Joined the video shoot with La Portuaria all day yesterday at a bar called Rodney across from the massive Chacarita cemetery. I played a bartender/owner in a strange sparkly vest. A man named Dani directed — very focused, and he kept everything more or less on schedule.
The band is easy and relaxed and when we “sang” some choruses together in synch with the playback it all felt very natural.
Adi Azicri: guitarra y coros
Colo Belmonte: batería
Diego Frenkel: guitarra y voz
Pablo Giménez: bajo
Sebastián Schachtel: teclados
Diego’s wife appeared in the afternoon with their new baby. She was in the original company of De La Guarda when that group came to NYC, which was why when I saw their show there I was targeted to be lifted up — by “the hairy butt man”, as Malu described him. She was terrified that a half-naked flying stranger would abduct her papa (she was young at the time.)
Funny, I always saw that show — Villa Villa — as a political allegory. A celebration of release, freedom, anarchy after years of dictatorship — a roar of freedom, yet still acknowledging the painful and creepy past. I might have been imagining all that, projecting my own ideas about Argentine culture and memory onto a freewheeling piece of physical theater — but maybe?
This reminds me of the human chain that brings me here. Bernardo Palumbo, an Argentine folksinger, was teaching me Spanish in the early 90s. He introduced me to the music of Susana Baca, Silvio Rodriguez and others. Amelia Lafferriere, a friend of his here in BA, had worked with Silvio, as well as with Leon Gieco, a folk rock singer here — who was also friends with Mercedes Sosa. I did one of his songs on my first tour here (and one of hers too I think) and later in NY he invited me to join him on a concert he did with Pete Seeger. (The connections are mind-boggling.)
Years ago a La Portuaria song, amongst many others, was slated to be on a Luaka Bop Latin Rock compilation that never happened, mainly for legal clearance reasons — but news of it got around, which served as another introduction. Juana Molina, who opened for me on many dates of my last U.S. tour, is friendly with many of these same people. The tango group El Arranque was introduced to me on my last our here — mainly through Glover Gil, the Austin leader of the Tosca group that my strings belong to. The chain just goes on and on. One often wonders how what seems like fate or pre-determined meetings or collaborations happen — how does one end up in Patagonia with an Argentine band? This is how it happens — a human chain.
The interviews we did between set-ups all remarked on the time years ago when Diego was visiting NY and he stopped by Luaka Bop and I suggested we catch Los Autenticos Decedantes, an Argentine band, later that night. I was going to lend them an accordion, so I was going anyway. They were playing at a Latin ballroom, so their gig didn’t show up on the usual NY rock listings.
Los Autenticos Decedantes were viewed by locals here as a kind of theatrical comedy band — which they were at the beginning. Musically, they weren’t taken seriously, though soon enough they learned to play, stay in tune and write amazingly catchy tunes in a variety of rootsy and popular genres — if you include disco anthems as roots music — and I do, since disco pop is heard in bars alongside rancheras and cumbias everywhere. The media here thought it was poignant that I would be inviting Diego to see an Argentine band that he wasn’t aware was in town. Diego admitted that seeing them outside of Argentina was like seeing them for the first time.
While they were shooting their bits of the video or setting up takes I took walks in the cemetery across the street to memorize their song lyrics. Here is the grave of Gardel, the famous tango artist who died in a plane crash. The tomb is covered in plaques commemorating his influential work and inspiring (for some) example.
This, even more than Recoleta cemetery (where Evita is buried) is a city of the dead — long avenues of “buidings” in varied architectural styles — art deco, classic Greco Roman, gothic, modern — block after block, an entire metropolis for the dead, built on a slightly reduced scale from the real city outside the high walls that surround the cemetery. A few men sweep and clean dead flowers, a few people wander aimlessly and a few bring flowers.
The citizens of the city are upstanding
Tired of living
and some will be devoured by buzzards.
