Buenos Aires, and here in Argentina, if you don’t work with a production company, you don’t have a press manager and support of a company, you will never play with a band like The Cure in a huge stadium like Rio de la Plata. Because Robert invited us, it happened. It was the only way it could happen.”
The Di Giovannis gave a shout-out to the underground bands before their final song of the set. They’ve long been not only part of the underground, but major supporters, running a cassette tape only label.
“We want to help other bands,” Alexis says. “We have our own record label, in cassette format. We make the cassette by our hands and distribute it in shows in the gigs.”
As of now, they produce six bands, including themselves, Real, Mission in the Centre, Astrosuka. Another band, Mammon, will join them soon. The band chose to work with cassettes both for the love of the format and in order to offer something analogue that, unlike a CD, didn't just duplicate the sounds that could be found on Bandcamp or Soundcloud.
"I love vinyl too, but here in Argentina there’s no machines to press vinyl, so we make cassettes.”
I ask what advice the band would give to others who hope for success in the Buenos Aires Under.
“It’s very hard, because we don’t know that,” says Alexis. “We don’t succeed; we only play with The Cure. It’s hard. We think that always you have to do what you feel and what you think is correct the ethic to your art. You don’t have to corrupt yourself or your feelings. Never. This is our philosophy of work. Be for nothing.”
“And you have to make all- you have to-” Victoria begins, struggling for words.
“Do it yourself,” finished Alexis.
“Yeah, do it yourself,” finishes Victoria, “and never wait, ‘til someone to comes to offer you something; you have to do it yourself."
“All the people told us that was a miracle because we are a super-underground band here in Buenos Aires, and here in Argentina, if you don’t work with a production company, you don’t have a press manager and support of a company, you will never play with a band like The Cure in a huge stadium like Rio de la Plata. Because Robert invited us, it happened. It was the only way it could happen.”
The Di Giovannis gave a shout-out to the underground bands before their final song of the set. They’ve long been not only part of the underground, but major supporters, running a cassette tape only label.
“We want to help other bands,” Alexis says. “We have our own record label, in cassette format. We make the cassette by our hands and distribute it in shows in the gigs.”
As of now, they produce six bands, including themselves, Real, Mission in the Centre, Astrosuka. Another band, Mammon, will join them soon. The band chose to work with cassettes both for the love of the format and in order to offer something analogue that, unlike a CD, didn't just duplicate the sounds that could be found on Bandcamp or Soundcloud.
"I love vinyl too, but here in Argentina there’s no machines to press vinyl, so we make cassettes.”
I ask what advice the band would give to others who hope for success in the Buenos Aires Under.
“It’s very hard, because we don’t know that,” says Alexis. “We don’t succeed; we only play with The Cure. It’s hard. We think that always you have to do what you feel and what you think is correct the ethic to your art. You don’t have to corrupt yourself or your feelings. Never. This is our philosophy of work. Be for nothing.”
“And you have to make all- you have to-” Victoria begins, struggling for words.
“Do it yourself,” finished Alexis.
“Yeah, do it yourself,” finishes Victoria, “and never wait, ‘til someone to comes to offer you something; you have to do it yourself."
I stay for the two bands performing. There’s Ricarda Cometa, featuring Tatiana of Astrosuka again on drums, and Andromeda, a feverously energetic rock band, whose lead singer Deckie at one point runs into the mosh to thrash convulsively like a victim of possession.
It is Deckie who later lifts the cigarette from her mouth in the night and shouts to the moon, “Si nos organizamos cojemos todos!” If we get organised, everyone gets laid! But how much more organised can the bands of Buenos Aires be? Together, they operate a crude microcosm of a traditional music industry; the posters, promotions, recordings, site management, merchandise; all of it managed by the scene itself, all of it obscured by the thick fumes of the burning Cromañón.
I stay for the two bands performing. There’s Ricarda Cometa, featuring Tatiana of Astrosuka again on drums, and Andromeda, a feverously energetic rock band, whose lead singer Deckie at one point runs into the mosh to thrash convulsively like a victim of possession.
It is Deckie who later lifts the cigarette from her mouth in the night and shouts to the moon, “Si nos organizamos cojemos todos!” If we get organised, everyone gets laid! But how much more organised can the bands of Buenos Aires be? Together, they operate a crude microcosm of a traditional music industry; the posters, promotions, recordings, site management, merchandise; all of it managed by the scene itself, all of it obscured by the thick fumes of the burning Cromañón.
... |
DON'T WAITYou can read all 11 chapters online and offline by buying the physical copy of Si Nos Organizamos from Blurb.
Click the book for the physical copy. Or, get the ebook and chapter access via the CLUTTERED BUTTS Patreon - $5 will grant access to this work, as well as CHASING ERIS, UNITED WE FNORD, SPAM BOT LOVE SONG and more. |