Intimate history of Los Brujos, the Argentine band that played for Nirvana, Iggy Pop and the Beastie Boys

Los brujos, legendary band from the 90s sponsored by Gustavo Cerati and Daniel Melero who played for Nirvana, Iggy Pop and Beastie Boys.

The Wizards is one of the fundamental bands of what was called the “New Argentine Rock” that, along with others like Babasonics, Juana the Crazy, Massacre, The other me Y funny peopletransformed the Argentine music scene of the 90s. Inspired by artists with avant-garde aesthetics and defined as David Bowie either Kiss, Los Brujos stood out among their Argentine contemporaries for their great performative quality: they were skeletons, aliens, psychedelic goblins, wild shamans.

under the wing of Gustavo Cerati Y Daniel Melero, this band from Turdera, south of Greater Buenos Aires, did not take long to expand its territory and conquer, first, all of Buenos Aires and, quickly, the rest of Argentina. But the fanaticism generated by The Wizards knew no limits: They played for artists of the stature of Nirvana, Iggy-Pop Y Beastie Boys on his way through Argentina.

Nicolás Igarzábal wrote books about Cemento, Catupecu Machu and post-Cromañón Argentine indie.
Nicolás Igarzábal wrote books about Cemento, Catupecu Machu and post-Cromañón Argentine indie.

the music bomb (whose title comes from hit namesake of his second album), by the Argentine journalist Nicholas Igarzabalis built from interviews with musicians, producers, collaborators and other protagonists, as well as extensive archival work with which the author reconstructs the effervescent pivotal moment of Argentine music that was the 90s.

Though The Wizards they separated in 1998 after a ten-year career and three albums released, left an indelible mark on the musical breeding ground of the early 20th century. Without looking for it, they would lay the foundations of the new scene indie to which they themselves would return in 2014, more than 15 years after their separation, with their new album Pong!. As if by magic, the sorcerers reappeared. The trick, luckily, is still as new and unknown as it ever was.

cover of "the music bomb"by Nicolás Igarzábal, edited by Musical Gourmet.
Cover of “La bomba musical”, by Nicolás Igarzábal, edited by Musical Gourmet.

AGUILAR STUDIES (BELGRANO, 1991)

The Aguilar studios are abuzz. Los Brujos are recording their parts of the songs (first the drums, then the guitars and bass, finally the voices) and a climate of adolescent mischief reigns. They have a notebook with sixty songs written in blue fiber (cross-outs included), where they choose the freshest ones, the last ones they composed. on the other side of the glass Daniel Melero He plays it as a technical director and orders chaos as if he were a high school tutor. He asks to tune guitars, do some second takes, turn up the volume flow on certain solos. There are already eleven songs performed in front of the microphone and the musicians are disoriented, because the idea was to record only four.

—Che, what are we recording, Daniel? one asks.

I am recording an album; you don’t know.

The room was in Belgrano and owed its name to the street where it was set up (Aguilar, between Cabildo and Ciudad de la Paz). He had a 16-channel Otari recorder, a Soundtrack console, and a handful of Neumann U87 microphones, which they had bought from CBS studios when they closed (in fact, they had the “CBS Records” brand on them). The owner of the place was a jazz saxophonist named Víctor Ponieman, who played in the play Salsa Criolla, by the comedian Enrique Pinti, and the usual recording technician was Martín Menzel, from the Panda studios. Melero rented it in the summer of 1991 to make a demo of Juana La Loca and to demo his second solo album, Cámara.

The first song Los Brujos recorded when the REC was tightened was Canción del cronopio, a Cortazarian fable with a frenetic guitar riff mounted on a drum gallop reminiscent of Strobe Light, from The B-52′s. They were followed by La Tía Marcia (another fictional character) and Embolarium (which had already survived two demos). “We didn’t have the feeling of recording an album”, describes Quique Ilid (drums). “Everything was done in a very short time, they were almost all live shots, and the spirit was more similar to making another demo than to the first professional album of a band”. Pastrello (guitars) completes the picture: “We decided on the songs at the time. Not even fart we went with a rehearsed list. And that we had material for two albums”.

Melero acted as a fuse. “We had to channel all that energy that we emanated and there his presence was decisive,” continues Alaci (voice). “We couldn’t have done it alone, because on the one hand we were young and inexperienced in a studio. On the other hand, we were a chaos that had to be managed; we had the raw material and many ideas, and he contributed his own”. The former leader of Los Encargados adds: “From that spirit that they believed they were recording a demo, from a certain innocence, I was able to rescue the self-assurance as a consequence of it. The record was doomed to not interest anyone. I took the essence of them and tried to make them more like what they were. None of the ideas they had were smart, nor were they idiotic enough: just the average of all of that is what made them great.”

India and Don’t let yourself fall was another burst of powerful themes. “The lyrics were like vomited into the microphone,” says Alaci. In Wild Weekend, the song that ended up giving this handful of eleven its name, one of her idols from adolescence joined:

—I invited Gustavo to come and play as a guest, I guess you don’t mind, right? Melero warned.

Los Brujos innovated due to the strong presence of performance in their shows, inspired by Kiss and David Bowie.
Los Brujos innovated due to the strong presence of performance in their shows, inspired by Kiss and David Bowie.

The musicians didn’t know if he was serious or if it was a joke. “Cerati came over, said hello, grabbed Gabriel’s guitar and played the song like that, boom! We didn’t even tell her what tone she was in.”recalls Fabio Pastrello. “He shot two takes and what you hear on the album is what he recorded. The guy came from playing at the Vélez court a few months ago and now he was recording with an unknown group. We were his fans: we were going to see soda Stereo to La Esquina del Sol and we looked at his pedals to later buy us equal ones”.

Although he does not appear in the credits, Cerati also played in Yo caí por tu amor, a piece with the air of a generational anthem (“The new era is slowly approaching”) supported by the sound of Manchester, that pastiche of pop psychedelia that in those years emanated the Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and Inspiral Carpets, all orphaned children of The Smiths. “We were sponsored by Melero and Cerati, so we had the endorsement of two from Primera A”estimates Gabriel Guerrisi (guitars). “We knew that we had a unique chemical combination in hand, there was a feeling that it was going to be a success”.

After fifteen years of silence after their separation in 1998, Los Brujos returned to the stage in 2014.
After fifteen years of silence after their separation in 1998, Los Brujos returned to the stage in 2014.

Kanishka was central on the puck. Melero sniffed something particular and pricked up his ears: “It’s a song of stupid power and that seems to me to be essential in Los Brujos, with a very deep sense of humor, of looking like an idiot and, at the same time, representing it. It had an enigmatic handwriting.” And he closes: “Since the origins of rock and roll, when a generation expresses itself for the first time there is always a song that for the others, the old school, those who came from before, is silly. Kanishka has that kind of foundational power with a nonsense that shuts out all meaning and creates a new space.”

As well as The Twists they sang to an Egyptian queen, they spoke of a king of the Kushan dynasty (2nd century), whom they had met through a history book. The monarch exercised his power for twenty-three years in a South Asian region that currently includes parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. “Kanishka, Kanishka, you have to go to the dentist”, was the first thing they improvised when they saw his neglected teeth in the encyclopedia. The rest was a mix between biography and humorous farce. Musically, it had a much more local anchor, motivated by a theme of Virus. “The rhythm of the drums is a deformation of an arrangement of Autocontrol (Inner Hole), in which the drums are left alone in the first few phrases”, reveals Guerrisi. “One day I asked Quique to do that rhythm, and in the following rehearsal he didn’t come; then Ricky (vocals) played, and the arrangement was inadvertently deformed”. Clearly, those from City Bell were another mirror in which Los Brujos looked at themselves. In the mouth of Guerrisi: “We wanted to be the Virus of the nineties, we had played for that one”.

♦ Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1985.

♦ He is a graduate in journalism, teacher, proofreader and producer.

♦ Wrote in the Supplement Sí!, of the Clarín newspaper, Ñ magazine, Rolling Stone, La Mano, Playboy and the portal of La Viola.

♦ Edited the books Cement, the hotbed of rock, More or less well: Argentine indie in post-Cromañón rock (2018) and the e-book Nameless things miles away from today: the futuristic revolution of Catupecu Machu (2020). As a poet he published Routina caracol (2011), My anxiety is a Pekingese dog (2012) and 20 poems, 20 collectives (2014

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Intimate history of Los Brujos, the Argentine band that played for Nirvana, Iggy Pop and the Beastie Boys