Outsiders even in their own country, Latin underground rock artists gathered at the HotHouse over the weekend and built a few new bridges in Chicago to their musical future.
“The best place to play for me is not Mexico,” said Ely Guerra, a Mexican singer who last summer played to rave reviews and adoring fans in New York’s Central Park, and who headlined a sold-out concert Friday at HotHouse. “I feel welcome here.”
For Puerto Rican band Superaquello, last week marked their debut concerts outside their native island. “No promoters are knocking on our door back home,” said singer Eduardo Alegria. “If we play a concert or a party, we have to produce it ourselves.”
In Argentina, said singer Juana Molina, “if you sound different, you’re nothing. You can become popular only when you sound like a famous American or English rock band.”
There’s nothing like a little alienation to inspire great art. Whereas rock has been completely absorbed by the mainstream in North America and Western Europe, leaving little room for innovation or rebellion, the bands and artists loosely affiliated under the rock en espanol or Latin rock banner are often still regarded as subversive forces in their homelands. That gives their music a sense of urgency long lacking in MTV-approved Anglo rock.
Though a few Hispanic stars have filtered over into the American mainstream, they are largely crossover caricatures: Ricky Martin’s frisky playboy, Shakira’s lusty playgirl, Enrique Iglesias’ suave Latin lover. But at HotHouse, under the aegis of Columbia College and a two-month-long festival celebrating Hispanic culture, Guerra, Molina and Superaquello gave concertgoers a primer in the new possibilities offered by the Latin rock underground.
Guerra, who a few years ago found herself sharing the cover of Time magazine with other rising Latin stars, has struggled to find a niche with a style as cosmopolitan as she is: She studied at Evergreen State College in Washington and lived in London during the ’90s. She performed solo acoustic at HotHouse, and demonstrated a star power that belied her diminutive size. She framed her set with two commanding a cappella performances, her voice ranging from a lullaby whisper to a paint-blistering wail that had the audience — at least two-thirds Hispanic — cheering and exhorting her. She bridged Brazilian bossa nova with hypnotic trip-hop cadences and, in “Tiempo,” Arabic ululations. She sang of erotic longing and the prospect of motherhood with tenderness that quickly turned volatile, evoking the hair-pin dynamics of PJ Harvey.
Superaquello’s keyboardist conjured a tapestry of rhythms — techno glitches and burps, disco hi-hats and snares, chiming triangles — while Alegria and Patricia Davila developed a deceptively playful vocal dialogue about the darkest corners of their psyche. In this respect, they share more than a few sonic and lyrical similarities with Chicago’s Aluminum Group, who also performed on Thursday’s HotHouse bill.
Chicago underground acts have long championed their Latin counterparts; a few years ago, Tortoise brought Brazilian Tropicalia pioneer Tom Ze on tour with them. And the conversation between the rock undergrounds of Latin America and Chicago is only accelerating. Molina has just signed with the Billions Corporation, a Chicago booking agency with an international reach and an artist roster that includes indie-rock stalwarts Nick Cave, Calexico and the Mekons. The HotHouse shows marked her Chicago debut, and her Friday set was a ravishing example of electro-folk fusion. Her accompanist, bushy bearded Alejandro Franov, mutated notes on a synthesizer, while Molina trilled and warbled in microtonal progressions up and down the musical scale, making it difficult to tell where her voice ended and the synthesizer began. It was a mesmerizing display of minimalist virtuosity, enhanced by her serene, flaxen-haired stage presence. Even her instructions to a sound mixer offstage were whispered. Yet her background as an Argentine television comic was evident in “El Perro,” when she and Franov mimicked the sounds of yipping dogs.
It’s little wonder these artists are having trouble finding a niche for their music. Their mongrel sound has little to do with cultural stereotypes and everything to do with the idea that music can’t be confined by borders geographic, cultural or psychological. That rock is still a radical idea in Latin America — rock concerts were all but banned in Mexico until the mid-’80s — explains the potency of these bands and their ideas. And it’s why Mexico City’s Cafe Tacuba may be the world’s most vital band at the moment. Like the radical Tropicalia artists in late-’60s Brazil, who fused traditional folk music with rock, Tacuba and their spiritual contemporaries are redefining what it means to be a Latin rock artist.
“Cafe Tacuba is responsible for this dialogue that’s happening between countries,” said Carmelo Esterrich, director of cultural studies at Columbia College. “It’s a myth that Latin countries listen only to each other. Their influences are more than just Latin.”
In its infancy, rock en espanol bands imitated their Western influences. Now they’re often surpassing them as innovators and experimenters. Chicago bands such as Tortoise, the Aluminum Group and the Sea & Cake took notice years ago, and the subtle Latin influences in their music are the best evidence yet that a cross-cultural dialogue well beyond Shakira and Ricky Martin is already taking place.
As Esterrich said, “The exciting thing about an event like this is what will happen after.”
