Heavy Metal Music in Argentina

Description

An in-depth regional discussion of heavy metal music, Heavy Metal Music in Argentina explores metal music as a catalyst for social change and site for engaging political reflection. Originally published in Spanish and sold locally in Argentina, this is the first time the work has been available in English.  

Edited by leading researchers, this collection addresses the music’s rituals, circulations, cultural products, lyrics and allows readers to rethink the place of heavy metal within Argentinean politics and economics. Exclusively written by members of the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA) in a communal approach to scholarship, the book echoes the working-class voices that marked early post-dictatorship metal music in Argentina.

This is the first collection of essays on Argentine metal music. It has opened up research channels between different universities in the country while also engaging a non-academic audience, and widening the potential market for the book.

The book makes an interdisciplinary examination of a complex and fascinating object: it allows for the examination, discussion and analysis of its nationalist postulates, relationship with the Creole culture (for example, with nineteenth-century ‘gauchesca’ literature), indigenism, and with the political processes of contemporary Argentina.

Metal Music Studies, as an academic area of inquiry, has focused mostly on the music’s cultural components in Europe and the United States. The few books that have addressed metal music as a global phenomenon, have severely neglected the inclusion of Latin American countries. Argentina, with the largest and oldest metal scene in the region, has also been neglected in the existing literature. There is a growing interest in this area, as demonstrated by the emergence of documentary film on metal music in Latin America.

The book has potential use as a resource on courses in several disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, sociology and Latin American studies.  It will also be of interest to the more general readers with an interest in the musical genre.

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA)

Foreword ix

Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

Translator’s Note xiii

Juan Manuel López Baio

Introduction: A Window into Heavy Metal Scholarship in the Global South xv

Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

1. Heavy Metal as a Subculture in Argentina: Identity and Resistance 2

Gustavo Torreiro

2. Genre Violence: Argentinean Heavy Metal in the Music Market 16

Luciano Scarrone

3. Heavenly Hosts and Other Demons: Reflections Concerning a

Difficult and Transversal Relationship in the History of Our Heavy Music 28

Gito Minore

4. Walkabout, Just Walking about for the Sake of Walking: The Journey

as an Ethos in the Poetics of Ricardo Iorio 46

Manuel Bernal and Diego Caballero

5. Passion and Ethics: A Space for Voice and Tradition in Iorio’s Lyrics 58

Juan Ignacio Pisano

6. The Reason Behind My Writing: Another Day of Being 72

Ezequiel Alasia

7. Piedra Libre: Referential Tensions in Argentinean Heavy Metal

Lyrics Since the Political Crisis of 2001/2002 84

Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

Notes on Contributors 100

Sujets

• Musique
• Musique
• Argentine
• Music
• Heavy metal
• Cultural Studies
• General
• Electronic music
• Latin America
• South America
• General officer
• Multiple signal classification
• Argentina
• América del Sur

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 28 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781789383010
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the UK in 2020 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2020 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2020 Intellect Ltd
First edition published in Spanish in 2016 by Ediciones La Parte Maldita
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy editor: MPS Technologies
Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas
Cover image: Kadriel Betsen and Daniel López Miranda – Cuneiform Creative Agency
Production manager: Laura Christopher
Typesetting: Contentra Technologies
Print ISBN 9-781-7-89382-990
ePDF ISBN 9-781-7-89383-003
ePUB ISBN 9-781-7-89383-010
Printed and bound by TJ International
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Contents
Preface to the Second Edition
Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA)
Foreword
Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
Translator’s Note
Juan Manuel López Baio
Introduction: A Window into Heavy Metal Scholarship in the Global South
Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
1. Heavy Metal as a Subculture in Argentina: Identity and Resistance
Gustavo Torreiro
2. Genre Violence: Argentinean Heavy Metal in the Music Market
Luciano Scarrone
3. Heavenly Hosts and Other Demons: Reflections Concerning a Difficult and Transversal Relationship in the History of Our Heavy Music
Gito Minore
4. Walkabout, Just Walking about for the Sake of Walking: The Journey as an Ethos in the Poetics of Ricardo Iorio
Manuel Bernal and Diego Caballero
5. Passion and Ethics: A Space for Voice and Tradition in Iorio’s Lyrics
Juan Ignacio Pisano
6. The Reason Behind My Writing: Another Day of Being
Ezequiel Alasia
7. Piedra Libre : Referential Tensions in Argentinean Heavy Metal Lyrics Since the Political Crisis of 2001/2002
Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
Notes on Contributors
Index
Preface to the Second Edition
Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA)
The Argentinean metal aficionado who replicates and repeats – as a liturgical exercise, simply because it is what is right in an act of faith – the words of the artist-creator usually earns the punishment from the literati. Atheists and believers. Well-bred governors and sorrowful servants. The consortium that comprises the national heavy metal music world – by all means debatable, but, to our understanding, real – has undertaken an inner battle (sometimes silent, sometimes ear-piercing) about what should be done with the future of our movement. Making the movement ‘ours’ was the foremost challenge of the GIIHMA. We knew that the Spanish edition of Heavy Metal Music in Argentina (2016) would bring forth debates, rifts, appropriations, and wrath. But we did not foresee that the book and the collective itself would bring together a sizable group of young men and women who, aside from expending themselves in the dynamic pogo dance, would find the energy to rethink themselves within the hungry mass of the concert space, in that dark alley that still feeds the morbid desire for isolation, in the street corner which has become such a masculine space that it has turned rotten, cowardly, and homicidal. Heavy Metal Music in Argentina was a ‘movement’ within a larger movement, made dynamic by the threat of its own disappearance (of leaders and referents experiencing decay), aching due to its rifts, its dead ones, its absences. We did not come here discreetly; we came to fulfill our destiny: to defend, question, and critique Argentinean heavy metal’s work, fundamentally the work of Ricardo Iorio, its greatest proponent. And because we are believers, we will venture to say that this book has been a triumph. And whoever reads these words will know what we are talking about.
Following the distribution of the first 500 copies in its Spanish version, the challenge is, without a doubt, much greater. It is to avoid fragmentation, to avoid separation. Argentinean heavy metal is riddled with such stories. We hope that this second edition in English will replicate, in quality and quantity, the spaces in which Argentinean heavy metal can express itself. We must also add that between the first and second edition there was a trajectory, an effort and movement already inscribed in our foundational manifesto: to federalize (ourselves). For the second year in a row we stormed the Book Fair in La Rural, participating in the Heavy Metal Book Fair at the Zona Futuro stand, an opportunity that arose thanks to the support and persistence of Gito Minore and María Inés Martínez. The book was also presented in Mü Punto de Encuentro, at the Centro Cultural de la Cooperación, at the Asamblea de Flores, in Puerto Madryn, and in Mar del Plata. Extending our reach, GIIHMA’s works made their way into the newspaper Andén, and further spread their wings through the activities set up by our workmates at the UADER (Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos) – who offered the university course ‘Rock: Between counterculture and cultural market’ (FHAyCS, Paraná Campus) – and Nelson Varas-Díaz, professor and writer at the Florida International University.
Issuing our book through publisher La Parte Maldita also helped us enormously, as far as territorial reach is concerned. Suddenly, Catamarca, Córdoba, Chubut, Neuquén, Río Negro, and other corners of our homeland were discussing Heavy Metal Music in Argentina . And among those debates, a fundamental one was born: how do we promote the emergence of new action groups that will then foster the involvement of metal aficionados as well as the adoption of metal activities among new groups, thus encouraging the latter to write amongst/in/with Argentinean heavy metal?
We would like to express our appreciation to Luciano Sáliche (Infobae), Javier Knario Compiano (Vórterix), Luis Hitoshi Díaz (Radio Led), Daniel Cafferata Soto, and Pablo Gadea (Café Metal), and so many new voices for their efforts in spreading this work and for risking so much so that GIIHMA can enjoy a few minutes on mass media.
We would like to also affirm our deepest commitment to the former students of the course we imparted at University of Buenos Aires (for the second year in a row), and to our fellow comrades of Raza Trunka who stirred up the prudish campus of Filosofía y Letras.
A toast to La Parte Maldita for seeking out the greatest heretics and placing your trust in us, in a year in which the rope has tightened around our necks, as they try to paralyze our cultural, political, and economical endeavors. Here is your homework: resist.
Foreword
Emiliano Scaricaciottoli
Reckoning
Usually, in academic slang, when we stumble onto the absence of a particular content or curricular space, we say that we have a ‘vacancy area’. To enter into a vacancy is to find the best sale. It is also to find the highest demand. It is magical proof of an empty desire. How much has there been written about Argentinean heavy metal in these 33–35 polemic years of history? I say ‘polemic’ because the origin myth, beginning in the days of Ruedas de Metal or Luchando por el Metal , has always obsessed the specialized press and those discussions that flow throughout the concert space. Whatever path we take, metal is at once a dilemma and an illness. How much has there been written then? A lot, and most of it poorly.
When Gito Minore made his imperative appeal, back in October 2013, to organize the first Heavy Metal Book Fair of Buenos Aires (Centro Cultural La Imaginería – Boedo), a space for discussion was born in which we could discuss the nature of heavy metal as a cultural phenomenon and as a physically locatable reality comprised of magazines, fanzines, performances, bands, collectives, etc. Those of us who could territorially contribute to its edification were present. The Fair was our origin myth as a group, as a writing and educational team, for several reasons. First, those of us who gravitated around GIIHMA (the acronym was yet to come to life) saw ourselves as laborers (mainly belonging to the realm of education). This class attribute becomes indispensable to understanding one particular verse: ‘por sentimiento, locura y pasión / Se nos ve de negros vestidos’ 1 (‘Aguante Bonavena’, Almafuerte, 1999). Identity superseded the triviality or the symbolic meaning of a color, an attire, a mere anthropological souvenir, instead cementing an apparatus of identification, of belonging, of a more defined power, with a significant history. We form an active part of our country’s working class, like the composers and artists that nourished our childhood.
Second, inquiring and exploring in detail the vast work of specialized metal journalism we came to the conclusion that Wikipedia can already cover, replace, indulge, and award them. With a few honorable exceptions, such as César Fuentes Rodríguez, we found nothing more than a music lover’s historicist eagerness: sheer descriptivism, empty of any worth, nothing that orality could not replace. In that space, we encountered that which the university exploits: vacancy. If there is a reading culture or an audience, its visualization must be imminent. In and around the fairs, the cinema debate clubs, the open classes, and the street corners – the highly cherished street corner: hermetic, cryptic, and epistemic – the same questions were being asked. Questions that inquired about a subject (as Gito Minore taught us) of investigation, not an object, with its uncritical and unreal quotidian distanc