Bloco Vomit in Recife - Part 1

Sun, 9 Apr 2000 11:43:03

(Zen O'Phobia):Ok. Ian went out to find his bearings, lost his way, came back 7 hours later, but the cabs don´t do better., tHEY GOT VERY LOST, SAME DID WE. aLTHOUGH, TRAVELLING TRHOUGH rEcIFeS HARD-CORE SPACE, MEETING THE tRAMA ´(sorry, do you know that the caps locks-key is the most stupid remaining Remington manual typewriter-item ever) before getting soaked in caipirinha´s; Nao, we´re talking rubbish now. Let´s get back to the meeting at 1 p.m.; the rehearsal. That started at three, spot on Brazilian time. We´re getting there, accustomed, but still, finding our way from the back seat of a taxi is still problematic. Better take a combi and walk further, or an autobus. They know the way. Like the frogs. Hear them scream when we are hackling, and the rain just listens to ALL THE NOISE IT WOULD NORMALLY MAKE DURING THE DAY. (Caps lock again; and Mike wants someone to proofread this... but that´s what I am doing.. alright.. no? go, and get a caipirinha) Our Overdose -tour starts with overdose of rain; even the waterproofs are not resistant to the water coming from below. Don´t try to transport hide-skinned drums in a drowning combi. They cannot stand water, even when they are in beautiful- Linda- Olinda. And that is far away from Boa Viagem, or Pinha, which was a complete other world according to the cabbie that we ran into after following a abstaining bargain with picked-up Laura and Daniel, who arrived just some drinks later after the rest of us. Who swam along with some Tough Ducks in the early morning swimming pool to discover some frogs under a flower-pot.. Sorry, that is a bit off, but Claire is citing the television at 2 am... sorry..... Ok; the rehearsal went great. I mean we just disagreed about almost everything, but what can you expect with a bunch of jet-lagged, rain-pished vomităo´s. We left the retuned drums behind, got lost on a meal-mall-detour before, after frogging over the Olinda-Recife interstate, we got in through some intervening Abril Pro Rock tsjok. Tsjok? Sorry, the contraire of a guard; the one who got us on walkaround towards Recife, though we really had explained that we were heading to Olinda... according Neill our Saviour, but with so many holy figures around, he also lost his way and completely overdetermined led us nowhere. At least we lost his tracks, turned around and stopped some ignorant cabbie´s (see above). In between, we found out that Trama M-TV´s Kid Vinyl was looking for us but remained stuck in funny festival-shopping and we at the local liquid shaker store where Ian lost his first underaged fans but found an unknown fictionalist who happen to mention Bloco Vomit on page 17 of his nearly-world famous Recife chronique Balada para uma serpente (102 pages, by Paulo Costa).. so we´re getting there, soon on stage two, tomorrow, and the crowd will even more impatiently await the main act of the night. Last night an over-inflated Zeepultuchrabel lead-guitarist with support band getting the main slotattention... but at that time our overdose hit straight on so please don´t expect any clear opinion. It rained very hard above upon the tin-can ceiling of the concrete bunker that contained this night´s fun....

Jal Frezi)...a building made of the purest concrete, a smoothly sculptured aircraft hangar resembling a hi-tech crab crouching on the waterlogged Atlantic shore. On the flight over I had pictured the festival, calling to mind images of the verdant tropics. The image was of Woodstock basking in the zenith sun of Pernambuco, flower children romping amongst the exotic flora, knotting orchids into their hair. Bands who had found music as simple rhythmic drum tappers, throwing a little cunningly crafted hi-tech influence to counterpoint their essential connection to the earthy roots of their rhythms. Butterflies flitting from group to group, whispering discrete warnings of brown acid...and above all, sunshine. The elixir of the latitude, distilled into caipirinhas from grass-roofed bars...but no. No no nononoNO!! As it loomed into view, beneath the glower of streetlamps reflected off rain heavy, monoxide-laced clouds, the thunderous clangor of guitars rending the saturated air before us, Esther put all our thoughts into words....¨"This is my idea of HELL!" the more we saw...steel gates opening onto huge deserted spaces culled from gangsta movies...Bunkers that screamed ´"strangelove"...nearing the inner circle, an endless queue of the damned, stretching away into the distance, tormented by demons selling stickers and other minor tortures, for some reason going through all this to get IN...the doors manned by yellow clad sharp tailed devils. Ian threw himself into a sulphur pit of bureaucracy, and finally got us ushered past the Cerberuses at the gate into a lofty hall filled with the wandering shades of the lost.

The searing guittaral blast welling powerfully from the dark at the far end. I pictured the human weakess of BV exposed on that haughty podium, and collapsed into gibbering laughter.