Buenos Aires 2013. Leaving the show behind I walk with a loud, raucous group of musicians. They laugh, joke in rapid fire Spanish, blowing out thick mists of tobacco smoke.
A girl with her hair cut in black bob moves excitedly as she waves a cigarette. “Si nos organizamos cojemos todos,” she says rhythmically, bobbing up and down. She laughs, then pauses to explain; “If we get organised; everyone can get laid.”
I try to play it cool. “Sounds good,” I say, smiling. South America is as liberated as they say.
The musicians laugh at me. “Si nos organizamos,” she repeats, rhythmically, emphasising each word individually, and I realise she’s singing lyrics.
“Si nos organizamos,” I repeat, sheepish.
“Cojemos todos.”
“Cojemos todos,” I say, carefully. The group cheers.
Maybe getting organised has helped the underground musicians of Buenos Aires get laid, but it has barely helped them get paid. At the gig we had been at I’d met a tall, cheerful man in gothic attire. This was Alexis of the Di Giovannis, the band who had been chosen to open for The Cure at their Argentina show.
“What advice would you give somebody trying to find success in the Argentine underground music scene,” I’d asked him
“It's very hard because we don't know that,” he said. “We don't succeed, we only play with The Cure.”
There’s no intentional irony here; while in nearly any other country opening for a band as big as The Cure before returning to musical obscurity is unthinkable, in Argentina it’s expected. You could say that the scene here has a kind of curse, one that reaches back to nightclub Cromanion Republica, on New Year’s Eve 2004 when 194 people were killed in the tragic fire that changed the course of Argentina’s cultural history.
“It’s hard,” Alexis continued. “We think that always you have to do what you feel and what you think is correct ethic to your art. You don’t have to corrupt yourself and 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 come and offer you something; you have to do it yourself.
I stay for the two bands performing. There’s the drum pounding Ricarda Cometa followed by Andromeda, a nearly 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 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 real music industry; the posters, promotions, recordings, site management, merchandise; all of it managed by the scene itself, all of it obscured from the mainstream by the thick fumes of the burning Cromanion, the fog that never quite cleared.
-The book, 'Si Nos Organizamos' is being written by Brenton Clutterbuck, based in interviews in BA between 2013 and 2016.
A girl with her hair cut in black bob moves excitedly as she waves a cigarette. “Si nos organizamos cojemos todos,” she says rhythmically, bobbing up and down. She laughs, then pauses to explain; “If we get organised; everyone can get laid.”
I try to play it cool. “Sounds good,” I say, smiling. South America is as liberated as they say.
The musicians laugh at me. “Si nos organizamos,” she repeats, rhythmically, emphasising each word individually, and I realise she’s singing lyrics.
“Si nos organizamos,” I repeat, sheepish.
“Cojemos todos.”
“Cojemos todos,” I say, carefully. The group cheers.
Maybe getting organised has helped the underground musicians of Buenos Aires get laid, but it has barely helped them get paid. At the gig we had been at I’d met a tall, cheerful man in gothic attire. This was Alexis of the Di Giovannis, the band who had been chosen to open for The Cure at their Argentina show.
“What advice would you give somebody trying to find success in the Argentine underground music scene,” I’d asked him
“It's very hard because we don't know that,” he said. “We don't succeed, we only play with The Cure.”
There’s no intentional irony here; while in nearly any other country opening for a band as big as The Cure before returning to musical obscurity is unthinkable, in Argentina it’s expected. You could say that the scene here has a kind of curse, one that reaches back to nightclub Cromanion Republica, on New Year’s Eve 2004 when 194 people were killed in the tragic fire that changed the course of Argentina’s cultural history.
“It’s hard,” Alexis continued. “We think that always you have to do what you feel and what you think is correct ethic to your art. You don’t have to corrupt yourself and 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 come and offer you something; you have to do it yourself.
I stay for the two bands performing. There’s the drum pounding Ricarda Cometa followed by Andromeda, a nearly 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 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 real music industry; the posters, promotions, recordings, site management, merchandise; all of it managed by the scene itself, all of it obscured from the mainstream by the thick fumes of the burning Cromanion, the fog that never quite cleared.
-The book, 'Si Nos Organizamos' is being written by Brenton Clutterbuck, based in interviews in BA between 2013 and 2016.
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Image: Kusmo Kus of Bube Kaos Mayik Klann.
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