I wish you dream with little angels

By Toto Imperatore
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Among the nights of my childhood, the ones when childhood was real were those at which mom tucked me in bed to sleep, and dad came in, kissed me on my forehead and wished me: "dream with little angels". It wasn't every night, because dad used to work until late and he often arrived home when I was already asleep. But at those "full service" nigths the whole meaning of childhood, of being a child, was to fall asleep under the protecting ceiling of my home, tucked in by mom, with my forehead anointed by dad's kiss and that omen of dreaming with the little angels slowly vanishing in my ears.

Four a.m. is an ambiguous border between today and tomorrow or maybe between yesterday and today, it is not clear. To my eyes, Buenos Aires does not look these days the same it did in my childhood. At 4 a.m. streets become sort of a huge bedroom for hundreds of homeless ("people in street situation", according to the politically correct, anesthetic euphemism). Some are jobless cardboard collectors who have just finished their work and lain down by the side of their loaded carts, waiting for sunrise to make their way back to their distant homes. But most do not have any other home than the openess of the hostile streets, which at that hour are empty. Many of them are children. Then, what this picture shows cannot be surprising, except for the fact that it happens right at the Republic Square that brackets the Obelisc, the heart of downtown Buenos Aires. These three little kids have chosen to sleep at the center of the tile yard, on a grill through which the subway's warmth breathes out.

I was lucky that the image is not neat. I was told that, if the children's faces had been recognizeable, I might have been sued and punished. That is because they are minors and, when publishing their identity, I would have violated their rights --rights the law protects. It does not look like that, does it? ... Sad nonsense! When I saw them I thought of the little angels to which my dad entrusted my dreams. Who wished these kids they dreamed with little angels a while ago, when they went to sleep? Nobody for sure. Maybe they cannot even dream with little angels, because they are little angels themselves. Sleeping is the most vulnerable situation a human being can be in. Not having a home is the most vulnerable situation a child can be in. A child sleeping in the streets is the most vulnerable of the angels.

I post this picture so that I, you, all of us, dream with little angels from now on. So that night after night the politicians, all the officials both of our Federal Government and of the Government of Buenos Aires City where scenes like this take place everyday, dream with little angels. With these little angels. With all the little angels like these who are left unprotected. Should that dream disturb us, disturb them, so that no single night we would skip dreaming with little angels.

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The Prowler of La Matanza

Commissioner Cordon and the dynamic duo, in the hunt of the Prowler of La Matanza.

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A cruel new threat is casted over the gotham city of Conceitopolis. Around its streets, some of them half-lighted (certainly not those of the fanciest districts where the public space has been privatized), some cut across by the craters of unfinished pothole repairs or blocked by road work fences with no light signs at all, the sinister shadow of a new public enemy wanders. It's the gloomy Prowler of La Matanza.

Guided by the Commissioner Burt Zak Cordon, the superheros of Good recharge their powers to fight this scourge.

It would be useful if the noble commissioner provided clues to rapidly recognize the wicked. That would let the people of Conceitopolis take precautions and, eventually, alert the forces of the Law with no delay. The commissioner has to know, for sure, some few more things about the Prowler, besides the fact that he or she comes from La Matanza: perhaps he can reveal info about the Prowler's ethnic roots, or about the pigmentation of his or her skin, the aspect of his or her dress and shoes, his or her jergon and gestures, his or her conduct.

Some decades ago, the ruling generals used to advice the population about the behavior and appearance of the arch enemies of those times. Should the commissioner attempt a description of the like, it would be helpful to better know him (not as much the Prowler of La Matanza as the Commissioner himself).

_________________________________________________________

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Now let us have a look at the facts:

The new chief of the new police of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), Eugenio Burzaco, wants his troops to be legally empowered to arrest people who "prowl" at town. He insisted that adding the legal figure of "prowling" to the Capital City's violation code would be highly convenient, and justified his initiative by saying: "It's a very useful tool because if somebody living in La Matanza is in the Capital City but cannot explain what he or she is doing there, that figure will be enough justification to arrest that person" ("La Nación", 01-23-2009).

Out of the 24 municipalities sorrounding the CABA, which together form the giant urban conglomerate know as "Greater Buenos Aires" (GBA), La Matanza is the most largely populated one. According to  the census of 2001, it had 1,255,000 inhabitants, which will certainly overpass 1.4 million the coming year, when the next census will take place. Only the CABA itself and 5 Argentine provinces else have a larger number of inhabitants (including among the five the Buenos Aires Province, to which La Matanza belongs).

Let's next visit some of the differences between La Matanza and the CABA:

1) Most of La Matanza's inhabitants are young people: in 2001, 54% of its population was under 30; the same age cluster made only 40% of total CABA's population.

2) The segment with unsatisfied basic needs reached 20% of La Matanza's and just 7.8% of the CABA's total population, always according to the 2001 census.

3) A recent study by private researchers ("La Nación", 06-18-2009) threw 36.8% poverty and 11.8% indigence indexes for GBA, which at CABA were much lower: 13.9% and 3.1% respectively. But in the farthest urban belt, in which a vast area of La Matanza falls, poverty climbed up to 49.1% and indigence up to 17.2%. Such figures difer from those reported by INDEC, the Federal Government's statitics bureau, for whom poverty was 17.8% and indigence 4.7% at GBA in 2008, 2nd Half. But even picking these benevolent official figures, the gap between GBA and CABA is still nothing but dramatic.

4) Scarcely 39% of La Matanza's homes had in-house water supply and sewerage facilities in 2001, while at the CABA almost every home, 99%, did enjoy such privileged condition.

5) Again according to the 2001 census, no more than 42% of La Matanza's inhabitantes were protected by some kind of health insurance system, while the same figure was 74% at the CABA.

It can be concluded, then, that the Chief Police Officer expects the potential agressors to be clearly differentiated from the average inhabitant of the Capital City: they will most likely be young, maybe poor, and will probably turn up in sub-optimal hygien and health conditions. A good frist step to start pointing to the prawlers and mobilizing City forces against them.

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December's chute: a memory of Cromañon

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December used to be a peak. A climb-up to the festive season. The spirit of reunion, joy, reciprocity and brotherhood transcends the specific religious meaning and calendar that gave rise to December's festivities and spreads, beyond creeds and cultures, over the Argentinean society as a whole. Children and youngsters enjoy the end of scholar duties. Many plan for vacation. Everybody takes a break in day-to-day urgencies and makes time to look at the essence, the noble part of our human condition ―which, as such, is divine.

But for the last five years December has turned into a chute. A drain that sucks down into the atrocious certainty of what happened then, and has no further remedy. Five years ago, the destiny of the kids that went to the rock concert at Cromañón, Buenos Aires, on December 30, 2004, also slid down a cruel slope. The difference is that they did not know what was coming. They thought they were raising themselves. They went to congregate at the summit, with the happiness and exciment of cellebration. They were surprised by a wicked ambush, laid by a collection of human miseries: greed, contempt for neighbour and for neighbor's life, corruption, collusion, negligency, ignorance, incompetence. To which, for the following five years, indiference, cowardice, complicity and betrayal were added.

Today, instead, those who have been hit by the tragedy (it should be all of us, shouldn't it?) do know in advance what comes across December, the fall down to the abyss, to the moment in which the memory of pain (or the pain of memory) materializes at it most heartbreaking intensity. The instant that will find, once again, relatives, survivors, friends and supporters gathered together in commemoration by Once Square's sanctuary, to pay silent but determined tribute to the victims. Justice for Cromañon is still pending.
Photo by Daniel Pessah picked from La Nación.

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Funk alchemy (11.27.2009)

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I've found a reason for the nostalgic fans of Willie Crook and the Funky Torinos to comfort themselves: there exists Reiband, who opened the Cool Funky Night on Friday 27th at Kimia, Buenos Aires. They funked wonderfully around the crispy groove of Nicolás Grillo's bass guitar and the drums of Nico Ortega, a remarkable tempo keeper who gives the exact intensity and timing to each one of his beats as well as to syncopation. In "Spirit", the starting song, Grillo shared the bright with the wind section: Kidory's trumpet and Juan Iraeta's saxo. He stood out as he transmitted the urgency of "Enjoy the funk" (and in the ending solo too), and when he sustained the groove solidly at "Waiting" (a piece with a characteristic, vibrant leit motiv). The keyboards of Mariano Gall played a prominent role in the rythm of "Like a devil", same as they did a little later, in conjunction with the trumpet, in the melody and atmospheres of "Lonely heart". The frontman Leo Ortega, singer, guitar player and author of both music and lyrics of the band's songs (most of them in English), transformed his usually quite and reflexive off-stage image and on stage he seemed to be on fire, and sang with his guts. At times, his electro-acoustic guitar and the keyboards snaked together across the rythmical pattern to paint atmospheres of sensitive beauty. Then they covered "Heroína", and it was the time to introduce the band. One by one, the players took the opportunity to show their skills. When introduced by Kidory, Leo provoked the audience ("¿are you ready for me?"), and the band exploded in the final segment of Sumo's song.

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Then it was the turn of Suprafónicos. From the very moment he jumped onto stage, the frontman and singer Felipe Herrera captured the audience with his charisma. The timbre, volume and cleanness of his voice made it neatly override  the sound of the instruments. He sings with nice musical sense, handles soul modulations well, and conveys the message in the lyrics (in Spanish) with clarity. His body dynamics, in the hyperactive and careless hip hop style, were a little constrained at Kimia's small and a bit too crowded stage. Band's line up includes keyboardist Nano Novello, bass guitar player Alan Ballan, guitar player Peter Akselrad and drummer Luis Burgio. They started with something like a hip-hop-biased Prince sound, became more latin in "Enciéndelo", turned to a white-soul-of-the-90s sound in "En el aire". Embroidered guitars with wah-wah, flangers, well assembled support vocals, keyboards that created integrating atmospheres or chopped to join the rythm base and, more than anything else, plenty of rythm: startled rythm, syncopated rythm, dancing rythm. Ingredients of an Argetinean funk that seduced the audience.

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The closing act was Pocketeers, with a selection of international  funk, disco, rock and pop songs. Armed with wireless mics, Hernán Albetoni, Carolina Rubiales and Valeria Nicali, the vocal trio of the band, stepped down from stage and wandered in front of and across the audience. This somewhat dizzy deployment did not mess the voices, which sounded full and perfectly assembled or alternated. The Poketeers covered "The power of love" (Celine Dion), "Superstition" (Wonder), "Long train Running" (Doobie Bros), "Born to be wild" (Bonfire... Stepenwolf's milestone), "Love rears its ugly head" (Living Colour), "Easy" (Faith no more) "I touch myself" plus "Like a virgin" (Steinberg-Kelly), "Hot Stuff" plus "Bad Girls" (Donna Summer), and "You shook me all night long" (AC/DC). On stage, Mauro Miguez took the center of the scene and made of the sound of his bass guitar the mainstream of the musical flood that the Pocketeers conveyed to the public. Drummer Krlos Stefanizzi was an engine who displayed techniques from different musical styles... even punky rolls and machine-guns. Pablo Valla's guitar was solvent all across the broad range of stylistic and functional resources the band's repertoir demanded from him. The keyboards provided orchestral breadth. Pocketeers finished with "Tri-funk". The closeness between audience and artists and the quality of the performers could overcome the uneasy acoustics of the place, and made it possible to complete a high impact, enjoyable show.
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Related links:
Reiband's website, myspace and facebook;
Suprafonicos's website, myspace and facebook;
Pocketeers's website, myspace and facebook.

Nunca Taxi at Libario bar (11.22.2009)

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Literally, "Nunca Taxi" means "never been a cab", a phrase often used when selling a car. At Libario bar, Buenos Aires, lining up Agustín Cosovschi, Esteban Salonia, Gustavo Váter and Sebastián Briganti, the NTs revealed that their music is making a quite interesting turn. A funky rythm base prevails now in both new creations and updated versions of earlier songs from their first EP "A las flores". Váter's bass guitar plays a protagonic role there, and Briganti displays the urgent beat of his lively bass-and-snare-drum work. A constant and grungie guitar strumming by Agustín and Esteban completes the band's original new sound. When away from the rythm base, Esteban's guitar usually undertakes the solos and Agustín's guitar the riffs and the phrases. In such environment, Agustín's leading vocals become more emphatic as he tells the lyrics' story with conviction.

Their performance at Libario, a couple of days after they qualified to the semifinals of the Estudio Urbano's "Bandas al Aire" radio contest, suggested that today two streams converge into NT's musical identity: the funky one ―that of the new songs or new versions― and the earlier EP's one ―the one they have been publicizing so far. Most visibly, NT's studio recordings reveal influences from Luis Alberto Spinetta and The Beatles. However, it would be unfair to limit parenthood just to those two names: traces of a broad range of illustrious predecessors can be found in the genetic map of these new artists. Agustín's voice modulations evoke "Flaco" Spinetta himself, Vox Dei, Arco Iris, and somehow, for sure, The Beatles. His voice and Esteban's match well in balanced vocal arrays.

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Agustín remarks: "Actually, our music has at least three major affluents. The Beatles, Spinetta, the indie rock in the styles of Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes and other post-punk influences." On the Beatles side, Agustín mentions their songs 'Pequeño Percance' (with a Magical Mistery Tour flavour, one which Esteban sang McCartney-style at Libario), 'Perro Sebastián' (festive although slightly nostalgic), and 'Perfume'. Among the Spinetta-style songs, he points out 'A las flores' (it truly sounds Spinetta-like on the EP, with Esteban playing a jazzy guitar solo, but at Libario it was one of the songs that commanded the funk revolt), 'Rito Inicial', and 'Jazmín'. And among the indie rock-post punk themes, he quotes 'Falta poco' and 'Lucy' (the rockiest one, often the main course in Nunca Taxi's shows). "Besides", he says, "there are two funkier songs that I'd rather place, however, at the roots of Soda Stereo: 'Vuelto Pájaro', because I feel it's poppier, and 'La Mesa Verde', because I composed it when I was 17, and I used to listen a lot of Soda at that age."

He recognizes mutations too. "It wasn't our purpose to make a new version of none of the songs, but at the same time we are re-creating everything. We started to play with more funk and I took advange of my new Fender Telecaster to change my sound and play always with mid gain. So now I focus on only two sounds: a distorted, mid-gain sound, and a cleaner one I use on a spot basis. In part, that's why the songs sound rockier. We looked for a brit indie rock sound, we wanted to get closer to the post-punk and new wave sound. To get that, Vater often uses the pick and I benefit from the tin-like voice of the new Telecaster".

"La mesa verde" and "Lucy" make part of the single the NTs are now recording to document the band's new aesthetics. It will soon be listened at their myspace page.
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Related links: NT at myspace, NT at facebook and a video by NT.

The Chevy Rockets at ND/Ateneo Theatre

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On October 15, 2009, the Chevy Rockets performed at ND/Ateneo Theatre of Buenos Aires. I knew beforehand that I would enjoy every single minute of the show, and actually that was the case.

I see Vasco Bariain at his summit as a singer, and he is alone right there. From the top of my mind I cannot find, among Spanish speaking rock and blues singers, another male voice that compares to his… and he benchmarks well with the best English speaking ones. His technical toolkit is always subordinated to emotional communication: the audience enjoys but does not notice his techniques, as far as they keep transported by the stream of feelings.

As an unexpected bonus among the encores, the Chevys offered Joe Cocker’s super soul version of "A Little Help from my Friends". At the counter-singing, the voices of the guest performers Rusito Diego Beiserman, with a beautiful high register, and Mariana Sosa, a mezzo-soprano with impeccable R&B resources, sounded exceptionally well.

The Chevys are at very high, world-class level. Juan Pillado demolishes the drums with no apparent effort. Together with the seamless perfection of Gabriel Gómez’s bass guitar, they build a rythm base that sounds at the same time powerful and dancing. Gómez, Vasco and Pillado are the three historical members of the band.

The Chevys have always been fantastic musicians, and those who joined along time brought in a similar, superlative level: Jorge Blanco’s virtuous guitar, Walter Galeazzi’s multi-expressive keyboards, and the somewhat jazz-contemporary biased harmonica of Leandro Rao, another skilled player at his debut with the Chevys.

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Support musicians also shined bright. Sol Pillado’s percussion and the metals of Lucía De Luca (saxo), Jesús Silva (trombone) and Miguel Sinagra (trumpet) gave density to the mosaic of sounds and orchestral breadth to the band. Actually at ND/Ateneo the Chevys brought onto stage a real show, with capital letters, similar to what we see on international bands’ DVDs.

It is true that, at some moments, I missed the road atmosphere of the old times, the beer poured on the floor, the visits to lovely underground enclaves. But, no doubt, the Chevys have kept growing, and the changes that came as a consequence of growth are okay to the extent that the essence of the ritual remains untouched. To certify this, the old and the new songs were there (among the new ones, Jorge Blanco’s sensitive piece dedicated to the people who died at Cromañon), and earlier band members were also invited onto stage: Mario "el Tano” Pugliese and his wise guitar, Blanco’s predecessor Javier Amoretti, the keyboardist Federico Sellés. The wineskin circulated around, no matter if the fancy seats of the theatre were in danger of receiving the splash. Fun and emotion as always. My heart does belong to the Chevys.

A word appart for Pulpo Negro’s high quality production. The robot-arm cammera that moved stage-wide (same as in Scorsese’s “Shine a light”) anticipated that the coming DVD will look fantastic. Really good bands preceded the Chevys: Stuka-racuda, Secuaz and Consumo. Their styles seemed a bit too diverse; maybe the selection should have pursued greater unity.

In January, 2010, the Chevys will move into studio to record their fifth CD.

Related links: Chevy Rockets' official site; Chevy Rockets' Facebook; “Buena Estrella”; “With A Little Help From My Friends”; “No pibe”; “El Ritual” (Warning: all videos posted in YouTube were shot by amateur cammera men).

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Children of Llullaillaco and Natgeo

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On August 27, 2009, the National Geographic Channel put on TV a documentary film about the inca mummies of Llullaillaco. The so-called "mummy-children", currently kept and shown at the Museum of High Mountain Archeology in Salta City, Province of Salta, Argentina, were found in said Province in 2001. Both their bodies and attire were astonishingly preserved by the frozen environment of the heights of the Llullaillaco Vulcano. In advance, Natgeo publicized the emission of that documentary intensively, and launched a contest by which the participant who provided the most creative justification to be chosen would win a visit to Salta and the museum. With the justifications of an ancient culture, the three mummified children were also chosen, centuries ago, for a sacrifice that would probably make of them the intermediaries between their people and the gods. Sacrificed for the first time in their childhood, they were sacrificed again when the Spanish conquerors subjugated their people, and the culture of which they were icons themselves was muted and replaced by that of the invaders, as much as or even more cruel as regards discretionality to dispose of human life. And they are being sacrificed once again now, taken away from their elevated resting place, subject to exhibitions and autopsies. At the time the mummies were discovered, based on the fragmented information that was available by then, I wrote a poem of which I quote a few passages below. I sent this poem to Natgeo some weeks before the emission of their documentary. Also, I circulated it through different Internet fora, including that of Natgeo itself. The full text of the poem, in Spanish, was posted  by my friend Queima on 08-28-2009 at his site "¡Es la gente, estúpido!"

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Ritual death (Mummies of Llullaillaco)
A poem by Roberto Imperatore, 2001. Extracts.
See full text in Spanish at "¡Es la gente, estúpido!"

(. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .)

"Because children speak / the tongue of the gods
'cause their souls are pure
and neither their bodies are polluted
they were made the messegers
of their people's pleas."

(. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .)
"Not even the traces / of those people remain.
Only remote sons of the sons / of the sons of their sons
who are treated like pariah."

"What happened in the end
with the dead children / of Llullaillaco:
they are barely objects, jewells for exhibition 
materials of study / for white men.
Their bodies can be handed, humiliated, 
desecrated, rented."

"If their sacrifice has always been unnecessary, / now,
with their people deleted from the face of Earth
it is twice as in vain."

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