Heavy Metal Music in Latin America: Perspectives from the Distorted South 9781793607515, 9781793607539, 9781793607522

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Heavy Metal Music in Latin America

Heavy Metal Music in Latin America Perspectives from the Distorted South

Edited by Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Eliut Rivera-Segarra

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www​.rowman​.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2021 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Cover image created by Kadriel Betsen and Daniel López from Cuneiform Creative Agency. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020949622 ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

This book is dedicated to those who build bridges in the hopes of forging new connections and the conversations that result from them. También va dedicado a las personas desterradas, desaparecidas, y todas aquellas que han sufrido el embate del “progreso.” Que suas memórias nos inspirem.

Contents

Introduction1 Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Eliut Rivera-Segarra SECTION I: UNDERSTANDING METAL MUSIC IN LATIN AMERICA 1 Conceptualizing the Distorted South: How to Understand Metal Music and Its Scholarship in Latin America Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Eliut Rivera-Segarra SECTION II: A SOUNDTRACK FOR A VIOLENT CONTEXT 2 Decomposición Cerebral: The Salvadoran Civil War and the Birth of Salvadoran Brutal Death Metal Christian M. Pack 3 Dictatorship and Metal in Chile: A Causal Relationship? Maximiliano Sánchez Mondaca

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4 The Role of Death Metal in the Colombian Armed Conflict: The Case of the Band Masacre81 Pedro Manuel Lagos Chacón 5 Sounds of Exclusion and Seclusion: Peruvian Metal as a Model for Cultural Self-Segregation José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón

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SECTION III: DECOLONIZING LOCAL HISTORIES THROUGH MUSIC

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6 The Metal Scene in Havana, Cuba: An Assessment of Its Cultural Development from 2007 to 2017 Miriela Fernández Lozano

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7 In the Shadow of the Dictatorship: A Historical Approach to Uruguayan Heavy Metal María Ximena Rodríguez Molinari

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8 Metal and Politics in Argentina: A Study into the Audienceship Surrounding Ricardo Iorio Manuela Belén Calvo

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9 America, Avenge Yourself: The Emergence of Combative Discourse and Other Recent Directions in Contemporary Argentinian Metal (An Exploration in Three Movements) Emiliano Scaricaciottoli SECTION IV: MARGINALITY AND CULTURES OF RESISTANCE

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10 The Transfiguration of the Deity Maximón as a Practice of Resistance in Metal from San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Marcos, Guatemala219 Mario Efraín Castañeda Maldonado 11 La Periferia: Marginal Contexts for Metal Music in the State of México Alfredo Nieves Molina

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12 Differences in the Sociopolitical Perspectives of Brazilian and European Völkisch Metal Guilherme Alfradique Klausner

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SECTION V: LIBERATION THROUGH METAL MUSIC

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13 “A Scream that Makes Us Visible”: Latin American Heavy Metal Music and Liberation Psychology 287 Eliut Rivera-Segarra, Jeffrey W. Ramos, and Nelson Varas-Díaz 14 Metal Migration: The Latin American Diasporic Experience in Heavy Metal Daniel Nevárez Araújo

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Index333 About the Contributors

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Introduction Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Eliut Rivera-Segarra

Metal music scholarship continues to thrive throughout the world, as evidenced by the growing number of publications via books and journals, the increase in academic conferences devoted to the field, and the emergence of formal training certificates on the matter. In the midst of this growing field of study, and maybe because of the speed with which this is taking place, gaps have emerged. The absence of Latin American scholarship on metal music published in English is certainly one such gap. Although research on metal music published in Spanish and Portuguese is present and continues to grow exponentially throughout Latin America, these important contributions to the understanding of metal music have remained constrained to the region or accessible only to individuals elsewhere that can read and understand these languages. We understand that the time has come to address this issue directly; thus, the idea for the present book materialized. This edited collection represents the first publication, in English, to bring together multiple authors from different countries in Latin America, each one reflecting on a different subject or modality pertaining to metal music in their country. Most of the authors contained herein wrote their contributions in their native languages, that is, Spanish and Portuguese. It was only once these achieved their final form in the source language that we then proceeded to translate their works into the chapters before you. Great care and attention to detail were taken to preserve the tone and content of each. Furthermore, the chapters before you were returned to each respective author for final approval. The book addresses metal music in ten Latin American countries, and its authors come from a variety of academic fields, including sociology, ethnomusicology, psychology, translation studies, journalism, comparative literature, and history. In summary, this is an effort guided by a deep appreciation 1

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of diversity, as manifested through our languages, fields of study, geographies, and experiences. This, in a nutshell, is but a small window into the diversity that characterizes the Latin American experience. We have divided the book into five sections. The first, composed of our initial chapter, aims to help readers understand metal music, and its related scholarship, in Latin America. We provide a conceptual framework aimed at contextualizing Latin American metal music and the research surrounding it through a deep understanding of its oppressive context, local transformations, and decolonial purposes. This chapter sets the stage for each of the sections that make up the book. In the section entitled “A Soundtrack for a Violent Context,” the authors focus on describing the environments in which metal music has emerged in Latin America, helping readers understand social and historical contexts. Christian Pack discusses the role of death metal music in understanding and processing the violence experienced in El Salvador. Maximiliano Sánchez addresses the emergence of thrash metal in the shadow of the Chilean dictatorship. Pedro Manuel Lagos Chacón explains the ways in which the Colombian armed conflict has influenced metal music in that country. Finally, José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón addresses how Peruvian youth used metal to shield themselves from the violence experienced in the country during the clashes between the government and the armed forces that took place in the 1980s. This initial contextualization of the rise of metal music in the region allows us to then move into reflections more akin to what metal does for the region. Specifically, the section entitled “Decolonizing Local Histories through Music” focuses on how metal music has engaged in regional storytelling as a way to decolonize local histories. In this section, Miriela Fernández explores the role of metal as an engine of cultural development in the city of Havana, Cuba beginning in 2007. Ximena Molinari provides an archaeological approach to understanding how metal emerged in Uruguay under the influence of the dictatorship. The final two chapters directly address metal music in Argentina, the country with the most prolific metal studies output to date. Deploying methods rooted in audience and fandom studies, Manuela Calvo explores how metal fans follow and react to a figure widely considered the father of Argentinean metal, Ricardo Iorio. Finally, Emiliano Scaricaciottoli discusses novel tendencies found in contemporary Argentinean metal which, he argues, extend the scene’s engagement with social causes, including the workers’ movement, among others. The next section of the book, entitled “Marginality and Cultures of Resistance” explores how metal artists utilize culture and geography as strategies capable of subverting local mores and their understanding of the music itself. Mario Castañeda showcases the use of local folklore in metal music in

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Guatemala. Alfredo Nieves Molina explains how metal music is lived and practiced in marginalized, that is, fringe, geographies in México. Finally, Guilherme Alfradique Klausner explores the (sometimes) contradictory ways in which the image of the native is portrayed in Brazilian metal culture. The last section of the book, entitled “Liberation through Metal Music,” addresses how musicians from Latin America continue to use metal music as a way to challenge social oppression (and repression?) in its many forms. Eliut Rivera-Segarra, Jeffrey Ramos, and Nelson Varas-Díaz analyze the role of this musical genre through the lens of liberation psychology, a regional offspring of traditional psychology focused on challenging social oppression. Finally, Daniel Nevárez Araújo explores how metal artists from Latin America have used their formative regional experiences to manage their migration to other parts of the world. We hope that this book helps readers develop a better understanding of metal music in Latin America. While doing so, we hope to contribute to the burgeoning field of metal music studies by diversifying its engagement with regions that have, until now, remained mostly overlooked by the field.

Section I

UNDERSTANDING METAL MUSIC IN LATIN AMERICA

Chapter 1

Conceptualizing the Distorted South How to Understand Metal Music and Its Scholarship in Latin America Nelson Varas-Díaz, Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and Eliut Rivera-Segarra

“I can’t believe we are standing here,” she said as we both looked around in a mix of awe and nervousness. “I have been thinking the same thing all day long,” I1 replied. We were in the Southern part of Spain, in the center court of the Sohail Castle, which was built in the tenth century to protect the country’s coasts from invaders. The wind was blowing, and the coldness of the night, which I felt in my bones, ran through my Caribbean body like a curse. Cinthia was evidently more comfortable as her body was used to the cold nights of the Chilean winters. Her band, Crisálida, was the only Latin American group on the bill at the 2019 Rock the Coast festival. The wind carried the sounds from the main stage, set up outside the old structure, and you could hear the headlining bands play through the night. We stayed in that small castle where her band would play the next day, in what seemed like a preparation ritual. “Tomorrow, when we play on this stage, it will be a dream come true,” she said. I immediately imagined that the reason behind her affirmation had to do with playing in such a large festival, a dream for any metal musician. After all, her band had been intensely working for many years to reach an international audience like the one before us. Her next words, however, highlighted how wrong I was about my initial interpretation. “It’s about coming here after such a long history of oppression, and showing that we can do this. It’s about giving back something other than hate and violence. To come here and sing about our country, and being full of hope for the future.” I think I was unable to hide my surprise at her explanation. In hindsight, that short interaction with her had summarized my last ten years traveling and researching the role of metal music in addressing social oppression throughout Latin America. That 7

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is, in order to understand metal in the region, one had to get closer to three main themes: the music’s context, its transformations, and its purpose (see figure 1.1). Truthfully, she was not alone in this vision of metal music. A musical genre that emanated from the Global North (e.g., United Kingdom and United States), metal had been consumed, and later transformed, by those in the Global South into something different, yet simultaneously familiar. In order to understand metal music from a Latin American perspective, we feel there is a need for the development of an approach that factors in local experiences, ideas, and actions. Thus, it is our objective in this chapter to provide a conceptual framework that will help readers understand heavy metal music in Latin America, and the scholarly activity generated around the region as a subject. We have decided to engage in such an endeavor with the intention of contemplating and addressing three main aspects experienced through our ethnographic work in the region which, we would argue, define and serve to make of its engagement with metal a unique practice. First, heavy metal music has become part of the social fabric of Latin America. It is present in every country with varying degrees of popularity and influence. Its scenes have developed distinct and yet unified histories, which have been curated both formally and informally by fans, musicians, and researchers. Even though most milieux in Latin America still eye this musical genre with great suspicion and a deep-seated moral panic, the genre has nonetheless flourished in most of the countries that comprise the region. The genre is there, present, and continues to show constant perseverance despite the odds. Second, metal music in the region actively nourishes and pursues

Figure 1.1  Conceptual Framework Diagram for Metal Music in Latin America.

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tendencies and approaches meant to distinguish its artifacts from those produced in the United States and Europe. Although historically linked to the genre’s expressions in the Global North, the distinctiveness of metal music in the Global South is evidenced not only in its transformations and uses but also in its long-held belief in the value of these transformations and uses. These are not overnight or one-off interventions, but, as will be argued below, practices that have occurred since the genre’s arrival in the region. Finally, heavy metal scholarship in the region has grown to the extent that we can now talk about a Latin American field of metal music studies with clearly defined actors and academic interventions. These perusals have shed important light on the development of metal music, and its ongoing cultural exchanges with its contexts. Therefore, we understand it is the right time, and a necessary one at that, to propose a conceptual framework aimed at understanding metal music in Latin America. Our approach here factors in a plethora of sources, both traditional and novel; these include the music itself, lyrics, existing scholarly writing on the matter, and our own decade-long ethnographic experience in the region. In fact, it is on the latter trait that we lean on the most, primarily because, as we will show, it is these experiences lived by the actors of the region which single-handedly influence all the other sources explored and which gives Latin American metal music its distinctive character. Thus, in order to complete this objective, which we are aware is ample, we must, first and foremost, come to an understanding of Latin American metal through engaging with its own experience, listening to its own voices. In other words, we must, first and foremost, understand the context of metal music in Latin America; a context characterized by centuries of colonialism, exploitation, and the resulting violence, but also a context equally defined by the region’s ability to take these same destructive elements as prime material to forge artifacts offered at the service of emancipation, self-sufficiency, and hope. With this in mind, let us begin by defining that context in greater detail. THE CONTEXT: COLONIALITY AS FEEDBACK In order to understand metal music in the Latin American region, one must first examine the context in which the music and its presence emerged. It would be limiting to attempt to examine this musical genre without moving toward a better understanding of what was happening on the ground before it arrived, and once it remained in our midst. Although metal scenes developed throughout Latin America in varied and distinct manners, the social context leading up to the 1980s, when this musical genre would explode into our lives, shared a distinct common thread: swaths of social oppression and political instability had invariably spread throughout the territory. Many of these

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metal scenes emerged amid ongoing dictatorships, civil wars, and internal armed conflicts, all of which helped amplify the remnants of fifteenth-century colonialism. Although we will not directly address each country’s particular sociopolitical situation in this chapter, we understand that an overview of their contexts during that initial moment of contact is extremely revealing and necessary. Consequently, let us enumerate some examples of the sociopolitical events and dominants already in place as metal scenes emerged during the period in question: (1) the Argentinian dictatorship under a Military Junta from 1976 to 1983, (2) the Chilean dictatorship, which followed the overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende and lasted from 1973 to 1990, (3) the multiple military presidents that ruled Guatemala from 1978 to 1982, (4) the Brazilian Military Junta, which ruled the country from 1964 to 1985, (5) the Ecuadorian military governments in power from 1972 to 1979, (6) the military rule that dominated Honduras from 1978 to 1982, (7) the Panamanian dictatorship of Manuel Noriega from 1982 to 1988, and the (8) the Uruguayan dictatorship, which lasted from 1973 to 1985. These are just some examples; clearly, others abound. But even to the untrained eye, a pattern of violent, oppressive rule emerges. These various military governments, coups d’état, and dictatorships left thousands of deaths in their wake. Their legacy represents a stilllingering shadow of persecution, torture, and systematic disappearances. Simultaneously, other countries in the region were subsumed in internal conflicts, which included the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996); the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992) and its subsequent gang wars; and Perú (1980–present) and Colombia’s (1964–present) armed conflicts between governments, guerrilla groups, and drug cartels. It is within this destabilized context that metal music makes its initial foray into the Latin America of the 1980s. Of course, precursors of metal music, such as rock music proper, had set the table; nevertheless, the above-mentioned examples provide a general picture of what metal fans were living through at that moment in time. The instability in the political field was accompanied by the proliferation of neoliberal policies and the encroaching practices of national resource privatization. Under the Pinochet Dictatorship, Chile became the earliest laboratory of these strategies for the world to see (Tockman 2005; Mojica 2010; Barandiaran 2016). Proponents of such tactics jumped at the chance to see their vision put into action. Those who assumed power in places like Ecuador and Brazil put in place measures directed at the swift exploitation of natural resources, measures that would carry dire consequences. In sum, what Latin American metal fans were seeing and experiencing during the 1980s was the rapid mushrooming of extremely oppressive conditions in every sense of the word. While much has been written about the working-class roots of

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metal music in the UK, including the harsh conditions of that segment in its early days (Bayer 2009; Cope 2010; Harrison 2010), and some research has challenged this monolithic perspective (Varas-Díaz et al. 2015; Brown 2016; Fellezs 2016), not much has been done to highlight the connections between the plight of the Latin American metal subject and the sociopolitical situations which gave rise to Latin America’s brand of metal. The present book seeks to fill in this gap, offering not just a necessary intervention into metal music studies, but an equally important intervention into the understanding of the history of Latin America by focusing on one of the bottom-up histories that helped and continue to help define and influence its wider macro-histories. Throughout, Latin Americans have remained in tune with the oppressive patterns that dominate the region. In truth, we are aware that these patterns are a continuation of the long-standing history of oppression that began with fifteenth-century colonialism and that has found creative and damaging ways to make its way into our present. This colonial experience in the region has been characterized by the subjugation and near-erasure of local indigenous peoples, the pillaging of natural resources for the development and enrichment of the colonial metropoles, and the imposition of Western worldviews (i.e., notions on religion, morality, ethics, progress, knowledge production, justice, and social order) on local people. Although many have argued that this colonial experience ended with the establishment of independent nations, we can assert from personal experience that this is far from accurate. It is fair to say that even after this so-called “independence,” Latin American countries have continued to face and grapple with the seemingly insurmountable consequences of colonialism. The term “coloniality” has been used to describe this ever-present legacy of colonialism in Latin America, long after the fifteenth-century period of colonization in the region (Quijano 2010). Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano coined the term “coloniality” (e.g., coloniality of power) to describe a “form of domination in the world today, once colonialism as an explicit political order was destroyed” (pp. 24). It implies a structure of oppression linked to the colonial experience of the fifteenth-century, which has found ways to survive the end of that very period by perspicaciously exploiting newer avenues and sources of power and wealth. The mechanism used to foster and justify oppressive practices (e.g., racism, xenophobia, sexism, exploitation of local resources, devaluation of local knowledge) may have been created, implemented, and/or exploited during the colonization process, but they continued to morph well after that era, as they were entrenched in the project of modernity in Europe. Following a similar argument, Walter Mignolo (2010) has posited that “there is no modernity without coloniality and that coloniality is constitutive, and not derivative, of modernity” (ix). The Western modern project was, and continues to be, anchored in the exploitation and devaluation

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(geographical, physical, psychological, and symbolic) of colonial subjects and settings (Mignolo 2011). If metal music in the Global North is seen as a reaction to the dead-end dreams of the modern project (Wallach, Berger and Greene 2012), then metal in the Global South expands this initial reaction to, in great measure, account for the colonial project which facilitated that modernity, and the consequences of that failed modern agenda of progress. Metal musicians throughout Latin America have shown a keen awareness of coloniality and its presence (Varas-Díaz and Morales 2018; Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra and Nevárez 2019). Consequently, many musicians are conscious of the context in which they make music, and how it becomes a reflection of said context. For example, one musician in Perú spoke about this never-ending colonial legacy in the region by focusing on his country. He linked fifteenth-century colonialism to the modern day exploitation of natural resources and indigenous communities. During an interview, he stated: It is a reflection that we are, from our very origins, a very divided country. Very divided. The scars from the colonial conquest have not healed. I think we are a very classist society. Very discriminatory. Racism exists everywhere, but in such a fragmented country like Perú, I think we experience institutionalized discrimination. That discrimination goes hand in hand with aggression and extermination, as it has happened throughout the history of humanity. Therefore, Perú has not been the exception. The most excluded peoples are the indigenous groups. The people that pay the consequences of illegal mining exploitation are indigenous groups. The people that pay the consequences of indiscriminate deforestation, or of oil spills in the Amazons, are indigenous groups. Not us who live in Lima. It’s very easy for us to feel in a different dimension to all of that. And feeling that way . . . the emergence of the indigenous reminds you of your origins, and generates a lot of anger. A need to exterminate, exclude, and discriminate.

This ability to understand one’s context by linking fifteenth-century colonialism to current day sociopolitical problems found an echo in another musician in the Caribbean region. He stated the following about his music and its reflection of Puerto Rico’s history: We took the song “The Day the Gods Died” and related it to the reality of Puerto Rico today (. . .). The song can be a perfect symbol of how, after centuries of being under a colonizing empire, the superiority of the invader has been accepted as normal. The moment of truth arrives, and the people have to fight for their rights, which, in the song, are their lives and their lands. Today, we demand that the Junta (an unelected US-imposed government body) reports its work, addresses poverty, and audits the debt of the people of Puerto Rico. All

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this is demanded through marches and protests, which are comparable to the uprising of the natives after the death of Salcedo (Spanish Conquistador). It is finally seeing the truth. Those who arrived from the sea also die. They are men! It is the same thing when we realized that the Junta did not come to help, but to protect the interests of the rich and the empire. There is revolution in both examples, as people ultimately open their eyes

The emergence of the indigenous and the need for revolt bring to mind Ngūgī Wa Thiong’o’s notion of the need to “decolonize the mind,” an idea which he developed primarily thinking about Africa, but which certainly applies to the Global South more broadly, and Latin America in this case2 (Wa Thiong’o 1986). There is a need and a desire to move past those models imposed by outsiders on the people of the region. After five centuries of imposed rule (both ideologically and economically), much of the Global South has reached a bubbling point. As expressed in the above examples, the experience of colonialism has nurtured a contradictory offspring; one which has matured and now finds the need to commit what Boaventura de Sousa calls an epistemicide. One way to achieve the destruction of the frames of thought imposed for so long is through the act of cultural cannibalism. As we will see in the next segment, the epistemicide produces new frames, sounds, and ways of being. And these, in turn, once created, aid their producers and those who come into contact with their artifacts to move in the direction of decolonizing their minds and all that follows from such an achievement. THE TRANSFORMATION: “IT SOUNDS LIKE IT CAME THROUGH A LATIN AMERICAN BEING” Acrania arrived at the rehearsal studio where we would film one of the sequences of our documentary film Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America (Varas-Díaz et al. 2018). The amount of instruments they brought was unusual for a small metal band. However, to be honest, Acrania is no ordinary metal band. The band has a penchant for mixing traditional death metal with Latin sounds, particularly via their integration of congas and trumpets to their distinctive sound. As they ran through their first song, the lead singer would seamlessly alternate between playing the guitar and the trumpet. These transitions happened effortlessly, or at least he made it look that way. “How did you come to the conclusion that this was your sound?” I would ask one of the band’s musicians during a break from rehearsal. His answer was unhesitant, like the one given by someone who had thought about this a million times. “I certainly don’t want to do things like a European or

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a gringo. I was born here, and this is my land. This is my way of making music.” In light of this answer, one which we have heard on many occasions throughout Latin America, it is no surprise that the second important theme needed toward an understanding of metal music in the region is that of transformation. By this, we mean the process through which local metal musicians adapt this musical genre—lyrically, sonically, and visually—to reflect the particularities of the context previously described. Of course, this process is not immediate, and metal music in Latin America for a period of time was content with replicating the sounds and lyrical themes it inherited from the Global North. Still, it should be noted that, in hindsight, this transformation process was swift throughout many countries in the region. Contrary to the prevailing belief, metal music did not undergo a delayed arrival to Latin America. Emanating from the UK, metal did not filter through the North American (particularly the United States) metal markets before finding ground in the South. In fact, one way to understand how fast metal music reached Latin America and was reshaped in the region is to examine how important releases in these countries coincided with some of the biggest albums from the Global North, releases which are today considered hallmarks of metal production worldwide (see table 1.1). For example, the same year Black Sabbath (UK) released the album Heaven and Hell (1980), México’s Fongus was already exploring rock and metal-related sounds. While a seminal band like Iron Maiden (UK) was releasing its first album entitled Killers (1981), Riff was putting out Ruedas de Metal in Argentina. Metallica, arguably the most well-known metal band in the world, released the album Kill em’ All in 1983. That same year, Venezuelan band Arkangel released Represión Latinoamericana, an album directly addressing the country’s oppressive conditions. This trend continued into the 1990s. While the Global North enjoyed the release of Metallica’s Black Album in 1991, Latin Americans saw the release of Ácido Argentino by the Argentinian band Hermética. This particular example is of the utmost importance. Comparatively speaking, the lyrical content in the releases by Metallica and Hermética represent polar opposites and serve as a litmus test on the priorities and interests of each realm at the time. While the former sang about general discontents with life,3 the latter were deeply embedded in the Argentinian context, something which allowed them to unblinkingly offer a critical reflection on colonialism’s lasting legacy. This and other representative releases of the era lead us to one important observation: Latin America was not consuming metal passively; rather, it was interested in forging its own path through the musical genre, this at the same time that towering bands of the Global North were beginning to navigate the same sounds. Thus, it must be argued that Latin American metal was well ahead

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Table 1.1  Comparison of Important Metal Releases in Latin America and the United States/United Kingdom per Year Year of Release 1980 1981 1983 1983 1984 1985

1986 1987

1991

United States/United Kingdom

Latin America

Black Sabbath—Heaven and Hell Fongus—Guadalajara Rock (México) Ozzy—The Blizzard of Ozz Iron Maiden—Killers Riff—Ruedas de Metal (Argentina) Slayer—Show No Mercy V8—Luchando por el Metal (Argentina) Metallica—Kill em’ All Arkangel—Represión Latinoamericana (Venezuela) Mercyful Fate—Don’t Break the Gillman—Levántate y Pelea Oath (Venezuela) Gillman—El Guerrero (Venezuela) Exodus—Bonded by Blood Luzbel—Metal Caído del Cielo Megadeth—Killing is my (México) Business . . . And Business is Ramses—Apocalipsis (México) Good Queensrÿche—Rage for Order Sepultura—Morbid Visions (Brazil) Luzbel—Pasaporte al Infierno (México) Sarcófago—I.N.R.I. (Brazil) Death—Scream Bloody Gore Alvacast—Al Borde del Abismo Testament—The Legacy (Uruguay) Anthrax—Among the Living Kraken—Kraken (Colombia) Metallica—Black Album Hermética—Ácido Argentino (Argentina)

of the curve as far as social engagement was concerned. From its inception, metal in the region had undertaken a rapid process of transformation, in terms of both its lyrics and its reflection of its participants’ respective contexts. The transformation of this musical genre to fit the contextual cues of the region would not be limited to lyrical content. When it came to the sound per se, Latin American musicians were not shy to modify and experiment with the elements. As a result, metal in the region would adopt instruments like the Afro-Caribbean batá as well as the Andean zampoñas and charango, to name a few. Metal in the region proactively absorbs regional instruments, sounds, and dynamics. This tendency comes from the exposure to a wide array of musical influences, as expressed by a Mexican metal musician during one of our interviews in that country. As he mentioned, their musical influences came from their context, which included other musical genres intrinsically tied to the region: I am a salsa fan. Latin jazz in general. Work by Michel Camilo, La Fania All Stars, and Rubén Blades. I grew up listening to all of that. I did not grow up

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listening to the things that somebody in Sweden or Norway would have listened to. So why would I play things that are not an integral part of me?

These insights into the use of local influences are important, as they shed light not just into the complex process of transforming metal’s sound, but also into the identity formation of many metal musicians originating from the region. It is not just about a sound, but rather about a socio-historical reflection of the context in which Latin American metal artists are embedded. This idea was reflected in my interactions with the Cuban band Tendencia, who incorporate Afro-Caribbean rhythms and Cuban song structures into their music. One of the band’s members described how they engaged in this transformation of metal’s sound as a form of social resistance. As he observantly stated: We make “Mestizo Metal.” We have fought a lot for Cuban culture, for our ancestors; the history of Cuban culture. We include instruments from African percussion. We have passages from Spanish music. That is where we all come from . . . Spain, Africa, Cuba. We mix it with metal, without diminishing the heaviness. We make a hybrid, a mixture. It turns out like a stew where we mix everything. But that “ajiaco” is mostly metal. Then we mix in all other elements of Cuban music, African music. (. . .) The evolution has been incredible.

This transformation of metal music’s sound, however, comes at a cost. As one participant stated during my fieldwork in Cuba, Tendencia met with “some resistance at the beginning.” This happened primarily among other musicians, since “fans accepted them naturally” from the beginning. The interviewee would go on to commend the band, explaining that “they achieved that rare balance, which is to integrate and not juxtapose.” This idea of integrating and not simply juxtaposing metal music with local influences is important. It is a reflection that this transformative process is well thought out, planned, and has a particular purpose. This integrative purpose was echoed in an interview I carried out in the Andean region with a metal musician from Perú. Here the transformation of both lyrics and sounds, to achieve an in-depth reflection about the region’s plights, became clearer. He stated: As far as our musical aspirations are concerned, we strive to showcase the presence of Andean elements. But in terms of our lyrics, we propose a questioning and a reflection of what it means to carry out that musical fusion. The lyrics account for what it means to become one with our roots. (. . .) I think that the possibility of expressing a critical perspective in a fusion with Peruvian music makes me gravitate more towards Andean music. It has a melancholic tone.

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We could even call it a scream. It’s a call for help. It calls for attention. That is characteristic of this zone, in our country that has been so hardly hit.

It is also important to note that metal’s transformation has not been limited to its lyrical content and sounds. In fact, the transformation extends to its visual dimensions. The artwork accompanying albums, on-stage attires, and video productions in the region have addressed the inclusion of local imagery and histories. Albums like Testimonios by Kranium (1999) (Perú), Plegaria al Sur by Werken (2010) (Argentina), Torture by Warpath (1989) (Chile), Sangresur by Tren Loco (2006) (Argentina), Pururauca by Chaska (2009) (Perú), and Venancio by Dantesco (2015) (Puerto Rico), just to name a few, have incorporated artwork representative of local issues (e.g., folk legends, indigenous themes, local massacres, dictatorships) as a way to become reflexive of their context. Far from the fantasy-laden or abstract artwork of much metal music, this one is specific and regionalized. As one local artist who does work for Latin American bands explained: The visual is also an important part of musical expression. It seeks to transmit a message or emotion in the most honest and real way possible. That said, for the creators of metal music in Latin America, the inclusion of the cultural element in both the music and the images that accompany it is extremely important. It is very easy for some to emulate and assimilate the culture and experience of our musical influences in other countries. I just can’t do that in my work. If we do so, where is our identity? How do we address our experiences if we give up our own identities in the process?

Finally, it should be stated that metal’s transformation in Latin America remains an ongoing process. Interviews with young musicians in the region reflect that this is an active endeavor. They continue to stress the importance of merging metal music with their context as a strategy of social engagement. With regards to this, a young Mexican musician stated the following: Metal is a genre that comes from elsewhere. It wasn’t born here. When you see it that way, there are many bands that find it viable to have a gringo sound or have a European sound. I think, first, we need to appropriate our musical resources . . . and that applies to dimensions beyond music. For example, in México our resources are not even ours. They are sold to gringo and Canadian companies. It’s the same thing with music. We have not fully gone through the process of appropriating our music . . . or whatever we want! Like metal. Metal wasn’t born here, but I like it, I want to play it, and now I’m going to appropriate it and process it. Make a type of metal that sounds like it came through a Latin American being.

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The attitude captured in the preceding passage aligns with what has come to be known as the notion of “translation as a form of ‘cannibalism’” (Gentzler 1993, 192), a concept widely deployed in the field of Postcolonial Translation. More to the point, we are thinking of the brothers Haroldo and Augusto de Campos, Brazilian poets and translators who, taking inspiration from Oswald de Andrade’s Cannibal Manifesto, would develop a style of translation that would forgo any deference to the “original,” instead looking to produce a translation that would be understandable to the target language. As Gentzler notes, “The de Campos brothers refuse any sort of preordained original, but instead view translation as a form of transgression” (192). In essence, when transforming metal music, many of the bands in the region practice a type of cannibalistic translation, as they actively look to develop sounds and content that addresses their context and those living in that context. In doing so, they are engaging, whether knowingly or unknowingly, in decolonial practices. Therefore, the methodology belies a larger purpose. It is that purpose which we will explore in the next segment. THE PURPOSE: EXTREME DECOLONIAL DIALOGUES The building was one of the oldest in the sector and stood two blocks away from the Argentinian Congress. The structure represented a source of discontent for many Argentinians. You could hear the cars driving by and police presence was constant, the latter evidence of policies instituted in an effort to avoid the accumulation of homeless people in the surrounding areas. I was in a small room, setting up my camera and lighting equipment as Gustavo Zavala, the legendary bass player for the local band Tren Loco, walked in. He was someone who radiated humbleness and exhibited a keen awareness of the political dimensions of his music. After several hours of conversation, I entrusted him with my last question: “What do you want people to take away from your music?” He looked at the ground for a second as if to reflect deeply on this issue. He raised his gaze and stated solemnly, “for us it’s not entertainment. It is a way of feeling and thinking.” It was immediately evident that metal music had a very particular purpose for Zavala, particularly as it pertained to his lifelong context. As we have described before, metal music in Latin America has been largely influenced by its oppressive colonial context. It has also transformed itself into a tool capable of reflecting on that context through its lyrics, sounds, and imagery. This leaves us with more questions than answers about metal in the region. A few come to mind: Why does it engage in such a contextually reflexive strategy? Why does it choose to transform itself in the process? We understand that the best way to address both questions, as Zavala had already

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hinted at, is by reflecting on the purpose behind much of the metal music originating in Latin America. Over time, metal music in the region has shifted its main purpose toward the engagement with a colonial reality through the development of a decolonial strategy.4 While other topics and strategies are present in the region, the decolonial angle proves a dominant one. Coloniality has marked the Latin American Experience and, thus, the metal music developed in the region. This experience of past and ongoing oppression and the pervasive devaluing of the local have not gone unchallenged. Communities, activists, armed movements (e.g., Zapatistas), and scholars have adopted critical stances and direct action methodologies to address its consequences in the region. For authors engaged in decolonial struggles, this entails “both the analytic task of unveiling the logic of coloniality and the prospective task of contributing to build a world in which many worlds will coexist” (Mignolo 2011, 54). Becoming decolonial requires awareness of the historical force of colonialism, its ongoing effects through coloniality, and the engagement of individuals and communities in critical and concrete acts that challenge it. Metal music, although largely ignored in decolonial literature, has been one of the forces challenging coloniality by allowing oppressed individuals in Latin America to “represent the world as their own and in their own terms” (de Sousa Santos 2018, 01). Elsewhere, I have argued that metal engages in a critical position toward coloniality through what I have termed extreme decolonial dialogues. These are “invitations, ones particularly interested in promoting transformation, made through metal music to engage in critical reflections about oppressive practices faced by Latin American communities in light of coloniality” (Varas-Díaz 2021). In labeling these experiences dialogues, I have tried calling attention to the fact that they reflect an interaction between those who are informed about coloniality and those who are yet to, or sometimes refuse to, comprehend it. This dialogue is an exchange of information between equals, and not one defined by a didactic top-down approach, where one party alleges to possess unequivocally correct information at all times. It closely resembles Freirian education models that challenge traditional education practices (Freire 2000) and aims to foster critical thinking skills. The nature of these dialogues, however, is, to a large extent, decolonial. That is to say, “metal bands engage in dialogues that are concerned with the historical process of oppression faced by the region, stemming from fifteenth-century colonialism and its lingering effects into the present day.” By necessity, these dialogues are extreme primarily because they are “perceived as extreme by those unfamiliar to metal aesthetics and sounds.” But these dialogues are also extreme because they address issues related to “death, violence, and oppression” which tend to “worry unfamiliar listeners in the region; this includes politicians and the media.” They address issues of extremity (e.g.,

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violence, murder, political repression) that some people in the region would rather soon forget. Consequently, we see extreme decolonial dialogues as a strategy, among many others used in the arts (and even within metal itself), that contributes to the development of what Boaventura de Sousa has termed epistemologies of the south, that is “knowledges anchored in experiences of resistance” (de Sousa Santos 2018, 01) that can contribute to making visible otherwise hidden oppressive practices related to the colonial experience. Thus, extreme decolonial dialogues have become an important driving principle behind many metal musicians in the Latin American region. These dialogues have yielded into existence artifacts which Varas-Díaz has called “decolonial metal,” and whose main characteristics echo much of what we have outlined in this chapter up to this point (Varas-Díaz and Morales 2018; VarasDíaz, Rivera-Segarra and Nevárez 2019; Varas-Díaz 2021). These include, but are not limited to the following: (1) metal’s concern with a historicallyanchored reflection on oppression; (2) the regionalization of its content, sounds, and imagery; (3) its use as an intervention strategy in many of the countries represented in this book; (4) its recognition of influences from other Latin American music; (5) its emphasis on strategically communal and celebratory practices; (6) its aspirations to local engagement, interpretations, and applications; and lastly (7) its constant tension with other sectors of the metal scene, including the Global North. Although some of these characteristics surpass the objective of this chapter (see Varas-Díaz 2021 for a full description of each), some of them should be readily apparent by now to the reader. The explicit purpose of extreme decolonial dialogues as specifically found in decolonial metal music has revealed itself throughout our academic work in the region. We have published about its manifestations in decolonial metal music when tackling issues such as political oppression, environmental extractivism, religious discrimination/subjugation, the extermination of local cultures, the inclusion/exclusion of local languages, the eradication of indigenous populations, and in the many reflections about the region’s colonial past (Varas-Díaz, Mendoza et al. 2016a; Varas-Díaz and Morales 2018; Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra and Nevárez 2019). Nonetheless, decolonial metal is not content with just raising awareness about a problem. It also looks for ways in which the problem, in this case coloniality, can be addressed in a concrete manner. It is our contention that decolonial metal, precisely through these extreme decolonial dialogues, actively challenges coloniality. This argument is nicely captured in the words of one of the Argentinian musicians I interviewed: The upper class . . . conservatives . . . want to keep their privileges while the working class fights for its life. We feel the need for aguante, that need to endure in the face of those permanent disasters, which manifested during the

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twentieth century in the form of coups. Many of them fostered by the CIA and those systems that want to interfere with other countries. Rock is a refuge. And I think music, and metal in particular, has a lot of strength and helps you overcome those moments.

Decolonial metal is not only about helping an individual navigate oppression. It is much more than a mere monadic practice. The fact that decolonial metal’s preferred mode of engagement is dialogical reveals the fact that, at its core, it harbors a communal endeavor; there must always be more than one. That endeavor aims at helping others become visible in a world that has rendered “the different,” and particularly “the local,” worthless in the eyes of a neoliberal structure intent on commodifying and monetizing any and all bodies and identities within its reach. Therefore, the communal process of “becoming visible” transforms into a deeply important tactic within Latin American decolonial metal’s strategy. Decolonial metal builds community, and that fact is not lost or taken for granted by one particular musician, who explained it in the following manner: If there is something to be said about Argentinian metal, and I would dare say Latin American metal, it is that it gave a voice to those of us who lived on the borders. When I speak of borders, I mean socio-economical borders. I mean the borders of normalcy. I believe we found a voice and a place to show ourselves and be seen. (. . .) From there, however we can, we can start having a dialogue about things that are not being seen. These include political systems, poverty, discrimination, bodies that normalcy expelled, different sexualities. I talk about all those things that even today very few people want to see, because they make the equation more complex. They diversify the ways of being-in-the-world, within systems and institutions that make us think that there’s only one way of being-in-the-world. That is the center. Those of us who live on the border of that center, sometimes as an obligation, sometimes as an option, see in heavy metal a scream to make us visible. (. . .) What is metal if not that scream which makes visible all the people that will be struck down in Latin American during the coming years? What is metal, if it’s not that? If it’s not that . . . then it’s nothing.

This decolonial purpose found in much of the metal music in the region has extended beyond the stage and manifested itself in everyday practices. For example, metal fans and musicians in Guatemala have become involved in voluntary work with Mayan schools located in rural areas; Colombian metal musicians have been recognized by government officials for working on the preservation of historical memory during and about armed conflicts; they have become engaged in anti-mining activities in Ecuador; and some have even joined political parties in Venezuela. These are just some examples of

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how decolonial metal’s purpose is experienced on the ground, in everyday life, in Latin America. BOUND BY BOUNDLESSNESS: THE LATIN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF METAL Having set the stage, we now feel compelled to return to a familiar voice— one of the many memorable ones that got us to this point. A day after sharing her lifelong dream with me, Cinthia made that dream a reality by taking the stage at Rock the Coast. Not only was she flanked by her bandmates, but her characteristic humility imbued the air with an indescribable aura. The crowd slowly trickled in and stood in front of the stage in anticipation. Her clothes made her stand out among everyone there. Along with the traditional black clothes one comes to expect in metal music, she had added some unexpected colorful flourishes to her stage outfit. Jumping out of the dark, indigenous decorations and accessories invited the eye. These artifacts came from the northern part of Chile, where her family still resides. Suddenly, her voice blasted through the sound system: “We come from Chile! A place where much suffering has happened, and yet we still stand.” Her words blended seamlessly with the opening notes of the band’s first song, Cabo de Hornos. Sung in Spanish, the lyrics narrate a journey that takes the listener through the treacherous waters of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, one of the most difficult areas to traverse in the region. The song serves as a metaphor of the difficulties faced by the Chilean people dating back to colonial times. In that singular moment, Cinthia had succeeded in bringing the audience into an extreme decolonial dialogue, one presided over by her. The dialogue brought to bear the differences of our contexts, but it also sought to reveal the ways in which those differences (both visual and lyrical) could be transformed through metal music, lending new possibilities not just to their personal endeavors as musicians, but to the metal community at large. So long as the audience left the concert knowing that something had happened, and was still happening, in Chile, Cinthia and her bandmates had achieved the purpose of their extreme decolonial dialogue. We have argued throughout this chapter that in order to understand metal music in Latin America, and how it contrasts from the music made in the Global North, we need to interpret it through the axes of context, transformation, and purpose. These three principles evidence metal music’s connectedness to and understanding of its geographical, historical, social, and political moorings. That being said, metal’s comprehension of these subjects does not happen in a vacuum. It is not solely through metal music that musicians and fans come to understand their positionality in the world, become critical of

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their surroundings, and act upon these. We are all embedded in a larger experience that informs the way we think and engage in metal music (see Nevárez Araújo’s chapter in this book). Therefore, we posit that these three themes of analysis need to be rooted in a larger Latin America experience in which metal fans and musicians partake. What we call here the “Latin American Experience” is not meant to serve as an all-encompassing familiarity with the plight of everyone in the region. We are well aware that it is impossible, despite our present sense of connectedness through traditional and social media, to establish uninterrupted, fully developed knowledges and connections with every segment and identity in the region. Furthermore, it is undeniable that some people face direr consequences than others (e.g., the plight of indigenous peoples, afro-descendants, women); thus, it is equally impossible to personally experience the challenges faced by all. With this in mind, what we do want to impress on the reader is that, through the phenomenal reality of living in Latin America, one becomes exposed to a set of knowledges that help people understand the oppressive legacy of the context in which we live, how it came to be, and the potential strategies available to challenge that legacy. These knowledges are transmitted through everyday experiences, conversations, music, art, and literature, among other sources of information production and dissemination, that help people understand their place in the world. Although people may possess different levels of awareness of these realities, they experience them directly or indirectly, and these conform a type of collective understanding (a form of collective memory to echo Maurice Halbwachs—1992) or a social imaginary (to echo Cornelious Castoriadis—1997) that influences our ways of understanding the region, the world, and our connections to both. Thus, Latin Americans are aware of the important role certain issues have played in the region. Three of these issues stand out as pertinent to our theme: social oppression, the recognition of the inconceivable, and the importance of hope for the future. Let us address each one individually. Social Oppression—There is an inarguable awareness among the people in the Latin American region of its long-standing, and ongoing, history of social oppression. Although exhibiting different levels of awareness about its manifestations, causes, and available strategies for resistance, the acceptance that social oppression resides among us is unquestioned. Social sciences research has previously focused on the notion of fatalismo, or the idea that things will never get better, as an important subject to tackle in order to understand the populations of the region. Authors like Ignacio Martín-Baró have reminded readers that this fatalistic worldview is due to the high levels of contextual oppression in Latin America (Martín-Baró 1994; de la Corte Ibáñez 2000; Camisassa and Moreno 2004; Sánchez 2005). This point has been driven home in the region by many other authors. For example, as Eduardo Galeano

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(1971) reminded readers in his famous book Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina, the viciousness entailed in the exploitation of the local people and natural resources has been systematic, and must be seen as an extension of colonial times. The same has happened in the arts. Ecuadorian painter Eduardo Guayasamín has used his artwork to depict experiences of oppression in the region. One would be hard-pressed to find people in Latin America who have not been exposed, directly to these writing or paintings, or indirectly to the ideas proposed through them. They highlight that the remnants of colonial times are still alive and well in Latin America. Metal artists have grown up in this reality, with these reflections, and, inevitably, these elements find their way into their music. Recognition of the Inconceivable—Latin Americans have an awareness that their region of the world is unique. But this awareness has little to do with notions of the exotic. Sometimes the stories that account for our collective experience might seem all-too-incredible to be believed by outsiders. The disappearance of thousands during the Argentinian dictatorship, the throwing of political dissidents from planes and helicopters during the Chilean dictatorship, the playing of soccer matches with severed heads during the Colombian armed conflict, the more than fifty-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, the murder inside a church of Father Arnulfo Romero during a mass officiated by himself in El Salvador, the government-sanctioned extermination of indigenous peoples in Perú, the disappearance of high-schools students at the hands of Mexican police, and the fast-paced mining exploitation of the Amazon in Ecuador; all of these are but a short list of events that might seem incredible to outsiders, but which are very real to us. In describing the West’s inability to comprehend the elusive quality of life as lived in Latin America, Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier (1967, 2004) developed the notion of lo real maravilloso (the awe-inspiring real). In his time, Carpentier meant to reflect the idea that, to the outside world, certain events associated with the region might seem unbelievable. And while he never envisioned some of the events described above, we believe his term perfectly captures the relationship between Latin America and the world beyond its borders. By extension, lo real maravilloso breaks with the fetishizing that has become commonplace with the West’s adoption and exploitation of that other wellknown Latin American concept, magical realism. The truth remains that, for Latin Americans, the above-mentioned events are part of our history and reality. We have witnessed and lived through them. Metal music taps into the idea of lo real maravilloso when explaining its context, transformation, and purpose to its listeners in the region and in the Global North. This is all too real, regardless of how unbelievable it may seem to others. Hope for the Future—Finally, although social oppression is very real, and its manifestations in the region might seem outright unbelievable to most,

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Latin Americans never lose hope for the future. We have witnessed the unyielding belief in a better tomorrow throughout our visits to the various countries in the region. Music, for example, has been a constant source of hope for the region. The Nueva Canción, inspired by the political movements of the 1960s, would sing to audiences about the possibility of challenging oppression and promoting a more positive view of local people (Karmy Bolton 2014; Molinero and Vila 2014; Morris 2014; Vila 2014). Metal artists have not been immune to these musical influences, having covered songs by stalwarts of the movement like Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara (Varas-Díaz 2019). The same has happened with painters like David Alfaro Siqueiros. The Mexican muralist has become part of the region’s psyche, and his work has graced the covers of albums by international bands such as Rage Against the Machine, who are closely linked to the themes of metal in Latin America. Scholarly works intrinsic to the region, like Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation, have consistently presented options to address social oppression in the region. Metal musicians have not been detached from these sources of inspiration for hope. For example, Argentinian band Tren Loco covered the song Preguntitas sobre Dios (Small Questions about God) by folk singer Atahualpa Yupanqui, an important precursor of the Nueva Canción (Molinero and Vila 2014). The band Pentagram (Chile) covered a song by Violeta Parra. Many other examples abound. Taken together, these three issues account for what we call the “Latin American Experience” which has served as an underlying bedrock for metal music’s contextualization, transformation, and establishment of a dominant decolonial purpose. Still, in order to understand metal music in Latin America it is not enough to explore the production of artists or the conceptualization of the genre by its fans in the region. Knowledge is a collective endeavor, with multiple actors in constant flux. Therefore, we should also aim to understand how scholarly work has addressed metal music in Latin America as it also serves to evidence how ideas surrounding the “Latin American Experience” inform how we think about metal per se. This entails understanding how the scholarly gaze of metal music takes place, enforcing its strengths, limitations, and challenges. We aim to do so in the following section of this chapter. METAL SCHOLARSHIP IN LATIN AMERICA We should start by warning readers that it is not our intent to repeat or, for that matter, eschew a list of books and academic papers that have addressed metal in Latin America. Doing so would be a chimera, as their amount continues to grow throughout the region, and inevitably, we would unfairly miss

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some. In contrast, what we aim to do is reflect how the three themes previously used to explain metal music in the region (context, transformation, and purpose) also aid in the understanding of metal scholarship in Latin America. Of course, some comparisons with metal-related scholarship in the Global North will inevitably take place. But that in no way will take up the bulk of what we are trying to do here. Much in the same way that we started this segment with a pronouncement, we feel it necessary to make some additional declarations to be as clear as possible with the reader when it comes to our position and guiding principles with regards to the subject of Latin American and Latin American metal in particular. 1. There is no such thing as a singular “history of metal”—Perhaps the most important characteristics of metal scholarship in Latin America has been its desire to explore how contextual issues have influenced the music. Research on metal scenes in the region have emerged from Cuba (González Moreno 2013; Manduley López 2013, 2015; Varas-Díaz and Mendoza 2015; Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda and Rivera Amador 2018), Dominican Republic (Mendoza et al. 2018), Puerto Rico (Varas-Díaz et al. 2014; Varas-Díaz, Mendoza et al. 2016a; Varas-Díaz and Mendoza 2018), México (Domínguez Prieto 2017), Brazil (Carbonieri Campoy 2010; Dos Santos Silva 2018), Chile (Sánchez 2014; Sánchez Mondaca 2016), Argentina (Scaricaciottoli 2016; Panzini 2018), and El Salvador (Pack 2018), to name a few. What is vitally important about these publications is that they directly challenge the idea of universality that is subjacent, and sometimes explicit, in much of the publications on metal music in the Global North. For example, the idea of a “metal culture” and a “global metal scene,” both written in singular forms, are present in much of the writing on metal that has taken place until now. Although sometimes done inadvertently by authors, this reflects the idea of a linear historical approach toward this musical genre, and a unifying cohesion into one global group. That is not to say that there is no unifying quality about metal that can be and is often understood among its practitioners and fans. But this pervading notion of a totalizing metal culture suffers from overreach, as it often neglects any consideration of metal music production, practices, and uses in the Global South. Authors from the Global North have commendably called for the diversification of these approaches (Clinton and Wallach 2015). Nonetheless, publications that aim to shed light on the notion of “global metal” continue to treat Latin America as an afterthought (see Turner’s 2018 critique of Brown et al. 2016). In this scenario, metal scholarship in Latin America has highlighted the importance of context when considering this musical genre and its relation to the musical output and the lived experiences of creators and consumers. The experiences and effects of its dictatorships have been explored in Chile

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(Sánchez 2014), the context of civil war has been documented in El Salvador (Pack 2018), the colonial dilemma has been considered in Puerto Rico (VarasDíaz, Mendoza et al. 2016a), the working-class ethos of post-dictatorship in Argentina has been addressed by many in that country (Calvo 2016, 2018; Scaricaciottoli 2016), the role of systemic violence has been analyzed in Perú (López Ramírez Gastón and Risica Carella 2018), and the governmental support of metal in socialist Cuba has been thoroughly documented (Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda and Rivera Amador 2018). These are some examples of how this scholarship has challenged the notion of universality in metal-related studies. These experiences are varied, and the levels of oppression they entail are simply incongruous with the experiences of metal music in the Global North; in this regard, there is little-to-no comparison available. This is vitally important and particularly interesting, as scholars in other areas have frequently criticized Eurocentric universality as one of the remnants of colonial thought in the world (Grosfogel and Cervantez-Rodríguez 2002). Much philosophical and academic work in Latin American after the 1970s has taken this move away from Eurocentric thought as its paradigm. By extension, metal scholarship in Latin America has, sometimes inadvertently, engaged in decolonial reflections within the field of metal music studies. There is no such thing as a singular “metal culture” or a linear “history of metal,” but rather, there are diverse and plural metal cultures and histories yet to be highlighted. Scholarly work in the Global North, we argue, has rarely addressed this effectively. 2. Latin America has a plurality of formats available for engaging in scholarly work—Another important characteristic of metal scholarship in Latin America has been its malleability. By this we mean its ability to shift into different ways of thinking and sharing investigative results with communities in the region. We have argued elsewhere that metal scholarship needs to find diverse ways to give back to the communities it investigates (VarasDíaz, Mendoza et al. 2016b). Most scholarly activity in the Global North has concentrated its efforts on very traditional forms of information delivery, particularly focusing on books, peer-reviewed journals and academic conferences, all of which are usually directed at their academic peers, rarely at the communities they investigate. Although these are valid formats for the dissemination of research findings, they are extremely limited in their scope and extent. The communities that inform these studies, participate in them, and are sources of data, are often distanced from their outcomes due to economic constraints. The prices of books and journal articles are simply inaccessible for almost all readers in Latin America in particular, and the Global South in general. Other times, those who produce the studies themselves have a mistaken belief that those they study will be incapable of understanding their findings. These situations become, even if inadvertently, manifestations of academic imperialism (Stillman 1955; Alatas 2003; Beigel and Salatino

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2015) and extractivism (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2020; Grosfogel, 2020) where information is gathered from communities, but these are never returned to them. Most concerning, sometimes this information is gathered without their direct participation or consent in research projects. Metal scholarship in Latin America has outright challenged this notion by engaging in a plethora of information gathering/delivery strategies that are more akin to the metal communities in the region. Many of these research efforts are carried out in direct collaboration with members of local metal communities as a way to respect their histories and give back to the community. This outlook on data gathering and dissemination echoes tenets of participatory action research proposed in the region by Colombian sociologist Orlando Fals Borda (Fals Borda 1987; Ortiz and Borjas 2008). They equally resonate with Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s position of “knowing-with rather than knowing about” (de Sousa Santos 2018, 15) as a way to respect the knowledges produced by communities in light of their resistance to oppressive contexts. Examples abound, and we will highlight three of them below. First, metal scholarship in Argentina carried out by the Grupo de Investigación Interdisciplinaria sobre Heavy Metal Argentino (Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal—GIIHMA for its acronym in Spanish) takes on mostly the form of essays which are self-published in a direct challenge to the traditional peer-reviewed journal (Scaricaciottoli, Varas-Díaz and Nevárez Araújo 2020; Varas-Díaz, Nevárez Araújo and Scaricaciottoli 2020). Their work is conceived from a Marxist perspective and uses findings from local metal scholarship to educate people on socially related issues important to those living in the country. A second example in which metal scholarship has distanced itself from traditional academic outlets has been through the use of photo exhibits. In Perú, José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón and the Grupo Peruano de Estudios del Metal (Peruvian Group for Metal Studies) organized an exhibit entitled Espíritu del Metal: 40 Años del Metal Peruano (The Spirit of Metal: 40 Years of Peruvian Metal). The exhibit aimed to show the audience a glimpse of the history of metal in Perú through photos gathered by scholars as part of their academic research. The same has happened in Puerto Rico where a photographic timeline of the local scene was shared with the community as part of the 2013 Metal Flea Market, a yearly gathering produced by members of the metal community on the Island. Finally, we can mention the use of documentary film as part of scholarly research. This technique has been mostly implemented by the Heavy Metal Studies in Latin America group which has released three films: The Distorted Island: Heavy Metal and Community in Puerto Rico (González-Sepúlveda et al. 2014), The Metal Islands: History, Culture and Politics in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music (Varas-Díaz, GonzálezSepúlveda et al. 2016) and Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America (Varas-Díaz et al. 2018). Together, the films have garnered more than

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thirty laurels at international film festivals and have been disseminated free of cost to the community (including at spaces like the aforementioned Metal Flea Market). These are but some examples of the multimethod strategies used to disseminate findings to the local scenes, which would be unavailable to them via traditional academic books and journals. 3. Scholarly work about Latin American Metal invariably carries a social purpose—Finally we would like to highlight the purposive nature of many of these strategies. Throughout these scenarios, scholars engaged in metal-related work have found ways to use their findings to engage in community education. For example, members of the GIIHMA have taught free seminars on metal music to unionized workers in Buenos Aires as a way to preserve and disseminated the history of the working class. Echoing this practice, Dr. Ramón Rosario in Puerto Rico has taught metal-related courses to imprisoned women as a strategy to help them develop a critical understanding of their particular context. Finally, the scholarly documentary film work carried out by the Heavy Metal Studies in Latin America group has been used in communal film festivals throughout Latin America as a way to have audienc es reflect on the violent histories of their particular countries and the use of the arts to challenge this legacy. The participation of the group at film festivals like the Festival de Cine Documental DOC-KET (Ecuador) and Censurados Film Festival (Perú) are evidence of the social purposes of these scholarly endeavors. In fact, it could be argued that these works transcend the scholarly realm, in turn becoming forms of direct action in each context. Metal scholarship in Latin America is growing, and remains in constant transformation, as evidenced by the examples provided here. Still, challenges abound in the region. Some of these include, but are not limited to: (a) The involvement in Metal Music Studies of scholars who come from a position of economic scarcity and/or poverty—Many researchers are not ascribed to traditional universities and hold multiple jobs to survive in their context (this includes one of the editors of the present book). Others, who are part of traditional academia, face challenges, as their settings don’t consider this type of work to be legitimate (this includes another of the editors of this collection). Although this also happens in the Global North, particularly with graduate students and adjunct faculty, we would dare venture to state that the situation is compounded for those in Latin America, where the indexes of poverty and unemployment are higher than those in the Global North and where socio-political instability and persecution further add layers to what are already dire situations (Grosfogel and Cervantez-Rodríguez 2002). (b) The geographical distance of many scholars in the Global South from the epicenters of metal music studies in the Global North (e.g., United States

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and United Kingdom)—This distancing makes it almost impossible to attend academic events. The United States and the United Kingdom are the epicenters of metal-related scholarly publication due, in part, to their direct access to publishers. Therefore it is no surprise that most of the yearly metal related academic conferences are held north of the Equator. Sites like México’s National Autonomous University have begun to challenge this dominance through the establishment of a diploma on rock and metal music studies. Still, these sites are years, perhaps decades, away from establishing constant and meaningful collaborations. Needless to say, this book is an attempt at rewriting this history and getting us closer to that goal. Fortunately, the next conference for the International Society of Metal Music Studies (ISMMS) is planned to be held in México in 2021. Nevertheless, we have yet to understand how this will impact the relations between scholarly work in the Global North and Latin America. That is yet to be seen. (c) Finally, language barriers are a major gap for the communication between metal scholars in the Global North and Latin America—Since English is considered the standard language for international academic exchange, metal scholars in Latin America rarely see their publications reach the audiences in the Global North. With few notable exceptions, like our edited volume on Metal in Latin America published in the journal Metal Music Studies (UK), which included essays in their original Spanish, Portuguese and English (Varas-Díaz, Azevedo and Nevárez 2018), rarely do traditional outlets engage in such a pluralistic approach. We have chosen to translate most chapters in this book to English, as a way to subvert and challenge this established academic order. Thus, we challenge from the outside with our Spanish publications, and from within, with their translation. Still, scholarly activity in the Global North does not seem eager to disseminate work in languages other than English, and this remains a major challenge for scholars in Latin America. This is just another manifestation of the shadow of academic imperialism sometimes present in Metal Music Studies which has occasionally fostered devaluative divisions based on the language used to produce knowledge. Still, the momentum of metal scholarship in the region seems unstoppable. LATIN AMERICAN AS A WINDOW INTO THE GLOBAL SOUTH It is our hope that this chapter has shed light on how to navigate metal music and its related scholarship in Latin America. We believe this is a much-needed endeavor in light of metal scholarship’s growing interest in

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the region, and the proliferation of metal-related studies carried out by those of us that have lived, and continue to live there. But this is only part of our team’s scholarly agenda as it pertains to metal music–related research. The other, which is just as important, is our understanding that a highly contextualized and historically-anchored reflection on metal music in Latin America will find echoes throughout other parts of the Global South. This has already begun, as the similarities between research findings on metal in Africa (Banchs 2016) and Latin America are astounding, just to name one example. This is not a coincidence, as the regions are undeniably linked by colonial histories of oppression and resistance. Metal music in the Global South has become a “scream to make us visible,” as one participant posited (see Rivera-Segarra, Ramos and Varas-Díaz’s chapter in this book), and we hope that these academic screams will allow metal researchers in the region to find each other. Of course, this is a matter for another book; we will be there in due time. NOTES 1. Throughout this chapter, the reader will notice that we rely on both individual and collective research experiences. Whenever individual pronouns are used, the sentence makes reference to the personal research experiences of the first author, Nelson Varas-Díaz. Otherwise, the authors are writing as a collective. We feel this fluctuating approach echoes our call to integrate and showcase multiple voices and ways of developing knowledge. In other words, this is at times an individual effort, and at other times a collective effort. 2. Wa Thiong’o himself has stated that the concept is applicable to places other than Africa. For more on this, see https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=eXq​​​8Aurf​​feQ. 3. As part of an interview addressing the development of the lyrics for Metallica’s Black album, the band’s singer, James Hetfield, stated: “The only way was to really go inward and a little more universal. When you start talking about your own feelings, and more just kind of questions about life and things that touch everyone, you can’t go wrong with that. You know, once you start talking about your own feelings and a little less about the outside world” (Longfellow 2001). This distancing from “the outside world” was exactly the opposite of what was happening in Latin American metal, if we use Hermética as an example. 4. It should be recognized that metal scholars like Jeremy Wallach and Esther Clinton have also noted rock and metal’s music shift toward criticizing colonial legacies in other parts of the Global South. They have addressed it from a postcolonial theoretical approach (Wallach 2020; Wallach and Clinton 2019). We adopt a decolonial perspective in our work as it is theoretically linked to authors in Latin America, where this perspective emerges. For more information on this difference please read Varas-Díaz (2021).

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REFERENCES Alatas, Syed Farid. 2003. “Academic Dependency and the Global Division of Labour in the Social Sciences.” Current Sociology, 51 (6): 599–613. doi: 10.1177/00113921030516003. Banchs, Edward. 2016. “Swahili-tongued Devils: Kenya’s Heavy Metal at the Crossroads of Identity.” Metal Music Studies, 2 (3): 311–324. doi: 10.1386/ mms.2.3.311. Barandiaran, Javiera. 2016. “The Authority of Rules in Chile’s Contentious Environmental Politics.” Environmental Politics, 25 (6):1013–1033. doi: 10.1080/09644016.2016.1218156. Bayer, Gerd. 2009. Heavy Metal Music in Britain. Farnham, England: Ashgate. Beigel, Fernanda and Maximiliano Salatino. 2015. “Circuitos Segmentados de Consagración Académica: Las Revistas de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas en la Argentina.” Información, Cultura y Sociedad, 32 (1): 11–35. Brown, Andy, et al. 2016. Global Metal Music and Culture: Current Directions in Metal Studies. London, UK: Routledge. Brown, Andy. 2016. “Un(su)Stained Class? Figuring Out the Identity Politics of Heavy Metal’s Class Demographics.” In Global Metal Music and Culture: Current Directions in Metal Studies, edited by Andy Brown et al., 190–207. London, UK: Routledge. Calvo, Manuela Belén. 2016. “Almafuerte: Metal Pesado Argento and its Construction of Argentinian Nationalism.” Metal Music Studies, 2 (1): 21–38. doi: 10.1386/ mms.2.1.21. Calvo, Manuela Belén. 2018. “Indigenista Perspectives in Argentine Metal Music.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 155–163. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.155. Camisassa, Elena and María Laura Moreno. 2004. Recuperando la Memoria: La Historización como Posibilidad de Superar el Fatalismo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: XI Jornadas de Investigación. Facultad de Psicología—Universidad de Buenos Aires. Carbonieri Campoy, Leonardo. 2010. Trevas Sobre a Luz: O Underground Do Heavy Metal Extremo No Brasil. Sao Paulo, Brazil: Alameda Casa Editorial. Carpentier, Alejo. 1967. De lo Real Maravilloso Americano, Tientos y Diferencias. Mexico City, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Carpentier, Alejo. 2004. De lo Real Maravilloso Americano. 1949. Mexico City, Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1997. “El Imaginario Social Instituyente.” Zona Erógena, 35: 1–9. Available at: http://www​.educ​.ar. Chaska. 2009. Pururauca [CD]. Arequipa, Peru: Mythic Metal Productions. Clinton, Esther and Jeremy Wallach. 2015. “Recoloring the Metal Map: Metal and Race in Global Perspective.” In Modern Heavy Metal: Market, Practices and Culture, edited by Toni-Matti Karjalainen and Kimi Kärki, 274–282. Helsinki, Finland: Department of Management Studies: Aalto University. Cope, Andrew L. 2010. Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Dantesco. 2015. Venancio [CD]. San Juan, Puerto Rico: Barbarian Wrath.

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Domínguez Prieto, Olivia. 2017. Transhumancias Musicales y Globalización: El Metal No Tiene Fronteras. Ciudad de México, Mexico: Plaza y Valdez Editores. Dos Santos Silva, Melina Aparecida. 2018. “Letters, Cassette Tapes and Zines: The Circulation of Brazilian Heavy Metal as a Gift System.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 241–249. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.241. Fals Borda, Orlando. 1987. “The Application of Participatory ActionResearch in Latin America.” International Sociology, 2 (4): 329–347. doi: 10.1177/026858098700200401. Fellezs, Kevin. 2016. “Voracious Souls: Race and Place in the Formation of the San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Scene.” In Global Metal Music and Culture: Current Directions in Metal Studies, edited by A. R. Brown et al., 89–104. London; UK: Routledge. Freire, Paulo. 2000. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. 30th Anniv. New York: Bloomsbury Academics. Galeano, Eduardo. 1971. Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina. Mexico City, Mexico: Siglo XXI. Gentzler, Edwin. 1993. Contemporary Translation Theories. London, UK: Routledge. González-Sepúlveda, Osvaldo et al. 2014. The Distorted Island: Heavy Metal Music and Community in Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Heavy Metal Studies. González Moreno, Liliana de la C. 2013. “Colección Digital Fanzines Cubanos de Rock: Descripción y Valoración desde una Perspectiva Patrimonial.” Cuadernos Cidmuc, 2 (1): 68–96. Grosfogel, Ramón. 2020. “Epistemic Extractivism: A Dialogue with Alberto Acosta, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui.” In Epistemologies of the South: Knowledges Born in the Struggle - Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global South, edited by Boaventura de Sousa Santos and María Paula. Meneses, 203–218. New York: Routledge. Grosfogel, Ramón and Ana Cervantez-Rodríguez. 2002. “Unthinking TwentiethCentury Eurocentric Mythologies: Universal Knowledges, Decolonization and Developmentalism.” In The Modern/Colonial/Capitalist World-System in the Twentieth Century: Global Porcesses, Antisystemic Movements and the Geopolitics of Knowledge, edited by Ramón Grosfogel and Ana Cervantez-Rodríguez, xi–xxix. Westport, CT: Praeger Press. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory. Edited and Translated by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Harrison, Leigh Michael. 2010. “Factory Music: How the Industrial Geography and Working-Class Environment of Post-War Birmingham Fostered the Birth of Heavy Metal.” Journal of Social History, 44 (1): 145–158. Karmy Bolton, Eileen. 2014. “‘Remembrance is Not Enough . . .’: The Cantata Popular Santa María de Iquique Forty Years after Its Release.” In The Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, edited by Pablo Vila, 45–70. London, United Kingdom: Lexington Books. Kranium. 1999. Testimonios [CD]. Lima, Peru: Plasmatica Records. de la Corte Ibáñez, Luis. 2000. “La Psicología de Ignacio Martín-Baró como Psicología Social Crítica: Una Presentación de su Obra.” Revista de Psicología General y Aplicada, 53 (3): 437–450.

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Longfellow, Matthew. 2001. Classic Albums—Metallica: The Black Album— Documentary. USA, New York: FilmRise. López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio, and Giuseppe Risica Carella. 2018. Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena Metalera Peruana (1981–1992). Lima, Peru: Editorial Grafimag S.R.L. Manduley López, Humberto. 2013. Hierba Mala: Una Historia del Rock en Cuba. Havana, Cuba: Nialanai Ediciones. Manduley López, Humberto. 2015. Parche: Enciclopedia del Rock en Cuba. Havana, Cuba: Nialanai Ediciones. Martín-Baró, Ignacio. 1994. Writings for a Liberation Psychology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Mendoza, Sigrid, et al. 2018. “Media Representations of Metal Music in the Dominican Republic: Between Oppression and Social Resistance.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 197–208. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.197. Mignolo, Walter D. 2010. “Introduction: Coloniality of Power and De-colonial Thinking.” In Globalization and the Decolonial Option, edited by Walter Mignolo and Arturo Escobar, 1–21. New York: Routledge. Mignolo, Walter D. 2011. The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options. Durham and London: Duke University Press. Mojica, Julio. 2010. “Neoliberalism, Civic Participation and the Salmon Industry in Southern Chile: Spatial Patterns of Civic Participation on the Island of Chiloé.” Stanford University; Spatial History Lab, 1–6. Molinero, Carlos and Pablo Vila. 2014. “Atahualpa Yupanqui: The Latin American Precursor of the Militant Song Movement.” In The Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, edited by Pablo Vila, 163–192. London, United Kingdom: Lexington Books. Morris, Nancy. 2014. “New Song in Chile: Half a Century of Musical Activism.” In The Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, edited by Pablo Vila, 19–44. United Kingdom: Lexington Books. Ortiz, Marielsa and Beatriz Borjas. 2008. “La Investigación Acción Participativa: Aporte de Fals Borda a la Educación Popular.” Espacio Abierto, 17 (4): 615–627. Pack, Christian. 2018. “‘Severed Reality’: Representations of Reality in Salvadoran Tribal Metal.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 187–196. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.187. Panzini, Ariel. 2018. Heavy Metal Argentino: La Clase del Pueblo Que No Se Rindió. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Clara Beter Ediciones. Quijano, Aníbal. 2010. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” In Globalization and the Decolonial Option, edited by Walter Mignolo and Artuto Escobar, 22–32. New York: Routledge. Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia. 2020. Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Sánchez, Jaime. 2005. “El Fatalismo como Forma de Ser en el Mundo del Latinoamericano.” Psicogente, 8 (13): 55–65. Sánchez, Maximiliano. 2014. Thrash Metal—Del Sonido al Contenido: Origen y Gestación de una Contracultura Chilena. Santiago, Chile: RIL Editores.

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Sánchez Mondaca, Maximiliano. 2016. Massacre: 30 Años de Thrash Metal. Santiago, Chile: Ajiaco Ediciones. Scaricaciottoli, Emiliano. 2016. Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Ediciones La Parte Maldita. Scaricaciottoli, Emiliano, Nelson Varas-Díaz, and Daniel Nevárez Araújo. 2020. Heavy Metal Music in Argentina: In Black We are Seen. London, UK: Intellect. de Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 2018. The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. North Carolina, USA: Duke University Press. Stillman, Calvin W. 1955. “Academic Imperialism and its Resolutions: The Case of Economics and Anthropology.” American Scientist, 43 (1): 77–88. Tockman, Jason. 2005. “Surviving the Chilean Economic Miracle.” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine. Accessed May 23, 2020. https​:/​/ww​​w​.cul​​tural​​ survi​​val​.o​​rg​/pu​​blica​​tions​​/cult​​ural-​​survi​​val​-q​​uarte​​rly​/s​​urviv​​ing​-c​​hil​ea​​n​-eco​​nomic​​mira​​cle. Tren Loco. 2006. Sangresur [CD]. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Yugular Records. Turner, Joe. 2018. “Review of the Books ‘Global Metal Music and Culture: Current Directions in Metal Studies’ and ‘Connecting Metal to Culture: Unity in Disparity.’” Popular Music, 37 (3): 509–512. doi: 10.1017/s0261143018000314. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2015, “On your knees and pray! The Role of Religion in the Development of a Metal Scene in the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico.” International Journal of Community Music, 7 (2): 243–257. doi: 10.1386/ijcm.7.2.243. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2015. “Predictors of Communal Formation in a Small Heavy Metal Scene: Puerto Rico as a Case Study.” Metal Music Studies, 1 (1): 87–103. doi: 10.1386/mms.1.1.87. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Sigrid Mendoza, et al. 2016a. “Metal at the Fringe: A Historical Perspective on Puerto Rico’s Underground Metal Scene.” In Heavy Metal Studies and Popular Culture, edited by Gabby Riches, Dave Snell, Bryan Bardine, and Brenda Gardenour Walter, 99–120. England, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Sigrid Mendoza, et al. 2016b. “Methodological Strategies and Challenges in Research with Small Heavy Metal Scenes: A Reflection on Entrance, Evolution and Permanence.” Metal Music Studies, 2 (3): 273–290. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Osvaldo González-Sepúlveda, et al. 2016. The Metal Islands: Culture, History and Politics in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music [Film]. Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Heavy Metal Studies. Available at: https​:/​/ww​​w​.fac​​ebook​​.com/​​ theme​​talis​​​lands​/. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2018. Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Heavy Metal Studies. Available at: https:// filmfreeway​.com​/projects​/1489724. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, 2019. “Decolonial Hope: From the ‘Nueva Canción’ to Heavy Metal Music in Latin America.” Oral presentation at the 4th Biennial Research Conference, International Society for Metal Music Studies. Nantes, France: International Society for Metal Music Studies. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, 2021. Decolonial Metal Music in Latin America. London, UK: Intellect.

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Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Azevedo, Claudia and Nevárez, Daniel. 2018. Introduction Metal in Latin America. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.131. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, González-Sepúlveda, Osvaldo and Rivera Amador, Andrés. 2018 “From the ‘Patio’ to the ‘Agency’: The emergence and structuring of metal music in revolutionary Cuba,” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 137–146. doi: 10.1386/ mms.4.1.137. Varas-Díaz, Nelson and Sigrid Mendoza. 2015. “Ethnicity, Politics and Otherness in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music: Experiences from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Cuba.” In Modern Heavy Metal: Market, Practices and Culture, edited by Toni-Matti Karjalainen and Kimi Kärki, 291–299. Helsinki, Finland: Department of Management Studies: Aalto University. Varas-Díaz, Nelson and Sigrid Mendoza. 2018. “Morbo Ancestral: Reformulando la Cultural Local a través de la Música Metal en Puerto Rico.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 165–174. doi: 10.1386/mms.4.1.165. Varas-Díaz, Nelson and Eric Morales. 2018. “Decolonial Reflections in Latin American Metal: Religion, Politics and Resistance.” Theologiques, 26 (1): 229–250. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Daniel Nevárez Araújo and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli. 2020. “Introduction: A Window into Heavy Metal Scholarship in the Global South.” In In Black We Are Seen: Seven Approaches to Argentinian Heavy Metal, edited by Emiliano Scaricaciottoli, Nelson Varas-Díaz, and Daniel Nevárez Araújo, xv–xxiv. London, UK: Intellect Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Eliut Rivera-Segarra, and Daniel Nevárez. 2019. “Coloniality and Resistance in Latin American Metal Music: Death as Experience and Strategy.” Hispanic Issues Online, 23, 226–251. Vila, Pablo. 2014. “Introduction.” In The Militant Song Movement in Latin America: Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, edited by Pablo Vila, 1–18. London, UK: Lexington Books. Wa Thiong’o, Ngūgī. 1986. Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Westlands, Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers Ltd. Wallach, Jeremy, Harris M. Berger, and Paul D Greene. 2012. Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music around the World. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Wallach, Jeremy. 2020. “Global Rock as Postcolonial Soundtrack.” In Bloomsbury Handbook for Rock Music Research, edited by Allan Moore and Paul Carr, 469– 485. New York: Bloomsbury. Wallach, Jeremy and Clinton, Esther. 2019. ‘Theories of the Post-Colonial and Globalization: Ethnomusicologists Grapple with Power, History, Media, and Mobility.’ In Theory for Ethnomusicology: Histories, Conversations, Insights; Second Edition, edited by Harris. M. Berger and Ruth M. Stone, 114–139. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. Warpath. 1989. Torture [Tape]. Santiago, Chile: Attic Records. Werken. 2010. Plegaria al Sur [CD]. Argentina: Independent Release.

Section II

A SOUNDTRACK FOR A VIOLENT CONTEXT

Chapter 2

Decomposición Cerebral The Salvadoran Civil War and the Birth of Salvadoran Brutal Death Metal Christian M. Pack

In 1998, the Salvadoran brutal death metal band Kabak (See figure 2.1) released its first full-length album, Decomposición Cerebral (Cerebral Decomposition)—a mere six years after the end of the brutally violent civil war. For many, it may be a shock that death metal had even arrived in El Salvador, let alone had enough time to ferment and grow into actual recording and performing acts. It might be even more shocking, then, to know that the full-length album followed an even earlier attempt in 1995 to release a demo titled Thirty Weeks of Defecation. On the Salvadoran timeline, this means that the civil war had ended, the peace accords were signed, and in less than three years young Salvadorans already had a strong enough musical scene in the heavy metal genre that bands were not only recording but playing live in front of large audiences. For many other countries, similar facts might not be shocking at all. With the creation of death metal during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the genre quickly spread through the United States and into parts of Europe, where heavy metal had already been popular in different forms and measures for many years. Therefore, there would be no lasting shock value to mention a brutal death metal band from Florida or Norway in the 1990s. Adding to this, the discourse surrounding El Salvador’s residence under the nomenclature of “third-world” for so long and the tendency by the media, both domestic and international, to represent the country within these coldwar definitions (and their more modern counterparts of “undeveloped” or “underdeveloped”), it would seem understandable that the local metal scene in El Salvador (and many other forms of local artistic expression) has been

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Figure 2.1  The Band Kabak at Puerta del Diablo Viewpoint, 1997. Source: Photo provided by Visual Archive of America Line Production and owned by Rodrigo Alejandro Artiga.

completely overlooked, while stories of the war and violence within the country abound. Unfortunately, high-quality underground music does not draw as many headlines as reports of decapitated bodies and massacres—something that death metal itself is always playing with in its obsession with fantasy violence in an already brutal reality. This space where the fantasy of violent death meets the reality of violent repression is exactly where brutal death metal in El Salvador resides. While the music rarely deals directly with themes of the war or of actual lived violence, its lyrical content and extreme sounds have been used by many to deal with both of these issues at very personal levels. To fully understand how this happens, though, we must first delve into the history of violence in El Salvador and, then, how brutal death metal attempts to offer a solution—if often only cathartic—to the trauma that arises from this very same environment. A HISTORY AND CULTURE OF VIOLENCE— THE SALVADORAN CIVIL WAR Violence, as the local headlines over the past three or more decades show, has long been a part of the local culture in El Salvador. So, then, it would be

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difficult to say that contemporary violence is a new phenomenon in the country and, equally so, that it has arrived out of nowhere. While extreme violence has been prevalent in the country (here, we can include: massacres; violent acts dating as far back as 1932 and the repression of General Maximiliano Hernández’s government—which saw the mass murder of 10,000–30,000 rural and indigenous workers—and even acts undertaken during the conquest era when the Spanish first arrived), it would be superficial (but not incorrect) to look far back into Salvadoran history to explain the current situation. The civil war itself may have been the result of many deep-seated and unresolved sociopolitical issues that date back as far as 1932 but the types and levels of violence during the war far surpassed past events in the country in both scope and brutality. The civil war in El Salvador began with a very common occurrence in both Latin America and in El Salvador itself—a military coup. Led by Colonel Adolfo Arnoldo Majano and Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez, the military coup was able to oust President Carlos Humberto Romero on October 15, 1979. This event led to great instability in the country as the military junta was not able to completely solidify its control of the government, or the populace for that matter, and was quickly replaced by another military junta backed by the New Christian Democratic Party (PDC) beginning in January of 1980. Seeing that the government, which had long been backed by the military and the oligarchical families, had been weakened, smaller political parties took advantage of the opportunity to band together and vied for the political control of the country. At the time, there were a total of five “subversive,” communist parties in the country.1 Recognizing that solidifying their efforts by joining together would make them stronger against the harsh brutality of the seasoned Salvadoran Military and National Guard, these parties joined together (as championed by Fidel Castro) into the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in the fall of 1980. The remainder of the civil war would be fought between these two factions—the military and National Guard-backed PDC (predecessor to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance [ARENA] party that would form in 1981) and the guerilla factions of the FMLN. President José Napoléon Duarte, who would hold some semblance of power during the civil war from 1984 to 1989, explains in his memoir that “the oligarchy controlling the economy, the armed forces running the government, and the United States protecting its interest in stability all worked to maintain the status quo in El Salvador” (Manwaring and Prisk 1988, 18). Recognizing the grip that these factions had on the country, “many people concluded that the powers ruling El Salvador would never permit votes to defeat them. Change had to come by other means” (Manwaring and Prisk 1988, 18). These “other means” were the violent guerilla warfare tactics that

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the FMLN learned from the successful Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s, the latter replacing the long-time Batista Regime with the Communist Party led by Fidel Castro (who supported and even pressured the FMLN in El Salvador during the civil war). While the guerilla fighters were often brutal and, by nature, “violent,” the extreme amounts of violence during the war were a culmination of actions by both sides. In fact, in the desperate attempt to maintain control of and, to a certain degree, cultivate the fear in the population of El Salvador (a populace which was increasingly backing the guerilla factions), the Salvadoran Military and National Guard became increasingly violent and cruel (oftentimes perpetrating massacres and murders only to turn around and blame these on the guerillas). Brian D’Haeseleer explains that “the goal [of the military] was to terrorise the people into submission and sever links with the rebels. While this tendency was more prevalent before 1982, selected killings and terror remained an integral approach in the Salvadoran Army’s efforts, lavishly funded by Washington, to defeat the FMLN” (D’Haeseleer 2015, 499). In fact, a Truth Commission report issued on March 15, 1993, “estimated that the government forces committed approximately 85% of all killings in the war, while the FMLN guerillas committed 5% of the killings” (Hajji 2018, 83). Joaquín Chávez points to the fact that, as a direct result of the brutal violence of the civil war—and previous conflicts in the country for that matter—El Salvador has actually developed, what he calls, a “culture of violence” (Chávez 2004, 32). He explains that “the cycles of state repression and popular resistance or rebellion consolidated a cultural pattern that mediated class and ethnic conflicts with violence” (Chávez 2004, 32). This violence then “became internalized in diverse social environs, such as the community, the family, and the educational system” (Chávez 2004, 32–33). Like most investigators of the phenomena of violence in El Salvador, Chávez links this “culture of violence” to the civil war era. He states that “the civil war also implanted fundamental features of the culture of violence: the use of terror and terrorism as a method for dealing with social conflict, the lack of value and respect for human life, and the proliferation and use of firearms” (Chávez 2004, 33). This is one reason why first-hand testimonios of occurrences of violence during the civil war have become so important and ingrained into Salvadoran sociopolitical memory. We must remember the mass importance that this event, which lasted from 1980 to 1992, has on modern Salvadoran culture. Kelli Lyon-Johnson explains that the civil war “left more than 75,000 dead and 500,000 displaced or homeless. . . . Violence on this scale not only destroys lives, but by dispersing the agents of collective memory it also threatens the foundations of community and identity” (Lyon-Johnson 2005, 205–206). While remembering such a traumatic and drawn-out event like the

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civil war, however, we must also be careful not to fall into the trap of solely looking at the astonishing numbers. The sheer number of 75,000 dead is astonishing. Nonetheless, it must be recognized that it is not only the quantity of violence that is so ingrained on the Salvadoran mind, culture, memory, and identity; it is also the quality, or type, of the violence that must be addressed. As previously explained, Brian D’Haeseleer writes that during the civil war “the goal was to terrorise the people into submission” (D’Haeseleer 2015, 499). The Salvadoran military, led by the National Guard and secretive death squads like the Maximiliano Hernández Martínez Brigade,2 purposely sought to commit acts of extreme violence to “make examples” of those who supported, sided with, or sympathized with the FMLN leftist guerrilla group. Julia DicksonGomez explains that “many of the deaths [during the civil war] were mutilation killings. For example, seven men were killed by decapitation in one day. Many others were chopped into little pieces by men with machetes” (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 421). These “mutilation killings” became, over time, more and more frightening toward the end of the war. The massacre at El Mozote on December 11, 1991, is pointed to by Nadia Hajji, among other scholars, as “one of the largest massacres in modern Latin American history” (Hajji 2018, 81). The massacre took place in the Morazán province of Eastern El Salvador. Julia Dickson-Gomez describes the occurrences of the massacre as follows: One often-described massacre [El Mozote] occurred when death squads trapped the civilian support population, mostly women and children, between two steep embankments. They fired on the people, and later lined up survivors and chopped them up with machetes. They cut open the stomachs of pregnant women and took out the fetuses. They set the bodies—many still living according to witnesses—on fire. (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 421)

The results of such traumatic violence on such a wide and visual scale fall under what Dickson-Gomez calls a “traumatized worldview” (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 433). She explains that “the traumatized worldview currently present in El Salvador . . . includes both a fear of violence and mistrust of non-violent methods to resolve disputes and of the malevolence of neighbors, politicians, and the police” (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 433). This “worldview,” I would argue, is a huge contributor to the “culture of violence” described by Chávez. THE POSTWAR, THE MARA SALVATRUCHA, AND THE LEGACY OF VIOLENCE Presently, this “culture of violence” has been reattributed to the Salvadoran street gang known as the Mara Salvatrucha, or more simply MS-13. Fighting

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for ground and survival against rival gangs (like Barrio 18), narcos, and corrupt government officials, MS-13 has become one of the best-known exports of El Salvador since the early 2000s. The existence of such a potentially powerful group is definitely something that is worth investigating and has puzzled both academics and law enforcement officials for almost two decades now. Most of these investigators have concluded that the gang was born out of the mixture between Salvadoran ex-guerrilla and military fighters who fled the country to the United States in the 1980s and a savage education on the streets of Los Angeles from homegrown gangs like the Bloods and the Crips. As Kelley Lineberger explains, On the callous streets of Los Angeles, the alienated Salvadorans once again found themselves entrenched in war. The established and “turf-conscious” Mexican and African-American gangs preyed on the newcomers. Uniting together to provide a much-needed service—protection from the homegrown Los Angeles gangs—young Salvadoran immigrants formed the notorious Mara Salvatrucha. Armed with machetes, guns, and guerilla combat training—courtesy of the civil war in El Salvador—the Mara Salvatrucha rapidly became one of the most violent gangs in Los Angeles. (Lineberger 2011, 190–191)

While the gang itself started on United States’ soil in Los Angeles, most of the contemporary conflicts in El Salvador, in a general sense, and the street gang, in a more specific sense, sprang forth from the postwar era when the UN-instated Peace Accords took effect and the country (and its citizenry) attempted to begin rebuilding itself. It was during this time that many exguerilla fighters, and ex-military, fled the country to the United States—many of them in fear of reprisals from the government or fellow citizens. What has now become known as the “posguerra,” or “postwar,” era of El Salvador brought about a lot of changes that, instead of solving the crises of violence, further solidified and propagated it through the street gangs. These phenomena occurred due to specific actions taken by the newly established Salvadoran government under the pressure of the United States and the new Peace Accords that highly favored North American interests. Specifically, however, a few of the main reasons for the failure of the Peace Accords and the strengthening of the street gangs were the following: (1) the amnesty laws that were created during the postwar era to protect war criminals and which furthered feelings of alienation and anger against both the ARENA and the FMLN parties, who would hold control of the country up until the recent elections of 2018; (2) the replacement of the National Guard and former military with an equally repressive and even more poorly administered National Police force; (3) the same repressive tactics by these forces and government officials against youth and youth culture in the country as a means

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of dealing with the developing gang problem; and (4) the deportation culture of the United States, which provided mobility for the gangs across international lines and opened their eyes to the possibilities available to them in El Salvador, given these previous conditions. The first major factor that could be pointed to is the amnesty laws that were passed in El Salvador during the postwar era. These laws allowed for war criminals to not only escape the country, fleeing to the United States (mainly), but also to go unpunished and escape prosecution within the country itself. Passed quickly after the Peace Accords in 1993, the Amnesty Law prevented Salvadoran citizens from being prosecuted for crimes committed during the war. On a larger scale, the law included non-extradition to the United States which has served to impede the prosecuting of gang members to this day, as they cannot be legally returned to the United States by force under these laws. Nadia Hajji points to the failure of these laws when she says that “from January 1980 to July 1991, the Truth Commission registered more than 22,000 complaints of serious acts of violence during the Salvadoran Civil War. Of these complaints, over 60% concerned extrajudicial executions, over 25% concerned enforced disappearances, and 20% included complaints of torture” (Hajji 2018, 83). With the Amnesty Law in effect, very few of these complaints were processed and little justice was done for the Salvadoran population, further impressing the idea that violence is a natural occurrence in the country. As Angelina Godoy confirms, “Although many victims have brought cases to the justice system, for the most part such inquiries have been sidelined due to judicial inaction or dismissed on the basis of the Amnesty Law; as a result, to this day, no one has been held accountable for ordering these crimes” (Godoy 2017, 370). Recently, however, on July 13, 2016, the Amnesty Law was overturned by the Salvadoran Supreme Court and many of these “cold cases” have been reopened—a process that will hopefully lead to healing and closure for possibly tens of thousands of Salvadoran citizens. The second contributing factor was the disbanding of the National Guard, which had terrorized El Salvador during the civil war period. The National Guard itself, in the Peace Accords, was completely disbanded. The power of law enforcement was taken back from the military and handed over to the newly created national police force known as the “Policía Civil Nacional” (PCN; Civil National Police). Ironically, or at least unsurprisingly to academics and journalists covering the war, the positions within the PCN were quickly filled by ex-military and ex-National Guard combatants, many of whom were “not prosecutable” under the amnesty laws but had suspicions of war crimes looming over their heads. The PCN, together with the military, to this day still utilize many of the repressive tactics that were learned during the civil war and which would become solidified (on a smaller scale) in the postwar. Now instead of death squads roaming the country with uniforms, police

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and military members hide behind masks and monikers like la sombra negra [the black shadow], continuing their death squad tactics, this time against actual and “suspected” gang members. Sabine Kurtenbach explains that While it is not surprising that general levels of interpersonal violence remain high for at least some time after the end of a war, in El Salvador and Guatemala this was used by different governments to block or even roll back reforms in the security sector. Public security was militarized, the new division of labour between the civilian police and the army blurred, all of which allowed for the proliferation of repressive strategies to confront crime and violence. (Kurtenbach 2005, 116)

Julia Dickson-Gomez echoes this sentiment about the postwar by writing that the repressive paramilitary forces were replaced with an understaffed, underequipped, and undertrained civilian police force that has not been able to control crime and violence. Poverty has continued to rise, also contributing to the rise in violent crime . . . the expectation of violence, the pervasive mistrust in one’s fellow human beings, and a profound disillusion with politics, which have been transmitted from generation to generation, are also important factors in understanding El Salvador’s past and continuing violence and instability. (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 417)

This instability is a large result of the PCN’s inability to properly and efficiently enforce laws within a system that allowed, for a long time, war criminals to continue their lives freely. As a result, when faced with the brutal violence and the extreme territorial nature of the street gangs, the PCN was and, honestly, continues to be ill-equipped for dealing with the problem. The government, often at a loss with how to handle the situation, has vacillated over the past two decades between peace agreements with the gangs and almost all-out war. However, from one government to the next, whether right or left-wing, the continued repression of the citizenry, now in the name of stopping the street gangs, has not ceased. The former “mano dura” [iron fist] law, which allowed for the detaining of citizens (mainly youth) simply for having tattoos or “suspected” connections to the gang, is only one example of the repressive tactics used by the PCN and Salvadoran military both contemporarily and during the postwar. Donna Decesare explains that “repressive mano dura policies implemented by ARENA governments . . . instead of focusing on the social origins of gang involvement and pursuing communitybased harm reduction . . . painted gangs as the country’s greatest threat and criminalized anyone with tattoos—spilling over into a more general suspicion and stigma against youth in a country where 40% of the population is younger

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than 18, according to the 2007 census” (Decesare 2009, 34–35). While the government and law enforcement agencies of El Salvador have felt justified, in the face of the extreme and almost nonsensical violence of the street gangs, in resorting to repressive tactics, the “spill over” into the general population has only further strengthened the gang and the resentment toward the government by its citizenry. While these three factors have created a fertile ground for the gangs to continue to grow, it is important to recall here that the gangs were originally an issue endemic to Los Angeles. In other words, we must recognize the importance of the fact that they did not originate within El Salvador. On the contrary, the deportation culture of the United States sent many criminals with gang-related crimes and records back to El Salvador through deportations, this instead of charging and incarcerating them within the United States. These gang members, armed with perfected guerilla tactics that had mixed with the criminal underbelly of Los Angeles’ most dangerous gangs, quickly found El Salvador to be an easy place to continue their disregard for both the law and the human life. With an inept police force and inept government officials to boot, El Salvador became a breeding ground for the MS-13 gang, which quickly engulfed the majority of the country. Kelley Lineberger explains, Despite the efforts of the United States to limit the growth of the MS-13, El Salvador, still recovering from a gruesome civil war, acted as an incubator for MS-13’s already brutal tactics. The 1992 Peace Accords, which ended the civil conflict in El Salvador, demobilized more than 30,000 Salvadoran Armed Forces Soldiers, 6,400 National Police, and 8,500 other combatants. The demobilization left thousands of soldiers—ideal candidates for gang recruitment— unemployed . . . with few employment prospects and an abundant supply of weapons, El Salvador transformed into an enormously fertile ground for gangs. (Lineberger 2011, 192–193, emphasis mine)

Summarizing decades of violence, unrest and injustice, Robin Maria Delugan illustrates eloquently the fact that contemporarily, “the crime and violence in El Salvador can be understood as scars in the aftermath of the decade-long civil conflict of organized terror” (Delugan 2005, 236). Looking at it through this lens, it is understood that the trauma of extreme violence on the community, on collective memory, and on individuals in Salvadoran society is something that must be dealt with in order to correct the propagation of violence in the coming years. Diego Solis notes that “currently, most violent crimes in El Salvador can be directly or indirectly attributed to gang activity, including intergang warfare between MS-13 and Calle 18. Then there is the conflict between gangs and the government, as well as internal gang power struggles” (Solis 2016, 18). These

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“violent crimes” are very similar to those perpetrated during the civil war in that they are meant to “terrorize” the local population into fearing and, in the end, paying the gangs for protection. Mutilated and burnt bodies, decapitated heads, limbs and torsos found along the roadway in garbage bags are common occurrences in El Salvador today. Adding to this the “enfrentamientos” (standoffs) between gangs and the police/military, it can easily be seen that extreme violence has not been eliminated from El Salvador on any scale since the end of the war in 1992. As Chávez reiterates, “It is obvious that the absence of war in El Salvador in itself has not created a society with shared benevolent values nor practices that are responsive to the protection of human rights in the broadest sense” (Chávez 2004, 236). In fact, Dickson-Gomez points to the fact that violence has not been eliminated due to the creation of “traumatogenic social relations” (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 433)—another way of understanding Delugan’s “scars” metaphor. Dickson-Gomez defines these relations, in summarizing the work of Ignacio Martín-Baró, by explaining that what is meant by traumatogenic social relations, [is] not that social oppression created trauma in individuals but, rather, that individuals acting together as a society create and perpetuate trauma through their interactions. Such traumatogenic relations help explain why the number of violent deaths has increased since the signing of the peace accords and why many Salvadorans expressed the sentiment, “Here there is no peace.” (Dickson-Gomez 2002, 433)

It is, then, exactly these relations that must be investigated and dealt with on a large scale in order to find a proper solution to the ongoing violence in El Salvador; otherwise, the population may only be doomed to repeat the failures of the postwar era. As we have seen in the past with more oppressive laws by the Salvadoran government, like la mano dura, “crack-downs” on violence do not appear to work. In fact, they seem to only propagate more violence in response. While the “culture of violence” continues within the gang world and even on a sociopolitical level, the average Salvadoran is stuck in between the proverbial “rock-and-a-hard-place.” Violence from the gangs and violence from the government in response to the gangs keep the Salvadoran people in a constant state of trauma and fear. The only way for many to deal with this phenomenon is to attempt to find more expressive and non-violent means of dealing with the violence around them. DEATH METAL AS A RESPONSE TO REAL VIOLENCE This is where we encounter brutal death metal—only one of the many ways in which Salvadorans have learned to cope with the “culture of violence” around

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them, which is through the production of music. During the civil war, protest music (or Latin American New Song Music) was used not only to educate and to inform the populace about what was happening in the war but was also used to provide communities a sense of catharsis in expressing their anger or distaste with the current sociopolitical situation in the country. Murray Luft describes the New Song Music movement in El Salvador, writing that the El Salvador civil war (1980-1992) gave rise to an innovative brand of political protest which effectively harnessed música popular [popular music] to revolutionary social change . . . Los Torogoces de Morazán, from the province of Morazán, were amateur peasant folk musicians who carried their guitars and fiddles, along with their M16s, into battle zones, providing moral support to the rebels, as well as entertaining sympathetic peasant communities in “liberated” zones. Their ideologically charged music proved to be an effective propaganda tool for the FMLN insurgents during the civil war. (Luft 1996, 10)

Los Torogoces de Morazán, however, was not the only musical group to take on the sociopolitical issues of their country in their musical content. Learning from Latin American New Song groups and movements in other countries, these musicians boldly created and produced music that very well could have caused them to be killed or disappeared as leftist sympathizers. Kaitlin Thomas elaborates about the movement that radical musical groups formed, finding loyal followers in the Salvadoran people who were desperate to hear the truth and eager to fight back against the military and oligarchy who were forcing repression on them. When radio stations began to be bombed, and censorship started to be enforced, musicians and their followers went underground to continue to spread their controversial and rousing songs. (Thomas 2015, 3)

Much like this protest music, heavy metal reached El Salvador at the latter end of the civil war and provided a similar set of qualities for the local community of fans and artists. Similar movements have happened throughout Latin America where the ideologies of New Song Music have been applied to other genres, like heavy metal. The link is, in fact, so strong that it has been featured by Nelson Varas-Díaz in his presentation, “Decolonial Hope: From the ‘Nueva Canción’ to Heavy Metal Music in Latin America” at the fourth Biennial Research Conference of International Society for Metal Music Studies in Nantes, France in June of 2019. The story of heavy metal in El Salvador, though, has roots beyond the New Song movement in one of its longest lasting promoters, Edwin Marinero. Together with a group of university friends, Marinero started the “Rockers

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Club of El Salvador”—a local group of rock and heavy metal fans who wanted to promote and put on concerts with local bands. While the New Song movement was meant as sociopolitical protest music, the beginning of the heavy metal scene with Marinero was much less ideological as it was practical (although it would later become the former for many bands and fans). For Marinero, the idea was that, by pooling their resources together and recruiting members, Rockers Club would be able to put on the first shows with local heavy metal bands for local heavy metal fans. For many, this might not seem like a difficult task. However, if we consider the fact that the civil war was still raging at the time that the club was created and the first shows were being scheduled, it shows the ardent desire and passion that Salvadoran metal fans had for the music and for their local artists—especially given the high-risk scenario of playing music that was considered both underground and subversive by the majority of society at the time. Marinero explains the history of the club as follows: Estoy hablando en el 1988–89, antes del ofensivo en mi país. Primero fue, después de que salimos de unos intramuros, me encontré con otro amigo a quien le gustaba el rock y fuimos hablando sobre la idea [de hacer un club de fans]. Quedó allí la semilla. Luego nos seguimos encontrando, yo fui a parar a la casa de Vicente Sibrian (de Broncco) con el afán de tocar un instrumento, me metí a la cuestión de andar cargando y descargando las cuestiones de los instrumentos de ellos en aquella época y fue así más o menos como nació la idea como formar un club de roqueros. Existían las bandas, había ciertos seguidores, había unas bandas emergentes de metal más extremo, porque Broncco era hard rock, y de repente dije yo con el otro compañero, “mira, hagamos una convocatoria, hagamos un club de roqueros, y armemos un concierto” que fue el 20 de diciembre de 1992, el primer concierto en la Universidad de El Salvador. (I’m talking about back in 1988–89, back before the conflict in my country. First, what happened after we got out of some intramurals at school, I met with someone else who liked rock music and we walked on, talking about our idea [of forming a fan club]. That is where the seed was planted. Later, we kept meeting. I went to Vicente Sibrian’s [of Broncco] house with the desire to play an instrument. I became a roadie for them back at that time and it was more or less like that that the idea was born to form a club for rock fans. Bands existed, there were a few followers, there were even some emerging more extreme metal bands, because Broncco was hard rock, and suddenly I said to my friend, “Look, let’s have a meeting, let’s make a club for rock fans, and we’ll put on a concert” which was on the 20th of December of 1992, the first concert at the University of El Salvador.)

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Edwin Marinero and Rockers Club, nonetheless, had to wait until the end of the war (the postwar era) to fully realize their dreams of creating a local heavy metal scene. This was mainly because of the imagery and fashion surrounding the heavy metal movement. As previously stated, during the war, the right-wing government believed that Salvadorans who stepped outside of conventional and traditional modes of being, expression, or even fashion, belonged to militant groups, or at the least were leftist sympathizers (or at the very least were spreading subversive propaganda). Given the large amount of “disappearances” that occurred during the war, it is easy to understand how gatherings of people that all fit the descriptions of leftist sympathizers and militants would be frowned upon and, sometimes, even confronted or altogether stopped. Many of the older members of the heavy metal community recall these conflicts when talking about the beginning of the movement in their country. Marinero recalled that Durante el periodo de conflicto, la misma represión que se vivía durante la guerra prácticamente fue la misma represión que se vivió antes de que se iniciara la guerra. La represión contra las indígenas, la represión contra el cabello largo, la represión contra los que de repente se vestían diferente, no tenían una forma de vestirse como la alta jerarquía en ese momento o la gente pudiente en ese momento. Entonces, muchos casos de represión, disolución de conciertos. De hecho, antes de hacer el primer concierto con Rockers, desde el lanzamiento, fuimos a una casa comunal a la colonia Amantapec, y tiraron gas pimienta en un concierto y la gente salió dispersa y afuera agarraron a los muchachos, los tiraban al suelo, a unos les quitaron el pelo con [tijeras], a otros se los llevaban, nunca aparecieron, otros los tenían capturados pero la familia, nuestras mamás llegaron a velar para nosotros. Ciertamente fue una situación bastante de miedo, pues, de terror. (During the period of the “conflict,” the same repression that was lived during the war practically was the same repression that was lived before the war began. The repression against the indigenous, the repression against long hair, the repression against those who suddenly dressed different, that didn’t have the same fashion tendencies as those in the high aristocracy at the moment or the powerful people at that moment. Then there were many cases of repression, dissolution of concerts. In fact, before we did the first concert with Rockers Club, since the start, we went to a communal home in the town of Amantapec, and they shot pepper gas into the concert and the people fled and dispersed, and outside they grabbed the young men, they threw them on the ground, some of them had their hair cut with [scissors] and others were taken, never to appear again, others were taken captive but the families, our mothers came and appealed for us. Truly, it was a very scary situation, well, it was terror.)

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These stories of fear and terror, and even personal attacks of having hair cut off by police and/or military personnel (as well as random beatings by the same) are quite common, even today. Local heavy metal fan, Francisco “Chele Dismember” Villalta, echoed Marinero’s memories when he described living through similar experiences. He stated, Cuando estaba lo de la guerra allí casi por la ‘88, ‘89, tenía amigos que eran mayores y andaban de pelo largo y si te agarraba la guardia te cortaba el pelo y con cuchillo, no con tijerita. Si no te agarraba y te cortaba el pelo, pues, incluso te golpeaban y después te preguntaban el nombre. Algunas bandas como fue Tabú y Renegado3, que fueron las primeras bandas ya de metal, y pues la mayoría de bandas después de ellos fueron saliendo con algunas líricas que se enfocaban en lo que era el tema de la guerra. La violencia que se vivía en esa época era diferente a la violencia en que estamos ahorita. Porque, en aquella época, era bien represivo todo que no podías andar tan abiertamente como puedes ahora con el pelo largo, los jeans rotos. Incluso, me recuerdo una vez que yo iba a la casa de un amigo y andaba los jeans rotos y me pararon los soldados y ya me querrían agarrar y que “vengase, que no sé qué,” “no mire yo a estudiar voy,” les enseñé mi carnet de estudiante y me soltaron. Si no, ya iba para [desaparecerme]. Tal vez era por mirarte diferente que ya eras objeto o sujeto de represión. (When the war was still going on back around ‘88, ‘89, I had some friends who were older and they had long hair and if the National Guard got you, they would cut your hair with a knife, not with a little pair of scissors. And if they didn’t get you and cut your hair, well, they beat you and afterwards asked your name. Some bands like Tabú and Renegado that were the first bands within metal, and well the majority of bands after them were coming out with some lyrics that focused on what was the theme of the war. The violence that was lived in that era was different from the violence we are in now. Because, at that time, it was really repressive mainly because you couldn’t go out so openly like you can now with long hair, ripped jeans. I even remember a time that I was on my way to a friend’s house and I was wearing ripped jeans and the soldiers stopped me and they wanted to take me and “come here, I don’t know what,” “No, look, I’m on my way to study,” I showed them my student identification and they let me go. Otherwise, I was about to go [be disappeared]. Maybe it was because you looked different that you were the object or subject of repression.)

Repression and violence in El Salvador, then, were not things that were delegated to the two warring factions of leftists and right-wing authorities. Instead, this repression and violence were lived and experienced by the general population and could be felt, seen and experienced throughout Salvadoran society

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and was, in turn, explored in musical production. While both Marinero and Villalta mention some of the early Salvadoran metal bands, like Renegado, Tabú and Broncco, what is of interest is the early arrival of “extreme” metal music to El Salvador shortly after the war. Marinero mentions that these extreme metal bands were around but, since extreme metal has always been an underground movement, it is of special interest as to how and why this type of metal, in particular, would be of such interest to Salvadorans who had just ended a civil war and who were still suffering through the “ripple-effects” of the violent repression that they had lived and were continuing to live. THE PERPETUATION OF SALVADORAN BRUTAL DEATH METAL As for El Salvador, the extreme metal music scene was centered around brutal death metal. A more extreme form of death metal, brutal death metal relies on blast beats, fast distorted guitars, and guttural vocals that render the littering of fantasy violence in the lyrics almost incomprehensible. Death metal itself was an underground movement that never truly had a home. From the beginning, death metal, like most forms of extreme metal, was made popular through the trading of tapes and recordings among fans in the underground movement with no real hopes or aspirations of becoming a mainstream musical movement. Ian Christe explains that the seeds of death metal were planted throughout the world. The phenomenon was a pure product of the tape-trading underground. Cultured on grotty little demo tapes decorated with skeletons, blood, and guts, early death dealers sent listeners hunting for maps: Possessed from San Francisco, Deathstrike from Chicago, Slaughter from Toronto, Necrophagia from Ohio, Cryptic Slaughter from California, Sepultura from Brazil, Sodom from Germany, and Repulsion from Michigan. For this widespread metal minority, the post office served as a site for sacred rituals until the bands were ready for concert halls. (Christe 2004, 241)

Death metal arrived in El Salvador through friends and family members who had emigrated to other countries and sent these “grotty little demo tapes” back to El Salvador to fans who were eager for something, sometimes anything, that might help to heal or at least deal with the pain of living in the midst of violence and repression for so long. The music itself was always meant to provide not only a cathartic release through fantasy violence but also a space where people who thought differently than mainstream society, those living outside of the status quo, could explore their ideas and express

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themselves. Christe explains the music by saying that “the demonic imagery [of death metal] was a metaphor that ripped listeners out of complacency in order to raze the past and begin anew . . . transformed by violence, listeners could almost feel the flesh being ripped apart by overwhelming death metal music—yet this violent imagery was never more than an abstraction” (Christe 2004, 244). This “transformation by violence” was something that many Salvadorans could easily understand as they had first-hand watched their society, their country, their families, and their own selves be transformed by actual physical violence on an almost daily basis. One of the, if not the, first brutal death metal4 bands in El Salvador was the previously mentioned group, Kabak. The band was fronted by Rodrigo “Fatality” Artiga. Fatality plays the drums while releasing sinister guttural vocals, a talent that very few possess even in the international musical industry. Their first full-length album, Decomposición Cerebral, explores the acts of a serial killer in detailed and violent imagery supported by explicit medical jargon and the violent rhythm of brutal death metal’s best, and most “brutal,” techniques (See figure 2.2). Fatality explains that one of the reasons he originally wanted to play brutal death metal and one of the reasons why it was so

Figure 2.2  The Band Kabak at the Salamanca Recording Studio Recording the Album Decomposición Cerebral with Vicente “Chente” Sibrian of Broncco, 1997. Source: Photo provided by Visual Archive of America Line Production and owned by Rodrigo Alejandro Artiga.

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well accepted is that it was seen as a form of “desahogo” [relief], for many Salvadorans. He says that en aquel entonces la música también era un desahogo bien personal. ¿Por qué en El salvador, antes, era tan popular el death metal o el brutal death metal o el grindcore—que era lo más extremo? No existían cosas death melódica, ¿por qué? Porque era también parte de lo que pasaba con la situación socio-política. Era más social. O sea, como la gente estaba como suprimida que no sabía cómo escaparse de su angustia, más que todo de su miedo. Entonces, cuando yo tocaba esa música era como que . . . “¡Wow!” Entonces mucha gente se sentía identificada con eso. Y se da cuenta que el brutal death metal era más popular en las zonas donde ha pasado casi la misma experiencia porque la gente también necesitaba como un desahogo. ¿Qué más puede hacer un brutal death o un super black metal? En cualquier nacionalidad lo va a encontrar. En nuestro caso, como yo la veo en El Salvador en esos momentos, en las 90s, también estábamos bien estresados. Estábamos con una angustia. Entonces, el brutal death metal era como una explosión total porque el heavy ya no te conseguía nada de nada. (At that time, music also was a very personal relief. Why, in El Salvador, back then, was death metal or brutal death metal or grindcore so popular—which were the most extreme? Things like melodic death didn’t exist, why? Because it was a part of what was happening with the socio–political situation. It was more social. I mean how the people were suppressed that they did not know how to escape their anguish, more than anything their fear. So, when I played music like this it was like . . . “Wow!” So, a lot of people felt that they identified with that. And you find out that brutal death metal was more popular in the zones where they had suffered similar experiences because the people needed some relief. What else could brutal death metal or super black metal do? In any nationality you will find it. In our case, as I saw it in El Salvador at that moment, in the 90s, we were also very stressed. We were in anguish. So, brutal death metal was like a total explosion because heavy metal wasn’t able to provide you anything at all.)

For Kabak, Fatality, and many people in El Salvador, the appearance of brutal death metal in the country filled a void into which they could rid their bodies and minds of the violent repression which they had lived in for so long. Fatality eventually was offered the opportunity to emigrate to Finland where he started a new band, Kataplexia, of the same strand. However, he returns to El Salvador almost every year to either play with his band in live shows or to make an appearance at the local Metalfest, which also started during the postwar and is now in its twenty-fifth year. Always a supporter of the local movement, Fatality goes through great lengths not only to show his support but also to create opportunities for bands and fans alike.

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While Kabak ended when the band members went their separate ways, all of them emigrating to different countries, their local reunion tour in the United States shows that those Salvadorans who were a part of the movement, both in the beginning and afterwards, still value the band and its contribution to the history of heavy metal in El Salvador—and to their own lives, as well (See figure 2.3). Kaitlin Thomas, in her study of the Latin American New Song, makes the observation that music can counteract pessimism and the effects of cultural rootlessness and alienation, reinforcing a sense of belonging and a positive self-image, both prerequisites for successful social change. A strong sense of shared identity can energize people and inspire them to take collective action to improve their lives. When individuals see themselves as proud members of a culture, they are more likely to organize and work for change. (Thomas 2015, 10)

Heavy metal culture in El Salvador has seen its ups-and-downs over the years. Their rocky start in the late civil war years was followed by a “Golden Age” at the end of the 1990s that solidified the movement and created a longlasting community and culture for many Salvadorans who no longer identify

Figure 2.3  The Band Kabak playing live in Silver Spring, MD, USA, 2019. Source: Photo provided and owned by Christian M. Pack, PhD.

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themselves with the traditional modes of existence and thought within their country. Heavy metal and brutal death metal provide a space where they can explore the thoughts and ideas that the rest of their society may not fully understand. However, the bottom line is that the music, the culture, and the community provide a real space where Salvadorans can reflect and deal with the “culture of violence” into which they are born and through which they still, to this day, have to suffer. As gang violence continues to plague the country and decapitated and mutilated bodies can still be seen plastered all over the news and even in the streets, it appears that spaces like those provided by brutal death metal will continue to be necessary until actual solutions to the “culture of violence” can be found and Salvadoran citizens can live free from the fear and terror that are born of it.

NOTES 1. The five individual communist parties that joined together to form the FMLN on October 10, 1980, were: the Fuerzas Populares de Liberación Faribundo Martí (Faribundo Martí Popular Liberation Forces; FPL), the Salvadoran Communist Party (CP), the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), the Resistencia Nacional (National Resistance; RN) and the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores Centroamericanos (Party of Revolutionary Central American Worker’s Party; PRTC). During the postwar, some of these parties would once again split off, but the FMLN became the formal left-wing party of the country and remains as such to this day (even in its current “watered-down” form). 2. The “Maximiliano Hernández Martínez Brigade” was a well-known death squad during the civil war era named after the famous right-wing, fascist dictator General Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, who ruled the country with an iron fist in the 1930s and who was responsible for another mass genocide, simply known as 1932 in El Salvador (named after the year in which it occurred). 3. After the success of Broncco, two more major bands appeared on the scene in El Salvador. These bands, Tabú and Renegado, propelled the movement forward toward heavier music, incorporating elements of thrash metal and becoming demarcated as classic “heavy metal” bands. Both of the bands have songs that deal directly with the repression of the civil war era, while Renegado even has songs about the massacre at El Mozote. Although most of the original members of Tabú have left the country, the band continues to play with replacements (generally younger musicians). Renegado, however, still plays with its original members and are very active in the musical scene, playing every year at El Salvador Metalfest. 4. While the terms “brutal death metal” and “death metal” may seem confusing, “brutal death metal” is a branch of “death metal” that utilizes faster, harsher beats and, like death metal, employs violent imagery in its lyrics. The “brutal” part of “brutal death metal” is more in its sound and mode of singing (deep guttural, almost nondecipherable singing influenced by grindcore) than it is in its lyrical content.

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REFERENCES Artiga, Rodrigo “Fatality” (Kabak, Kataplexia, Thrashgrinder). 2016. Personal Communication. December 2016. Chávez, Joaquin. 2004. “An Anatomy of Violence in El Salvador.” NACLA Report on the Americas, 37 (6): 31–37. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​/1​​07148​​39​.20​​04​​.11​​72452​​3. Christe, Ian. 2004. Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal. New York: It Books. Decesare, Donna. 2009. “Salvadoran Gangs: Brutal Legacies and a Desperate Hope.” NACLA Report on the Americas, 42 (6): 33–37. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​/1​​07148​​39​ .20​​09​​.11​​72547​​5. Delugan, Robin Maria. 2005. “Peace, Culture, and Governance in Post–Civil War El Salvador (1992–2000).” Journal of Human Rights, 4 (2): 233–249. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​ /10​.1​​080​/1​​47548​​30590​​​95216​​1. D’Haeseleer, Brian. 2015. “American Civic Action: The National Campaign Plan and the Failure to Win ‘Hearts and Minds’ in El Salvador.” Diplomacy & Statecraft, 26 (3): 494–5113. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​/0​​95922​​96​.20​​15​​.10​​67527​. Dickson-Gomez, Julia. 2002. “The Sound of Barking Dogs: Violence and Terror among Salvadoran Families in the Postwar.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 16 (4): 415–438. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​525​/m​​ag​.20​​02​.​16​​.4​.41​​5. Godoy, Angelina Snodgrass. 2017. “Making Meaning of Violence: Human Rights and Historical Memory of the Conflict in El Salvador.” Journal of Human Rights, 17(3): 367–379. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​/1​​47548​​35​.20​​17​​.13​​39184​. Hajji, Nadia. 2018. “After Repeal of El Salvador’s Amnesty Law: Next Steps in Justice and Accountability.” Texas International Law Journal, 53 (1): 77–108. Kurtenbach, Sabine. 2013. “The ‘Happy Outcomes’ May Not Come at All—Postwar Violence in Central America.” Civil Wars, 15 (1): 105–122. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​080​ /1​​36982​​49​.20​​​13​.85​​0884. Lineberger, Kelly Padgett. 2011. “The United States-El Salvador Extradition Treaty: A Dated Obstacle in the Transnational War against Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13).” Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, 44 (1): 187–216. Luft, Murray. 1996. “Latin American Protest Music—What happened to ‘The New Songs’?” Canadian Folk Music, 30 (3): 10–18. Lyon-Johnson, Kelli. 2005. “Acts of War, Acts of Memory: ‘Dead-Body Politics’ in US Latina Novels of the Salvadoran Civil War.” Latino Studies, 3(2): 205–225. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​057​/p​​algra​​ve​.ls​​​t​.860​​0240. Manwaring, Max G., and Court Prisk. 1988. El Salvador at War: An Oral History of Conflict from the 1979 Insurrection to the Present. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1988. Marinero, Edwin. 2014. Personal Communication. October, 2014. Solis, Diego. 2016. “El Salvador: From Bloody Civil War to Devastating Criminal Violence.” Stratfor Analysis, October 9, 2016. Thomas, Kaitlin E. 2015. “Social Defiance and Liberation Won with a Musical Front: The Salvadoran Struggle.” Delaware Review of Latin American Studies, 16 (1).

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http:​/​/uds​​pace.​​udel.​​edu​/b​​itstr​​eam​/h​​andle​​/1971​​6​/197​​58​/Vo​​l16​-1​​Thoma​​s​.pdf​​?sequ​​​ ence=​​1​&isA​​llowe​​d=y. Varas-Díaz, Nelson. 2019. “Decolonial Hope: From the ‘Nueva Canción’ to Heavy Metal Music in Latin America”. Oral presentation at the 4th Biennial Research Conference, International Society for Metal Music Studies. Nantes, France. Villalta, Francisco “Chele Dismember,” 2014. Personal Communication. December, 2014.

Chapter 3

Dictatorship and Metal in Chile A Causal Relationship? Maximiliano Sánchez Mondaca

The efforts to understand metal’s varied forms would be incomplete without a close look at the ways these manifest in South America. There, stories of oppression, persecution, and repression have influenced different aspects of this musical genre. Chile is not the exception. Thus, the objective of this work is to explore how influential the dictatorship’s regime was in the emergence of metal (thrash metal specifically) and to understand the contextual elements that fostered its consolidation as a relevant counterculture in the musical and cultural landscape of the eighties. But before we address thrash metal in Chile, it is vital to know the context in which it emerged. THE 1970S AND THE DICTATORSHIP IN CHILE At the beginning of the 1970s, Chile experienced a unique era in its history. It was the first time a socialist government had been elected by popular vote, a phenomenon which would later be known as the “thousand days of Salvador Allende’s government.” However, because it had only obtained the support of a third of the voters, Allende and his new government needed ratification by the Congress; this involved the acceptance of a democratic guarantee statute. By then, the environment in Chile had become extremely tense due in large part to an ever-growing socially polarizing climate. In addition, Allende’s economic policies were received with hostility and fear by businessmen and large business owners. Undoubtedly, there were important differences between the prevailing views regarding the social and cultural change that began to occur in the country at the time (Bowen 2008). The cultural project of the Chilean left during the Allende government operated at several levels in the construction and elaboration of a peaceful 61

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pathway to socialism. This trajectory would be known as “the Chilean road to Socialism.” Certain measures carried out during the regime corresponded to constitutional reforms directed at the nationalization of resources; these included the Copper Nationalization Act (1971). After the expropriation of haciendas, foreign companies were nationalized and the State increased its control over companies and banks. This attempt to restructure the country’s economy led to increased inflation and food shortages. In December 1972, Allende denounced, in front of the UN General Assembly, the international aggression and economic boycott against Chile. Finally, a prolonged strike by truckers opposing nationalization plans left stores without supplies. The merchants, with almost nothing left to sell, joined the protests. At that point, social unrest was unstoppable. The aforementioned issues exploded on September 11, 1973. On that day, the Armed Forces, led by high-ranking officials, staged a “Military Coup,” a moment mostly remembered as the democratic breakdown in Chile. After the bombing of La Moneda Palace1 and the declaration of the state of siege, a military junta led by Augusto Pinochet was set up to take control of the country. Despite being initially presented to citizens as a temporary order that would quickly give way to the constitution of a legitimately elected government, the temporary government ended up becoming a seventeen-year long dictatorship. During the dictatorship, political parties and labor unions were banned. The military regime censored the media and limited its citizens’ rights and freedoms; this included a restriction of their freedom of expression and protest. Pinochet adopted a Neoliberal economic model, similar to the one that had spread throughout the United States, which allowed large companies to enrich themselves by privatizing basic services. Following Allende’s overthrow, the military government censored all artistic and cultural production by taking control of State- and university-run television channels. This was carried out by government agencies such as the National Directorate of Social Communication (DINACOS in Spanish), which controlled all media content. Similarly, they implemented policies which welcomed the selling of advertisement spaces, while simultaneously trimming public contributions to university television (Castro 2017). It is during this time that the “cleaning operation2” occurs (Errázuriz 2010). In addition, it is also during this time that a wide range of extreme measures was implemented against individual citizens, measures that ranged from attacks against the physical integrity and right to live—death, torture, imprisonment, exile3—to layoffs from public offices and universities. The repression extended to the indiscriminate trimming of beards and forced haircuts on its citizens. This was accompanied by other public strategies such as book burnings, wall cleanings, and the renaming of streets and schools, among many other such tactics (Aguilar 2003). All

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these repressive measures undertaken by the Chilean military regime (i.e., censorship of artistic works, arrests, and even murders) were also manifested as a set of measures that targeted and eliminated the cultural productions of the Popular Unity period4 in an effort to eliminate any hint of dissent (Errázuriz and Leiva 2012). Simultaneously, the fostering of artistic creations rooted in “proper Chilean traditions” became one of the key tenets of the military regime’s cultural policy; the regime would find in music a key ally. An example of this was the official support given to “authentic” Chilean folk music recordings, that is to say “music without political content”; the ensemble “Los Huasos Quincheros” became the greatest proponents of this musical tendency (El Mercurio 1975a). These “Huasos” strongly supported the military coup and became international ambassadors of what became known as “True Chilean Folklore.” They actively supported the new authorities in musical events and in the promotion of initiatives aimed at rescuing true Chilean identity or “Chileanness” (Erráturiz 2010). For Augustin (1978), the Latin American dictatorships managed to remain alert at and vigilant of any inkling of cultural or artistic development. For this reason, in Chile, the cultural action of the military dictatorship served as one of its many strategies directed at ensuring its ongoing total control. Thus, cultural repression was part of the regime’s key repressive strategies, along with the other, more obvious ones, such as arbitrary detentions, human rights violations, torture, disappearances, and murders.5 Chilean authoritarianism became one of the many global responses against Marxism in the 1970s. THE 1980S IN CHILE The arrival of the 1980s brought an economic crisis that shook the country and affected a large sector of the middle class as well as the poorest sectors of the population. Beyond the macro-economic impact of the crisis, its consequences were immediately felt in the form of widespread social unrest, evidenced in spontaneous social reactions, protests organized by civil and political entities, and opposition political parties, something that would evince a re-articulation hitherto nonexistent. The student protest movements, which included university and high school students, were also key actors of this period and their mobilizations fostered the emergence of student federations in open rebellion against the regime (Gazmuri 2001). This is how, from these particular facts, civil society, and especially the youth, appeared as a meaningful and enormously influential voice within the critical-dissident spectrum under the dictatorship. The economic crisis of 1982 silenced the

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siren songs of neoliberalism and triggered in civil society a resistance that, up to then, had remained hidden (Salazar and Pinto 1999). In 1983, at the height of the military dictatorship and after the approval of the 1980s Constitution, General Augusto Pinochet boosted his authoritarian grip by confirming his intention to remain in power for six more years. It was officially insisted that this new period constituted a national holiday that unified all Chileans in their “love of the country” (Joignant 2007). It should also be noted that it was during this same decade that the most damaging acts in terms of repression, murder, and persecution occurred. This was due, as stated earlier, to the re-articulation of the opposition in terms of political parties and in terms of popular movements. This triggered a myriad of civil protests that would result in the hardening of repressive measures, particularly against left-leaning political party militants, artists, and musicians, fostering an even more tense social context. In addition, a process known as “cultural mutation (or change)” began to develop. This can be understood as the weakening of the traditional ways in which relations were organized (e.g., a political ideal or work). Thus, a political ideal on which to build society loses meaning as a vital axis of experience. This situation evidences the loss of centrality of public goods in the face of the growing importance of the private realm. Consequently, the experiences of subjects, particularly young people, become fragmented, weakening the cultural model based on the common good (Marín 2005). The Neoliberal economy, tragically amplified by the dictatorship, was fundamentally defined by its eagerness to implement policies and economic reforms that would drastically reduce the size and role of the State within civil society and its role as an industrializing organism (Quitral 2012). With the State crisis during the eighties, society appeared fragmented in several spheres, while the idea of totality vanished. Thus, each criticism appears as partial, meant “to reduce the whole society to one causal mechanism identifying a rupture model with a definitive structure, against which there is no longer possible change action: only complaint and disenchantment” (Garretón 2000, 145). In the 1980s, whether by virtue of educational modernizations, lack of employment, marginalization, or repression, Chilean youths had lost their institutional ties to the State. Indeed, for young people who had received an education of erratic objectives linked to the market’s sway, they only knew the State as a repressor. Having become accustomed to an individual vision of the future, the State had lost its presence, becoming a symbol of exclusion (Marcel 1985). Totalitarian regimes, and particularly the dictatorship in Chile, tried to suppress spontaneous thinking and replace “real” culture with a “culture” at the service of those who governed. This is why culture takes on a praxis of “liberation” and becomes a critical artistic expressions, in some cases with

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a predominantly oppositional political discourse (Carrasco 1993). It is to this extent that repression prevents expression, particularly when it becomes the main cause of rejection by different movements from different political, social and artistic spheres (Weinstein 1989). CENSORSHIP AND ARTISTIC RESISTANCE DURING THE 1980S During the 1980s, there was a process of self-censorship that artists themselves carried out to avoid suspicion. Art in general was not exempt from the burden of the social market economy, reducing all human production to simple merchandise subjected to the laws of supply and demand, all without State subsidy (Salas 2001). This caused great impact on the cultural output of the country, giving rise to a pro-system artistic sphere, devoid of any critical stances, and in which lyrics reflected evasive elements of reality (love, adolescent experiences, etc.). Some key musical examples can be found in Chilean pop bands, such as Nadie, Engrupo, Valija Diplomática, and UPA, among others. Little by little, the dominant institutional culture became visible. Culture sought to consolidate the status quo and obstruct and destroy the possibilities of an authentic expression among young people. Furthermore, it facilitated oppression, repression and exploitation by those who exercised power (nations, corporations, financial centers, and individuals) (Agustin 1996). It is for this reason that cultural and artistic alternatives during the 1980s worked under established political precepts; therefore, the cultural landscape was reduced to a few references, which were mostly harmless and devoid of any critical social sense. It should be noted that after the coup d’etat of September 1973, everything regarding the arts and culture had undergone a “cultural blackout.” This was accompanied by the repression and self-repression of cultural manifestations considered contrary to the official stance, which led to a decline in the creation, production, and circulation of cultural goods in the interior of the country at that time (Donoso 2013). This new reality, installed within the social imaginary, was used by both opponents and adherents to the military regime to articulate a public debate around the fact that culture and arts would no longer represent a priority. On the contrary, these areas of society would be subjected to the more general policies implemented under two ideological sources that prevailed in the government: the National Security Doctrine6 and neoliberalism proper (Donoso 2013). In this sense, the so-called “cultural blackout” was precipitated by the transition from promotion to cultural production, from the State to civil society, and by the strong repression and vigilance carried out by the regime toward these new private manifestations

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(Donoso 2013). In addition to the above, measures such as detention for suspicion and curfew greatly inhibited cultural activity and nightlife. Similarly, the control of public space and artistic and creative circuits, on the one hand, inhibited the creation and cultural life of the country. On the other, it gave rise to a contesting imagination and a horizon of democratic expectations and ideals that created new and flourishing cultural circuits (Subercaseaux 1994). It is in this context where different movements linked to music began to emerge that worked underground and that gradually brought together a growing percentage of young people. Despite this collective belief regarding a decline in production and artistic creation (blackout), we can estimate that especially within the underground7 musical genres of popular music, there were avatars of change for greater social and political openness (LeVine 2009). It is for this reason that they were persecuted and subjected to permanent repression by the official institutions. However, it was these circuits that kept the creative energy of people alive (Thorrington 2013). Their clandestine nature allowed them to function in the shadows of the regime. This type of expression took place out of sight and within small groups, resulting in the dispersion of culture, an effect that would later work as a breeding ground for the dispersion of artistic creation in multiple micro-examples in what came to constitute a sort of encapsulation of the public sphere of art. As a result, the public character of culture was lost; in the eyes of the dictatorial system, culture was no longer necessary for social development (Adriazola 2001; Salas 2000). Gradually, these cultural manifestations mostly linked to music and the youth transformed into subcultures as they represented a different articulation within a dominant culture (Fouche 2001). It should also be noted that, before the formation of any musical youth subculture, there is the issue of taste (for certain garments or bands) that unites individuals. But these tastes do not emerge out of the blue; rather, they are conditioned to the social interactions in which each of the actors participate (Megías and Rodríguez, 2002). It is an irrefutable fact that the dictatorship experienced in Chile (1973– 1989) structurally modified the sociopolitical and cultural landscape of the country. It shocked the Chilean people with its violent force, caused a break in its democratic history, and affected the daily existence of people, their conversations, and social interactions (Thorrington 2013). In response to these reasons, these subcultures began to acquire countercultural features; after all, they went against the dominant culture. Subcultures present countercultural features during those times when excluded groups fight battles to establish their identities and create symbolic links connoting these identities. This explains the emphasis on the production of symbols that characterize countercultures (Britto 1994).

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For Agustin (1996), the counterculture encompasses a whole series of cultural movements and expressions, usually youthful and collective, that exceed, reject, marginalize, confront, or transcend the institutional culture. In the counterculture, the rejection of the institutional culture does not occur through political militancy, or ideological doctrines, but often in an unconscious way, as a response to deep dissatisfaction being felt toward those institutions. In this light, the counterculture generates its own means and becomes a body of ideas and identity with attitudes, behaviors, languages, ways of being, and clothing. Attached to these one also finds in general an alternative mentality and sensitivity to those promoted by the prevailing system (Agustin 1996). For those who lived their youth during the years of a dictatorship, it was difficult to configure their own space of enunciation from which they could stand without fear of violent repercussions. In the case of Chile, it could also be difficult to stand outside the left discourses, identified with a certain culture and music close to the youth of the 1970s, and away from the youth of the 1980s in the country (Urzua 2015). In response to the above, a generation emerged with a different sensibility no longer centered neither on the political as the axis of vital experience nor on the militancy of the political left culture. In light of this, a set of diverse countercultures associated to music and art were born. Once they acquired public visibility, they turned out to be partly innovative, quirky, and highly striking. Despite these features, they managed to settle in Chile as an expression of youthful disenchanted with the oppressive environment of the dictatorship, and neither police repression, the excessive authoritarianism nor the media’s stigmatization prevented them from emerging. One of these expressions was thrash metal. EMERGENCE OF CHILEAN THRASH METAL DURING THE DICTATORSHIP Metal music emerged in the Chilean context as the voice of those groups of young people who opposed the conservative government ruling at that time. It was precisely that transgressive spirit that caused rock music and metal to be frowned upon by the conservative classes in society, who saw in this music a dangerous destabilizing and agitating agent (Galicia 2005). In light of this perception, negative prejudices toward this music arose. In spite of this, the younger upper classes became the breeding ground for the emergence of metal in Chile, particularly given their access to resources and the cultural capital that granted them access to what was, until then, a distant musical culture. But their fondness for metal went even further, solidifying its status among hundreds of young Chileans in the 1980s precisely because it offered

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a rebel, though not quiet revolutionary ceremonial show, that proved more youthful than mature (Armesilla 2012). For this reason, thrash metal8 in Chile emerged within a group of wealthy young people who manage to import this culture from abroad. Although thrash metal was more of a reactive element to the repression imposed by the system, it was not a direct response on the traditional political terrain; the movement never saw itself as a direct fighting strategy to overthrow the dictatorship. In relation to the above, Anton Reisenegger, guitarist and vocalist of the band Pentagram (Interview conducted in 2019), points out that “this movement arose in many parts of the world—for example the USA, Japan, Germany—and not in all of these countries were there authoritarian regimes serving as the trigger for this to emerge.” Despite this, thrash metal’s emergence in Chile coincided with a period of great political repression, due in part to the dictatorship experiencing its dying years. This factor predisposed some local bands to assume certain political positions. For Chilean thrash metal, the social environment was vital to express their messages. It primarily served a cultural vindication function. Following such a long exclusion from a social dynamic, the youth sought to establish the conditions necessary for their development (Castañeda 2005). Prior to the emergence of thrash metal, the musical context linked to Chilean rock was far from being a fertile ground for musical development and emergence of other more avant-garde styles. Because of the increasing censorship felt during the military dictatorship, there were massive burnings of records, and a crisis in the record industry caused the only press to close its doors. In general, rock was almost completely ignored, and a lack of a unified movement was the norm, with only a handful of bands making the rounds (Escárate 1995). Therefore, this type of segregation did not allow for the advancement of a unified musical scene. This, however, ultimately led to the development of a subsequent subgenre that was somewhat independent and autonomous from the type of rock that prevailed. Escaréate (1995) affirms that rock music during the military regime began to manifest itself as an oppositional expression. Yet, the genre did not speak directly to the dictatorship in their songs, a fact which seems to suggest that rock music did not seek militant activism, despite being in opposition of the regime. In fact, most rock bands did not carry out any political militancy. Furthermore, some bands took this to the other extreme, performing at military barracks during the dictatorship. Two examples are the bands Tumulto and Los Rapos who visited the troops for a recital at their Military School, a visit which earned a vote of confidence from Augusto Pinochet himself (Planet 2013, cited in Ardiles, 2017). Thrash as a worldwide musical phenomenon emerged from the West Coast of the United States during the early eighties, having borrowed their

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rhythmic base from British heavy metal bands such as Motorhead and Judas Priest. Many young people from different latitudes developed a taste for this music and went one step further by forming peer associations with whom they could share—closely or remotely—their musical affinity and concerns about the world crisis. This began to consolidate different groups who gathered at concerts, meetings, and through the exchange of record materials and fanzines—manually assembled publications, which were distributed from person to person or by conventional mail—which became the main means of communication between its members, despite the borders that kept them apart (Domínguez 2016). In Chile, thrash arose from this exchange; therefore, it did not have any links to the rock that was made in Chile, nor with a predecessor heavy metal style.9 This represents an important fact because it allowed thrash to foster the metal subgenres that exist today in Chile, becoming their backbone (Salas 2001). Thrash metal would arrive in Chile as it did worldwide during the mid-1980s, when young people from the upper-class sectors of the capital (Santiago) adopted North American and German bands such as Metallica, Slayer, and Kreator, among others as references to start their own bands. In this context, local bands such as Massacre, Pentagram, Nimrod, Dorso, and Warpath (ex-Rust) emerged. These bands became pioneers from an ideological and aesthetic level, as their initial intent was to move away from the rock made in Chile (by bands like Feed Back) and the classic rock of Tumulto or Arena Movediza (Shoe 1999). For Feixa (1998), youth cultures capture the ways in which the youths of the time express their social experiences through the construction of distinct lifestyles, mostly during their moments of leisure. In light of this, it is fascinating that the military dictatorship would mostly allow this subgenre to emerge as an alternative countercultural musical movement, given the prevailing context of overly-authoritarian dominant culture. Anton Reisenegger, vocalist for the band Criminal, echoed this perspective: At that time there was a whole atmosphere, an environment, a super repressive and authoritarian atmosphere and that was partly due to the military regime, the dictatorship, but also because of the morality that the Church tried to impose. (Interview conducted to Anton Reisenegger in 2019)

Although in its beginnings, thrash was imported by people endowed with considerable cultural and economic capital, it soon became a heterogeneous countercultural movement of great importance. The movement brought together thousands of young people from different social classes, an effect that would be projected exponentially in subsequent decades. One instance that would demonstrate this particular articulation of the movement occurred during the first all-metal festival, which was produced and self-managed by

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band members. The main actor behind this event was Yanko Tolic from the band Massacre. Taking place on December 1985 and having a lineup that included the bands Massacre, Pentagram, Nimrod, Rust, Crypt and Belial of the city of Valparaíso, the festival, known as the “Death Metal Holocaust,” marked the beginning of a counterculture that generated its own massive events. Their popularity grew exponentially, eventually allowing its organizers to develop a movement that was attached to these events; in addition, the convergence of everyone attached to the movement led to the production of alternative materials such as fanzines, demos, and comics, among others (Sánchez 2014). The thrash movement in Chile had its zenith during the year 1987–1988, when the Pop boom decayed and the underground styles of Chilean rock, especially thrash, punk, and hardcore (Zapata 1999) aroused interest and attention from the press. By this time, shows had already multiplied; similarly, the amount of productions at the demo level also grew. In the late eighties, a new generation of young thrashers and exponents of death metal appears on the scene. The youngster that comprised this novel generation no longer belonged to high socioeconomic sectors; instead, they mostly came from middle-class communes. Some band names from this new generation were Atomic Aggressor, Sadism, Death Yell, Totten Korps, and In Agression, to name a few. These bands would become a fixture at the Sala Lautaro, the main center for the performance of their concerts and a symbol of local death metal as well as other underground currents. Establishing that space as their own, the movement became extremely heterogeneous as the years passed. Salas (2000) offers a poignant portrait of Chilean thrashers when he writes that they were “young people diluted in a present without lights, alternatively political, emotionally helpless, proud, arrogant, and carrying traumatic and morbid personal stories; such has been the breeding ground of thrash metal for more than a decade” (Salas 2000, 151). While this definition may be somewhat prejudiced, it communicates some of the heterogeneous characteristics of local thrashers, in addition to offering a bleak picture of the environment in which they are embedded. From the beginning, thrashers wanted to express their rebelliousness against the established order, positioning themselves against all kinds of authority that limited human freedom. It is in this way that “through their aesthetic choices, a shock was sought to strike the latent conscience of the “perfect citizen” which looked seemingly stupid and violent in the end, who does not consider or reconsiders anything, and who lives with the concepts imposed by generations of repressed conservatives who created them” (Hameau 1991, 52). Both in terms of the music characteristics as well as in its contents, the thrashers became an extremely critical movement against the system, religion, and politics. They used the aggressiveness of society as

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irony and as satire to manifest themselves. Cultural expressions of violence showed the presence of a counterculture ideology that clung to the use of extreme symbols, seeking a more effective recognition from society by provoking it (Gallegos 2004). The band Warpath was a clear example of using the lyrics to protest as they directly alluded to the dictatorship and the social injustices of the regime. This was evident in the lyrics for their song entitled Torture: Where are the human intentions today / In a world adapted for one / Killing everyday to impose the beliefs / Is this the real meaning to live / Is this the world we ever wanted to be in / Where the facts are double ended / Indifference turned to repression / Repression is the sense of life. (Extract from the song “Torture,” from the demo “Torture” 1989, Warpath)

The dictatorship resulted in an ambivalent political process when it came to metal music. On the one hand, it is said to have harmed the movement to some extent by censoring it and permanently repressing it. On the other hand, it is said to have also favored it by fostering its countercultural value, allowing it to function within the underground scene and bringing it close to its worldwide appearance. Metal’s countercultural value in Chile was the result of the dictatorship excluding the genre from potential integration with other subcultures, so that these became countercultures, and those who participated in them would end up being described as marginals, not fully integrated and excluded (Brito 1994). In Chile, this feature was encouraged by a permanent repression and censorship, in which any element seen as dissenting from the regime’s agenda ended up being excluded and pushed to the fringes, forced to survive in hiding. This is one of the reasons why, along with authoritarianism and a lack of spaces for youth, Chilean thrash flourished as a counterculture against the rules of “good taste” established by the prevailing political order (Hameau, 1991). An example of the coercive control exercised by the dictatorship could be seen through the media, who became during this period very important agents in the reproduction of the economic cycle, driving market dynamics and installing cultural patterns of consumption. This commercial model came to dominate the entire media system, weakening and almost extinguishing the public service model. It was accompanied by a fundamental change in the organization of central devices for the production of information, knowledge, and culture (Munizaga 1993). Because thrash did not overlapped with this logic, the mass media’s response was to address the phenomenon by stigmatizing and criminalizing the movement’s young participants. Fabio Salas, a local music researcher, described it in the following manner:

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One of the media strategies, from newspapers to television and radio, is to precisely depict young people as extravagant, ridiculous, and dissolute. Specifically, thrash has always been associated here with the belligerent (soccer) bars, the criminal lumpen, but it has never been associated with certain youthful thoughts that have to do with aesthetics and art. Thrash here has never been perceived as an art form, but rather as a kind of youthful revelry enacted while the rage of adolescence exists. Everyone is supposed to laugh again once it passes. (Interview with Fabio Salas 2006, cited in Sánchez, 2014)

The result is the establishment of a shared vision of the dictatorship, one that sees it as promoting repression. As a result, many young people reacted by adopting a rebel attitude against it, emphasizing that this rebel attitude was not a political-ideological issue, but rather a stance against the values, behavioral patterns, and fashions the media had tried to impose on the youth. Speaking of the regime, Anton Reisenegger offers the following: It could have accelerated it (the birth of thrash), it could have been that Chile was a more fertile ground for such expressions because there was a lot of discontent. But I would venture to speculate beyond that: the regime was not only an authoritarian regime, it was accompanied by a society with an authoritarian mentality, where the church still had a lot of power, the press was at the service of the de-facto powers and where young metalheads, including myself, had everything against us. The military regime obviously affected me in the sense that they were persecuting us, they hunted us practically on Las Palmas promenade, on our Saturday meetings when they arrived at the show venues and closed them. (Interview with Anton Reisenegger in 2019)

The dictatorship without a doubt precipitated the arrival of a thrash metal counterculture by limiting the musical and cultural options in the media and elsewhere, in addition to the fact that the cultural options being promoted at the time did not really fit with the temperament of a large segment of the youth. For this reason, thrashers felt excluded and without referents in the traditional media outlets. This affected the quality of life of many due to the strict restrictions in daily living and the permanent surveillance of events and restrictions on meetings of large groups. Yanko Tolic, vocalist of the band Massacre, highlights this by mentioning the following: “The fact that there were so many years of dictatorship is not like ‘oh there were so many years of dictatorship!’ It was a matter of being put to bed early and getting up early to work and nothing more. Nightlife was non-existent” (cited in Sánchez 2014, 102). For the Chilean thrash scene, the appropriation of public spaces was a key strategy in building a musical community, a strategy which sought to attain

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public visibility. The physical space par excellence was the Paseo Las Palmas, located in Providencia (Santiago city). On Saturday mornings a group of young people gathered to exchange metal records and talk about the latest news regarding metal music, both nationally and globally. In this sense, the physical territories acquire a special meaning for young people as they become a space for impermanent occupation. That is, they acquire meanings at certain times and on certain days of the week (Gallegos 2004). In addition to this space, others such as the Manuel Plaza gymnasium and the Sala Lautaro also emerged as emblematic places. These were used for concerts that brought together an average of 3,000 people a week. Once thrashers demonstrated their capacity for high levels of organization, it did not take long for their activities to raise the government’s concerns. Because of this, they were subjected to infiltrations.10 Many of those who infiltrated the scene were easily recognizable due to their ignorance on the subject. Marco Cusatto of the band Warpath comments that we had some close encounters of the third kind with elements of the Secret Service asking nonsense questions that didn’t have any answers. For example, “Who are they? Where do they come from? Where do they study? Where do they go? Where do they live? Why do they play that?” That was the level of paranoia of the military government. (cited in Sánchez 2014, 107)

However, because thrash was not directly linked to an ideologically political issue, unlike other musical genres of the time such as “La Nueva Canción” (or “the New Song”) (Fairley, 1984), along with the fact that most thrash metal was interpreted in English in a country with a small percentage of bilingual people, it did not generate major suspicions regarding their messages, this despite there being lyrics were the musicians directly referred to the dictatorship. These particularities would allow thrash metal to separate itself from any political association and avoid some levels of persecution. However, metalheads suffered direct repression at the hands of the dictatorship on a daily basis, mainly in their meeting spaces or when they were stopped in the streets of the city due to their aesthetic appearance. The Chilean experience suggests that a large part of thrash musicians, including pioneers of the thrash metal movement, came from openly conservative families in which their thinking adhered—to a certain extent—to the logic of the military regime. That being the case, some bands focused their lyrics directly against the military regime. However, despite the existence of politically oppositional ideas, the issue was avoided because it did not correspond to an ideologically political movement, but rather a musical one. Most thrashers were mainly united by a love for music and a rejection of authority, including any institution that would try to impose dogmas and general patterns of behavior (Sánchez 2014).

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The sociopolitical context did not directly affect the settlement and consolidation of thrash metal. There is even a perception that the imposed censorship, rather than repressing and hindering its genesis, allowed it to acquire a markedly underground and self-managed quality, which gave it the necessary strength to cement itself as a countercultural movement. According to Rodrigo “Pera” Cuadra, vocalist of the band Dorso, the dictatorship influenced the movement towards having that effervescence and such a good feedback within the underground. It influenced it in terms of making it harder to find and get permission for venues. The pacos11 went in and stopped the activities at the premises, there was repression for the chascones12—imagine some chascones that were just like us . . . they were not hippies, but they were chascones and aggressive. (cited in Sánchez 2014, 97)

Beyond the simple fondness for a certain type of music, thrash metal became an artistic movement proper. It acquired its status as an alternative countercultural movement with its own productions, promoting freer channels of expression, and a more horizontal cultural management, in addition to enhancing individual talents and articulating a wide range of manifestations associated with the music (see figure 3.1). This would cause a social and cultural change in terms of generating an alternate culture to the one imposed

Figure 3.1  The Band Massacre Playing Live in Chile, 1987. Source: Photo provided by Yanko Tolic Cancino.

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by the regime. This is highly valued by those who were thrashers at the time, seeing how it generated an effect that persists today. Talking about that effect, Andy Nacrur from the band Necrosis noted the following: I believe that at that time there was a great social shift, in which these tribes were born, the tribes that still exist today; they emerged because there was a great socio-musical shift, that directly rebelled against the dictatorship and to what was being imposed on the youth as the current fashion standard. (Cited in Sánchez 2014, 98)

The juxtaposition of metal against the military dictatorship has been established by describing the musical genre as a place of refuge from the prevailing sociopolitical context. Because of this, some young people interpreted it as an alternate resistance movement, an escape route, which in turn allowed it to become a vehicle for expanding worldviews and generate critical and disruptive thinking against conservatism. Yanko Tolic explains: Metal was an answer . . . it was a scream, an appeal with hands raised to the heavens, hoping for this to change, a desire to be free, a call to help us endure what we were living. Then, we found the speed of “Kill ‘Em All,” of “Show No Mercy,” of “Endless Pain” by Kreator, the marvelous Mercyful Fate which began to free us from the yokes of the church, from fears. It was total liberation. We loved all that music because it freed us and showed us a new path. (Interview with Yanko Tolic in 2019)

Metal as a musical genre, even today, can be quite difficult to decipher through its constituent elements by those who do not belong or are not part of its community. In spite of this, it remains and functions as an element that serves as a relevant part of the multiple manifestations that cohabit the broad musical spectrum. However, beyond these general definitions, in the context of Chile, metal became a response to the hegemonic culture imposed by the dictatorship. While it lacked any ties to political parties or ideologies, it did position itself against that hostile world that it had to endure, establishing a discourse of its own, a differentiating aesthetic coupled with a set of opposing values and ideas that presented a front to the dictatorial system and its conservative machinery. More than a passing fashion, it was a reaffirmation of an identity that confronted the social context lived in the 1980s in Chile. Anton Reisenegger stated the following on this matter: The mere fact of making music, having long hair, walking around in black T-shirts and torn jeans, that in itself was a political statement beyond what could be said through lyrics, it was an act of rebellion. Not only in front of the

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dictatorship, but against everything, the prevailing mentality, it was an act of rebellion, and that was not easy. (Interview with Anton Reisenegger in 2019)

DICTATORSHIP AND METAL IN CHILE If we look more closely at how decisive the dictatorship was for the genesis of thrash metal in Chile, we can see that this political system did not directly trigger its creation. It was the upper-class youth, those who had access to this counterculture and who imported it at the same time, who fostered its appearance in Chile. However, the Chilean sociopolitical context did push it to acquire particular characteristics. First, it helped transform it into a great countercultural movement outside the established youth musical “ideals.” Although thrash was not a transformative strategy of political-economic structures, nor did it aspire to be politically active, its content posed an alternative to the traditional thinking of the time and to the regime’s social norms and conventions. To a great extent, it meant that, from the musical sphere, there would be a countercultural challenge to the State’s power, a challenge not determined by participating in political or military parties traditionally used by the left and other organized popular movements. Thrashers understood at that historical moment and in that sociopolitical context that thrash metal opened the range of possibilities available to them beyond those offered by the media as mere consumption products. These images, new symbols, different attitudes, controversial figures, and accompanying sounds, which were never accepted by the media beyond addressing them as strange phenomena, were now available. Thrash metal helped people manifest their discontent through its aesthetic and musical resources, despite the military regime’s strategies to promote a cultural policy to sanitize the negative image abroad. Thus, this evidenced the somber panorama in which the country was living, exacerbated the typical features of this counterculture, and adopted a sound coupled with more extreme lyrics than in other latitudes of South America.

NOTES 1. The Republic of Chile’s President headquarters, where the offices of the closest advisors are also located. 2. These “cleaning operations” aimed to end what was seen as the cultural legacy of Marxism. 3. The Report of the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Rettig Report) gathers background on human rights violations committed between September 11, 1973, and March 11, 1990.

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4. The Popular Unity is a term used to describe the previous government (1970– 1973) led by Salvador Allende and the subsequent overthrown by the military regime. 5. For more information, see Report of the National Commission on Political Prison and Torture (Report of the Valech Commission). 6. This concept is used to define certain foreign policy actions on the part of the United States. These actions aimed at having the armed forces in Latin American countries modify their mission to dedicate themselves exclusively to guaranteeing internal order. In addition, they would combat ideologies, organizations, or movements that within each country could favor or support communism in the context of the Cold War, which paved the way for legitimizing the seizure of power by the armed forces and the systematic violation of human rights. 7. Underground refers to the musical movements that worked clandestinely and emerged during the 1980s in Chile, such as Punk, New Wave and Thrash metal. 8. Thrash metal or heavy metal are concepts that refer here to the culture of metal in a general sense, not their distinctions as different musical subgenres. 9. In Chile, heavy metal did not exist as a previous subgenre; therefore, thrash metal was the first metal style installed in the country. 10. The military dictatorship had people infiltrate in certain groups in order to obtain information about them and their organization, with the aim of arresting people identified as subversives and contrary to the regime. 11. Pejorative term used to describe the Chilean police. 12. Chascón (pl. Chascones) is a word used to describe an individual that looks unkempt, disheveled and sporting long hair. Whereas the word hippie is associated with a particular ideology or mentality, mainly attached to the free love era of the late 1960s, the word chascón generally refers to appearance. Thus, a hippie may be a chascón, but being a chascón does not automatically make one a hippie. Hence, Cuadra’s distinction.

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Chapter 4

The Role of Death Metal in the Colombian Armed Conflict The Case of the Band Masacre Pedro Manuel Lagos Chacón

The1 Colombian Armed Conflict (CAC) is a series of military events occurring in Colombia since the 1960s to the present. In it, the State and its armed forces face different illegal armed groups, some of which intend to neutralize the State’s power; these include groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army (FARC-EP in Spanish) (Pizarro Leongómez 1989) and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC in Spanish; Velásquez Rivera 2007). This conflict has caused direct violence (which is visibly manifested with words, acts, or the effects of activities aimed at pressing individuals psychologically). The violence has been both structural (which is intrinsic to the political, social and economic system) and cultural (which is more symbolic and justifies or legitimizes structural or direct violence) (Calderon Rojas 2016 citing Galtung 1989). During these six decades, the conflict has had different phases. Starting in the 1980s, drug cartels have played a key role in the Colombian stage of war. These did not only profit from illegal drug trafficking but also from destabilizing processes which include the influencing of political, economic, and social relations. Through these processes they managed to infiltrate illegal and armed institutions (such as those mentioned above) and legal public and private institutions (Medina Gallego 2012). The Colombian city of Medellín and its communes (e.g., Commune 13 San Javier) served as the epicenter of much of these activities, being subjected to violence with a considerable degree of intensity. Such context shaped the middle and lower class neighborhoods which became potential recruiting hubs for the drug cartels; many minors fell under the influence of the cartels. However, not everyone took the path of the cartels; other young

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people chose to resist this call in different ways, with some adopting and clinging to death metal as a way of resistance. The qualities of death metal revolved around a strong, striking, and dark aesthetic inventory. Death, the genre’s thematic axis, found a perfect fit with the idea of ​​opposing these legal and illegal institutions. One band that used death as a key concept to expose the reality of the country was Masacre, a death metal band from Medellín. The band’s objective shines brightly in their choice of band name as well as in their work’s content. Because artistic expressions such as music have a place in memory studies and history, especially when applied to the Colombian context, they help raise questions regarding the role death metal could have had in the CAC. Therefore, the objective of this chapter is to investigate how death metal, and particularly the artistic production of Masacre, has served as a memory vehicle, which in turn can generate historical memory about the CAC. METHODOLOGY This work is divided into three organized sections whose objective are to (1) provide the historical context necessary to understand Colombia and the city of Medellín during the 1980s and 1990s by using academic articles, official documents, and journalistic articles in order to get closer to the lived reality of the band members; (2) describe the discography of Masacre by taking into account the aesthetics of their covers, albums, and demos produced in the 1980s and 1990s, in order to identify relationships with the CAC; and (3) evidence how the work of Masacre is a vehicle of memory and can generate historical memory of the conflict, guided by the concepts and procedures conducted by the National Center for Historical Memory (CNMH, in Spanish), along with the concepts developed by Elizabeth Jelin (2001) and Maurice Halbwachs (1968). CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK In this chapter, I borrow and develop certain concepts developed and applied by the National Center for Historical Memory in their work: these are personal memory, collective memory, and historical memory. One key reason behind my choice responds to the fact that this institution is in charge of collaborating in the integral reparation and unveiling of truth of the victims of the CAC. They do this work with no desire for revenge; instead, they labor in the interest of promoting justice, reparation, and non-repetition. They plan to present an exposition centered on the corpus of Colombian historical memory

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at the Colombians’ Memory Museum; they are currently targeting a 2021 release date (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica 2017). The National Center of Historical Memory defines personal memory as the organization of milestones and events filled with personal significance that stand out in relation to others. For example, for a person it might be the day when they obtained a degree, the birth of their firstborn, the evening of their father’s burial, or the moment in which they officially entered an armed group. (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica; CNMH 2015, 32)

According to Jelin (2001), collective memory has the particularity of making sense of the past by sharing personal experiences in order to build community. When this community materializes, their sense of the past in books, museums, songs (the focus of this study), and any other such artifacts fall under the notion of memory vehicles. These enter into a dispute with other framed power dynamics: “Memories are the object of disputes, conflicts and struggles, which highlights the need to pay attention to the active and meaningful role of the participants in those struggles, framed in power dynamics” (Jelin 2001c, 2). In addition to this, Jelin adds: Individual experiences and memories do not exist in themselves, but rather manifest and become collective through the act of sharing. That is, the individual experience builds community in the shared narrative act. . . . Memory occurs when there are subjects who share a culture, while there are social agents who try to materialize these senses of the past in several cultural products that are conceived as . . . memory vehicles, such as books, museums, monuments, movies, or history books. It also manifests itself in performances and expressions that instead of re-presenting the past, incorporate it performatively. (Jelin 2001a, 37)

The National Historical Memory Center refers to collective memory as the place where personal memory is located in order to develop the truths of a community through community actions: The milestones of individual memory are located in the collective memory. In the particular case of the victims, the events that affected them individually and the stories of resistance or return are framed in collective memories . . . such collective memory is woven into everyday life when community memory managers offer interpretations of what they have lived that take root as truths in the community. (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, CNMH 2015, 32–33)

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As for historical memory, this is understood as exterior to each person. This “memory” is not mainly made up of memories proper, but of symbols that allow for the preservation of the accounts of witnesses, which include books, newspapers, among others. This concept posits that it is impossible to remember those facts. Being symbols they are presented in a succinct and schematic way, in sharp contrast to personal memory which is continuous and dense. As Halbwachs notes, it is necessary to take into account that personal memory is based on historical memory. But it is a memory that I have copied and it is not mine. . . . For me (historical facts) are notions, symbols; they appear to me in a more or less popular way, I can imagine them; I find it totally impossible to remember them. . . . We could say even more precisely: autobiographical memory and historical memory. The first one is based on the second one, since after all the story of our life is part of the story in general. However, the second one would be much wider than the first. Furthermore, it would represent the past in a succinct and schematic way, whereas the memory of our life would offer us a much more continuous and schematic representation. (Halbwachs 1968a, 54–55)

It is clear, then, that historical memory is broad with respect to personal memory and does not offer memories but rather symbols to the subjects who interact with it. The methods of history and social sciences are useful in recording the accounts of collective memories; they, in turn, are nourished with information that is also obtained from other sources in order to build a national history previously established, tested, and criticized in order for it to be transmitted. This represents a point of agreement between Jelin and the National Center for Historical Memory. For example, “history makes it possible to critically question and test the contents of memories, and this helps in the task of narrating and transmitting critically established and proven memories” (Jelin 2001b, 75). This—the historical memory—takes the accounts of the collective memory and nourishes them with information from other sources using tools from the social sciences to inscribe and articulate the communal accounts in a national history. (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. CNHM 2015, 34)

Based on this, we will understand the above mentioned concepts as ones that maintain a clear interrelation. Personal memories are located within the collective memories which are built in community through the act of sharing narratives in order to attain truths from their community. These stories are criticized, corroborated, and analyzed by social scientists through their methods and other sources in order to build a corroborated historical memory

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ready for transmission, thus, obtaining a national history in the process. Music, and in this particular case metal, can be part of the construction of that historical memory. MEDELLÍN: BULLETS ARE MADE OF METAL AS WELL The city of Medellín is the capital of the Department of Antioquía which occupies a vast area to the northwest of Colombia; the area stretches out approximately 63,000 km2. It is characterized by a complex topography due to its basins, valleys, and mountain ranges, as well as other geographical features (Espinal 1985). Within this territory, Medellín is located in the Aburrá Valley (Aburrá Valley Metropolitan Area 2000). Due to a prevailing imaginary of strength and entrepreneurship that could be historically traced to the colonial era, Medellín’s industrialization led to its promotion as an optimal migratory destination. However, at the State level and in the city, industry soon collapsed as it neglected to address the well-being of its residents and foster its pretentions to remain a city. This generated new forms of appropriation of the territory which included different illegal acts promoted by armed groups whose main protagonists throughout the 1980s and 1990s were supported by drug trafficking (Agudelo Galeano, Insuasty Rodríguez, and Valencia Grajales 2016a). Medellín suffers the consequences of structural violence in Colombia. Guzmán, Fals, and Umaña (1962) analyze violence in Colombia from a perspective oriented by structural functionalism, an epistemological school of thought that raises concerns about the structures and institutions that make up society, their interrelations and influence on its actors, taking into account the functions of these structures in the operation and development of society (Carrillo Guach, 2011). In other words, the Colombian State is understood as a complex system presenting dysfunctions in its social structures as a product of institutional problems (the political institution particularly) and the confusion and deformation of status roles at different levels of Colombian society. For example, the status role of the police is to defend the life, honor, and property of the residents of Colombia, as dictated by article 19 of the constitution that governed until 1991 (Constitution of the Republic of Colombia, article 19, 1886). However, the police actions in practice did not follow their assigned status role. As a consequence, institutions did not fulfill their expected ends (e.g., stopping the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Pablo Escobar2 in his war against the State during the end of the 1980s). Nevertheless, they did fulfill other functions (some of which were outside the legal framework), such as the imposition of the will of one group to destroy another (e.g., paramilitary groups as a counter-insurgent strategy to combat

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guerrillas and civilians considered to be the breeding ground for communism during the 1980s and 1990s) (Velázquez Rivera 2007; Guzmán, Fals Borda, and Umaña Luna 1962). Violence was then a functional tool of a particular elite, but a dysfunctional tool for others within the Colombian social system. In light of this, one might ask, what happened in Colombia in the 1980s and 1990s? According to Agudelo, Insuasty, and Valencia (2016a), the main engine of the CAC was the drug trafficking phenomenon. According to Giraldo (1994) in the 1980s, the country dealt with drug trafficking as a new relevant factor, which generated a confusing war between the guerrillas (characterized by kidnapping, extortion, and armed assaults), paramilitary groups (inclined to murder), and drug cartels (murder and terrorism). The latter managed to contaminate both public and private legal institutions, resulting in widespread corruption within the public administrative sphere. One way of understanding the context is by focusing on situations such as the alliances established between guerrillas and drug traffickers. Although both groups were allies in colonized areas for narcotic crops, mainly coca plants (Giraldo, 1994), they also became enemies when drug trafficking groups such as the Cali Cartel or the Medellín Cartel acquired land with the help of paramilitaries. These paramilitary groups were in turn supported by these cartels and the army to carry out operations against the guerrillas or political and social leaders, typically known to be leftists or members of some public position of power (Gómez Rosa 2003). Other examples of this confusing war of which Giraldo speaks were: (1) the Trujillo massacre, which was undertaken by an alliance between drug trafficking sets along with public forces to execute an anti-insurgent policy between 1990 and 1992 (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, CNMH 2018); (2) the Genocide of the Patriotic Union, a political party formed by guerrillas for their integration into civil life that had as their most representative victims the presidential candidates Bernardo Jaramillo and Carlos Pizarro in 1990 (Cardona Alzate and González Navarro 2016); and (3) the murder of justice minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who undertook a fight against drug cartels which caused Pablo Escobar to order his death in 1984 (Redacción. El Espectador 2016). Commune 13, west of the city of Medellín, is a good example of the effects of the CAC and its impact on migration. The territory’s terrain is characterized by high slopes which limit pedestrian access mainly through steps and alleys (see figures 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3). This fact facilitated the concealment, control, mobility, and permanence of armed groups (Sánchez, 2011). The invasion of homeless urban people looking for their own homes grew in the city between 1979 and 1980, leading to an increased population density which limited public space due to the lack of regulation. This situation

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Figure 4.1  Comuna 13 as Seen from La Independencia Neighborhood. Source: Photo provided by Daniel Franco Espinal.

became more complicated during the mid-1990s with the arrival of displaced peoples from the Urabá, a subregion located northeast of the Department with a 240 km stretch of coastline which became the only access to the sea from the Department due to the CAC (Ministerio de Comercio, Industria y Turismo, n.d.). The migration was so intense that by 2008 it was reported that each inhabitant of Commune 13 had 0.38 m2 of public space; the average for Medellín was 2.95 m2 (Sanchez 2011, citing Corporación Realizadores de Sueños et al. 2008). In terms of the groups that operated in the city, the paramilitaries stand out. During the 1980s, they entered these spaces to combat the guerrilla groups, including the RAFC-PA or the National Liberation Army (ELN in Spanish). It is estimated that the number of militiamen in the ELN exceeded 1,500 men (Agudelo Galeano, Insuasty Rodríguez, and Valencia Grajales 2016b). Another important protagonist in the CAC turned out to be the Medellín Cartel, which was born from a need to increase the cocaine production due to the increased demand for the drug in the United States. The Cartel managed to consolidate itself as a mafia that compromised legal economies (introducing capital into activities such as real estate, livestock, commerce,

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Figure 4.2  Electronic Escalators Installed by the Government at Comuna 13. Source: Photo provided by Daniel Franco Espinal.

tourism, etc.), society (an emerging social class through drug trafficking), and the State (controlling not only private violence but as part of the public force and other public institutions) (Medina Gallego 2012). During the next decade, there was a resurgence of violence due to the better organization of these armed groups who had the objective of controlling the territory. This control was achieved through the maintenance of bands and combos that were co-opted by these groups during the previous decade (mainly the Medellín Cartel), the elimination of those who opposed resistance, and the financing of infrastructure works that benefited the population (Agudelo Galeano, Insuasty Rodríguez, and Valencia Grajales 2016a; Medina Gallego 2012; Moreno Bedoya 2003). In addition, the sponsorship of paramilitary groups with the enactment of Decree 356 of 1994 (which regulated the operation of the Private Security and Surveillance Cooperatives) and the intention of promoting organizations formed by civilians who could collaborate with the subversive struggle, ended up favoring the expansion of paramilitarism (Colciencias et al. 2012). The process described throughout this section, particularly the one mentioned at the beginning (the CAC occurred mainly in the countryside and

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Figure 4.3  Comuna 13 Drone Photo, October 2018. Source: Photo provided by AlbertoVisuals.

remote areas), affected cities in particular ways during the last two decades of the twentieth century. Moreno Bedoya (2003) coined the term Urbanization of Conflict to describe this process. However, one of the reasons for the existence of the CAC in the cities and in the countryside, in Medellín, and at the national level, was the Colombian State’s insufficiency to meet the demands of its population and its own corruption against drug trafficking (Agudelo Galeano, Insuasty Rodríguez, and Valencia Grajales 2016a; Giraldo Giraldo 1994; National Center for Historical Memory. NCHM 2018; Cardona Alzate and González Navarro 2016; Sanchez 2011; Medina Gallego 2012; Moreno Bedoya 2003; Colciencias et al. 2012).

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THE CAC IN DEATH METAL: THE CASE OF MASACRE As I mentioned earlier, the CAC, as experienced particularly in Medellín during the 1980s and 1990s, generated illegal activities that became very attractive for young people as life projects. In light of this, music and death metal in particular became forms of resistance. A salient example in this history is the work of the band Masacre, whose musical production can be interpreted as a vehicle of memory that materialized the violent past suffered by Medellín’s youth. Because of this, I will focus on their recorded works (albums and demos), the lyrics of their songs, the covers, and the themes of their musical work during the 1980s and 1990s. The band Masacre produced four demos in total: (1) Colombia . . . Imperio del Terror (Colombia . . . Empire of Terror) (Masacre 1989); (2) Cáncer de Nuestros Días (Cancer of our Days) (Masacre 1990); (3) Rehearsal; and (4) Sepulcros en Ruinas—Rehearsal (Graves in Ruins—Rehearsal) (Encyclopaedia Metallum—The metal archives, 2002). The cover for the Colombia . . . Imperio del Terror demo presents a black and white image of a dead subject lying on the floor with the city of Medellín in the background. The album Cáncer de Nuestros Días expands the imagery to include the image of two Catholic priests with skull faces leading funeral rites in front of three coffins inside a church, also with the city of Medellín in the background. The fact that the city is in the background in both works is a revealing detail that shows that the stories told are not in the center of the city or within an exclusive neighborhood, but rather in a hill away from the city. Despite being artistic artifacts, the city of Medellín is easily recognizable given the skyscraper shown whose architecture is very peculiar to the city: this structure is none other than the Coltejer Center. However, beyond the visual content, the lyrical content of the demos also accounts for the context, specifically the CAC. In table 4.1, I present the most repeated words of the demos. In addition to the presentation of the frequency of the words included in the demos, I also present a thematic organization of the most frequently used words due to the similarity of their meanings or relationships with regards to the CAC. Having the most repeated word (in this case: Death) as a constant, I organized the demos’ themes into the following groups: (1) military conflicts (violent encounters that lead to massacres and lack or demand for justice); (2) religion and beliefs (attachment to beliefs and views around death, particularly Christianity); (3) existentialism (reconsideration of a sense of life on the part of victims and offenders when they are close to death); and (4) deception of the regimes (lies and excuses used by the establishment to justify deaths and murders). In table 4.2, I compile the thematic groups of the demos. In terms of the songs, one of the themes chosen randomly, but that is representative of the theme worked on the demos is Justicia Ramera (or Harlot

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Table 4.1  Most Repeated Words in Masacre’s 4 Demo Recordings

Source: Own elaboration based on the repeated words in the four demo recordings. For a complete list of the most repeated words see Appendix table 4.7.

Table 4.2  Thematic Dominants in Masacre’s 4 Demo Recordings Most Repeated Words Themathic groups

Classification

Muerte (Death) Guerra (War) Violencia (Violence) Brutal (Brutal) Masacre (Massacre) Justicia (Justice) Military Conflicts

Dios (God) Infierno (Hell)

Viva (Alive) Nada (Nothing)

Mentira (Lie) Imperio (Empire)

Tiempo (Time)

Religion and Beliefs

Existentialism

Deception of the regimes

Source: Own elaboration based on the repeated words of the demos.

Justice), which occurs specifically in Cáncer de Nuestros Días (1990). This theme begins by questioning the functionality of human rights in light of them not being applied or fulfilled. As an example, we can talk about the representation of children suffering from famine and war, to the mentioning of a dominant group that, in order to achieve its goals, passes over the lives of others to the point of killing them or letting them die without fear of retribution, because justice is a commodity that has been purchased by this dominant group (Masacre 1990). It is important to highlight that, as noted above, the CAC is an event that is still ongoing. For this reason, it is not surprising that it was also present

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in the band’s entire trajectory. For example, in the 1991 album Reqviem, the band offers as its first cover a black and white image of the murder of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate. The image makes sense when interpreted as the political violence that played a role within the CAC (Masacre 1991). In table 4.3, I present the most repeated words of the Reqviem album. In terms of the thematic organization of Reqviem (Masacre 1991), the album is constructed around the notion of “World,” which is the most repeated word throughout. The notion is further organized in this case as follows (see table 4.4): (1) existentialism; (2) military conflicts; and (3) religion and beliefs. I am not elaborating on them since these thematic groups have already been previously defined. Regarding the songs on the album, I randomly chose Conflicto de Paz (Peace Conflict) as my focus. This song begins by proposing a struggle for peace led by confused people within a capitalist world that is dominated by powers imposing consumer lifestyles. In this context, the powers that intervene through violence generate a wearing of these peace treaties and because of it, a type of justice without any value is produced. Living is considered a painful act. Five years later, in 1996, the band produces their second album entitled Sacro. This album presents in its cover a soldier with a gas mask in front of some corpses as the effect of some preceding combat. They also present an infrastructure destroyed by projectiles. Table 4.5 shows the most frequently mentioned words in this album. To organize the thematic groups of this album, I used the word Moral as the constant. Based on this word, I identified three groups: (1) religion and beliefs; (2) existentialism; and (3) the value of death (see table 4.6). This last one, although it could be understood as part of the existential themes similar to the demos and album analysis, seemed to be developed in a different tone. Thus, I prefer to define it as a separate subject reflected in the album. In this case, death refers to a choice or act which cancels out pain and which ceases to carry a negative value. For example, from this situation emerges a process of sicarización (a play of words from sicario or hitman or hired killer) of society, which devalued life and made death a regular source of income for populations ranging from thirteen and eighteen years of age, making of them hired killers now known as sicarios (Martinez 1993). In terms of the songs, I randomly selected the song Ritos de Muerte (Rites of Death). It talks about the repercussions of violence, massacres, threats, and torture on the population, together with the role of military forces and the loss of the value for life. An interesting aspect not seen in the previous compositions is the figure of the peasant who loses his innocence (Masacre 1996). This is as a reference to the recruitment, by illegal armed groups, of vulnerable populations such as peasants, and to the public forces that oftentimes become victimizers in the conflict.

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Table 4.3  Most Repeated Words in Masacre’s Album Reqviem—1991

Source: Own elaboration based on the album Reqviem— 1991. For a complete list of the most repeated words see Appendix table 4.8.

As can be seen from the themes in the demos and albums, death metal was given the task to express the violence of the times and the meaning of the country to the band, which inevitably connects with death (Rodriguez 2001). In other words, in the particular case of Masacre, their music opens up the question about the use of art. Art for what? Metal for what? Bruce Dickinson mentions in an interview with Sam Dunn that metal offers a “small alternative universe, a life of imagination” (Dunn and McFayden 2005a). That is, a tool to imagine a different reality, a fiction, to cope with the oppressions that a subject can experience and suffer. In the case of Masacre, metal has a different use. It does not want to offer alternative universes or imagined lives to forget the oppression caused by the opportunities subjects have (without entering into the debate about their quality). On the contrary, they want to vindicate their surrounding reality and make it more visible through aesthetic choices closer to the problems experienced by the inhabitants of Medellín. In order to do this, they do not use, for example, fancy photos of corpses while having sexual intercourse or a gore-like collage, but rather images of bodies killed in the shadow of a large city, a product of the war of the cartels and armed groups. Images that, according to Alirio Calle, were recorded in the collective memory of the territory’s inhabitants (Arango and Giraldo 2008). MASACRE: DEATH METAL RESISTING DEATH Taking into account the context of Medellín and Colombia together along with the content of the band Masacre, now I intend to answer the following

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question: How did the work of the band Masacre serve as a memory vehicle that generated historical memory about the CAC? Briefly returning to the ideas presented at the beginning, the personal memory is that which is organized from important milestones and events for a person (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. CNMH 2015). These are located in a collective memory that is built between several people to make sense of the past through the act of sharing experiences and truths and, thus, build community (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. CNMH 2015; Jelin 2001a). Finally, historical memory is external to people and is not constituted by memories, but by symbols constructed through social sciences and history methods which have as their sources the collective memories of different communities (Halbwachs 1968a; Jelin 2001b) which, in turn, result in a national history (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. CNMH 2015). In light of these definitions, I conceptualize the work of Masacre as a vehicle of memory or a materialization of senses of the past, mainly through music. Jelin (2001c) argues in this regard that these vehicles are produced by social agents who share a common culture. These vehicles that are later confronted with other interpretations and meanings of the past within its power relations (Jelin 2001c) lead to a question: for whom, that is, for which community, are these truths being built? That is to say, for whom are these vehicles of memory (understanding not only the themes of an album in general but also the literature of their lyrics and the stories told in their covers)? It could be said that Masacre, a collective entity formed by several musicians, builds truths for themselves, with the collective memory built by the members; this collective has particularities that distinguish them from other social groups, including other metal bands. However, this would be an extremely short sighted analysis not only for their death metal significance, intended to be transmitted in this work of historical memory, but also for the work of the musical group in question, since Masacre is also part of the larger collective of metal. Table 4.4  Thematic Dominants in Masacre’s Album Reqviem—1991 Most Repeated Words Thematic groups

Classification

Mundo (World) Guerra (War) Violencia (Violence) Brutal (Brutal) Masacre (Massacre) Justicia (Justice) Military Conflicts

Dios (God) Rezar (Pray) Cortejo (Courtship) Fúnebre (Funeral)

Humano (Human) Tiempo (Time)

Religion and Beliefs

Existentialism

Source: Own elaboration based on the repeated words in the álbum Reqviem—1991.

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Table 4.5  Most Repeated Words in Masacre’s album Sacro—1996

Source: Own elaboration based on the album Sacro—1996. For a complete list of the most repeated words see Appendix table 4.9.

Vargas Álvarez affirms that the experiences that are part of the history of a subject are not all lived by the individual, but that they can also be foreign. In this case, they would be re-appropriated and incorporated into their daily lives, thus becoming their own material for the construction of their identity. The same process also happens with Masacre and their use of metal to reappropriate and recontextualize a collective memory and processes of identity construction outside historical foreign elements (Vargas Álvarez 2009). The band Masacre, understood as a vehicle of memory, has materialized senses of the past in a musical form for a community that, despite not formally belonging to the band, can appropriate the content of their work for the construction of their identity, not only of subjects but of a bigger group called the metal community. Now, it is worth asking: Why do memory vehicles appropriated by the metal community generate identity-building processes? Returning to Vargas Álvarez (2009), this is because the aesthetics of the metal community in Colombia have been built around the idea of being critical to their circumstantial world (In his text, the author refers to the contemporary world; however, the present work is focused in the 1980s and 1990s. Therefore, I use circumstantial instead). The covers where dead people are exposed in front of the city of Medellín, the lyrics that tell stories about genocides sponsored by political interests, or the albums criticizing morality and religion (within a widely Catholic and violent country), not only offer the exposition of a theme that happens circumstantially (death, moral, political, or any other) but also assumes a clear position of resistance to such events. That is, a critical position against history (Vargas Álvarez 2009). This happens regardless

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Table 4.6  Thematic Dominants in Masacre’s Album Sacro—1996 Most Repeated Word Thematic group Classification

Moral (Moral) Confesar (Confess) Rezar (Pray) Funeral (Funeral) Religion and Belief

Morir (Die) Dolor (Pain)

Esclavo (Slave) Ser (Be)

The value of death

Existentialism

Source: Own elaboration based on the repeated words in the álbum Sacro—1996.

of the fact that the lyrics contained in Masacre’s work do not speak of a particular fact; when reviewing their work in detail, they tell general stories (without dates, data, or characters) which allow them to be adapted to different Colombian contexts affected by the conflict. This is the case because the members intended to portray local as well as national circumstances. Understanding the above, another question opens up: where is Masacre and its musical production located within the three previously discussed memories? The first thing to mention is that the band can be seen from two perspectives. First, as a collective; that is, seeing this band in the sense posed by Halbwachs (1968b), as a group of people who are not only part of a group but who feel part of it and share common memories. Second, as an individual. While it is true that a social group is not an individual, they can similarly be analyzed with the same categories proposed by Ricoeur (1999). That is to say, they have a character of their own (identity criteria that differentiates the memories of someone or a group of others), continuity (possibility of going back to a near or distant past without impeding the continuity of time and the storage of memories), and past and present polarity (memory as “sensation of orientation over time, from past to future”; Ricoeur 1999: 16–17). In light of this, one can argue that Masacre simultaneously has the production of their albums and compositions of songs as milestones of their artistic career, which is something of importance for each band members. However, this vehicle is located within a larger network determined by groups with which the band shares their music, to which the band feels part of, thus, entering the collective memory field. Some of these groups are: Colombian metalheads, Medellín metalheads, and the popular classes of Medellín, among others. Regarding this last mentioned group, it comes to mind that, for example, Tom Morello mentioned in an interview that metal can be a platform for political struggle (in the case of Morello, he talks about racism, while in the case of Masacre, there is a talk about the CAC) and that is why it can be a home for working class youth (Dunn and McFayden 2005b). So despite the fact that many members of the popular classes of Medellín do not know the vehicles of memory of Masacre, they are related to the members of the band by class origins, because a culture is shared with the latter.

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However, Masacre’s work does not only operate within the field of collective memory but also appears in historical memory, as it is linked to the history of a society, beyond the limits of the former (Halbwachs 1968a). Three points support this argument. The first is that when cataloging the production of Masacre as a vehicle of memory, it could be seen as an interpretation proposal of the past for a community. In this way, it generates collective memory, which together with the truths of a particular community are taken by the historians and professionals of the social sciences to be analyzed in order to have the historical memory criticized, proven, and above all established (using the terms of Jelin, 2001b) or include it along with other sources and collective memories in a national history (in terms of the CNMH). The second point is demonstrated in the legitimacy attained in an institutional field when, for example, in 2018 Alex Oquendo received an acknowledgment from the Councilor of Medellín, Santiago Jaramillo, in recognition of their contributions to the culture of the city (Official Metal Masacre 2018). This commemoration by the municipal legislative power of Medellín means that from the position of institutional power, Masacre is understood to be a band that must be recognized by Medellín, as their artistic work is part of the city’s culture, and following the Constitutional obligations of the Council as part of the State, a foundation of nationality. “The State has the duty to promote and encourage access to the culture of all Colombians in equal opportunities . . . Culture in its various manifestations is the foundation of nationality” (Const 1991, art 70). Finally, the third point takes advantage of the legitimacy achieved in the history of Colombian metal, as documented in films such as Más allá del Dolor (or Beyond the Pain) (Arango and Giraldo 2008) or Masacre y La Pestilencia (Rodriguez 2001); and in the history of world metal. For example, Kjietil Manheim, former drummer of Mayhem, highlights the crudeness of the sound of Colombian metal along with the identification of feeling the lack of a place within a social structure, dominated by religion in Norway or drug trafficking and violence in Colombia (Durán and Associate Producer Ekaterina Upegui 2016). It is necessary to mention that the first point supports the relationship between collective memory and historical memory in terms of how much the first memory is an object of study. The other two points are examples of a vehicle, in this case the music of Masacre, being reviewed at least at some point and entering the history of metal or, more importantly, achieving State and official recognition as part of the culture of Medellín. I close this section anchoring the objective of the Colombian band (who have declared themselves in resistance against legal and illegal institutions) with the location of their musical production within the collective memory as a memory vehicle. The latter aims to endow the past with the conflict of certain senses that they will enter into dispute with other memories within

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power relations (Jelin 2001c). These disputes may be objects of study for historians and social scientists alike in order to develop a historical memory of the CAC and consequently a national history. The example of Masacre with their music works as a reference to see death metal not only as an object of analysis of resistance processes within the innumerable problems existing in Colombia but also as a tool that can contribute toward the construction of a historical memory that tells the CAC’s history. CONCLUSIONS Violence served as a functional tool for the Colombian State in terms of achieving tasks such as the legitimate use of force or the consolidation of institutions over time. However, for the lower levels of the social system and the geographically distant, violence is presented as a dysfunction. This is due to the fact that they (mostly) did not belong to the political elite and were repressed by their affiliation to a political party, which gave reasons to citizens to arm themselves, either in guerrillas to combat this repression or in paramilitary groups allied with the legitimate force of the State. Drug trafficking, which had its peak in the 1980s and 1990s, took center stage in the CAC, as it is not an actor that disputed with the other illegal and legal armed groups. Their dispute consisted in permeating legal (both public and private) and illegal (regardless of political ideology) institutions in order to control the territories through drug trafficking cartels. This situation caused some young people (at the time) to develop artistic groups as resistance strategies. An example of this is the work of Masacre and all their aesthetic artifacts (covers, albums, lyrics), which open up the question about the meaning of art. The death that permeated their work is a critical positioning in the face of the circumstantial reality that the band members experienced. Again, death metal for what? Given this question, the answer is to claim the surrounding reality and make it more visible through aesthetic artifacts that are closer to those problems experienced by the inhabitants of Medellín and Colombia. In terms of memory, Masacre is interpreted analogously (as Ricoeur puts it) as an individual (knowing that it is a collective) that shares their musical work with other groups, some with whom the band feels connected building common memories (according to Halbwachs), and others with whom it shares a culture (according to Jelin). This musical work is understood in this writing as a vehicle of memory that aims to give the CAC past senses, which are confronted in disputes against other senses of the past in the middle of power dynamics. These disputes occur in the collective memory space, because in it

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are located the musical experiences of Masacre and the identities of the metal community which claim the memory vehicle made by the band. As for historical memory, as this is normally generated by historians and social scientists through the act of compiling, criticizing, and comparing collective memories in order to obtain a national history, it makes every memory vehicle a vehicle related to historical memory due to the existing interrelation between memories. In the case of Masacre, their vehicle has had two Table 4.7 (Appendix) Complete List of the Most Frequently Mentioned Words in Masacre’s 4 Demo Recordings Word

Frequency

Muerte 15 Guerra 12 Ser 10 Nada 10 Viva 10 Morir 9 Imperio 8 Mentira 8 Dios 8 Justicia 8 Violencia 8 Brutal 8 Masacre 8 Tiempo 7 Infierno 7 Terror 6 Alma 6 Ruina 5 Hambre 5 Mundo 5 Dominar 4 Sepulcro 4 Soledad 4 Tierra 4 Tormenta 4 Recuerdo 4 Realidad 4 Morboso 4 Condenar 4 Mortalidad 4 Raza 4 Vida 4 Paz 4 Holocausto 3 Ya 3 Word Count Total: 300

% 5.00 4.00 3.33 3.33 3.33 3.00 2.67 2.67 2.67 2.67 2.67 2.67 2.67 2.33 2.33 2.00 2.00 1.67 1.67 1.67 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.33 1.00 1.00

Word Escoria Humanidad Vivir Golpear Pecado Ahora Ramera Mientras Humano Conflicto Termonuclear Patria Trono Día Gritar Embriagar Oscuro Profano Mortal Acción Reacción Sed Poder Haber Rito Campo Sangre Gobierno Paramilitar Campesina Puerta Ardiente Mente Oír Campana

Frequency 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

% 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.67 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33 100.00

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Table 4.8 (Appendix) Complete List of the Most Frequently Mentioned Words in Masacre’s Album Reqviem—1991 Word

Frequency

Mundo Guerra Brutal Justicia Masacre Tiempo Violencia Cortejo Fúnebre Humano Perder Rezar Ruina Búsqueda Cáncer Dominar Muerte Muerto Paz Sepulcro Soledad Tormenta Vida Conflicto Ecos Escoria Experimento Hambre Word Count Total: 207

14 10 8 8 8 7 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3

%

Word

6.76 4.83 3.86 3.86 3.86 3.38 2.90 2.42 2.42 2.42 2.42 2.42 2.42 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.93 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45

Holocausto Largo Morir Patria Ramera Resultado Ser Vivir Blasfemar Campesina Condena Denso Dinero Fe Gobierno Gritar Hipocresía Imperio Llanto Morbosa Mortal Oxígeno Paramilitar Poder Realidad Suplicar Tierra

Frequency 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1

% 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 1.45 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.97 0.48 100.00

particular recognitions: (1) within the history of metal at the global level as metal researchers and pioneers of the genre have recognized their importance; and (2) by the Colombian State on behalf of the Medellín municipal legislative power, who in 2018 recognized the band as part of the culture of Medellín. This past exposition demonstrates that historical memory of the CAC can be constructed using narratives told through death metal. I understand it is important to finish this chapter with the following reflection. Metalheads in Colombia do not need to imagine imaginary foes. They knew about actual camouflaged monsters who dismembered people and played soccer with their heads (Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica. CNMH 2018). From 2016 to May 2019 a total of 702 social leaders were killed (Redacción Judicial 2019). These situations continue to inspire Colombian death metal and, unfortunately, continue to haunt the populations they describe in their work.

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Table 4.9 (Appendix) Complete List of the Most Frequently Mentioned Words in Masacre’s album Sacro—1996 Word

Frequency

Moral Dolor Esclava Confesar Funeral Ser Morir Rezar Fe Hablar Mundo Pedir Acto Hombre Muerte Sangre Verdad Flor Horror Imagen Lágrima Ver Word Count Total:

14 11 10 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 164

% 8.54 6.71 6.10 4.88 4.27 4.27 3.66 3.66 3.05 3.05 3.05 3.05 2.44 2.44 2.44 2.44 2.44 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83 1.83

Word Amén Camino Campo Carne Guerra Lamento Orgasmo Paso Pecador Querer Razonamiento Realidad Rito Rodilla Tierra Verdadera Vida Violencia Aire Cerebro Luz Terminar

Frequency 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1

% 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 1.22 0.61 0.61 0.61 0.61 100.00

NOTES 1. To Paulina Saldarriaga, Daniel Franco, and Alberto Mendoza for proving that solidarity can be given between strangers without any interest beyond helping; To Oscar Páez and David Criollo, my friends, now I do feel better, thanks for all. 2. Pablo Escobar was a Colombian drug lord and leader of the Cartel de Medellín narco-terrorist group.

REFERENCES Agudelo Galeano, Juan, Insuasty Rodríguez, Alfonso, and José Valencia Grajales. 2016a. “Entre la Caída del Espíritu Paisa y la Lucha por la Resignifcación del Territorio.” In Elementos Para Una Genealogía Del Paramilitarismo En Medellín, 1st ed., 11–26. Colombia: Editorial Kavilando. Agudelo Galeano, Juan, Insuasty Rodríguez, Alfonso, and José Valencia Grajales. 2016b. “Los Grupos Armados Ilegales. Del Campo a la Ciudad.” In Elementos Para Una Genealogía del Paramilitarismo en Medellín2, 1st ed., 27–62. Colombia: Editorial Kavilando. Angulo Salazar, Roberto Carlos, Diaz Cuervo, Yadira, and Renata Pardo Pinzón. 2011. “Indice de Pobreza Multidimensional para Colombia (IPM-Colombia)

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Javier. Proyecto Ejecutado con Recursos del Programa Planeación y Presupuesto Participativo. Colombia: Alcaldía de Medellín. Dunn, Samuel, and Scot McFayden. 2005a. Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. Canada: Seville Pictures & Warner Home Video. Dunn, Samuel, and Scot McFayden. 2005b. Rage Against the Machine’S Tom Morello Interviewed in 2004 on Race, Politics & Metal | Raw & Uncut. Canada: Seville Pictures & Warner Home Video. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=uVG​​​ pJKMD​​h4U. Durán, Jorge, and Ekaterina Upegui. 2016. Parabellum: El Diablo Nació en Medellín. Colombia: Vice en Español & Noisy Production. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​ v​=kYm​​FM3AX​​cB​Q​&t​​=122s​. Encyclopaedia Metallum. The Metal Archives. 2002. Masacre. https​:/​/ww​​w​.met​​al​-ar​​ chive​​s​.com​​/band​​s​/Mas​​​acre/​​933. Espinal T, Luis. 1985. “Geografía Ecológica del Departamento de Antioquia (Zonas de Vida (Formaciones Vegetales) Del Departamento de Antioquia).” Revista Facultad Nacional de Agronomía, 38 (1): 5–106. http:​/​/www​​.bdig​​ital.​​unal.​​edu​.c​​o​ /297​​33​/1/​​28367​​-1014​​5​2​-1-​​PB​.pd​​f. Galtung, Johan. 1989. “Violencia Cultural.” In Documento N.14, edited by Centro de Investigación por la Paz; Fundación Gernika Gogoratuz, 2003rd ed., 12–14. Bizcaia: Gernika Gogoratuz. https​:/​/ww​​w​.ger​​nikag​​ogora​​tuz​.o​​rg​/wp​​-cont​​ent​/u​​ pload​​s​/201​​9​/03/​​doc​-1​​4​-vio​​l​enci​​a​-cul​​tural​​.pdf. Giraldo Giraldo, César. 1994. “Crisis y Reformas.” In Gestión Económica Estatal de Los 80’s: Del Ajuste Al Cambio Institucional. Tomo I, edited by Luis Flores E and Ricardo Bonilla González, 1st ed., 145–181. Colombia: Centro de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia & Centro de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo Internacional. Gómez Rosa, Fidel. 2003. “Los Grupos Paramilitares en Colombia.” Boletín de Información 279: 15–50. https​:/​/di​​alnet​​.unir​​ioja.​​es​/se​​rvlet​​/arti​​culo?​​codig​​​o​=455​​ 3437. Grupo Memoria Histórica. GMH. 2013. “Una Guerra Prolongada y Degradada. Dimensiones y Modalidades de Violencia.” In ¡BASTA YA! Colombia: Memoria de Guerra y Dignidad, 30–109. Colombia: Imprenta Nacional. Guzmán, Germán, Fals Borda, Orlando, and Eduardo Umaña Luna. 1962. “Sociología de la Violencia.” In Tomo I de La Violencia En Colombia, edited by Germán Guzmán Campos, 1st ed., 257–270. Colombia: Editorial Iqueima. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1968a. “Memoria Colectiva y Memoria Histórica.” In La Memoria Colectiva, edited by Luis Germán Zubero, 2nd ed., 52–88. Spain: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​017​/C​​BO978​​11074​​1​5324​​.004. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1968b. “Memoria Colectiva y Memoria Individual.” In La Memoria Colectiva, edited by Luis Germán Zubero, 2nd ed., 25–52. Spain: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. https​:/​/do​​i​.org​​/10​.1​​017​/C​​BO978​​11074​​1​5324​​.004. Jelin, Elizabeth. 2001a. “¿De Qué Hablamos Cuando Hablamos de Memorias?” In Los Trabajos de La Memoria, 1st ed., 17–39. Spain: Siglo XXI de España Editores S.A.

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Jelin, Elizabeth. 2001b. “Historia y Memoria Social.” In Los Trabajos de La Memoria, 1st ed., 63–78. Spain: Siglo XXI de España Editores S.A. Jelin, Elizabeth. 2001c. “Introducción.” In Los Trabajos de La Memoria, 1st ed., 1–8. Spain: Siglo XXI de España Editores S.A. Martinez, Veronica. 1993. “Dimensiones Psicosociales del Adolescente Sicario.” Revista Colombiana de Psicología, 2: 147–150. Masacre. 1989. Colombia . . . Imperio Del Terror. Colombia: Independent. Masacre. 1990. Cáncer de Nuestros Días. Colombia: Independent. Masacre. 1991. Reqviem. Colombia: Osmose Productions. Masacre. 1996. Sacro. Colombia: Lorito Records. Masacre Metal Oficial. 2018. MASACRE/ALEX OKENDO Recibe Condecoración En Medellín. Colombia: Canal de youtube Masacre Metal Oficial. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​ tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=m6Q​​​_wYuf​​cA8. Medina Gallego, Carlos. 2012. “Mafia y Narcotráfico en Colombia: Elementos para un Estudio Comparado.” In El Prisma de las Seguridades en América Latina. Escenarios Regionales y Locales., edited by Emir Sader, 1st ed., 139–170. Argentina: CLACSO. Ministerio de Comercio Industria y Turismo. n.d. Guía Turística Antioquia Colombia. https​:/​/cd​​n​.col​​ombia​​.com/​​docs/​​turis​​mo​/si​​tios-​​turis​​ticos​​/mede​​llin/​​a​ntio​​quia.​​pdf. Molano Bravo, Alfredo. 2011. Fragmentos de la Historia del Conflicto Armado (1920–2010), 1st ed. Colombia: Ancora Editores. Moreno Bedoya, Roberto. 2003. “Conflicto y Violencia Urbana en Medellín Desde la Década Del 90: Algunas Valoraciones.” In Violencias y Conflictos Urbanos: Un Reto Para las Políticas Públicas, edited by Instituto Popular de Capacitación, 2003rd ed., 190–232. Colombia: Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales. Pizarro Leongómez, Eduardo. 1989. “Los Orígenes del Movimiento Armado Comunista en Colombia: 1949–1966.” Análisis Político, 7: 7–32. Red Nacional de Banco de Datos de Derechos Humanos y Violencia Política. 2019. “Síntesis del Marco Conceptual Adoptado Por El Banco de Datos.” Noche y Niebla, 59: 5–15. Redacción El Espectador. 2016. “Rodrigo Lara: El Hombre que Encaró al Narcotráfico.” Periódico El Espectador, December 14, 2016. Redacción Judicial. 2019. “702 Líderes Sociales y 135 Excombatientes Habrían Sido Asesinados Desde Firma del Acuerdo.” El Espectador, May 23, 2019. Redacción Vida. 2017. “Colombia, Entre los Diez Países Más Católicos del Mundo.” El Tiempo, April 12, 2017. Ricoeur, Paul. 1999. “Memoria Individual y Memoria Colectiva.” In La Lectura del Tiempo Pasado: Memoria y Olvido, 1st ed., 15–24. Spain: Arrecife Producciones, S.L. Rodriguez, Ximena. 2001. Masacre y La Pestilencia. Colombia: Señal Colombia. https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=C​-l​​​PYdxY​​TWM. Sanchez, Gonzálo. 2011. “El Desplazamiento Forzado en la Comuna 13: La Huella Invisible del Conflicto Armado.” In Desplazamiento Forzado En La Comuna 13, La Huella Invisible de la Guerra, edited by Gonzalo Sánchez, 2011th ed., 45–96. Colombia: Grupo de Memoria Histórica.

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Sección Nación. Semana. 2011. “Medellín Estrena Escaleras Eléctricas En La Comuna 13.” Semana, December 26, 2011. https​:/​/ww​​w​.sem​​ana​.c​​om​/na​​cion/​​artic​​ ulo​/m​​edell​​in​-es​​trena​​-esca​​leras​​-elec​​trica​​s​-co​m​​una​-1​​3​/251​​323​-3​. Vargas Álvarez, Sebastián. 2012. “Evadiendo Un Negro Presente. Reapropiación Histórica En La Cultura Metal.” Énfasis, Observatorio Javeriano de Juventud 8: 38. http:​/​/puj​​-port​​al​.ja​​veria​​na​.ed​​u​.co/​​porta​​l​/pag​​e​/por​​tal​/C​​entro​​_Atic​​o​/pru​​ebas2​​ /bole​​tin​_o​​jj​/re​​curso​​s​_ojj​​8​​/tem​​acent​​ralbo​​letin​​8​.pdf​. Velásquez Rivera, Edgar. 2007. “Historia del Paramilitarismo en Colombia.” História, São Paulo 26 (1): 134–53.

Chapter 5

Sounds of Exclusion and Seclusion Peruvian Metal as a Model for Cultural Self-Segregation José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón

By the time the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) had conquered the mainstream and made heavy metal a transnational force, Perú was about to enter one of its most turbulent historical moments. Social unrest, economic and political uncertainty, and a violent war that would leave the country with close to 70,000 Peruvians dead were to breed a disenfranchised generation unable to comprehend the meaning of citizenship, nation and, worse yet, its role in the construction of society. Middle-class youngsters in Peru would find themselves in the crossfire between nationalistic ideological discourses from the radical left and a “return to democracy” beginning in 1980, with the first democratic election since 1963.1 These circumstances would include their participation in a global market that was to bring into the country, among other things, the new sounds of foreign metal music. In the four decades that followed, Peruvian metal music has maintained a strong underground presence while simultaneously finding itself immersed in a chaotic, conflicted, and fragmented nation-state, the latter always on the verge of collapse. The apocalyptic scenario that initially welcomed metal into the country has served to shape a set of unique cultural values difficult to grasp from afar. Unapologetically confident and self-assertive, Peruvian metal seems to be oblivious to the world that surrounds it and lives in a middle ground between survival and a precarious, yet efficient functionality. As Niall Scott has pointed out, heavy metal has been considered, in general, an apolitical musical movement, its anti-status quo inclinations and lack of direct political compromise being at the heart of its global social and commercial success.2 Its foregrounding of traditional romantic values (which include romantic heroism, naturalism, occultism, transcendentalism, 107

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and anti-formalism, among others),3 found an echo in adolescents and young adults worldwide, facilitating with its unspecific, non-local, and self-defining general models of discourse the rise of a Peruvian metal underground culture. The burgeoning Peruvian headbangers of the early 1980s discovered in the apparent ambiguity of metal a fertile ground for the construction of identity and a sense of community that the country, as a political entity, had been unable to provide.4 These first headbangers5 filtered out the commercial aspects that gave metal its global reach, understanding the genre exclusively as a representation of cultural rebellion and social disdain. The communities they formed utilized metal as a model for what I will call self-segregation; that is to say, metal served as a social tool for the creation of secluded, sheltered, and private social spaces that helped them escape the political mayhem. By alienating themselves from society and developing a non-participatory underground communal network around heavy metal music, they also managed to confront the racial and class conflicts inherited from the colonial period. In this chapter I, first, explore the social climate that surrounded the first communities of headbangers that appeared in Lima, the Peruvian capital, at the beginning of the 1980s. Second, I will examine the way these communities have reinterpreted global metal values received through the music industry to foster an underground movement that exhibits provincialism and segregation, both as weaknesses and as strengths. This work is centered around Lima as the representative of early Peruvian metal culture. This choice responds to the fact that, during the 1980s, no established metal scenes existed outside of the capital city (López and Risica 2018, 134). The present chapter straddles the intersection between the interdisciplinary and the multidisciplinary. It integrates the historical approaches necessary to capture an as-of-yet unmapped territory. The chapter develops a cultural critique derived from anthropological and sociological academic cultures, a traditional ethnographic data collection process through its use of participative-observation, as well as the documentation of personal and historical interviews. It also includes a comparative inquiry that will help us understand the relevance, or lack thereof, of traditional categories used to represent metal worldwide. The incomplete picture of metal received by a society partially disconnected from the world has given the opportunity to Peruvian headbangers to enrich the plurality of heavy metal music with unique local interpretations and the sounds of a country living always at the convergence point between the center and the periphery, between a cultural bubble and an alien world. However, before we delve any deeper into an analysis of the selfsegregating dominant found in Peruvian metal culture, I must provide some words on the dynamic that frames this chapter’s approach.

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I AM ALSO A CLIENT: THE PERIPHERAL HEADBANGER/SCHOLAR AND THE FORMATION OF PERUVIAN METAL STUDIES As we know, the study of metal has positioned itself as a legitimate academic practice during, roughly, the last decade. This fact is constantly mentioned in Metal Studies texts and, as Brian Hickman pointed out in 2015, “we have reached the state where the number of dissertations, theses, monographs, journal articles and documentaries on metal has exceeded our capacity to keep up” (Hickman 2015, 6). It should not come as a surprise that this rapid development and rise to relevance has its own socially and politically established boundaries and that, following suit, Perú would arrive late to the conversation and do so in uneven fashion. To put it simply: inherited colonial thought and contemporary neocolonialism delimit our participation in a global, yet divided world. Our condition as a peripheral country defines a “rules of engagement” set that not only disturbs popular music practices but notably influences our related academic endeavors.6 The internal and external ontological and epistemological models that feed and nurture the academic undertakings of the country have shown reluctance to accepting not only Peruvian metal, but Peruvian popular music in general, as artifacts worthy of academic research. Some Peruvian researchers have acknowledged this problem and started a move toward the integration of some popular music spheres into the Peruvian academic conversation by means of publications, classes and conferences.7 A project like Geografías Sonoras de la Lima del S XXI, a research initiative aimed at contributing to the creation of an allinclusive approach to Peruvian scholarship on music, is an example of these new efforts.8 Peruvian metal does not represent the exception but the norm, as a popular musical practice forgotten and methodically made invisible by the Peruvian music industry, the media, and its academic cadre (López and Risica 2018, 5). If metal was already in a position of disadvantage as a foreign popular musical style—with no national anchor to help it stay in place; without a captain to help steer it to safety—its lack of political or nativist discourses kept it from being exotic enough to warrant attention. In sharing the stage with other “not-quite-Peruvian” musical styles, Peruvian metal was seen as not “indigenous” enough to be valued outside of the country or to be considered by the Peruvian government and other political and social forces as worthy of carrying the flag of national identity (López 2015). That being said, 2019 might be described as the starting point toward the construction of Peruvian Metal Studies, and several factors can be seen as responsible for such a potential momentum shift. To begin, late 2018 saw the release of the book Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena

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Metalera Peruana (1981–1992) (López and Risica 2018), a publication which received, oddly enough, extensive attention from the written local media. Second, I personally developed and taught a module on metal as part of the Música Popular Urbana course for the Masters in Musicology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Finally, the inaugural meeting of the Grupo Peruano de Estudios de Metal (Peruvian Group of Metal Studies) (as of this publication still lacking official support) took place in my living room, opening a process toward connecting most of the independent voices that, for the last ten years, have expressed an academic interest in metal.9 A synergistic moment seems to announce itself over the horizon, and a focused space for analysis appears to be, plausibly, on the brink of being constructed. However, this strange convergence of forces needs some clarification, as it is within this collective will to construct a space for the study of metal that the structural practices of Peruvian metal are revealed. Is the Grupo Peruano de Estudios de Metal currently in development a community of social science, humanities, and philosophy scholars interested in the study of music in general? Is it a union of headbangers and former metal fans intent on validating their aesthetic tastes or nostalgic youthful memories? Or is it, as may be expected, a combination of both, complemented by a plethora of cultural factors? Aside from myself—the sole scholar in his fifties interested in Peruvian metal—the vast majority of scholars in the group belong to younger generations. We all share some form of participation, at different levels and moments in time, within the metal culture of the country. We also share an unclear sense of belonging that is not, however, necessarily rooted in national cultural heritage, but in a tacit acknowledgment of transnational forces as tools for cultural underground resistance. We, the scholars and future scholars of Peruvian metal, are, in that sense, intimate outsiders (Halnon 2006) who do not necessarily maintain the critical distance expected or required of our undertakings. I would argue that the symbolic boundaries and signifying practices (Hall 1997) that define our researchers’ proximity to or distance from Peruvian metalness are evidence of the unifying driving force behind metal’s inception and development in the country. These cultural practices are our response to the ever-present sense of exclusion and seclusion from the social status quo that has haunted each of us, and which finds its way into our lives even in the metal street culture, all the way into the world of academic research. In its place, a self-regulated sense of belonging has been developed and carried, by those Peruvian headbangers that happen to enter academia, as a mark of distinction and affiliation that survives their social transformations and maintains their condition as social rejects. If Peruvian metal can be considered a marginalized social group, as has been the case in other Latin American spaces like, for instance, Puerto Rico (Varas-Diaz 2016), our “research team” represents a marginalized academic

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group comprised of social and philosophical explorers who belong to a marginalized musical community. We inhabit a middle ground between two worlds considered to be in apparent opposition: the realm devoted to the academic study of popular music and the realm of de facto popular music. Our musical discourses of identity have gotten lost in translation, failing to be accepted as valued modes of discourse that can help us understand the “specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices by specific enunciative strategies” (Hall 1996, 4) that make the communal experience and the Peruvian metal scene a part of the social fabric of the country. As the present chapter shows, Peruvian metal is as unique as any local culture and, consequently, represents discursive and practical strategies only meaningful when approached from a contextual understanding. Ultimately, this chapter seeks to unveil what the Peruvian in Peruvian metal means. NO TE AMO, PERÚ: HEGEMONICAL NATIVISM, CULTURAL DEPRESSION, AND ANTINATIONAL IDENTITY DURING THE 1980S On March 29, 2000, seconds after scoring a goal during a game against Paraguay, soccer player “Chorri” Palacios lifted up his jersey to show a red undershirt with the phrase “Te amo Perú.” The moment of nationalistic pride and the enthusiastic social response that followed—which would make the t-shirt an instant commercial success and cement it as a national icon to this day—were initial signs of a move toward recovery from the collective depression that had struck the country during the preceding two decades. As Reynaldo Gubbins, President of the Confederation of Peruvian Industries had declared in 1989, we were “going through a national depression, a real psychic depression” (López 2008, 66). This relatively contemporary depression was not an uncommon occurrence for the country, particularly when we consider that toward the end of the nineteenth century, Manuel Gonzáles Prada, the famous politician and Peruvian anarchist, had already declared that “el Perú es un organismo enfermo: donde se pone el dedo, salta la pus” (Perú is a sick organism: anywhere one puts a finger, pus oozes out).10 Gonzáles Prada was pointing to the structural corruption that had pervaded within the country since its “invention.” The young Peruvians that received heavy metal at the beginning of the 1980s were not about to make declarations of love for the country or respond to populist anthems or discourses about the motherland. Social despair and resentfulness, anti-nationalism, a total mistrust of the government and its social institutions, and a general sense of having been let down defined the

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dysfunctional and unpatriotic world that sheltered the first Peruvian headbangers. Participating in this burgeoning community was not an act of social resistance in the sense of contesting social institutions that could barely perform their basic duties at the time, but an act of agency aimed at the construction of escape routes leading away from a battleground. As a result of the coup d’état of 1968, a military leftist dictatorship was installed in the country. For nearly a decade, the new government(s), the Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas (Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces), maintained and promoted nationalist and nativist discourses. They did so through the deployment of two phases, each named after the generals under which they operated: Velasco Alvarado (1968–1974) and Morales Bermudez (1975–1980). Moving between colloquial “I was there” accounts, “Velasco mató el rock” explanations, and neo-Velasquist historical revisionism, the discussion about the effect of the Gobierno Revolucionario de las Fuerzas Armadas on musical styles derived from rock is a space of much contention. While some standard accounts from musicians and writers have blamed the lack of progress of Peruvian rock, at least partially, on Velasco, younger journalists, music critics, and researchers have downplayed the role of the government on the restriction of “foreign” music. These commonly take, for the most part, a pro-Velasco stand,11 even considering, in some cases, the declarations of some musicians of the time as a “mythic re-elaboration of their own past.”12 The controversy has, as of more recently, been toned down, but it remains a reflection of how politically polarized the approaches to popular music in Perú can be. What is undeniable is that during the first phase of the dictatorship: se multiplicó la nacionalización de empresas extranjeras, se anunció la promoción y protección de la cultura y poblaciones indígenas, una fuerte retórica nacionalista invadió el discurso oficial y un vasto aparato de propaganda—a través de medios escritos, radiales y televisivos, afiches, canciones y festivales—acompañó el ambicioso «experimento peruano», como empezó a llamársele. (The nationalization of foreign companies multiplied, the promotion and protection of indigenous populations was made into public policy, a strong nationalist rhetoric invaded official discourse and a big propaganda apparatus—through written media, radio, television, flyers, songs and festivals—accompanied this ambitious “Peruvian experiment,” as it came to be known.)13

Peruvians born at around the time of the coup (like myself) would reach their adolescence during the transition to democracy in 1980. After being bombarded with the military authoritarianism of a localist regime, we were

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now bombarded by the confusing global promotional forces of the “capitalist” international market (metal music included). Times were puzzling, and a series of contradictory value systems overlapped. Nativist and millenarian neo-Incaism (Moliníe 2004), Hollywoodized impossible romantic values, revolutionary moral codes, and the need for radical social change clashed against each other. New international standardized products for mass consumption that were to disrupt traditional culture while attempting to incorporate Perú into a global model, and a myriad of foreign musical styles carrying, within them, countercultural values already digested by an international mainstream smashed together like notes from a unique local song. Embryonic Peruvian metalheads were shaped by this and more. While during the 1970s we lived through curfews, the constant presence of tankettes, and long lines for basic products, after 1980 we became the generación cochebomba (car bomb generation) (Roldán 2007). Heavy metal and other musical styles that arrived to the country through television, radio and the global music industry during the 1980s did not find a welcoming space in the already constructed model of national music that had been strongly advertised and promoted. The media that presented metal to Peruvian youngsters had formerly (under government control) dedicated its efforts to propagate, first, those musical genres that represented both the imagined ancestral nation (mainly around the notion of campesinado and Andean agricultural symbolism) and, second, some creole costal styles as symbols of the mestizo cultures of the colonial and early postcolonial periods (represented by the metropolitan middle classes). If Andean music represented ethnic and colonial issues, chicha or Peruvian cumbia represented migration and cultural hybridization, and música criolla represented cultural coastal traditional amalgamation, what could heavy metal represent other than a cultural invasion and a lack of awareness of our cultural past and present? Was it anything but the result of a culturally confused, indifferent, and irresponsible group of privileged kids belonging to the middle class? I would argue that it is in the rejection of the traditional models of the nation, and, in turn, in the acceptance of universal value systems that the strength of Peruvian metal, as a countercultural force, lies. Peruvian headbangers were against everything; furthermore, they paraded their low degree of integration as a pride flag, disputing the social contract presented to them. While a longhaired youngster in jeans may have been a common sight somewhere else, in Perú this represented a shocking and abnormal presence in the still-modest and post-viceroyal Lima. Metal was not able to fit in any of the above models of music and social behavior and would, as a result, develop its own alienation. Alienation is not to be understood in a pejorative way, much in the way the term alienado is used in Perú; instead, it should be seen as signifying a reluctance to engage in

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conversations not considered socially relevant. Peruvian youngsters who felt an inclination toward metal (including myself) did so because it represented a way to remove themselves from the spaces they were supposed to belong to. This is especially true for those belonging to the Peruvian middle or upper classes who were educated at traditional Catholic schools, which happens to represent the majority of the initial Peruvian metal fans and musicians. They confronted racism and classism by withdrawing from the very traditional and, one might add, colonial, modes of social interaction and etiquette that defined behavior and communication. Also, there were no available spaces for cultural musical continuity, given that the possible connection with related musical worlds like psychedelia or the hard rock music of the 1970s had been severed by the politics of the time. PAX and Tarkus, the bands that by 1972 could have represented a seminal force toward the creation of a metal scene, were mostly unknown by most headbangers (López and Risica 2018, 22–29). The return to a civilian government with Belaúnde in 1980 marked a drastic cultural change that was to shape our emerging metalness. Lifting control of the press and shifting away from populism toward the adoption of capital concentration and corporatism would open the door to a new influx of world cultural products, an opening that coincided with the rise of the NWOBHM. However smooth the transition may have seemed (Malloy 1982, 1), by the second part of the 1980s, “García Pérez’s14 erratic policies exacerbated the national and economic crisis and . . . brought the country to the brink of collapse” (Bertelsmann Transformation Index 2003). García Pérez’s political failure gave rise to a crisis within the traditional political party system of the country which extended to the widespread contempt for institutionalized democracy. Peruvian headbangers adhered to this general sentiment by declaring an anti-political stance, not in the sense of an active attack on the political class, but in the form of a cynical indifference.15 The first generation to identify itself as metaleros emerged during this period of collapse, in which the model of “nation as identity” gave way to a more fluid and plural sense of global identities. This symbolic attempt to bring us into a “global modernity” would be confronted, in turn, by the accumulation of decades of leftist revolutionary thought, particularly in the form of the “guerra popular” promoted by the communist organizations Sendero Luminoso and the Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru.16 I would argue that, unaware of the conjunction of factors that surrounded them, Peruvian headbangers sensed the crumpling situation and rejected, almost unanimously, a political positioning for their countercultural activities. As we have described on Espíritu del Metal: “los metaleros de los 80s no intentaban cambiar el mundo ni declaraban consignas politizadas . . . la insatisfacción social es expresada en el metal peruano a través de otros mecanismos de resistencia y lucha no politizada ni partidaria” (metalheads in the 1980s were not trying to change

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the world or shout out political slogans . . .. social dissatisfaction is expressed in Peruvian metal by other mechanisms of non-politicized, non-partisan resistance and struggle).17 As I have argued and will further develop in the next segment, self-segregation represents one such form of resistance and struggle. THE [UN]FORMATION OF A PERUVIAN METAL FLOCK: A CULTURAL RE-EVALUATION OF AN ALIEN HERITAGE The particular constellation of social forces I have laid out helped shape the “identity politics of segregation” practiced by early headbangers. While it may be the case that, in the international scene, what “binds metal together . . . is a relatively stable canon of artists” (Hjelm, Kahn-Harris and LeVine 2013, 10), when it comes to Perú, its community of headbangers would converge around a different set of artists and traits in a process that emblematizes Peruvian Metal’s tendency toward self-segregation, not just locally but globally as well. Bands like Oxido, Almas Inmortales, Orgus, Masacre, Sacra and many others confirmed that initial canon and became a unifying force, both through concerts and a strong tape distribution system. Informality was, during this period, a powerful force for the construction of the initial scene and our metaleros played where they could (see figure 5.1). The results of informal recordings from the, also informal, live performances, rehearsals, and the occasional low-cost home studio productions (like the ones recorded at Gerald Paz studio18) were widely shared. It is important to note that most of these bands never coalesced into bonafide professional endeavors and maintain, to this day, their underground condition as an essential (unintended) element of early Peruvian metal. Some of these bands have yet to record their opera prima, and some others, as is the case with Almas Inmortales, would not release an album until 2014. An exception to this rule might be Masacre, a band that in 1988 recorded its first album Sin Piedad and which (it is alleged) was offered distribution by the Peruvian subsidiary of CBS. However, the latter ceased its operations in Perú due to the economic situation of the time, and the album, after languishing for some years, would eventually see the light of day in Venezuela instead (Giros 22.0237, 1991). This fact not only left Perú without a professional recording from the 1980s, but defined the coarse garage sound of 1980s Peruvian metal as the cultural norm, and, in time, as an accidental aesthetic musical trait emblematic of that generation.19 If we are to talk about the early days of metal culture in Lima, some commentators, including Franco Boggiano (one of the biggest archivers of Peruvian metal), would point to the Gran Concierto Frente al Mar, the first

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Figure 5.1  Unusual Places for a Concert. Jerusalem at Real Club de San Isidro, 1987. Source: Photo by José Guzman, provided by Marco Antonio Kuong González.

“metal festival” in the country, which took place during March 1986 at the Estadio de Magdalena (Boggiano 2015). The event undoubtedly became one of the first moves toward the cohesion of a scene, particularly because, by the end of the event, a group of familiar strangers (myself included) came together and declared their love for metal. This encounter was soon accompanied by the formation of La Gran Horda Metálica del Perú (1986–1989), a group which sought to unify national headbangers; the group became a reflection of a sense of self-inflicted isolation and social confrontation that by 1986 had been years in the making (see figure 5.2). Spaces like this one, together with the social networking and barrio packs that flourished throughout the 1980s, served to identify the existence of an informal and fluid community. As we have stated elsewhere (López and Risica 2018, 96–100), such an attempt to institutionalize an organic culture that would rather identify itself as an “army with no captains” would mark the beginning of a fracture that, along with other factors (national and global), would soon separate traditional heavy metal from extreme metal and determine new modes of social interaction (and confrontation) between different metal communities. If the NWOBH ultimately became coopted as part of a musical industry of consumption, Peruvians could not, in their majority, allow themselves to participate in such a world. Instead, Peruvian metalheads modified their gaze,

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Figure 5.2  Giancarlo Wurttel’s (from the Band Orgus) Gran Horda Metálica del Perú Membership Card (Front and Back). Source: Photo provided by Fernando Mayorga.

preferring to connect with the romantic and traditional aspects of the movement. As Marco Kuong, singer for Almas Inmortales (1986) and Jerusalem (1987–1989), remembers: Los amigos conseguían los VHS, los veíamos en mancha, y nos copiábamos. Vimos Let There be Rock, The Wall, el festival de Woodstock, el concierto de Judas Priest de la gira del Screaming, el concierto de Black Sabbath del Never Say Die, y Pink Floyd en Pompeya. (Friends would find VHS tapes and we would watch them together and make copies. We watched Let There be Rock, The Wall, the Woodstock Festival, the Screaming for Vengeance tour by Judas Priest, the Never Say Die tour by Black Sabbath, and Pink Floyd in Pompeii.)20

Consequently, that gaze worked actively on emphasizing the sense of historical value attached to different moments in the history of rock—especially those that represented countercultural principles—helping to keep these momentarily detached from commercial models. To achieve this, Peruvian heavy metal blended the sound of the 1980s with the themes of the 1960s and 1970s. The impersonal, conformist, superficial, unequal, and numbing realities of commercialism, which metal in other coordinates of the globe might have tried to distance itself from by creating a “proto-utopian liminal

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alternative” (Halnon 2006), became an attractive quality for Peruvian metalheads. Peruvian metaleros were eager not to fit in and, as part of their non-inclusive, zero-tolerance directives, they, without realizing it, enthusiastically engaged in failing models of commercialism. The romantic and idealist values of the North-American counterculture and the rebellious and aggressive attitude of English metal bands like Motorhead or Judas Priest were value models that could represent, after all, a fresh take on already present traditional values such as loyalty, brotherhood, courage, honesty, equality, and spiritual development. Peruvian headbangers identified themselves with old social ideals presented to them at different times in the history of the country, including both Catholic and communist moralism. These values were embraced by Peruvian youngsters in metal culture, thus separating the genre from other musical cultures that arrived at the same time, which included new wave, techno and synth pop, post-punk, soft rock, alternative rock and pop-star culture, to name a few. Within the vast musical offerings, heavy metal was received as a moralistic force with well-defined values that echoed values already established in a very traditional and conservative Perú. Metal could construct what Peruvian society had failed in providing, and social disenchantment suddenly had a tool providing a possible solution. Peruvian headbangers saw in metal an alternative way to achieve these old traditional values for which they still had a longing. This can be clearly seen in the general themes of many of the initial band names and lyrics found in Peruvian metal, as well as in their strong spiritual content. Creyente de una Sonrisa (1987) and Mensajero de los Cielos (1987) by Almas Inmortales, La Batalla de Kuruksetra (1989) by the Hare Krishna band Dharma, and Sacrificio por la Paz by Orgus (1985) are just a few examples. These bands combined the narcissistic values of rock star culture found in the genre’s performative space with notions of spiritual humbleness inherited from Catholic teachings. Aristides Gonzáles Vigil—lead singer of Orgus during its second period (1986–1990) and a pivotal force in Perú’s transition toward rock star culture and a more commercial, visual, theatrical, and performative brand of metal— vividly recalls the rapid transition from a “post-hippie” metal culture to a fuller, more “modern” metal approach, at the beginning of the 1980s: Muchos metaleros de los 80s eran hippies, y era un tema de disputa. Nosotros, que entramos un poco después, éramos unos desadaptados que, al descubrir la cultura del metal, sentimos que encajó perfecto con nuestra personalidad, más revoltosa y menos paz y amor. Yo no era un hippie, soy metalero. (Many metalheads of the 80s were hippies, and it was a source of conflict. Those of us who entered the scene a little bit later saw ourselves as a bunch of misfits

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who, when we discovered metal culture, felt that it fit our personalities perfectly; it was rowdier and less peace and love. I was not a hippie, I am a headbanger.)21

This rowdier, yet still conservative attitude toward metal paved the way for an increased adoption of more American “visual” metal. Bands like Orgus, Sacra, Dharma, and Masacre would eventually feel comfortable working on their respective images and adopted the hedonistic and flashy looks of some glam metal bands, such as Stryper, Ratt or Mötley Crüe, all while maintaining some of the values previously discussed (after all, glam bands could be historically validated by post-hippie headbangers acquainted with KISS or Alice Cooper). Glam metal musicians’ debauched lifestyles were, for Peruvians, nothing but a movie fantasy. We did not have the money, the means, the international success, the drugs, or even the records and accompanying tabloid press to write about them. We were modest and prudent, did not wear makeup, were as shocking as a city like Lima would tolerate, and as rebellious as the parent of an adolescent headbanger still living at home would allow (see figure 5.3). Our international idols were ten years older than us and were professional musicians living off their music; in contrast, we were Peruvian middle-class youngsters, infatuated with the new images of freedom of speech and a “freedom to behavior” that was (and still is) completely

Figure 5.3  Unusual Performances for Lima. Ricardo Maguiña and Lauris Rodríguez of the Band Dharma at the Historical Primer Concurso Nacional de Rock no Profesional at Campo de Marte, 1987. Source: Photo provided by Giuseppe Risica Carella.

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alien to our social codes. We were (and are) provincial, narrow-minded, and stubbornly localists and unconcerned with supranational cultural powers. If Peruvians construct their identities through “the ongoing dialogue of many actors in many activities, and the continual interplay of personal and interpersonal negotiation of their meaning and effect” (Holland and Lachicotte 2007, 118), heavy metal stands as an external force (the local identity of someone else) that was to engage in a dialogue with strong local identities that, like all national identities, have evolved and been cultivated as a result of longterm historical processes (Vale 2008). A general and naïve reading of social principles (as presented by foreign metal cultural artifacts carrying the values of distant communities) generated meaningful symbols and social interpretations that serve to strengthen an anti-national (yet local) collective identity which, unaware of its own historical condition, reflected the social tensions of its time by rejecting nationalist symbolism as the meaningful target for identity construction and self-definition. Peruvian headbangers rejected the traditional attributes that serve to conform national identity—assumed blood ties, race, language, region, religion, and custom (Geertz 1963, 112–113)–and confronted the assumed “givens” of “their cultures” by re-articulating their collective selfhood as a protest against the dysfunctional and self-destructive collective narratives that surrounded them. This chapter’s focus has centered on the way we received metal as part of a global industry of consumption during the early 1980s, and the way in which we related to it, unwillingly but enthusiastically, in a non-commercial and underground manner. A deeper analysis of other important models of reception and their connection with international metal is essential to validate the underground spirit of Peruvian metal culture. Giuseppe Risica, founder of the fanzine Cuero Negro, remembers the ways in which Peruvian metaleros were able to negotiate their “interaction” with international metal: A través del carteo y el tape trading los metaleros peruanos podíamos acceder a fanzines, demos, LPs, etc. Tener una visión quizás inocente pero cargada de emociones acerca del underground, nos acercaba a grupos de todo el mundo, nos hacía sentir parte de algo más grande que nosotros mismos. (By way of letters and tape trading, Peruvian headbangers could access fanzines, demo recordings, LPs, etc. We could have a vision, maybe innocent, but also charged with emotions about the underground. It brought us closer to bands from all over the world, it made us feel that we were part of something bigger than ourselves.)22

The culture of tape-trading and epistolary interaction connected us with the harsher and less commercialized aspects of an international underground

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scene closer to “extreme metal.” This connection, however, was limited by our cultural isolation. As it pertains to this connection with the rest of the world, we must understand that international direct communication was not as fluid in the 1980s as it is now, and local cultural traits would be reinforced by these limitations in contact. Most bands of the NWOBHM were formed during the 1970s, and local 1970s equivalents, as we have mentioned before, did not really exist for the young Peruvian headbangers of the 1980s. The “otherness” of our metal became evident to me in 1984 when I traveled to Barcelona to meet my father. He co-owned a bar called Quirófano, a place where Spanish headbangers would meet. During that trip, he took me to a Tokyo Blade concert at a nightclub called Metal. Nothing could be more unfamiliar or stranger than a city with bars and elegant nightclubs for metal with international guest bands. Not all long-haired youngsters knew each other, and their aggressiveness was real. Nothing compared to our well-mannered metalness and this perception of Lima as a huge barrio where the cultural, racial and class barriers seemed, in comparison, easier to bridge. Lima was definitively a big-town with a small-town mentality, and “our metal” was not “their metal.” Liking the same bands and exhibiting the same attires was not enough to bring us together, at the time. However, considering metal as a white Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, and its presence in Perú as a perpetuation of the “hegemonical powers of the West,” a reassertion of foreign dominance and privilege, and the subordination of the identity of “the others” to their own “western universal values” fails to accurately capture the culture of metal in Perú, to the point of negating its own social agency. LOOKING SOUTH: THE MODERN PERUVIAN HEADBANGERS OF THE 1980S IN THEIR IDENTITY LABYRINTH Traditional Western ontological identitarian models would be content in placing Peruvian headbangers under various encompassing categories: Latino, Hispanic, Latin American, sudaca, Third World citizen, exotic, or, more to the point, as an individual who, because of their belonging to one of these differentiating categories, is incapable of effectively reproducing the sounds shared by the children of the colonial “empires.” This type of “traditional” ethnocentric reductionism has already been addressed by philosophers of difference. Furthermore, as Simon Skempton has reminded us: Both Levinas and Derrida criticize traditional Western ontology’s identitarian mode of thinking for reducing the other to the same, for repressing the otherness of the other through appropriating and assimilating the other in the form of a

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reflection and a sample of the same, of the familiar and recognizable. (Skempton 2012, 278)

In other words, upon being confronted with that which is other, Western models of identitarian construction would simply reduce the other’s “otherness” to a trait that is either a copy of a trait born in the West or as a trait that must be explained away (into erasure) as a failure in the other’s attempt at mimicking the West. Consequently, Western cultural artifacts such as metal are incapable of recognizing that, as Anna Marie Smith has argued, former Western colonies like Perú were and are more than mere external appendages to the European powers, playing an active role in the constitution of their own national identities (Smith 1994, 73). However, I would argue that no matter how complex the history of cultural differences and proximities might be, and how volatile, incoherent, or plural a group identity (such as that of Peruvian metal) may show itself to be, its grouping and categorization under a singular label is a useful tool that goes beyond a simplifying dominant-dominated opposition. Early Peruvian metal is not defined by its political agency (outside or inside the country), its exclusion from participating on a global market, or its general lack of influence on transnational musical networks that found out of its existence from afar. Headbangers who by embracing such a category consider themselves part of an imagined international community, and who were forcefully united under a fractured sense of citizenship, created their own systems of exclusion by mining both foreign and local imaginations. So far, Peruvian scholarship has ignored Peruvian metal, seeing it as nothing more than a typical mimetic appropriation in which Peruvian metalheads “playacted” the part of being the Anglo-Saxon metalheads they saw on videos and magazines. The set of rules, the construction of social barriers, the exclusion and isolation practices, and a continuous performance of strategies tending toward social-suicide show a unique identitarian model that was and still is in the process of being assembled. It is in its lack of functional strategies guided toward social and economic success, its historical obsession with an intolerant self-motivated ostracism, and its romantic stubbornness to continue declaring its existence beyond social recognition that the key to understanding Peruvian metal lies. Not only is the cultural identity of Peruvian metal impossible to define as a “pure entity,” but the multiplicity of metal frames that arrived at our shores during the 1980s makes the Peruvian metal scene one difficult to map. This work does not attempt to solve such a monumental task; instead, it seeks to understand how it is that, within this multiplicity, headbangers maintained an imagined identity despite musical and social discrepancies. Furthermore,

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it seeks to understand what community-building forces were at play during this initial period. It would be within the second era of Peruvian metal (i.e., the subsequent generation which overlapped with the first metal communities we have been mentioning) that a moving away from traditional heavy metal toward more extreme sounds would take place; this would include the adoption of a darker, though still-spiritual approach on the part of some bands. This rapid move is captured in the period’s transition from a song like Guerreros del Metal by Orgus (1988) to the more-obscure approach taken by Hadez in their demo Guerreros de la Muerte (1988), which includes songs like La Diosa del Averno and Angel Exterminador (see figure 5.4). While it is hard to define a unique theme for early Peruvian metal, the above-mentioned trend is clear, and headbangers in Perú found themselves in the middle of a cultural transition in which their traditional and conservative values were challenge by the products of more individualistic societies, products that are shaped by social values they are unable to fully comprehend. As we adapt to new musical languages, we have moved from “post-hippie” rock to “metalero” to “extreme” metal in the blink of an eye (see figure 5.5). Furthermore, the messages disseminated in the lyrics of anglophone metal of the 1980s were only partially

Figure 5.4  The band Orgus recording Guerreros del Metal at Estudio Amigos, 1988. Photo provided by Aristides Gonzales-Vigil K.

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Figure 5.5  Fast Transitions and Multiples Languages Converging. The Bands Mazo, Armagedon, Estrella Negra, Mortem, Hastur, and Hadez at Giuseppe Risica’s roof, 1990. Source: Photo provided by Ricardo Choy-Kifox.

relevant, as many headbangers in the country were not proficient enough in English to understand them. They would listen, for instance, to songs like “Electric Eye” by Judas Priest (1982) without being concerned with privacy issues in the modern world. It was metal music and that is all that mattered. We were “metal warriors,” in a sense only meaningful during that moment in time, and the rest were trivial details.

FINAL COMMENTS AND CONCLUSIVE THOUGHTS For this text I have decided to take an approach that highlights the exploration of a set of cultural dialogues and confrontations instead of a detailed historical, chronological, and sequential description of the events and agents pertinent to the initial history of metal in Perú. I propose this strategy of analyzing the construction of identity by Peruvian headbangers upon the arrival of metal into Perú as an essential first step toward acknowledging and comprehending a musical world that has been (1) historically viewed as irrelevant by both foreign and national researchers; and (2) seen as only worthy of attention when coopted to represent nativist models for both the foreign and the local academic tourist. As I have pointed out, Peruvian metal is unique,

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not in the sense of special or exceptional, but in the sense of particular and self-referential. Confronting its existence requires a difficult reconsideration of our academic perspectives and nationalistic motivations as well as a deep exploration of our history. The existence for nearly four decades of academically ignored metal communities proves the need to reconfigure the frameworks previously used to engage popular urban Peruvian music. I believe this work complements the conversation started in the book Espíritu del Metal by filling an important gap purposely left aside on a text whose purpose was to display the culture of metal and which was written with the general public in Perú and future generations of Peruvian headbangers in mind. This work also serves as a contribution to Metal Studies worldwide by adding the voices of the Peruvian metaleros to the wider world of metal and by adding our input to several conversations taking place, internationally, regionally, and nationally. I also hope for this text, together with the work being done with the Grupo Peruano de Estudios del Metal, to serve as a spearhead for future developments in Peruvian Metal Studies, a field I believe has already begun an effective process of visualization and consolidation. Much work needs to be done, but a core group of metal researchers is already in the making and rapidly growing. One of the reasons I had for creating the Grupo de Estudios del Metal was to start a conversation that could help us create a body of narratives and texts enriched by the convergence of different academic voices which have so far mostly remained in isolation and without much academic support. I believe an initial “literary canon” will come out of our endeavors in the following years. And this process is already reaping fruits; 2020 will bring with it the first “metal exhibition” at the Peruvian Ministerio de Cultura and a Congreso Interdisciplinario Sobre Rock y Metal, both of these the result of the active work of our new community of researchers. As I enter my fifth decade of life, I look back at the years of my identitarian formation. Making sense of the processes of my youth with the aid of the methodological tools that have accompanied me throughout my academic studies has given me new ways of expressing the seemingly irrational and unreflective activities of my/our collective selfhood. Many of the opinions here presented are directly connected to my experience as part of the small community of Peruvian metaleros conformed during the 1980s, a community that found meaning in the countercultural discourses of foreign musical sounds, making these our own and reformulating our aims. I finish writing this text with my mind on 2021 and what will be the celebration of the bicentenary of Perú’s independence in a year’s time. Such a celebration offers not only a chance to look back at our history, but a chance to forge ahead into new horizons. My hope is that those new horizons include Perú’s acceptance and consideration of Peruvian metal as a worthy subject of

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academic inquiry which reveals our nation’s idiosyncrasies and sense of identity. We will keep working to make this so, as Peruvian metal continues to hold its ground as a countercultural and underground musical force in the country. NOTES 1. Fernando Belaúnde Terry had been elected president in the 1963 elections, but was deposed by a military coup led by Juan Velasco Alvarado in 1968, who was himself deposed by another military coup in 1975 by Francisco Morales-Bermúdez. Morales-Bermúdez called for national elections that took place in 1980. 2. Scott, Niall. 2011. “Heavy Metal and the Deafening Threat of the Apolitical.” Popular Music History. 6.1/6.2: 224–239. 3. The way in which particular romantic values were perceived and transformed by the local culture of Peruvian metalheads remains to be academically assessed and explored. 4. Some of the themes related to the construction of identity in germinal Peruvian metal have been mentioned in a book I published together with Giuseppe Risica Carella, in 2018: López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio, and Giuseppe Risica Carella. 2018. Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena Metalera Peruana (1981– 1992). Lima: Sonidos Latentes & Discos Invisibles. However, the text lies at a point between academic analysis and informational informality. I will cite it throughout this text, as it is the first full length book published about Peruvian metal, and the first work to open the conversation to the public regarding many aspects of the culture considered here. 5. Headbanger is the term commonly used in Perú to refer to metal fans, being an equivalent to the Castilian metalero. Other more common terms outside of the country, like metalheads, are not normally used in the country. 6. Some of the problems that make apart local from foreign scholar of Peruvian music were pointed out in 1999 by Javier F. León: León, Javier F. 1999. “Peruvian Musical Scholarship and the Construction of an Academic Other.” Latin American Music Review / Revista de Música Latinoamericana, 20/2 (Autumn–Winter): 168–183. University of Texas Press. While I am critical of some of the conclusions that text arrives at, I consider it an important analysis of how cultural frictions have populated Peruvian musical scholarship. 7. A complex analysis of the situation of the current study of popular music in Perú goes beyond the aims of this text. I should mention, however, that in the last ten years the world of Peruvian academic studies on music has widened its view substantially. 8. Geografías Sonoras del S. XXI is a research project by José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón (Coordinator) and Fred Rohner (co-Investigator), awarded funding in 2017 by the Dirección de Gestión de la Investigación (DGI) of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú—PUCP. It aims to construct a contemporary allinclusive map of musical scenes in the city of Lima during periods starting in the late twentieth century and continuing into the twenty-first century.

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9. A critical literary review of works about Peruvian metal, including undergraduate theses, articles, fanzines, pamphlets, and conferences is yet to be formally published. 10. González Prada, Manuel. 1894. Pájinas Libres. Paris: Tipografía de Paul Dupont. P, 154. 11. We can find a more formal presentation of the issue on Wili Jimenez’s short article “¿En qué momento jodió el rock a Velasco?” In Quehacer. Revista del Centro de Estudios y Promoción del Desarrollo, desco. N° 2 Segunda Época / ENE MAR 2019. 12. El Comercio (newspaper). Interview with Pedro Cornejo Guinassi, author of the first book on Peruvian rock, Alta Tension, in 2002. Recovered from: https​:/​/el​​ comer​​cio​.p​​e​/som​​os​/hi​​stori​​as​/pe​​dro​-c​​ornej​​o​-dis​​parat​​e​-abs​​oluto​​-deci​​r​-sai​​cos​-i​​nvent​​a​ ron-​​punk-​​notic​​ia​-53​​9170.​ 13. Aguirre, Carlos and Paulo Drinot, 2018, La Revolución Peculiar Repensando el Gobierno Militar de Velasco. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 13. 14. Alan Gabriel Ludwig García Pérez was the president of Perú from 1985 to 1990. He would be re-elected in 2006 for another 5-year term. 15. López and Risica, Espíritu del Metal, 41–56. 16. These two communist organizations are responsible for a terrorist war against the state that started, officially, in 1980, and that lasted, arguably, until 2000. This war has been the bloodiest in Peruvian history, with a death toll of nearly 70,000. 17. López and Risica, Espíritu del Metal, 42. 18. Studio owned by Gerald Paz located in Lima, Perú. Many important recordings of the Underground Peruvian rock scene were recorded there during the 1980s and 1990s. 19. Many recordings of the early metal bands of the 1980s exist. This includes recordings from concerts, rehearsals, and a few low-fi studio recordings. Most of the recordings related to the first national heavy metal to hit the ‘metal market’ starting on 1987 and shared space with the new sounds of extreme metal. A list of most of these recordings can be found on Espíritu del Metal (López and Risica 2018). Another exception worth mentioning is the release of the 7” vinyl single for Exterminio by PAX (Pax. Exterminio. Iempsa 01.50.500066, 1985). Even though this release is from 1985, it represents a particular case that has also been previously discussed (López and Risica 2018, 22–23). 20. Marco Kuong. Personal interview, July 28, 2019. 21. Aristides Gonzáles Vigil. Personal interview, July 28, 2019. 22. Giuseppe Risica Carella. Personal interview, July 28, 2019.

REFERENCES Aguirre, Carlos and Paulo Drinot. 2018. La Revolución Peculiar Repensando el Gobierno Militar de Velasco. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos. Boggiano, Franco and Mario Zapata. 2015. “Orgus, 30 Años de los Guerreros del Metal.” Resistencia 21 (blog). July 28, 2015. http:​/​/blo​​gs​.pe​​ru21.​​pe​/re​​siste​​ncia2​​1​ /201​​5​/07/​​orgus​​-30​-a​​nos​-d​​e​-los​​​-guer​​reros​​.html​.

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Bertelsmann Transformation Index. 2003. Country Report. Peru. http:​/​/dev​​.bert​​elsma​​ nn​-tr​​ansfo​​rmati​​on​-in​​dex​.d​​e​/bti​​2003/​​index​​​.php?​​id​=10​​6. Cornejo Guinassi, Pedro. 2002. Alta Tensión. Los Cortocircuitos del Rock Peruano. Lima: Emedece Ediciones. García Lorca, Federico. 1929. Soneto a Carmela Condon [handwritten text] Federico García Lorca. Chile: Biblioteca Nacional Digital de Chile. http:​//​www​​.bibl​​iotec​​ anaci​​onald​​igita​​l​.gob​​.cl​/b​​nd​/62​​3​/w3-​​artic​​l​e​-13​​5984.​​html. Geertz, Clifford. 1963. “The Integrative Revolution: Primordial Sentiments and Civil Politics in the New States.” In Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, edited by Clifford Geertz, 105–157. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. González Prada, Manuel. 1894. Páginas Libres. Paris: Tipografia de Paul Dupont. Hall, Stuart. 1997. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage in association with the Open University. Halnon, Karen. 2006. “Heavy Metal Carnival and Dis-alienation: The Politics of Grotesque Realism,” Symbolic Interaction, 29 (1): 33–48. Hickman, Brian. 2015. “Amalgamated Anecdotes: Perspectives on the History of Metal Music and Culture Studies.” Metal Music Studies, 1 (1): 5–9. Hjelm, Titus, Kahn-Harris, Keith and Mark LeVine. 2013. Heavy Metal: Controversies and Counterculture. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing Ltd. Holland, Dorothy and William Lachicotte. 2007. “Vygotsky, Mead, and the New Sociocultural Studies of Identity.” In The Cambridge Companion to Vygotsky, edited by Harry Daniels, Michael Cole and James. V. Wertsch, 101–135. New York: Cambridge University Press. León, Javier F. 1999. “Peruvian Musical Scholarship and the Construction of an Academic Other.” Latin American Music Review/Revista de Música Latinoamericana, 20 (2): 168–183. López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio. 2008. Constructing Musical Spaces Beyond Technological Eden: A Participative Initiative for Musical Interface Development Based in the Peruvian Context. MA thesis. UC San Diego. López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio. 2015. “El Extranjero Íntimo: Espacios Imaginados y Poscolonialidad Durante la Llegada del Jazz al Perú.” In Música Popular y Sociedad en el Perú Contemporáneo, edited by Raúl R. Romero, 423–450. Lima: Instituto de Etnomusicología—Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio, and Giuseppe Risica Carella. 2018. Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena Metalera Peruana (1981–1992). Lima: Sonidos Latentes & Discos Invisibles. Malloy, J. M. 1982. “Peru’s Troubled Return to Democratic Government.” UFSI Rep, 15: 1–11. Molinié, Antoinette. 2004. “The Resurrection of the Inca: The Role of Indian Representations in the Invention of the Peruvian Nation.” History and Anthropology, 15 (3): 233–250. Roldán Ruiz, Martín. Generación Cochebomba. Lima: Self-published.

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Scott, Niall. 2011. “Heavy Metal and the Deafening Threat of the Apolitical.” Popular Music History, 6 (1–2): 224–239. Skempton, Simon. 2012. “Universalidade e Desconstrução de Identidade.” Revista Diacrítica, 26 (2): 277–289. Vale, Lawrence. J. 2008. Architecture, Power, and National Identity. London: Routledge.

Section III

DECOLONIZING LOCAL HISTORIES THROUGH MUSIC

Chapter 6

The Metal Scene in Havana, Cuba An Assessment of Its Cultural Development from 2007 to 2017 Miriela Fernández Lozano

HEAVY METAL: ANOTHER “INVASIVE WEED” GROWING IN CUBA In1 his book entitled Music and Revolution, Robin Moore (2006, 2) states that “the socialist aesthetic does not provide all the keys to understanding Cuban musical development since 1959.” In effect, Moore’s argument opens a door to understanding independent expressive manifestations born on the Island at the margins of the institutionalized idea of “revolutionary national culture.” Just like rock, jazz, and part of the repertoire of the Afro-Cuban religions that took root in the first decades of the revolution, heavy metal would also become a peripheral cultural manifestation in Cuba. The notion of unconventional creations (with respect to what is demanded by local institutionalism), which Joaquín Borges Triana (2015) described as “alternative Cuban music,” also allows heavy metal made in the country to be included in that category. For the author, these are the sounds that did not follow the Cuban cultural policy that was established very early after the triumph of the revolution, a policy which prioritized the development of “the traditional” over the foreign. These sounds also encompassed those that were considered harmful to the budding national project. That “dangerous” spectrum, defined by the government, included Anglo-Saxon music, especially music originating in the United States, taking into account the historical conflict with political actors of that nation. On the other hand, heavy metal music that emerged on the Island during the 1980s—when according to Borges Triana (2015) the emergence of alternative Cuban music was felt more strongly as part of a closer conversation 133

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between Cuba and the world—also did not fit the ideology of the “new man” that permeated the cultural and artistic forms promoted by the State. As Hansing synthesizes (quoted in Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda, and Rivera 2018, 138), “Social justice, education, and the eradication of racism were some of the tenets that would guide this revolutionary endeavor. The “New Man” was expected to be “selfless and cooperative, obedient and hardworking, gender-blind, incorruptible, non-materialistic, and anti-imperialist.” Under this conception, and at different moments of revolutionary Cuba, such as the period of interest for this chapter, the cultural priorities the government would encourage and support were clearly outlined. Milestones of these formulations could be witnessed in events such as the speech given by Fidel Castro in 1961 (known as “Words to the Intellectuals”), the Education and Culture Congress of 1971, and the period known as “the gray quinquennium” which sparked controversies, restrictions, and proscriptions in the cultural development of that time (Abreu 2007). Therefore, although it can be said that heavy metal and other alternative sounds accounted for a diversity of expressions on the Island—which came to exhibit its spontaneous, independent and misaligned positionality with official artistic and cultural representations—misunderstandings by local institutions of these musical manifestations entailed controversies and imposed limitations that kept metal music in the peripheral zone, beyond the centers of Cuban culture. Taking the words of researcher Humberto Manduley (2015a) in his historical account of rock in Cuba, it can be said that metal music was, in this country (much like its predecessor, rock music), another “invasive weed.” Several of the studies that have addressed the first years of rock during the Revolution have delved into the problems faced by cultural proponents of this musical genre (Borges Triana 2015; Castellanos 2008; Manduley 2015a). In those writings, it is acknowledged that the censorship of rock music manifested there in particular ways, even if the phenomenon itself was not exclusive to the Island (Manduley 2015a, 10). For example, during the early 1960s, rock aficionados were labeled as “elvispreslianos, homosexuals, scourge, lumpens, lazy, bourgeois counterrevolutionaries.” Consequently, they experienced “social rejection or depurative processes in universities and even seclusion in the rehabilitation camps of the UMAP”2 (Castellanos 2008, 18). These young people were considered part of a universe that had to be “redirected” in pursuit of the “new man” ideology and socialist homogeneity. However, in 1983, at the height of an era of “rectification of errors and negative tendencies,” a confidential study (stated as such in its cover) carried out by the Center for Research and Development of Cuban Music (CIDMUC) ascribed new orientations for the dissemination of rock. This stemmed from surveys conducted by aficionados of the genre, and contained interviews with

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musicians from other scenes, including those engaged in electro-acoustic and classical music, such as Juan Blanco and Frank Fernández. Guillermo Vilar, the Cuban rock journalist, also participated as an interviewee. The document highlighted the influence of rock in dance music, a genre considered key to the country’s “Cubanness”; the orchestras led by Elio Revé and Juan Formell served as representatives of the genre in the text. It also highlighted the convergence of the genre with jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms in a band like Irakere (a group promoted by the pianist Chucho Valdés), the contemporary (think popular) song, the nueva trova, the music of the Sound Experimentation Group of the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC), and in the songs of the band Síntesis (afro-rock band). It also mentioned how rock was present in the production of the Vitier brothers (Sergio and José María), in the creations of Leo Brouwer, and the oeuvre of trombonist Juan Pablo Torres, which according to the report included it “without schematics or dogmatic terrors” (Interview with Juan Blanco as cited in CIDMUC 1983, 74). Likewise, the report pointed out that “among the factors of our bad work is the arbitrary repression of rock” (Interview with Frank Fernández as cited in CIDMUC 1983, 76). Rock seemed to be everywhere, according to the report. However, part of the study, also sought to point out the need to promote technical mastery and “high quality” among rock musicians; professional works were legitimized while those considered street “dilettantes” were undervalued. At the same time, following ideological parameters, it was emphasized that the songs whose lyrics addressed the political reality of the Island would be disseminated. This fact, linked to the recommendation not to insist on the dissemination of “the more exciting trends” (in which hard rock was included), allow us to state, like Manduley (2015a 95), that at the time local institutions aimed to “authenticate a ‘politically correct’ projection for homemade rock.” At the time, the stronger trends in the rock genre and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal began to strongly penetrate the creative spaces of the Island, a fact noted by Manduley in his book Hierba Mala: Una Historia del Rock en Cuba (2015). In this climate, the band Venus would emerge. The Havana-based quintet “broke the norm” of the period by adopting the aesthetics of heavy metal with its own repertoire written in Spanish (Manduley 2015b). As they made clear in their demo entitled Metalizando el Espacio, the band helped metalized Havana, which would yield a point of no return: “The heavy sound prevailed and would reach greater vigor in subsequent years, until totally dominating the scene” (Manduley 2015a, 99). However, institutional obstacles hampered Venus’s trajectory. The documentary Ojo de Agua (Bazzano 1988), dedicated to the topic of alignment, gives voice to its members, allowing them to discuss the problems faced with different political and cultural structures, which ultimately led to the band’s

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dismantling in 1988. Other events experienced at the time also remain in the memory of metal followers and evidence these confrontations. As affirmed by Juan Carlos Torrente, vocalist for the death metal group Combat Noise, “1984 was the climax of Venus’s artistic career. They had a fixed space in the Amphitheater of Old Havana where the frikis3 in the capital met, until the police ended the event with baton blows” (Fernández 2017, 129). Nevertheless, Venus helped foreshadow the emergence of the capital’s metal scene. It should be stated that, according to the testimony of metalheads, albums like The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden and Defenders of the Faith by Judas Priest were already available on the Island. These and others were acquired starting in 1984 through a network of collectors based in different municipalities of Havana. A network of connections between the active followers of the hardest sounds derived from rock transformed during the second half of the eighties into the active copying of these albums at home. Many engaged in the exchange of cassettes with albums like Ride the Lightning by Metallica, Reign in Blood by Slayer, Doomsday for the Deceiver by Flotsam and Jetsam, Bonded by Blood by Exodus, Peace Sells . . . But Who`s Buying by Megadeth, and Welcome to Hell by Venom, among other international releases (Fernández 2017, 129). These independent interactions, which began to shape the underground network out of which metal culture was based in the capital, had their epicenter for meeting and listening to national metal productions in a space tellingly called Patio de María. Several studies on rock and metal in Cuba (Manduley 2015a; Remón and González 2010; Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda, and Rivera 2018) have pointed out aspects of this period that began in 1987 and extended until 2003, when the Roberto Branly Community House of the Plaza Municipality in Havana, lovingly called El Patio, was closed by the authorities. These studies evidence that until its closing, this space, opened through the sheer will of the director of activities and art historian, María Gattorno, for the benefit of rock and metal aficionados and alternative Cuban music in general, had contributed to the nomadic creations of the city. The space served to consolidate an underground and alternative scene and, over time, became the “mecca” of metal produced on the Island. Bands like Metal Oscuro and Zeus from Havana attained a following in those concerts during the first period of El Patio. Groups from other provinces of the country travelled there; some international bands also flocked to El Patio. El Patio would evidence the diversity of styles and subgenres of metal that was being developed on the Island. During the 1990s, local institutions were no longer ignorant to this creative effervescence. The incorporation of these musicians to the Asociación Hermanos Saíz4 (Hermanos Saíz Association; AHS) shows precisely, more

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than any change in attitude by local institutions, the creative intensity of these musical genres, which outright confronted the cultural authorities in Cuba, and more specifically in Havana, as had already been evidenced by El Patio de María. It must be stated that some musicians remained distant from these structures and never belonged to them—that is, until 1999, when the minister of culture Abel Prieto declared: “It´s time to nationalize rock and rap” (Pacini and Reebee 2004, 67). Explaining the breadth of musical production made at the time entails, rather than assuming that changes occurred in the behest of local institutions, recognizing the continuity of conflicts between aficionados and representatives of the State while The Patio was in operation. This should be done while also taking into account “the way some people use power and interpret a cultural policy. (. . .) You could be talking about simple policemen that understood that this should be censored” (González as cited in Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda, and Rivera 2018, 140). The closure of El Patio in 2007, which occurred without explanation, sent shockwaves throughout the scene. The event drove the Scriptorium fanzine in the capital, which was dedicated to rock and metal, to state that “one need no other reason to hate cultural exclusion—which impinges the development of a genre by providing it with supposed protection and understanding—than to live under it” (Sánchez 2007, 13). The background context of this 2007 document was, additionally, the prolongation, following several years after the closure of El Patio in 2003, of a new moment for the survival of rock and metal in Havana. Once the Cuban Rap Agency was created in 2002, which promoted the professionalization of this genre through support from the State, the metal and rock movements insisted on holding meetings with the government to address the importance of having an agency of its own and a place for more stable presentations. For Juan Carlos Torrente, the proposal to establish the Agencia Cubana del Rock (Cuban Rock Agency; ACR), contemplated in the enactment of the National Congress of the AHS of 2001, continued to find hurdles due to “the misunderstanding of culture officials and related institutions that did not understand this need, even after taking into account the performances in theaters and other spaces of acts such as Síntesis, Tesis de Menta, X Alfonso, David Blanco. . . . (This) stemmed from a conceptual misunderstanding: metal was considered a genre within rock” (Fernández 2017, 47). Although members of the alternative music scene were able to distinguish the aesthetic differences between rock and metal, this was not the case elsewhere. In July 2007, the ACR was finally founded, and the Maxim Rock theater building was established as its headquarters (which included the homonymous concert hall). Rock and metal would converge, much as they did in El Patio, after those years of nomadism and orphanhood. With

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the ACR, another step was taken toward the professionalization of rock and metal groups. From the preliminary catalog of bands with which it was born, people expected its expansion with the integration of new groups. Metal bands like Zeus, Agonizer, Escape, Hipnosis, Chlover, and Combat Noise, among others, would follow, becoming the first nucleus of groups hosted by the institution. Some people might believe that, with the creation of the ACR, conflicts between local institutions and the metal scene subsided. However, it is not easy to accept this argument as valid considering that this period has been rarely scrutinized in previous studies on rock and metal in Cuba. In the article entitled “From the ‘Patio’ to the ‘Agency’: The Emergence and Structuring of Metal Music in Revolutionary Cuba,” Varas-Díaz, González-Sepúlveda, and Rivera (2018, 145) retrace that story and open the door to the possibility of new research efforts addressing the impact of the ACR, while diagnosing some tensions: Lastly, in a country where debates over freedom of speech and state supervision of dissidence have and continue to be present (Kellogg 2016), the institutionalization of metal music within a government-sponsored entity is seen by some as a loss of independence and a burden on the use of extreme music as a vehicle for critical reflection. Time will tell how Cuban metal navigates these tensions.

With this in mind, I wanted to approach the topic of the metal scene in Havana during its first decade under the ACR. More to the point, I wanted to answer one particular question: What has been metal music’s cultural development in Havana between 2007 and 2017? The question allows me to address not only the relationship between the scene and the local institutions but also the ways in which followers of this music have built representations and aspirations related to metal culture. As the North American sociologist Deena Weinstein (2000) has noted, if one want to understand the movements or transformation that occur in heavy metal, one must not only examine the endogenous process of cultural change in metal, one must also take into account the historical and contextual factors that influence it. Entering this terrain entails, first of all, a theoretical discussion of what to understand when we speak of cultural development, especially as it relates to a global culture like metal. All this would mean contributing to the country’s cultural research by engaging in an inquiry of other aesthetics and expressive forms present in revolutionary Cuba. While studies focusing on Cuba’s cultural field have centered on the limitations of the implementation of community and local culture projects, the generational controversies over art and popular music on the Island, and the dialogues between the country and the world that have diversified the national

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culture (Abreu, 2007; Borges Triana 2015; Espina 2008; Manduley 2015a; Rodríguez 2015; Zurbano 2002), it is also important to recognize that the inquiry into “culture as text” (Geertz 1992), which emphasizes the process of exchanging cultural codes and symbols, has remained peripheral. Not much is known about how the ACR was maintained or transformed in that first decade of existence. Hence, after a bibliographic review in this first section of the chapter, I aim to provide an account of the three axes which I propose help to assess the cultural development of metal in Havana in the first decade of the ACR. These axes or notions are cultural meaning, recognition, and participation. Following their presentation, I explain the methods that underpin this work, in which dialogue with aficionados was key. The last section is dedicated to an interpretation of the cultural development of metal, using these axes and their manifestation in the Cuban capital during the period from 2007 to 2017, a process that has proven to be collective from beginning to end. The perspectives of the people I interviewed are incorporated throughout the chapter. This inquiry into the evolution of metal at an unprecedented stage in the history of this music in the country, at which point it obtained support from an institutional structure precisely for its professionalization and development, is my main objective here. This objective transformed from an initial search for some antecedents on the creation of metal on the Island and its relationship with local institutions to an assessment of this transformation in the last pages of this chapter. Finally, my assessment of the cultural development of metal from 2007 to 2017 is limited to the scene in Havana. This limited scope responds to two reasons: first, I myself was part of the scene during these first ten years of operation of the ACR; and second, while the ACR had a national character, its role has not been equally felt in other provinces as well as in Havana. Therefore, any study on the effects of the ACR will inevitably be limited to the center of the ACR’s influence. GAGING METAL’S DEVELOPMENT IN HAVANA: MEANING, RECOGNITION, AND CULTURAL PARTICIPATION The conceptual exercise with the axes that I propose to account for the cultural development of metal (meaning, recognition and cultural participation) requires an immersion into the academic debates of recent decades, especially those in Latin America and the Caribbean, where criticism of the construction of a homogenizing identity for the region (Barbero, 2015) has been accompanied by a return to “culture” (Barbero 1999; García, 1990; García, Cruces and Urteaga, 2012; Mato 2001; Pino 2007). This entails a

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meeting between anthropology and cultural and communicational studies in an effort to visualize those processes that surpass national limits, account for cultural differences between groups within the same territory who engage in different consumption habits and establish communicative bridges with other parts of the world, and promote symbolic systems that are re-produced and settled throughout these connections (De la Haba and Santamaría 2001, 143–165). Even when the use of terms such as subcultures, urban tribes, or countercultures has not been surpassed, it has been pointed out through that “cultural return” that the distinction of a symbolic structure that guides the social experience (Geertz 1992, 21) allows us to speak, ultimately, of culture (Arce 2008). This has made it possible to transcend the nationalist cultural defense that has pointed to globalization as a mediator of passive consumption of industry, alignments, fragmentation, and mimesis, to find behind cultural patterns that are globalized, often “from below” (Mato 2001), the motivations for this re-production of symbols in various parts of the world. This would necessitate an account which considers the senses of the conformation and permanence of global cultures. In the case of music, the perspective of the scene (Straw 1991; Shank 1994; Bennett and Peterson, 2004; Woo, Rennie, and Poynts 2015; Pedro, Piquer and Del Val 2018) has allowed for more flexible cultural appropriations and belongings from a particular territory. The founding conceptual proposal of Irwin (1977), according to whom the scene results from a set of central activities—the existence of a set of symbologies, open and flexible access to spaces, and the serious enacting of the “drama” of the scene—has undergone an evolution. On the one hand, scenes underline the aspects that concern the global (the cultural structure that remains); on the other, they showcase the local, contextual, and experiential issues. As Irwin (1977, 63) has stated, “Scenes tend to evolve and remain within areas defined by the value people hold;” this speaks of an active process of cultural significance from within the local scene, using Bennett’s typology (2004). Hence, to capture both the assimilation of a global culture and the local motivations and expressive contributions to it, I propose the use of cultural meaning as the first axis of cultural development. Thus, through an examination of cultural meaning, it is possible to penetrate those representations that underlie the cultural components that articulate and make up a scene in a particular territory. Therefore, contrary to the utilitarian stance on cultural development that has been imposed (Yúdice 2002) with an emphasis on its economic dimensions (“culture for culture’s sake, whatever it may be, will never be financed, unless it provides a form of indirect gain” [Santana as quoted in Yúdice 2002, 25]), my interest in cultural meaning is to contribute to that “return to culture” in Latin American and

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Caribbean research. That is, the angle of motivations and senses of action that drive the process of re-production at the local level of the metal culture. Another of the central axes that I propose is cultural recognition. The representations of the subjects involved in the scene regarding the understanding and cultural assimilation that affects their development, allow for the discussion of this last process in a particular territory. This is mainly related to the relationship of aficionados with the local institutions (State organizations, companies, agencies, clubs, laws, and culture policies). Some important aspects to focus on are the emergence of the scenes as expressive forms in the face of the institutional crisis in the “contemporary era” (Irwin 1977), the new ways of “being together” given the limited participation of different sectors in traditional institutions (Barbero 2008), and the genesis of new inequalities and contradictions that are made public and audible (Ochoa 2006). Simultaneously, the theoretical and practical validation of the role of the State in the face of inequalities and its part in the impulse and decline of a culture has weight here. Taking into account the Cuban case where, as previously stated, local institutions have seen in alternative musical manifestations a conflicting physiognomy, this axis would approach the relationship between the State structure (mainly comprised of the efforts of the ACR during the decade that concerns me) and the Cuban capital’s metal scene. Finally, the third notion to consider is cultural participation. Based on the practice of the participants, this axis has to do both with the reaffirmation of the right to autonomous creation and glocal5 cultural exchange, and the conditions for it, which connects to the concept of cultural citizenship (Linares s/f.). As evidenced by several studies (Barbero 2002; Woodside and Jiménez 2012), the development of new technologies (including the arrival of the Internet) has allowed for dialogue, production, and decentralized distribution of music, with implications in the arbitration of cultural processes by the State and transnational organizations. Hence, creativity in cultural spaces today takes place in an area that includes the search for collaborative support within and between musical scenes, the impact of legal frameworks, and the construction of institutional links to sustain translocal sociomusical projects and relationships. This implies a double challenge. On the one hand, local cultural policies under the effects of globalization have absorbed a “set of homogenizing instruments,” based on the language of advertising and free enterprise that, however, appear as “heterogeneous dialogues of national sovereignty” (Appadurai 2002, 32). On the other hand, the critical positions in the face of this phenomenon have often meant “too little openness” (Appadurai 2002, 32) or a change of the contents at the behest of the interests of power. Cultural participation seems to reveal the existence of a transgression of the Baudrillardian simulacrum in the capital’s metal scene, not from a conservative position, but in conjunction with cultural meaning. This third notion

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refers, therefore, to autonomy, solidarity, and the joining of efforts and innovation in the creative cycle of culture between the different roles of the scene with glocal projection. The axis also refers to the way in which practices of personal and collective projects are developed for cultural re-production. Taking into account what has been discussed up to this point, cultural development as it relates to metal music refers to the process of territorialization of representations and practices in light of new experiences of meaning produced by a scene, which contribute to a global symbolic system, in this case, metal culture. Leaving behind an expansionist perspective of development, it is possible to account for the above through the overlapping of the three notions or axes that have been defined here: cultural meaning, recognition, and participation. These notions allow us to undertake the main objective of this chapter: the valuation of the cultural development of metal in Havana during the period from 2007 to 2017, while at the same time helping shed light on its particularities through these axes of analysis. In this manner, I aim to contribute both to the scarce research about alternative music on the Island, and to the visibility of perspectives shared by metal aficionados who still reside in a peripheral area of Cuban culture. ENTERING THE METAL SCENE IN HAVANA The valuation of the cultural development of Havana’s metal scene during the first decade of existence of the ACR results from an exploration of the period that extends from 2007 to 2017. This approach has been assembled, rather than as a strictly objective text, from “consensual knowledge” (Orozco, 2000) obtained after conducting thirty interviews, some in-depth and others standardized. These were carried out at the individual or group levels, with aficionados of different generations, and with active and varied roles in the capital’s metal scene. That way, I was able to describe each of the notions of cultural development mentioned earlier. The use of performance analysis in the analysis of some bands of different subgenres allowed me to delve particularly into the cultural meaning axis. Informal conversations, data collection through fanzines, and analysis of the works of various bands, both legendary (e.g., Combat Noise, Escape, Narbeleth) and recent (e.g., Helgrind, Crampus, and Nemesis) complemented the description of each axis. It must be stated that, during my fieldwork, I found that the number of the works produced during more than thirty years of metal in Havana highlights the need for revisiting research and/or contemporary studies that support the scene and its memory. On the other hand, even when I managed to obtain participation from representatives of the ACR to deepen my understanding of the cultural recognition axis, I encountered certain limitations when trying

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to access other levels of institutionality. Throughout the study, interviews with researchers of Cuban popular music were meaningful given their contributions to each of the axes explored and as a support point for my final assessment. THE CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE HAVANA SCENE IN THE TIMES OF THE ACR Cultural Meaning During the period from 2007 to 2017, the cultural meaning axis is manifested in the metal scene of Havana through the need for a more explicit distinction between rock and metal. Although, in most cases, aficionados could be recognized as rockers, they expose the generic and cultural differences between these two factions, which they interpret in light of the appearance of heavy metal and its evolution from the eighties to the present. Through the analysis of performances by bands such as Narbeleth6 (black metal), Helgrind (melodic death metal/viking) and Crampus (metalcore), it was possible to verify the codes that internationally belong to metal’s symbolic system, as expressed in the interviews. Regarding these codes, Pablo Robbio, guitarist of Helgrind stated: Metal brings much more rebellion, a wider variety of moods and subgenres. It’s like setting a pot of water to boil. First, “rock” is hot. If you place your hand on it, you burn. But metal boils, it goes beyond. It uses much more distortion than rock, guitars are heavier, colder. It takes all that power to release the stuff you have inside. The timbres are also different, including the vocals. Although it can be said that there were some rock bands that tried to make a guttural sound, in metal there is a need for the voice to be powerful, to use it as another instrument in function of that energy. The way of dressing is much more rebellious, more violent.

The informants also coincided on the sonic differences between the two genres. Some expressed the belief that metal “is not determined by the blues scale,” although the scale can be integrated. They referred to the prominence of the drums (whose virtuosity is achieved via either fast technical rhythms or precise slow rhythms (examples of which include the blast beats, which “sounds like a train running to the station” and the use of the double pedals), the guitar riffs as an essential part of a song, the construction of perfect unison harmonies (as if “all music had to go together”), the integration of technical resources that magnify metal, and the development of atmospheres. These elements can be interwoven to give birth to complex, sophisticated,

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or sometimes simple structures, although always in the direction of bringing both the performer and those who actively listen to a state of “spiritual liberation” and “liberation of energy” as the ultimate goal. This was done while also transcending, as they mentioned, “the stigma of teenage music with which metal has been seen in Cuba.” The consumption and musical production of both classical and more modern subgenres of metal evinces the constant shifts in Havana’s scene, accounting for the study, knowledge, and interest in perfecting and improving one’s musical technique. This did not rule out the intentional execution of a musical “primitivism,” the development of a stage performance, and the search for originality.7 Participants’ involvement in metal culture as that which give their lives sense, that is, as a personal and collective realization, is what has given rise to the scene and has contributed to its permanence. The idea that the commitment behind any action also benefits others has allowed for feelings of community and cultural belonging to grow, in spite of different fragmentations and searches. These feelings, on the one hand, have been proposed as a way to transcend local boundaries, while on the other, these same feelings gather the legacy of previous experiences at the local and national levels. Aficionados describe the creation of the Havana scene as vital. They refer to the ways in which the spaces conquered by early followers of metal music made it possible for the cultural identity ascribed to the genre to move from metaphor to reality; that is, from the mere desire to belong, to the actual constitution of a sociocultural experience that, in many cases, was projected onto the totality of these subjects’ social lives. Likewise, bands, fanzines, and performative elements in the development of metal in Havana were assimilated as sources of motivation in the construction of cultural meaning. Yoan García, vocalist of Crampus, recalls: The first time I saw a live metal band was at El Patio de María in 2001. It was Combat Noise. When I felt that music, the powerful voice of Juan Carlos (singer), (the visual package which included) wearing boots and camouflage pants; it was impressive. It’s something I can’t forget, just like that whole environment. I will always thank the friend who took me there. You knew then that you were part of something.

Together with groups from other provinces (Mr. Dominus, Sectarium, Mephisto, and Tendencia, for example), the bands from Havana most frequently mentioned by the respondents were Venus, Metal Oscuro, Zeus, Rotura, Detenidos, Cosa Nostra, Garaje H, Combat Noise, Athanai, Agonizer, Thelema, Teufel, Darkening, Escape, Ancestor, Hipnosis, Tribal, Sed and Aventi. Although several of these groups were not active during the

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decade I focus on here, these bands influenced the diversity I found in the scene during this period. Many of them served as antecedents of the differentiation that is experienced during the stage I describe here and, at the same time, of the proliferating cultural meaning that continues to characterize it. The way in which the performances of Narbeleth, Helgrind, and Crampus were developed provide us with an example of the ways in which cultural meaning becomes, on the one hand, centripetal, in the way it seeks to deepen or investigate the center or background of the codes recognized as old school in metal culture, and on the other, liminal or hybrid, opening itself to hybridizations and dialogues both with other music and with the sonorities and elements that have promoted “conceptual” heavy metal as a bricolage (Weinstein, 2000). However, the fact that the metal sound can still be identified echoes Schechner (2011) and his proposal to find, in the “first actions or starting references,” in this case of metal subgenres, the ways in which new and more sinuous creations re-produce a symbolic system, under the dual purpose of cultural permanence and the expansion of its expressive borders. Bands such as Helgrind and Narbeleth allowed people to encounter local extreme metal.8 In fact, according to the interviews and the details that proved salient in their performances, these groups emerge due to the personal motivation of their members and the surrounding collective, that is, the public, to fill a scenic void, taking into account the desire at the local level for such styles. These stylistic preferences are defended as part of embodied behaviors, during socialization and listening meetings, ascribed to cultural elements related to these subgenres. Over time, these groups have also influenced, through their productions, the formation of an aural space for this type of metal (see figures 6.1 and 6.2). For its part, Crampus, located in a musical area of greater hybridizations and performing in a subgenre like metalcore, transferred to its performance space a language, gestures, and behaviors less assimilated by social and educational norms on the Island. This was done under the influence of the extensive sound tendencies that, inspired by hardcore music, emerged in the late 1980s. Although the band reached a more diverse and younger audience—taking into account “the age” of this musical trend and the way it has been disseminated in recent times—the use of dark and violent codes, the group’s sound, and the verbal exchanges of its vocalist with the public help us understand how it is anchored, on the stage and via the interactions within their performance, to the overall culture of metal. Figures 6.3 and 6.4 show interactions during a Crampus concert in La Tropical, in Havana, during the period under study. The permanence and repeated use of metal-related codes can be identified in the cultural productions happening on stage thanks, in part, to the symbolic choices of liberation and transgression they carry and the possibility

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Figure 6.1  Artwork for the Demo Time to Conquer by the Band Helgrind. Source: Photo provided by Daniel López Lameiro.

of processing through their work the feelings, personalities, and experiences they have lived. This happens simultaneously with the essential connection with music, which first “opens one’s own subjectivity,” and serves to consolidate the process of cultural belonging. In that same direction, within the Havana scene, the most widespread arguments about “Cubanness” are also disrupted. This entails, on the one hand, the institutionalized idea that being Cuban is synonymous with a reproduction of the values and symbols of Cuba’s revolutionary process, and on the other, the extreme defense of the traditional and, above all, the AfroCuban elements, which correspond to embodied rhythms (“Cubans have a cadence when walking”; “Cubans dance well”) characterized as legitimate culture (“Cuban music is dance music: rumba, son, salsa”). In the metal produced in Havana during the stage under study, these positions continue to be transgressed based on the construction and consolidation of a translocalized and autonomous cultural territory which eschews the limitations of nationalist models, purposes, and representations (see figure 6.5). However, national referentiality is not lost; it continues to traverse the trajectory of those who are involved in this environment. Likewise, this reality can overlap, be latent, or be reflected much more explicitly in the form of

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Figure 6.2  The Band Helgrind during 2018. Source: Photo provided by band.

Figure 6.3  The Band Crampus Performing at La Tropical, Havana. Source: Photo provided by band.

social criticism and/or dissidenting positions in the face of contextual events, as evidenced by the work of some bands. One emblematic example during this period is the album La Hora de la Verdad (2012) by Escape, released by the independent label Brutal Beatdown Records. The album’s cover emulates

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Figure 6.4  The Crowd in a Crampus Concert at La Tropical, Havana. Source: Photo provided by band.

the front page of the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, which bears the name Granma. It is named after the ship on which Fidel Castro and other “expeditionaries” landed in Cuba in order to carry out “the revolutionary war” (see figure 6.6). The possibilities of challenging the more traditional and/or hegemonic ways of building artistic, social, political, and cultural messages on the island

Figure 6.5  The Band Némesis Performing in Havana. Source: Photo provided by Alain Rodríguez.

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Figure 6.6  Artwork for the album La Hora de la Verdad by the band Escape. Source: Image provided by Alejandro de la Torre.

via the re-production of metal codes, account for another form of cultural creation and visions about the local context of metal aficionados. This is also a manifestation of the visual presence of this musical genre in the capital’s scene throughout the ten-year period discussed here. Another manifestation of cultural meaning that is distinguishable in this period is the low permeability of metal into musical fashion (i.e., for mass consumption) in a period that experienced the advance of other musical soundscapes, such as reggaetón (Barthelemy s/f; Baker 2011). During the period under study, the hybridizations seen as diversifying the scene were those that were inserted in it though the values and symbolic constructions that have given it life. For this reason, according to those interviewed, metal is essentially about musical values and the conformation of a liberating sociocultural experience on a personal and group level, where we should consider, as stated by guitarist Jorge Marín, that “this will always be a reduced scene, more so here, and we need to understand that. That is really what makes it special. If everyone in Cuba were a metalhead, maybe then we would be something else because it’s a way to separate, to distinguish ourselves.”

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Cultural Recognition The process of cultural recognition during the period under study faced several challenges, taking into account the way in which this process has occurred. Following the review of fanzines and interviews, three time periods were established for the analysis of this axis that allowed me to account for changes in the scene: the first, an initial period which covered the operation of the ACR, from July 20, 2007, to 2011; second, a period which extended from that year to 2015; and finally, the period addressed in this chapter which spanned from 2015 to 2017. As I had stated at the beginning of the chapter, the creation of the ACR was the result of the mobilization of promoters and educators of alternative Cuban music, especially rock and metal, in search of a more permanent space of their own due to the closure of El Patio de María, and with greater possibilities of professionalization and sustenance in the national circuit. Thus, the entity emerged with several missions, including (1) to “act as a recruitment agency” of groups that could contribute to the growth of the institution with the support of the Cuban Institute of Music during an initial stage, (2) to achieve self-management, and (3) to put into circulation “a rock magazine with a stable frequency, a record label, and the promotion of international relations” (González 2007, 18). The ACR, located in the building of the Maxim Rock cinema-theater, would have in that facility a well-equipped concert hall. In addition, several of their workers came from, or were related to, El Patio de María. At a time when there was a large diversity of bands more widely represented by extreme metal (Remón and González, 2010), the ACR was seen by metalheads as “a light at the end of the tunnel,” which could help disseminate the cultural and musical values of local productions. “Something could happen for the people who followed metal here,” was the shared feeling in the Havana scene. Initially, the institution was important as it allowed concerts by professional and amateur bands; in the case of the latter, these were allowed to perform regardless of their membership in the Hermanos Saíz Association. Various festivals such as Brutal Fest and 666 Fest were also held at the Maxim Rock; and it was possible to interact with international bands such as Sepultura (which offered a great concert in 2008 at the José Martí Tribune) and others like Mumakil, Inferia, Inhumate, Mortuary, and Destronork. There was some access to international and national metal cultural products through the organization and closer collaboration with that structure on other roles such as the realization and distribution of recordings. For example, one could highlight the case of the independent label Brutal Beatdown Records owned by French producer David Chapet.

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However, at the height of 2011 there would be a noticeable decline in the levels of activity and enthusiasm. Precisely during that year, the fifth issue of the Insanedrac fanzine published in the province of Matanzas reported changes in the programming at the Maxim. It described its inclusion of other musical styles (although still centered on those promoted by the ACR), and the increase in the cost of concert tickets as forms of “self-support,” taking into account budget cuts to the entity made in a national context of the “economic update” (Vidal and Everleny 2012). Based on the guidelines for economic and social policies in Cuba, greater productivity would be demanded from State-supported entities, which would result in greater pragmatism in their everyday actions. A reflection of that state of affairs was the ACR’s attempt to make this type of music a commercial product, which clashed with previous notions of the State’s support of metal simply as “cultural vindication.” By 2013, the Maxim Rock had established itself as the quintessential concert venue, eliminating the possibility of hosting presentations elsewhere. At the same time, there had been a symbolic restructuring of the scene, since the possibility of carrying out musical projects that arose from the musical groups was almost exclusively located in the ACR. During that year, other events would also occur, such as the emigration to the United States of the director of the ACR as well as the resettling of nationally recognized groups and editors of fanzines that had become important voices in the scene. This added to the stories of some followers of rock who chose to leave the country, even becoming part of “the rafters9” who, motivated by economic, social, political, and cultural conflicts, had begun to leave Cuba some decades prior. All these events that occurred between 2011 and the following years were symptoms of the institution’s problematic functioning. The installation of new director in the ACR, a person who lacked any historical involvement with rock and metal on the Island, the increased programming of styles far from the cultural values and the genres of rock and metal, and other internal situations bred controversies and led to the defection of aficionados. This happened practically in the shadows of Cuban society, as the media gave little attention to it. Only the e-zine Cuba-Metal, which disappeared in 2014, reported these debates and what was happening. Members of professional bands, in light of this grim situation, called on María Gattorno, whose will had made possible the existence of El Patio de María during the eighties, to head the Cuban Rock Agency. However, her return coincided with the closure of the Maxim Rock Theater, which was scheduled to undergo repairs in 2015. It would not reopen its doors until 2018. According to the data collected in the Havana scene, the following issues summarize the main problems of the ACR’s performance: (1) it did not have the necessary autonomy to implement its initiatives; (2) it did not draw up

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distinct strategies to support rock and metal in light of the different expectations and possibilities of development for these genres; (3) it did not work with metal culture, failing to recognize its intrinsic process of translocalization; (4) it fostered hierarchies between amateur and professional groups; and (5) it assumed a Havana-centric vision, thus forgetting the metal bands in the provinces far from the capital. To these challenges one could add that it established a form of “cultural correction” based on requirements related to: a) expected criteria for instrument performance among musicians without taking into account the cultural meaning of the musical genre they were defending (i.e., metal); b) the limiting of the number of metal bands in which a person could participate (institutionally limited to no more than two); and c) a greater concern over profitability. All of these issues worked to the detriment of a coherent integration of this entity into the local scene. As of 2015, the readjustment of the ACR’s work, now involved in a business project to boost Cuban music, continued to evidence the need for it to redefine itself. Even though it was an institutional entity, it owed itself to the people in the scene who shared a cultural meaning, which surpassed that very same institution, and had yielded a local metal scene in Cuba. Cultural Participation According to the examinations conducted with researchers and aficionados regarding the issue of cultural participation, the features that define the scene during the period under study were creativity in the appropriation of spaces and the engagement in roles for the reconstruction of the capital’s scene. This was done with the goal of achieving greater visibility at the international level, not from the point of view of the transnational music industry—although not ruled out in several cases—but, above all, in the sense of exchanging experiences within the different communities and spaces of metal culture. For example, it is worth noting the participation in 2014 of the band Narbeleth in the Under the Black Sun festival which took place in Germany, and the presentation in Argentina of Stoner, a metalcore band from Havana, during the time in question. Thus, the glocal relationship is embodied in the roles created within and beyond the musical arena, as well as in the processes of production and distribution of metal music performed in Havana. However, the particular problems of the Cuban context add to the conditions of inequality faced by other scenes on this side of the world, and this would have consequences for the ways in which participation of the local scene takes place in other territories of metal culture. In this scenario, it is necessary to mention the low transit of international bands through the Island (especially those most recognized

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worldwide), the limitations of cultural recognition described earlier, and the limited access to the Internet. It should be noted that the regulations of the U.S. economic blockade on the Island, the lack of infrastructure in Cuba, and “insufficient policies” of the Cuban government for the computerization of the country (Campos, 2016) have had dire effects on the development of the music, including metal and other alternative sounds. These have been factors that, on the one hand, fostered the “definitive” displacements of some music creators toward other international scenes—to which other personal factors are added in light of one’s life history—and on the other hand, nurtured the reemergence of more independent relations and initiatives at the local level, in order to maintain the capital’s scene alive. At a stage where not all the ACR’s founding proposals were reached, and also influenced by a generational shift in leadership, some interviewed aficionados questioned the existence of Havana’s scene at all during this period. They used as examples of this absence the dispersion of concerts, the disintegration of groups or the emigration of its members, the disagreements with roles in the organization’s creative processes, and the overall conflicts with the institution. However, others saw this as a mere decline, more like a disarticulation of the scene’s system of communication, which made it even more difficult to have clear coordinates for it. Following theoretical contributions to the notion of scenes and the results of my fieldwork, it could be argued that in Havana, during the period under study, and especially during the last two years, there was a regeneration of cultural participation, which did not cease and which projected itself in two ways. First, it projected itself inwardly—in the sense of a rearticulation of the cultural reality that harbored these individuals, and via the presence of groups from the capital in festivals and metal initiatives held in other provinces of the country. Secondly, it exhibited an outward projection which was maintained and mediated by contextual and technological changes that led, for example, to the search for greater and better uses of the Internet, even if the service was “still expensive and scarce.” This period was characterized by an expansion of contacts with other territories of the metal culture in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. This especially entailed a greater participation of the Havana scene in virtual spaces, and a new awareness of the possibilities of linking with international independent labels and distributors. An emerging collaborative network and the use of individuals’ own resources made it possible for the scene to continue. This was evidenced by a more varied map for socialization and concerts, with institutional spaces that were self-managed at that time, and other independent ones placed at the service of the development of metal music. Among those spaces, we can mention La Madriguera, La Tropical, El Tropicalito, La Casa del Árbol in Old Havana (an initiative of young musicians and artists), El Proyecto (a space

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belonging to drummer Ray Mora), El Turf, some theaters, and even a school classroom in Old Havana, used for a festival with local bands. In this sense, cultural participation, as in previous periods, continued to entail the redistribution of time and family resources to sustain the scene and personal/collective projects, which has always included the recording of these cultural creations. Having participated in the capital’s scene has constituted for several of the interviewed individuals a way of expression, of engaging in their work, and of having a trajectory within this sociocultural framework. From there it is understood that what makes it possible to give life to the culture of metal in this territory is the interrelation between those who have the same musical taste and similar cultural needs, while always assuming the presence of conflict and institutional dialogue, which are an integral part of life in Cuba. METAL IN HAVANA: AN INDISPUTABLE CREATIVE PROCESS—SOME FINAL CONSIDERATIONS As we have seen, addressing the cultural development of a metal scene in a territory means moving within the glocal relationships that cross it, and focusing, through the axes described above, on the questions of context and aspects related to what happens inside the circuit through which music circulates. These can be understood as possibilities or obstacles to the expectations of evolution of aficionados of the genre. When using previously described axes to arrive at an assessment of the cultural development of metal in the Cuban capital from 2007 to 2017, it is possible to highlight, as a first point of this interpretive exercise, the difficulty that metal culture still finds during this period to consolidate itself in Havana despite the foundation and operation of the ACR. Furthermore, this stage exemplifies how the “nationalization” of metal—regardless of the phenomenon of outward expansion beyond the Cuban scene with the migration of some aficionados—continues to be unresolved even after more than three decades of being part of the cultural reality of the Island. Metal has existed in a permanent conflict with the institutions and entities that enact the country’s politics. The partial and problematic support for metal creation in these years evidences that it has not been possible to resolve the inequality based on the subjectivation of cultural practices. These local inequalities are added to those that emanate from the global configuration of new centers and peripheries, and furthermore complicated by conceptions and hierarchies of what is (or is not) considered culture. Hence, even today one can distinguish in the institutional structures that have intervened in the creation and maintenance of the ACR, on the one hand, the “trauma” of local social differentiation, even while

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belonging to a global culture, and on the other hand, a more commercial perspective that has sought to modify the idea of metal as culture. However, the processes experienced though the ACR have fostered a sense of the importance of decentralization and the need for translocal mobilization and collaboration between metalheads to re-produce their symbolic system and strengthen what already exists in Havana. The consolidation of the glocal communication system in the capital’s scene and the articulation of new roles are important lessons from this period. This has meant taking advantage of the new contextual conditions to develop more glocal encounters and the maturation of collective projects and livelihood strategies that are put into practice through these shared cultural meanings. During the decade under study, metal in the capital’s scene has continued to be influenced by feelings of transgression toward the institutionalized codes of Cuban culture and a general expressive liberation, under the idea of building an autonomous and distinctive sociocultural experience. In addition, its evolutionary projection, based more on glocal networks of collaboration rather than on a fetishist position of production and consumption, as it is predominantly experienced in the international music industry circuit, continues to endow it with an attractive cultural meaning. This cultural meaning resists easy commercialization and hides, behind its sullen and displeasing performances, the plots of the collective and an unquestionably creative process. It can be said that the metal scene in Havana from 2007 to 2017 progresses out of a strong cultural meaning and modes of participation that experience a constant forward motion, mainly by taking advantage of new conditions to reach other territories of the global metal culture. With its mere existence and engagement in conflict during the period under study, it exposes the need to continue permeating the institutional frameworks, created as support for that cultural environment, with the expectations and strategies that arise through it. At the same time, the capital’s scene reveals transformations in Cuban culture and the limitations of regulating public spaces though a national model. All this becomes a challenge to develop new understandings of cultural development that never cease to exist and grow. On the contrary, steel strings are still here “metallizing this space.”

NOTES 1. My thanks to the devotees who made this study possible. 2. Unidades Militares de Ayuda a la Producción (Military Units in the Service of Production), were labor camps “where thousands of homosexuals, religious persons—especially Jehovah’s Witnesses—and truly antisocial youth were confined, without excuses and on equal terms. The objective was precise and clear: to

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re-educate them in order to ‘make them men’ of the new society, and thus remedy those social, moral, and ideological convictions and ‘gaps’ that had led them there” (Castellanos 2008, 17). 3. In the first edition of El Rock in Cuba, Humberto Manduley (2001, 48) explains that the term, in its sense of rare, strange, and brought from English, was used to address the youth sector with social and aesthetic positions branded as problematic, extravagant or maladaptive. Over time “friki became almost synonymous with rocker,” replacing, after the Festival Invierno Caliente, hippies “in the process of stigmatization of rock fans” (Manduley 2015a, 85). 4. Government organization that emerged in 1986 and brought together young artists from the country. Although an initiative to create the Asociación de Músicos y Autores de Rock (Association of Rock Musicians and Authors, or AMAR in Spanish), which could unite, promote, and autonomously defend this musical creation was proposed by rockers themselves in the 1980s, the proposal was rejected by the authorities. 5. I.e. local and global. 6. Since it is not possible to reproduce photos of Narbeleth here, I recommend searching the Internet for videos of the band’s different presentations. 7. This text does not delve into the aesthetics of Havana metal, which remains a matter to be treated in future research, and would have as background the studies of Liliana González (2001) and Nelson Varas-Díaz, Sigrid Mendoza and Eric Morales (2016). Also, this study does not delve into the issues of authority and power at the glocal level in metal culture or within the local scene proper. 8. Bands like Hellhammer and Venom, which developed an imagery of the occult, accompanied by a more extreme sound than that found in early classic gave way to subgenres such as thrash, death, black, doom and grindcore (Weinstein 2000; KanhHarris 2007). 9. Neologism referring to those who defected from the country on rafts.

REFERENCES Abreu, Alberto. 2007. Los Juegos de la Escritura o la Reescritura de la Historia. Cuba: Casa de las Américas. Arce Cortés, Tania. 2008. “Subcultura, Contracultura, Tribus Urbanas y Culturas Juveniles: ¿Homogenización o Diferenciación?” Revista Argentina de Sociología, 6 (11): 257–271. Appadurai, Arjun. 2002. “Disyunción y Diferencias en la Economía Cultural Global.” Criterios, 33 (Cuarta Época): 13–42. Baker, Geoffrey. 2011. Buena Vista in the Club. Rap, Reggaetón, and Revolution in Havana. Durham-London: Duke University Press. Barbero, Jesús Martín. 2015. “Modernidades y Destiempos Latinoamericanos.” Nómadas (Online Journal), 20–34. nomad​​as​.uc​​entra​​l​.edu​​.co​/i​​ndex.​​php​/c​​ompon​​ent​ /c​​onten​​t​/​art​​icle?​​id​=63​2.

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Barbero, Jesús Martín. 2002. “Jóvenes, Comunicación e Identidad.” Pensar Iberoamérica. https​:/​/ww​​w​.oei​​.es​/h​​istor​​ico​/p​​ensar​​ibero​​ameri​​ca​/​ri​​c00a0​​3​.htm.​ Barbero, Jesús Martín. 2008. “Lo Público: Experiencia Urbana y Metáfora Ciudadana.” Cuadernos de Información y Comunicación, 13: 213–226. Barbero, Jesús Martín.1999. “Las Transformaciones del Mapa Cultural: Una Visión desde América Latina.” Ámbitos, 2, 7–21. Barthelemy, Liliam. s/f. “Consumo Cultural y Estratificación Social. Visión de un Grupo de Adolescentes.” In Participación Cultural de la Adolescencia en Cuba, edited by Pedro Emilio Moras and Yisel Rivero, 191–211. Cuba: Unicef. Bazzano, Alejandro. 1988. Ojo de Agua. Cuba: Escuela Internacional de Cine y Televisión (EICTV). Bennett, Andy, and Richard A. Peterson. 2004. Music Scenes: Local, Trans-Local and Virtual. Nashville: University of Vanderbilt Press. Bennett, Andy. 2004. “Consolidating the Music Scenes Perspective.” Poetics, 32: 223–234. Borges Triana, Joaquín. 2015. Con-cierto Cubano: La Vida es un Divino Guión. La Habana: Ediciones UNEAC. Campos, Zuamy. 2016. “Problemáticas en torno al Acceso a Internet en Cuba.” In Comunicación Dialógica y Transformación Social en la Web. Acercamiento a Experiencias Cubanas, edited by Miriela Fernández and Yohana Lezcano, 79–81 Cuba: Editorial Caminos. Castellanos, Ernesto Juan. 2008. “El Diversionismo Ideológico del Rock, la Moda y los Enfermitos.” Public presentation on October 31, 2018 at the Centro Teórico-Cultural Criterios, as part of the conference “La Política Cultural del Período Revolucionario: Memoria y Reflexión.” Cuba: Criterios.CIDMUC. 1983. Investigación sobre Música Rock—Informe Parcial. Cuba: Departamento de Desarrollo—Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Música Cubana. De la Haba, Juanand Enrique Santamaría. 2001. “Dilemas de la Globalización Cultural, Comunicación y Política. Entrevista a Néstor Garcia Canclini.” Voces y Culturas—Revista de Comunicación, 7: 143–165. Fernández, Miriela. 2017. Sobre la Escena del Metal en La Habana: Una Valoración de su Desarrollo Cultural del 2007 al 2016. MA Thesis on Social Development. Cuba: Universidad de La Habana-Programa FLACSO. García Canclini, Néstor. 1990. Culturas Híbridas. Estrategias para Entrar y Salir de la Modernidad. Mexico: Editorial Grijalbo. García Canclini, Néstor, Cruces, Francisco and Maritza Urteaga. 2012. Jóvenes, Culturas Urbanas y Redes Digitales. Madrid: Fundación Telefónica–Ariel. Geertz, Clifford. 1992. La Interpretación de las Culturas. Barcelona: Editorial Gedisa. González, Tony. 2007. “III Festival Caimán Rock 2007.” El Punto Ge (Fanzine) December, 2007, La Habana, Cuba. González, Liliana. 2001. “Rock en Cuba: Juicio, Hibridación y Permanencia.” Actas del III Congreso Latinoamericano de la Asociación Internacional para el Estudio de la Música Popular, La Habana, Cuba. Irwin, John. 1977. Scenes. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.

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Kahn-Harris, Keith. 2007. Extreme Metal Music and Culture on the Edge. Oxford– New York: Berg. Linares, Cecilia. s./f. “Cultura y Participación desde el Desarrollo Humano: Instancias de Innovación y Ejes de Cambio.” In Participación Cultural de la Adolescencia en Cuba, edited by Pedro Emilio Moras and Yisel Rivero, 13–36. Cuba: Instituto de Investigación Cultural Juan Marinello–Unicef. Manduley, Humberto. 2001. El Rock en Cuba. Cuba: Atril Ediciones Musicales. Manduley, Humberto. 2015a. Hierba Mala. Una Historia del Rock en Cuba. Holguín, Cuba: Ediciones La Luz. Manduley, Humberto. 2015b. Parche: Enciclopedia del Rock en Cuba. USA: Nialanai Ediciones. Mato, Daniel. 2001. “Producción Transnacional de Representaciones Sociales y Transformaciones Sociales en Tiempos de Globalización.” In Estudios Latinoamericanos sobre Cultura y Transformaciones Sociales en Tiempos de Globalización, edited by Daniel Mato, 127–159. Argentina: CLACSO. Moore, Robin. 2006. Music and Revolution. Cultural Change in Socialist Cuba. California, London-Chicago, USA: University of California Press-Center for Black Music Research. Ochoa, Ana María. 2006. “El Contradictorio Siglo del Sonido.” Margens, 8: 3–15. Orozco, Guillermo. 2000. La Investigación en Comunicación de Masa desde la Perspectiva Cualitativa. Mexico: Instituto Mexicano A.C. Pacini Hernández, Deborah, and Reebee Garofalo. 2004. “Between Rock and a Hard Place: Negotiating Rock in Revolutionary Cuba, 1960–1980.” In Rockin’ Las Americas: The Global Politics in Latin/o America, edited by Denorah Pacini, Héctor Fernández, and Eric Zolov, 43–67. USA: University of Pittsburg Press. Pedro Josep, Piquer, Ruth and Fernán del Val. 2018. “Repensar las Escenas Musicales Contemporáneas: Genealogía, Límites y Aperturas.” Cuadernos de Etnomusicología, 12: 63–88. Pino, Alicia. 2007. “La Emergencia de un Nuevo Ciudadano: Mirar desde lo Cultual ‘El Reino de este Mundo.’” Revista Cubana de Filosofía, 29. (Digital Version). revista​.filosofia​.cu​/articulo​.php​​?id​=92 Remón, Anay and Eric González. 2010. Saliendo a Flote: Aproximación al Rock Cubano desde 1990 hasta 2008. Thesis to obtain the degree on history of Art. Cuba: Facultad de Artes y Letras de la Universidad de La Habana. Rodríguez, Yudlema. 2015. El Lugar de la Cultura en las Investigaciones sobre Desarrollo Social: Sistematización de la Experiencia de la Maestría en Desarrollo Social. Thesis to obtain the degree on Social Development. Cuba: Universidad de La Habana—Programa FLACSO-Cuba. Sánchez, Alexander. 2007. “Los Barones Vuelan sobre Cuba.” Scriptorium Zine, 13: 11–12. Schechner, Richard. 2011. “Restauración de la Conducta.” In Estudios Avanzados de Performance, edited by Diana Taylor and Marcela Fuentes, 31–51. Mexico-New York, USA: FCE, Instituto Hemisférico de Performance y Política—Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

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Shank, Barry. 1994. Dissonant Identities: The Rock ´n´ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas. Hanover, Germany: Wesleyan University Press. Straw, Will. 1991. “Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Communities and Scenes in Popular Music.” Cultural Studies, 5 (3): 368–388. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, González-Sepúlveda, Osvaldo and Andrés Rivera. 2018. “From the ‘Patio’ to the ‘Agency’: The Emergence and Structuring of Metal Music in Revolutionary Cuba.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 137–146. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Mendoza, Sigrid and Eric Morales. 2016. “Porous Communities: Critical Interactions between Metal Music and Local Culture in the Caribbean Context.” In Heavy Metal Music and The Communal Experience, edited by Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott, 99–124. USA: Lexington Books. Vidal, Pável and Omar Everleny. 2012. Miradas a la Economía Cubana: El Proceso de Actualización. Cuba: Editorial Caminos. Weinstein, Deena. 2000. Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture. USA: Da Capo Press. Woo, Benjamin, Rennie, Jamie and Stuart R. Poyntz. 2015. “Scene Thinking.” Cultural Studies, 29 (3): 285–297. doi: 10.1080/09502386.2014.937950. Woodside, Julián, and Claudia Jiménez. 2012. “Creación, Socialización y Nuevas Tecnologías en la Producción Musical.” In Jóvenes, Culturas Urbanas y Redes Digitales, edited by Néstor García Canclini, Francisco Cruces and Maritza Urteaga, 91–107. Spain: Fundación Telefónica–Ariel. Yúdice, George. 2002. El Recurso de la Cultura: Usos de la Cultura Global. Spain: Editorial Gedisa, S.A. Zurbano, Roberto. 2002. “Intervención en la Música Popular como Espejo Social (Controversia).” Temas, 29: 61–80.

Chapter 7

In the Shadow of the Dictatorship A Historical Approach to Uruguayan Heavy Metal María Ximena Rodríguez Molinari

The academic sectors in Uruguay have resisted examining heavy metal music, its role in our society and in shaping local national identity. Since the emergence of metal in Uruguay during the 1980s and all the way into the present, it has been the subject of debates, controversies, rejection, and social alienation by an “establishment” that has sought to determine and control which music best identifies us as Uruguayans. Regardless of this scenario, heavy metal music has thrived in the country. In this chapter, I aim to describe some important highlights of that process of development by focusing on its social context, early manifestations, and ultimate transformations. The origin and emergence of heavy metal as a musical genre have been widely discussed. For O’Neill (2018), the first chords of this style of music can be found in bands like The Who, The Beatles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Cream. He has even identified February 13, 1970, as its date of birth, with the publication of the homonymous titled album by the band Black Sabbath. In Uruguay, heavy metal has a different history that deserves to be explored from academic spaces. This chapter is an effort in that direction and, in order to do so effectively, it is important to begin by understanding the social context in which this music emerged in Uruguay, specifically, during a time when the country found itself under a dictatorship. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DICTATORSHIP IN URUGUAY The Cold War had been established at the end of World War II in the 1940s. After the fall of the Third Reich, the two most important powers in the 161

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world, the United States and the Soviet Union, stalwartly confronted each other. The former yearned for the expansion of the capitalist system, and the latter sought to avoid it by enacting socialist policies. By 1953, the Korean War contributed to the fall of the Modelo Económico de Industrialización por Sustitución de Importaciones (Economic Model of Industrialization by Import Substitution—better known as the ISI model) in our country. The ISI, as an economic and industrial development model, sought to replace goods imported from abroad with those produced locally. One of its main objectives was to eliminate the country’s dependence on foreign markets. However, the failed model resulted in a social, economic, and institutional crisis that led to a military-civic dictatorship. The end of the Korean War generated a break with the favorable opportunities that the world wars had granted to Latin America. The ISI gradually deteriorated due to the lack of technological advances; as a result, Uruguay had a harder time sustaining competition, which led to the agro-export market becoming stagnant, local businessmen growing increasingly disempowered, and social inequalities turning more and more prevalent. The fall of the ISI, the Cuban Revolution, the emergence of subversive groups in different sectors of Latin America (including Uruguay), and the lack of effective resolutions on the part of the political class were also met by actions from the United States that aimed to establish a regime of control in the region in an effort to prevent communism, which they saw as a virus, from spreading (Broggio 2019). After the death of President Oscar Diego Gestido of the Partido Colorado in 1967, the party’s heir, Jorge Pacheco Areco, assumed the presidency. Under the Pacheco Areco government (which ran from 1968 to 1973) and its “hard line” policy against the actions of urban and rural guerrilla groups such as the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Tupamaros (MLN-T), which sought to provide a political response to the conflicts via force, Uruguay became an extremely violent place. Some of the most significant violent acts of that era included: (1) the first kidnapping of the president of the Administración Nacional de Usinas y Trasmisiones Eléctricas del Estado (UTE), Ulysses Pereira Reverbel (August 7, 1968); (2) the kidnapping of former Livestock minister Carlos Frick Davies (May 14, 1970); (3) the kidnappings of FBI agent Dan Mitrione and Brazilian consul Aloysio Días Gomides (July 31); (4) the assassination of United States’ adviser Dan Mitrione (August 10); (5) the kidnapping of British ambassador Geoffrey Jackson (January 8, 1971); (6) Pereira Reverbel’s second kidnapping (March 30); (7) the escape of thirty-eight tupamaros1 from the Cabildo prison (July 31); (8) the escape of 106 tupamaros and five common prisoners from Punta Carretas (September 6); (9) the murder

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of the Undersecretary of Education Armando Acosta and Lara along with others (April 14, 1972); and (10) the murder of four soldiers who guarded the house of the commander-in-chief of the Army (May 18). These events accompanied other assaults (Casino Carrasco, Casino San Rafael) and bomb attacks (Sudamtex plant, Bowling de Carrasco, Golf Club) across the country (El País 100 2018). It is an understatement to say that Uruguay was experiencing a very violent period. In that context, the 1971 national elections were held with the two traditional Uruguayan parties, the Partido Nacional and the Partido Colorado, facing each other. The Partido Nacional was headed by Wilson Ferreira Aldunate, while the Partido Colorado was led by Juan María Bordaberry. The victory went to Bordaberry by a margin of 13,000 votes. Far from ending social conflicts, Bordaberry requested that the Parliament declare a state of internal war. The State Security Law granted more power to the Armed Forces to suppress subversive groups. On February 12, 1973, Bordaberry ceded power to the militia by signing a pact with the Armed Forces which secured their participation in the government. “They would dissolve the Chambers” was the first important headline of the newspaper that year (El País 100 2018). Thus, on June 27, 1973, Juan María Bordaberry, upon dissolving the Parliament, installed the military dictatorship. The coup left as its sequelae a decade of social and political conflicts, and gave way to an era of terror marked by persecutions, exiles, enforced disappearances, tortures, and deaths. That morning, before the military took possession of the Legislative Palace, the Senate met for the last time. Wilson Ferreira Aldunate delivered a historic speech that still remains ingrained in the memory of all Uruguayans. He stated: “With my most intense emotion, allow me to state to the faces of the authors of this attack the name of what will become, have no doubt, their most radical and irreconcilable enemy, the avenger of the Republic. Long live the National Party!” (El País 100 2018). On May 20, 1976, one of the most terrible events of the military dictatorship took place: the kidnapping of the leader Zelmar Michelini and the deputy Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz. Their riddled bodies were found a few days later. From 1977 until the years after the de facto government of Aparicio Méndez Manfredini (named in this way because although in practice he exercised his mandate, he was not officially recognized by any legal norm), artistic expressions of resistance appeared, politicizing and strongly opposing the new regime. These expressions were supported by a meager but committed audience, who fostered meeting spaces for those who did not identify with the prevailing authoritarianism. Music would be one of those expressions.

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BREAK EVERYTHING: ROCK BEFORE THE DICTATORSHIP Before exploring the role of rock and metal during the dictatorship, it is important to recognize the role of the former before such social events. By the end of the 1960s, progressive rock, to which young musicians had added regional characteristics, such as the use of lyrics in Spanish, would be present in Uruguay. The songs recounted the political and social events that were taking place and highlighted the struggle of the working class. In a scenario dominated by workers and students’ resistance movements, which witnessed the fall of the stable democratic model, bands inspired by British ensembles like The Beatles and The Byrds, such as Los Shakers and El Sindykato, emerged in Uruguay. The Shakers were the first to have a wide influence in South America. Their motto, “break everything,” offered great inspiration to the revolutionary arenas. El Sindykato, on the other hand, incorporated elements of candombe, a style of music and dance associated with African slaves in Uruguay (MEC 2009). In addition, the band adhered to a transgressive ethos, constantly changing their musical style and singing in Spanish. They are remembered for their controversial song, La Fuga de la Carbonería, which deals with the spectacular escape of several prisoners from the Punta Carretas Prison, a criminal event deeply ingrained in the Uruguayan society’s psyche. The song recounts the events that occurred on March 18, 1931, when the group of anarchists excavated a tunnel into the prison which begun at a coal and firewood storefront that they had established as a facade near the site. From there, they traced a path to the jail’s bathrooms so that their fellow detainees could escape. Different media outlets censored the song because it was seen as an open and intentional defense of the crime. Nevertheless, it won first prize at the Beat Internacional de Piriápolis Festival (MEC 2009). The Punta Carretas Prison was a detention center inaugurated in 1915 that finally closed its doors in 1986, reopening in 1994 as one of the most important commercial centers in our country. In 1931 and 1970, two major prison breaks took place in the penitentiary. The one dating to 1931 had as protagonists a series of anarchist prisoners, and the one in 1970 was carried out by members of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Tupamaros (MLN-T), a radical left-wing urban guerrilla group that operated in Uruguay during the 1960s and 1970s. The existence of a song linked to this prison, and these events, evidences the presence of rock music that was reflexive of events happening in its context. This conscientious process continued in Uruguay with the arrival of the military dictatorship in 1973, which coincided with the emergence of harder musical styles. It is in this context that heavy metal emerges in our country

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with the band Ácido, a band considered by many to be Uruguay’s first metal band. ÁCIDO: AN ACQUIRED TASTE As it frequently happens in Uruguay with many issues, there is little consensus on when exactly metal emerged as a musical genre in our country. A shared consensus also eludes us when it comes to naming the first group to play with this musical genre. Fernando Soria (2018), in his work entitled Fuerte y Claro: Historia del Metal en Uruguay states that although the country’s first heavy metal band is Ácido, the very first chords of this particular genre were actually played by the band Psiglo. Psiglo was a band composed of César Rechac on bass, Luis Cesio on guitar, Jorge García Banegas on keyboards, the late Gonzalo Farrugia on drums, and Rubén Melogno on vocals. The band had a fruitful career in Uruguay, Argentina, and other countries in Latin America. Established in 1971, with clear influences from the electric blues of Jimi Hendrix and Cream, it would operate during the darkest years of our history. It was considered to be one of Latin America’s progressive hard rock bands and would open the way in our country to harder musical styles. In the memory of most Uruguayans, there is a perception that the bands Alvacast and Chopper originated heavy metal in the country. Although they were pioneers in recording albums of this genre, they were, in fact, not the ones to establish it. This achievement belongs to the band Ácido (Soria 2018). Formed in 1981, this band was composed of Juan “Perro” Acuña on guitar and vocals, Álvaro “Varo” Coll on drums, Marcelo “Danny” Acuña on guitar, vocals and chorus, and Guillermo “Bill” Rivas on bass. They were the first to record a national heavy metal EP and have the honor and notoriety of having done so during the civic-military dictatorship. Its members carried the flag of “rebellion”; they possessed a courage that seemed, for many years, and even today, to be ascribed solely to their admiration for the region’s songs of protest. That is, they engaged in subversive artistic expression with provocative lyrics. The members of the band have emphasized that their transgression was not limited to their lyrics, but also encompassed their provocative attire, characterized by black leather pants and jackets. Many said that one had to have courage to sing protest songs during the dictatorship, but the truth is that you had to be even braver to interpret metal music. The type of lyrics, the dress style, and even the musicians’ long hair ensured that they would receive a couple of blows. (Soria 2018, 28)

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Their songs addressed issues of freedom and social or personal situations of nonconformity and insurgency. They also sang about other general issues including: medieval themes, which can be heard in the song El Rey en la Oscuridad; street lyrics as contained in La Fiesta del Ácido; and supernatural themes, as found in the song Ruta 5, in which the emblematic Argentinean blues and national rock icon, Norberto Aníbal Napolitano (popularly known as Pappo), participated. Their musical repertoire was quite broad and not restricted to a single interest (Vega 2018). Some of their most rebellious songs include A Orillas del Gran Río, Yo Soy el que Soy, and Torturadores, this last one released in 1984. The song addresses repression, excessive vigilance, and the fear that was experienced in the country during the dictatorship. The song’s lyrics capture a significant moment for the country, while echoing other international dystopian reflections. Ironically, it was released on the same year in which George Orwell’s dystopian science fiction novel takes place, and the year in which the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, one of the most repressive and atrocious stories ever captured in literature, written by Canadian Margaret Atwood, was published. It could be said that Torturadores served as Uruguay’s entry into the dystopian bent that had captured the world that year; our “84 classic” could be found in the realm of metal music. That same year general elections were held in Uruguay on Sunday, November 25. Two of the most important figures for Uruguayan politics, opponents of the military regime, did not participate in them: Wilson Ferreira Aldunate (leader of the Partido Blanco), who was imprisoned in the Trinidad barracks, and Broad Front leader Líber Seregni, who remained an outlaw. The elections favored the Right-wing representatives of the Partido Colorado, Julio María Sanguinetti and Enrique Trigo. In February 1984, Ácido participated in the first metal concert that took place in our country at the El Reloj theater. Simultaneously, the band occupied a central two-page spread of the magazine Sábado Show as part of the newspaper El País. The headline read: “We also have heavy metal here and Ácido plays it.” Thus, they would consolidate themselves as the first band of this genre in Uruguay and occupy an important place in the history of music in the country (Soria 2018). In our society, rock and heavy metal have never been fully accepted and are genres consumed by a minority sector. During the 1980s and 1990s, things were no different. Juan “Perro” Acuña recalls that the band’s beginnings were difficult because “the rockers were frowned upon, the music of the times was different.” He also explained that “Rock was liked by very few people” (Juan “Perro” Acuña in Soria 2018, 31). Ácido’s first concert took place in a housing cooperative located in the Malvín Norte neighborhood. They had to share the stage with artists from the murga2

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and tango singers. The band members describe it as a chaotic experience. “A terrible kilombo took place! There were eight against three hundred or so. What happened was that popular singing was fashionable at that time. We started to play and people shouted at us, calling us ‘imperialists’ and ‘pro-yankees.’” (Juan “Perro”Acuña in Soria, 2018, 33)

The popular song was the predominant genre at the time, the accepted one, the one that denounced the political situation of the country. Everything else, including rock and all that Uruguayan society identified with it, came from North America and, therefore, was part of imperialism. Even for the most politically radical in our midst, rock promulgated imperialism. Of course, an examination of Ácido’s music reflects a very different reality. A HARD METAL ALLOY: THE FIRST HEAVY METAL GROUPS IN URUGUAY Ácido was not the only metal band that had to face the harsh criticism of Uruguayan society. Alvacast, a heavy metal group from Montevideo formed in 1985, was the first of the post-dictatorship generation to release their albums abroad. The band was initially formed by Charly D. López on vocals, Gustavo Bulón Rea on bass, Gustavo “Tycho” Artigas on guitar, Clemente Bhilo López on guitar (who left the band in 1988 and whose position was filled by Leonardo Lamela), and Jorge Coco Villas on drums (Soria 2018). In an interview conducted by the website Rise!, Gustavo “Tycho” Artigas explained the beginnings of the band, in an Uruguay that had barely regained democracy, as an unusual event for the community that did not quite accept its irreverent aesthetics of long hair and black lycra leggings. The social impact proved too strong. Alvacast wanted to undertake a totally new and renovated project away from beat music and ancient rock, the hippie movement, and the protest song. They needed to identify with something different and, at the same time, be an object of reference for others. They wanted to belong to a new cultural proposal (Soria 2018). Thus, in 1986 they were part of the Montevideo Rock festival, an event that led them to the Orfeo label, where in 1987 they recorded Uruguay’s first heavy metal album entitled Al Borde del Abismo (see figures 7.1 and 7.2). This foundational metal album captured Alvacast’s influences at that time. Biblical or religious metaphors served to address everyday issues, and the music absorbed the imprint of international bands such as Queensrÿche, Judas Priest, and Accept (Carrasco 2015). The album was released in Montevideo on September 4, 1987, at the Odeón Theater, along with the Argentinian band Mordaz who were promoting their album

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Libertad Condicional. Shortly afterwards, Alvacast would appear in the city of Buenos Aires (Patacas 2008). Alvacast sang about events that took place in Uruguay, but they did so in their own style. They composed lyrics in both Spanish and English. In a way, they intended to distance themselves from the Río de la Plata region and perhaps sound a little more like the musicians of North America and their British idols, Iron Maiden. For Charly López, the band’s vocalist, the name of the album describes Uruguayan society during the dictatorship, a society bound and repressed: “It really reflects the vision of some rockers of Uruguayan society in the face of the dictatorship: We felt on the edge of the abyss” (López in Soria 2018, 56). The album also criticized the neoliberal economic policies that had shaken the entire world. For Charly, music had to convey a message: In general, lyrics are the means used to express what one feels or what one sees. The situations in your mind, in your heart, in your home, your situation with your friends, in your society, in your city, in your country, and finally in the world in which you live. My idea of society was one that was tied, repressed,

Figure 7.1  Poster for the First Rock Music Festival after the Reinstalation of Democracy. November 21–23, 1986, at Rural del Prado. Source: Archive image from El País.

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Figure 7.2  Young People Listening to Music at the Montevideo Rock Festival. Source: Archive image from El País.

and that one feels is on the edge of an abyss that one will fall into if one does not escape from that society. (López in the website Rise! 2008)

The band’s bassist, Gustavo Rea (in Soria, 2008), stated that, even thirty years later, Al Borde del Abismo is a record that has remained relevant. Many of the post-dictatorship events described in it continue to be part of the problems that must be dealt with today. History is cyclical and, today, Uruguay faces a growing wave of violence and a generational gap that returns us to the old dichotomous logics that we thought had already been overcome. After the military coup, society, far from improving, had become more distrustful and violent. The dictatorship had marked us forever. BLEEDING A LITTLE: HEAVY METAL AFTER THE DICTATORSHIP According to Eric Hobsbawm (1995), the world that emerged after the impact of the Russian Revolution of 1917, which had taught us that modern economy was defined by binary opposites (capitalism or socialism), had disappeared by the 1980s. In short, that decade was characterized by big changes. Not only did we access the use of personal computers and saw the birth of international music stars like Madonna and Michael Jackson, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union also increased. We faced new threats such as AIDS and terrorism, were plunged into a new neoliberal economy, witnessed

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the Falklands War, the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, and saw the Berlin Wall collapse. These were times of change for the world, and Latin America would not be left behind. In Latin America, the dictatorships were coming to an end, but forced disappearances, street razzias, and arrests continued. Fear, which had not yet abandoned us, forced the people to vote in favor of the impunity of the perpetrators. Not only were basic human rights brought into question, but so were the freedoms granted by democracy (Broggio, Ana 2019). The Ley de Caducidad de la Pretensión Punitiva del Estado, also known as the Law of Impunity, established an expiration date for the “exercise of punitive claims of the State regarding crimes committed before March 1, 1985 by military and police officials, equated and assimilated by political motives or on the occasion of the fulfillment of their duties and on the occasion of actions ordered by the commanders who acted during the de facto period” (Parliament​.gub​​ .uy). Thus, the atrocities carried out during the years of the dictatorship would remain unpunished. The year 1985 was one of great changes in our country: democracy was recovered; Dr. Julio María Sanguinetti assumed the presidency of the Republic; parties, organizations, and associations were rehabilitated; diplomatic relations with Venezuela were reestablished; the release of political prisoners was approved; trade relations with Cuba were resumed; and the National Repatriation Commission was created so that those exiled citizens could return to the country (Broggio, Ana 2019). Shortly after the democratic government was restored, the streets of Montevideo were filled with posters promoting an event that promised seventy-two hours of hard music. The first edition of Montevideo Rock in Rural del Prado, carried out during November 21–23, 1985, brought together more than thirty rock and heavy metal bands from Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. The festival was harshly criticized, not only by a society skeptical of a style of music that they considered foreign and incomprehensible but also by the members of the Montevideo Departmental Board who debated at length about two perceived terrible dangers: being young and listening to rock (Rodríguez 2012). These perceived dangers still accompany us today. The need to include police and shock/repression forces for situations that could get out of control in an environment that they had already predicted would be a catastrophe of sex, drugs, alcohol, and crime, was amply discussed. Extreme surveillance was carried out. Foreseeing that critics would be correct, the Ministry of the Interior decided to address these bad omens and security concerns. It deployed more than 300 agents around the Prado, positioned with searchlights, dogs, and their characteristic blue trucks (the socalled chanchitas), icons of youth repression during those years (Rodríguez 2012). Young people who wore studs, chains, belts with axes or hammers

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were not permitted entry, because no institution that promulgated order would allow the unproblematic presence of someone with such an aesthetic (Rodríguez 2012). Sunday was reserved for the metal audience with bands like Alvacast, Cross, and Ácido. A few years later, in 1995, Gabriel Bickman, guitarist for the band Chopper, would recall that event and declare that violent times needed hard and violent music. During this period, heavy metal bands such as Graf Spee, Chopper and Cross emerged. Graf Spee owed its name to a German warship that appeared on the Uruguayan coast during World War II. The band was officially created in 1985 and began playing death metal with some nuances of thrash. It would later adopt a more traditional heavy metal sound. The beginnings of Graf Spee date back to 1978 under the full de facto government. Its members began to procure instruments and a suitable rehearsal room. They still could not “make noise” and, when they reminisce about those years, they are glad to have started playing a long time after the risk of dying, for doing so was no longer present (Soria 2018). We began during the toughest stage of the dictatorship, where they grabbed you by the jacket and you couldn’t say anything. But at the stage in which we decided to form the band, I think we dodged a lot. I think it was possibly that the dictatorship was coming to an end. Anyway, it was not easy especially, and when you wanted to organize a concert, it was complicated. In 85, there were still some prejudices, especially with the rock genre, and particularly with metal. When it came to renting equipment, we had to say that it was for a rock festival; if you mentioned the word “metal” you ran the risk of it not being rented to you. (Luis Linfa, interview conducted by Rise! 2017)

Graf Spee managed to bring an interesting and diverse audience to its concerts. Other bands had already paved the way for heavy metal and the group had taken advantage of it. At the outset, they remember that metal bands worked in isolation, but with the passage of time the musical genre became a sort of brotherhood. The bands did not compete among themselves, but rather supported each other. This is a feature that is still present in the Uruguayan metal community and has differentiated it from other musical genres. Like many artists, the members of Graf Spee initially dreamed of fame and the money that comes with it, but they soon realized that they were in Uruguay, and that in this context everything is much more difficult, slow, and complicated. They redefined their goal as heavy metal musicians: they would play for anyone who was willing to listen. The band’s discography is composed of their first and only full-length album entitled Reincarnation (1989) and an EP entitled Motherfucker (1992). In 2015, the Brazilian label Dies Irae reissued the band’s work.

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Four years after the appearance of Graf Spee, our country saw the birth of another heavy metal band: Chopper. The band was formed in 1989 with the participation of Robert Pereyra on vocals, Alfredo Casaravilla on guitar, Luis D’angelo on bass, Leonardo Rodríguez on drums, and Ernesto Ferro on guitar (until 1992). In 1989, the vision promulgated by the band members was quite pessimistic. This seems completely natural since, while the world watched with hope the collapse of the Berlin Wall, in Uruguay enthusiasts and young heavy metal musicians only saw limitations in the possibilities of further developing this style of music. A 1990 interview with Luis D’angelo, the band’s bassist, finds him reflecting on some of his lyrics, which point to what was happening to them as metal musicians. It’s about things that happened to us, and hurt us. Sabiendo que Vas a Morir is the story of all of us. Here you are playing heavy metal, knowing that you are going to die, because it does not provide a living. It may be a pessimistic vision, but in reality you know that you are putting everything on the line. It is a vision of reality. (. . .) People ignored the heavy (music), they wanted to see new things. Here, the heavy, like national rock, became saturated. Alvacast did everything a heavy group could do here: release two albums, go abroad, etc. The band showed that making metal in Uruguay is not enough. (D’angelo 1990)

Three years later, and after the recording of their first album, that negative outlook would change. The reception of the album was excellent; they discovered that there were more people hungry for heavy metal in Uruguay than they had initially believed. With that came an understanding that it was not necessary to compose songs in English because they had a lot to say in their own language (Soria 2018). In 1997, Chopper published one of the best albums of the decade entitled Sangrando. The band would be proclaimed as the most successful band to come out of the Uruguayan metal scene, triumphing not only in our country but also in Argentina and Brazil. It has been stated that “at the end of the nineties, Chopper reached the maximum popularity to which a metal band could aspire to in Uruguay, taking over almost the entire decade on both sides of the River” (Soria 2018, 98). The 1990s were no better than the previous decade because the world became overwhelmed by lack of employment, economic hardship, and the constant confrontation between different social sectors. The restlessness was not only political but took over all other social aspects as well (Hobsbawm, 1995); Uruguay was no exception. During that decade, Alfredo Zitarrosa and Eduardo Mateo, two of the greatest representatives of popular music in our country, would die.

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After the Expiry Law was passed, Uruguayan society would be divided into the “old” conservatives and the youth. The latter were immersed in anger, disenchantment, and depression. It is at that moment that Cross, another mythical heavy metal band, published the album Solo Quiero Salir de Aquí (1991), where they expressed their desperate desire to distance themselves from that reality. Although Cross is a group that began to take shape in 1984, a year before the restitution of democracy, it peaked during the 1990s. Formed by Marcelo Lilienheim (known as Marcelo Cross) on vocals, Álvaro Raso on bass, and Daniel Tomikian on drums, the group began with the release of their first song entitled Ivanhoe. Cross’ lyrics describe the misery and cruelty still experienced by Uruguayan society in the aftermath of the civic-military dictatorship. Marcelo stated the following in an interview with El Observador: You can hear on Solo Quiero Salir de Aquí, songs like A Miles de kms de Acá, N.N., El Manicomio o 110 Ámsterdam y el Cielo, which reflect a state of affairs, a boredom and a rage that speaks of a time and a voracious need to say everything. (Latecki 2015)

Marcelo declared himself as a “rock purist” (Peralta 2018); in other words, he did not accept the mixture of heavy metal with candombe, indigenous music, or even punk. It was about producing pure rock chords accompanied by lyrics that reflected what happened in Uruguayan society, events that only a person who is part of a “national culture” could understand. Personally, I don’t accept any kind of miscegenation in rock. I refer to the things that I hear, both British and American. I do not engage with any Latin American trend that searches for roots. You see, the lyrics could not be written by a person who is not walking through the streets of this city. I am very local in that regard. (. . .) My band would not be understood by a German, because it is something that is made for the people here, from Uruguay. Cross is to be heard with headphones while walking in the center of the city or along the Rambla in Montevideo at three in the morning. (Peralta 2018)

Cross aimed to carry out a different agenda because they wanted to replicate those foreign sounds while simultaneously engaging in transgressive and regional lyrics. For Marcelo, Uruguayan bands did not reflect their social reality; Cross, on the other hand, did not compromise, feeling an urgent need to be direct. This was done in order to not waste their creative time on metaphors that no one would understand at the local level. For Marcelo, things should be said as they are. Thus, Cross would not identify with heavy metal

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compositions whose lyrics described alternative realities, fantastic worlds, or anything else to “avoid” reality. Metal with punk. There was a Spanish Basque radical rock band called Barricada. Do you know how they were defined? “Neither heavies nor punk, but quite the opposite.” That is what I am. Neither one nor the other. I am me. They are songs about this city and the whole crappy story of that era. But it is not something pure. It is eclectic, and even more eclectic is (the album) Instinto Salvaje. Actually, metal is something else. Metal is a guy talking about fantasies and epics and it’s like Game of Thrones. I’ll have none of Game of Thrones; nothing. Mine was always rather a street thing, of reality, very intertwined with punk. While there is heavy music—I call it hard music—it is not classical metal. It is enjoyed by people who like metal because it’s hard music; because the band sounds loud live. It’s like you telling me that Motörhead is metal. It is heavy rock. Metal . . . well metal is Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Slayer; more putrid things. And thousands of bands that came later. But not us. (González 2015)

Cross acknowledges that at that time, the band’s lyrics reflected a lot of anger at the epoch they were going through. The youth in its entirety was stigmatized for a singular crime: being young. The dictatorship had left in its aftermath more than just negative consequences. It had left a distrustful, authoritarian, and repressive society. Marcelo stated the following in an interview: At that time I was a little angry. I was brave: I went out to the street, just as I am now, walked two blocks and they would arrest me. I wasn’t smoking a joint or anything, it was because of my hair. It was a country of fachos, a country of bastards. They did not tolerate that you were different. This country had a hard time leaving the dictatorship behind. What I lived through in the late 80s was still like the dictatorship. The people who worked in Narcotics were also torturers. If they caught you with a joint, they subjected you to torture. (González 2015)

The band composed lyrics about issues that Uruguayan society still prefers not to address today: suicide, mental health problems, death, violence, addictions, and many others. They left us an absolutely invaluable legacy and showed that heavy metal in Uruguay could protest, knew how to denounce, and would also be part of those so-called transgressive musical genres. Unlike Cross, who rejected the creation of metal music accompanied by the indigenous and Creole roots of Latin America, the heavy metal band Cuchilla Grande, which emerged during the mid-1990s, would make of this

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integration its most distinctive seal. The band would give a regional identity to the metal music coming out of Uruguay. CUCHILLA GRANDE: METAL CAN ALSO HAVE A CREOLE IDENTITY It is not a simple task to describe what identifies us as Uruguayans. National identity, that is, that which unites us, is another sensitive topic that entails hundreds of discussions in public, private, and academic scenarios. Thus, it is not a stagnant concept, but rather a dynamic one. For Xicart (2012), identity is not a static experience or idea; therefore, it cannot be captured by a single definition, but is constructed from the experiences of all the members of a society: Identity is a constructed concept, it does not exist per se, it is invented, it is created; although its main task is to present itself as something given, which preexists the individuals who understand it. So the Uruguayan identity pretends to exist before the Uruguayans, when in truth the Uruguayans have built the identity as we build ourselves as such. (Xicart 2012, 62)

After the independence achieved on August 25, 1825, it became difficult for Uruguay to find its own constitutive elements, elements that did not already exist in Argentina and Brazil, and which both countries already claimed as their own. Therefore, Uruguay decided to identify with something different (Xicart 2012). The need to describe our country as geographically and socially exceptional ended up isolating it and unlinking it from the rest of Latin America, projecting it as an imitation of Europe. Thus, ever since the nineteenth century, Uruguay would present itself to the world as “The Switzerland of America” (Xicart 2012). That phrase, invented by the traditional political parties and repeated ad nauseum, remains current today because Uruguayan society seems reluctant to discard it. During the years of elementary and secondary education, Uruguayans learn to ignore the indigenous and reject the Gaucho; the first for having been exterminated and the second for being considered a schemer and a criminal. These apocryphal discourses have repressed a fundamental part of our history. After the civic-military dictatorship, Uruguayan society revised its idea of identity, demanding the need to build a Latin American identity that vindicated the “betrayed Artiguist project”3 that in 1813 proposed that the Provinces of the Río de la Plata become independent from Spain and Portugal (Xicart 2012). In the countries of America, much importance is given to the local heroic figures seen as founding members. Uruguay, far from being an exception,

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recognizes José Gervasio Artigas in that light. Several artists have composed songs in his name. Two examples of this are the songs A Don José and A José Artigas. The first is a song composed by Rubén Lena in 1961; subjected to appropriation by the National Army of Uruguay, the song has served as inspiration for practitioners of the popular song and sectors of the political left. But the one that is most clearly related to metal music is the song Vidalita a José Artigas, composed by Alfredo Zitarrosa, included in the album Adagio a mi País, released in 1973. This song was reinterpreted by the band Cuchilla Grande in a beautiful version released in the album Purificación (2005). This band has become one of the most legendary groups of the Uruguayan metal scene thanks in large part to their “creole metal” proposal. The band is known for their fusion of those things that identify us as Uruguayans and heavy metal poetics. Cuchilla Grande emerged in 1996 with an initial line up comprised of Diego Petru on vocals, Miguel Zorrilla on guitar, Gabriel Tesija on bass, and Oscar El Brujo on drums (later replaced by Hugo Abreu). Part of the band’s repertoire is made up of the demos and EPs entitled A la Salud de los Fuertes (1996), De Frente y las Tripas (1999) (where the influence of the Artiguist ideal of democracy, independence, and social justice is best evidenced), Alcohol y Bomba (2000), Mate Amargo Nuestro (2003), Hervidero (2003), and Obluz (2007). Their discography is rounded up by the albums Purificación (2005) and Cuchillagrande (2014). Creole metal not only represents the physical space of origin of this fusion, but it is a reinterpretation of concepts that are part of our folklore mixed with the music they used to listen to during their youth. It is a way of making “ours” a genre that is not native and, through it, project and express a way of seeing the world. To illustrate this point I will take as an example the songs Mate Amargo, Nuestro (2005) and Yacaré Cururú (2007). Mate Amargo, Nuestro is a song contained in the album Purificación (2005) in which the band honors one of the most important traditional infusion rituals in our country. Mate is the name of the beverage made from the infusion of local herbs originally consumed by the Native Americans before the conquest (1492). The beverage has many adepts in the present. It is poured into a pumpkin-shaped, wooden or ceramic container, which can sometimes be lined with leather. A bulb is used to drink the resulting beverage. Its bitter taste comes from tannins, and its stimulating action from the caffeine. According to the Uruguayan anthropologist, Daniel Vidart, underlying the rite of preparing and drinking mate is a way of seeing the world. To drink mate is to approach the creole, an activity that breaks down certain barriers imposed by the division of social classes; the beverage is a symbol of union and solidarity (Vidart en Ricca 2002). Below I present the lyrics of the aforementioned song by Cuchilla Grande where they address this issue directly (See table 7.1).

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Table 7.1  Lyrics for the song Mate Amargo, Nuestro (Our Bitter Mate) by the band Cuchilla Grande Yerba Mate es droga legal Pa' la infusión Amargarse la vida, Nuestra mejor tradición

Yerba Mate is a legal drug For the infusion To lead embittered lives, Our greatest tradition

Mate negro forrado con huevos de toro y bombilla de plata van haciendo al cebador Y entre mates y guitarras Sale el más duro metal Misturando una botella de caña Tradición nacional

Black Mate Lined with bull’s balls And silver straws Help in its preparation And from mates and guitars We get the hardest of metals Accompanied by a bottle of caña National tradition

Mate amargo Mate amargo

Bitter Mate Bitter Mate

Calentarse las mismas entrañas Porque pa' razones ya me sobran palabras Cámbiele la cebadura si la yerba esta lavada Amargo debe ser como el sacrificio Como el propio sudor Respete la vuelta cebador Que por derecho Es nuestra mejor tradición

Lets warm up our entrails I don’t need to offer a reason Replace the mixture if the leaves lose their flavor It must remain bitter like the sacrifice Like laborious sweat Respect the flow of preparation By right It is our greatest tradition

Yerba Mate es droga legal Pa' la infusión Amargarse la vida, Nuestra mejor tradición Y entre mates y guitarras Sale el más duro metal Misturando una botella de caña Tradición nacional

Yerba Mate is a legal drug For the infusion To lead embittered lives, Our greatest tradition And from mates and guitars We get the hardest of metals Accompanied by a bottle of caña National tradition

Mate amargo forrado con huevos de toro Mate amargo y bombilla de plata Mate amargo nuestra mejor tradición

Bitter Mate Lined with bull’s balls Bitter Mate And silver straws Bitter Mate Our greatest tradition

The use of local themes in Cuchilla Grande’s work continued on the song Yacaré Cururú, which is contained in the album Obluz (2007). The song describes the massacre of the indigenous Charrúas in Salsipuedes (1831) at the hands of government troops commanded by Fructuoso Rivera and Bernabé Rivera. In this event, hundreds of indigenous people were taken prisoners and murdered (Abella, 2014). Later, the chief, Charrúa Polidoro,

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Table 7.2  Lyrics for the song Yakaré Cururú by the band Cuchilla Grande Ahí viene Bernabelito Ahí viene por nosotros Esos soldados bien armados Traen sed de Salsipuedes

Here comes Little Bernabé Here he comes for us Well armed soldiers With a thirst for Salsipuedes

Tuvimos que salir disparando Por más de legua y media Nos vienen mordiendo los garrones Como si fuéramos ajenos a esta tierra A nuestra tierra

We had to come out shooting They followed at our heels For over a league and a half As if we were invading foreigners In our own lands

Ahí vienen por nosotros Ahí vienen esos soldados Y no es difícil de advertir Que la muerte trae los caballos cansados

Here they come for us Here come those soldiers It’s not hard to see That death rides on tired horses

Veni Bernabelito vos que ayer te decías amigo Veni que mi vida no me la vas a arrancar Porque primero me llevo tu alma conmigo Te arranco el alma

Come Little Bernabé, you who had called yourself friend Come and try, you won’t rip my life away Because I will first take your soul

De media vuelta Y con grito de guerra No aguantaste el lanzazo Cayendo así del caballo y ahí fuiste vos El que tuvo que salir disparando

I’ll rip your soul In an instant With a war cry You could not withstand the strike of my spear Falling off your horse, it was you Who would come out shooting

Arrastrando tu triste conciencia Cuando en tan loca carrera Casi solo te has quedado Junto a Sepé

Dragging your sorrowful conscience Upon finding yourself alone As you fled in a frenzy Along with Sepé

Queguay nos grita la sangre Vos que ayer mataste hermanos Entre ellos venado Ahora sí, que estas asustado Pidiendo por Dios clemencia Prometiendo que una carta a tu hermano Liberaría a los que habían capturado

Queguay, our blood screams You who in the past killed brothers Some deer among them Now it is you who are scared Begging for God’s clemency Promising that with one letter sent to your brother You would free all whom you had captured

Ay, Bernabelito! Ay, Bernabelito! Ay, Bernabelito! Cuanta sangre hay en tus manos! Pues no habrá cielo que de perdón Pa'l que oficia de gusano

Oh, Little Bernabé! Oh Little Bernabé! Oh, Little Bernabé! So much blood in your hands! There will be no heaven granted To he who serves as a maggot

Ay, Bernabelito! Ay, Bernabelito! ¿Quién nos devuelve a nuestros muertos queridos?

Oh, Little Bernabé! Who will return us our dead?

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confronts Bernabé in the region known as Cuchilla Yacaré Cururú and assassinates him, thus taking revenge for the crime committed on his people. The Salsipuedes massacre is remembered as the first action of state terrorism in Uruguay (Abella, 2014). In table 7.2, I present the lyrics of the song. For Miguel Zorrilla (2019), “people leave you a message even by omission.” Thus, artists who are commitment toward addressing their context always sing about something significant. That is to say, music is a language in itself and, like all languages, it is not exempt from addressing polemic issues. The dispute is mostly about the issues that each lyric conveys, what is said, and in short, how they highlight the concerns and feelings, not only of musicians but of much of society. In an interview with Diego Petru and Miguel Zorrilla (2019), the musicians stated that music, as art, is another possible mechanism to express their values. They spoke of words like honor and loyalty, two terms that both musicians consider almost in disuse. They emphasize honor and loyalty, because, as they said, if the words disappear, so does their meaning and the practice of the behaviors they promulgate. But it has not always been easy to express what one thinks, either directly or indirectly. In our context, the military government not only attacked democracy and human rights but also severely repressed freedom of expression. The media were oppressed, censored, or directly shut down, as it also happened with many educational institutions. The newspaper El Día spent some time dodging these repressive policies, until September 26, 1977, when on page 53 of its classified notices, the phrase “milicos putos” appeared (Rico 2008). No one, not even a long-standing institution like this newspaper could escape the repression. The metal-loving public had a band like Cuchilla Grande which aimed to recover, not only values that were about to disappear but also fragments of Uruguay’s historical past along with those elements that are part of our national identity. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING The dictatorship raged in Uruguay and left us a broken country that had to be rebuilt. The countercultural youth movements that began in 1960 would cause a radical transformation and forever modify the relationship of older generations with local youth. The latter would become icons of resistance. Much was done to distort their image. Some of these movements became fashionable and were stripped of their sociopolitical content. In Uruguay, rock, and later heavy metal, were associated with these spaces of resistance. For Wallach and Levine (2012), metal music scenes are social formations with different functions that include fostering meeting spaces, and the

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consumption of material associated with this musical style. Heavy metal music, adopted by Uruguayans, found in our country a way to establish a dialogue with the characteristics of our history and local culture. Studying these scenes is an essential part of understanding the history of music in our country, and why heavy metal has been marginalized in this process. Against all odds, the young people resisted, rock survived, and heavy metal managed to prosper. Groups emerged that rose against the conformity of a hypocritical and fearful society that tried to put an end to leather and spikes, but has only been able to sit and watch while several of our generations passed and shouted, in defiance: forever heavy metal!

NOTES 1. Name given to the members of the Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Tupamaros (MLN-T). 2. Form of musical theater performed in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. 3. Set of political and economic ideas proposed by José Gervasio Artigas who led the Revolución Oriental through which the Republic of Uruguay was established. These ideas included independence from Spain, land redistribution, civil/religious liberties, and the establishment of an autochthonous constitution.

REFERENCES Abella, Gonzalo. 2014. Salsipuedes es La Primera Acción del Terrorismo de Estado en Uruguay. Interview during the Month of April by Efraín Iribarne. Mañanas de Radio. Uruguay. Broggio, Ana. 2019. Personal Communication, January 11, 2019. Carrasco, Gerardo. 2015. “Himnos de Batalla: Conversamos con Gustavo Rea de Alvacast.” Montevideo Portal, May 5, 2015. Uruguay. D’angelo, Luis. 1990. “Voces Retro: Chopper.” Solo Rock, August 1990. Uruguay. El País. 2018. “La Noche Más Larga: El Golpe que Encarceló a la Democracia.” El País 100, September 14, 2018. https​:/​/ww​​w​.elp​​ais​.c​​om​.uy​​/espe​​ciale​​s​/elp​​ais10​​0​/ noc​​he​-la​​rga​-g​​olpe-​​encar​​c​elo-​​democ​​racia​​.html.​ Espina, Alejandro. 1992. “El Heavy Metal Está en Liquidación: Iron Maiden.” El Observador Ilustrado, August 7, 1992. González, Gastón. 2015. Interview to Marcelo Cross—“A Mí Me Entiende la Gente que Camina por Montevideo, de Noche Mejor.” Revista MOOG, May 14, 2015. Uruguay. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1995. Historia del Siglo XX, 1914–1991. Barcelona: Crítica. Latecki, Kristel. 2015. Interview to Marcelo Cross—“El Peso de la Cross. Espectáculos y Cultura.” El Observador, December 5, 2015. Uruguay.

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Linfa, Luis. 2017. “Entrevista con Graf Spee Realizada por Pablo Melogno.” Rise! Tu Dosis de Metal, March 10, 2017. Uruguay. Ministerio de Educación y Cultura. 2009. Historia de la Música Popular Uruguaya: Rock a Fines de los 60 y Comienzos de los 70. MEC: Uruguay. O’Neill, Andrew. 2018. La Historia del Heavy Metal. Blackie Books S.L.U: Barcelona. Patacas, Jorge. 2008. Interview with Carlos “Charly” López. “Alvacast: A 20 Años de ‘Al Borde del Abismo.’” Rise! Tu Dosis de Metal: Uruguay. Peralta, Mariana. 2018. Interview to Marcelo Cross—“Vuelve el ‘Instinto Salvaje’ de Cross.” La República, June 1, 2018. Uruguay. Patacas, Jorge. 2008. “Alvacast: A 20 años de ‘Al Borde del Abismo.’” Rise! Tu Dosis de Metal, March 3, 2008. Uruguay. Petru, Diego and Miguel, Zorrilla. 2019. Personal Communication. January 13, 2019. Rico, Álvaro. 2008. Investigación Histórica sobre Dictadura y el Terrorismo de Estado en el Uruguay (1973–1985). UdelaR-CSIC: Uruguay. Rodríguez, Mauricio. 2012. En la Noche: El Rock Uruguayo Posdictadura (1982– 1989). Fin de Siglo: Uruguay. Soria, Fernando. 2018. Fuerte y Claro: Historia del Metal en Uruguay. Ediciones B: Uruguay. Vega, Omar. 2018. “Ácido, La Banda Pionera del Metal en Uruguay.” Lacarne Magazine -Revista de Música Internacional, 79 (December): 29–38. Wallach, Jeremy and Alexandra Levine, A. 2012. “I Want You to Support Local Metal: A Theory of Metal Scene Formation.” Popular Cultures, 6 (1): 116–134. Xicart, Maximiliano. 2012. “Nuevas Formas de Trabajar con la Identidad y la Historia.” Quehacer Educativo, 21 (114): 61–65.

Chapter 8

Metal and Politics in Argentina A Study into the Audienceship Surrounding Ricardo Iorio Manuela Belén Calvo

Music, as an artistic form, possesses the capacity to elicit a variety of effects, at both the individual and the emotional level as well as at the socio-ideological level. As such, it has served as a tool useful in political action in varying forms. In the case of Argentina, musical artifacts and the audiences they attract have engaged with the political in a multitude of ways, the latter manifesting in as many forms as there are musical genres throughout the country. One such example found in this context is the peculiar case of rock music which, despite retaining its will to fight the system throughout its lifetime, has participated in a multiplicity of exchanges with the political, in great measure thanks to its heterogeneity (Provéndola 2015). This became all the more evident during the early 1980s, and more specifically during the military dictatorship, when Argentinean rock fragmented into a plethora of voices and audiences, which included rockers, punks, and metalheads (Vila 1985), among others. Since then, and in conjunction with the many musical styles that make up the great Argentinean rock panoply, metal has provided a space for the creation of identities, both individual and collective. In that sense, it is probable, as Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott have noted, that those individuals who enjoy metal do so not just for the music but for metal culture’s capacity to build community. Through the metal genre, its participants not only produce shared experiences and meanings, but they also share a feeling of unity. Nevertheless, as the authors explain, Beyond being a mere association of people, the complexity involves processes that concern exploring the expanse and the limits of the metal community and even dealing with paradoxes where although the music may be held in common, values 183

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such as political, artistic, and ethical ones can be extremely diverse. Yet these are all held together under the banner of “metal.” (Varas-Díaz and Scott 2016, vii)

In a similar fashion, the metal identity that predominates within the Argentinean scene tends to define its members under a shared communal experience, this despite it being constructed in a heterogeneous way. As a result, the individual and social identities of its members tend to manifest in complex and, sometimes, quite ambiguous and contradictory ways. Furthermore, the scene’s communal experience is strongly associated with the geographical context in which it is situated. This is due in great measure to the fact that in Argentina, as is the case in other Latin American scenes, The ongoing integration of local culture into metal [. . .] serves as an example of how these communities are not built on isolation. Their borders are porous and in constant interaction with the cultural context in which they are embedded. (Varas-Díaz et al. 2016, 105)

This connection between metal and the local Argentinean context, in turn, takes place through a process of “hybridization” similar to the one described by sociologist Motti Regev in his analysis of pop-rock. According to Regev, hybridization refers to the creative practice whereby certain musicians hailing from various countries connect and fuse pop-rock music with traditional music and other ethno-national elements found in their respective countries (Regev 2012, 100). This is the case in the Argentinean metal scene where local culture permeates the metal produced in the region, be it through its active dialogue with other autochthonous musical styles, the use of the Spanish language and Argentinean expressions, regional fashion, and local gastronomic practices,1 among others. Borrowing from Tia DeNora, who sees music as a mechanism that promotes social agency (DeNora 2003), this chapter argues that metal in Argentina functions as a tool which facilitates the construction of diverse political identities2 in two very specific ways. First, it allows those involved to reflect on their local context (taking as its main subject Argentina itself). Second, it allows those same actors the chance to engage in value judgments pertinent to sociopolitical matters specific to that geographic space. Thus, this analysis echoes David Dunaway, who argues, “Music may be said to be political when its lyrics or melody evoke or reflect a political judgment by the listener” (Dunaway 1992, 37. Emphasis in the original). To explore the political dimensions of metal music in Argentina, this chapter primarily focuses on the paradigmatic figure of Ricardo Iorio, the porteño singer and songwriter whose artistic career has molded much of the Argentinean metal scene’s distinctive qualities, to the extent that many of the scene’s participants have

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taken him as someone to either emulate or condemn. Iorio’s centrality to Argentinean metal reached its apogee in 2017, when the musician seemingly embraced extreme right-wing ideologies, a choice which generated a massive rift within the scene, with some members embracing the musician’s convictions and others repudiating what they saw as a stab in the back. It is an inarguable fact that prior to Iorio’s open adoption of the Right, the scene’s members were already carrying their own ideological positions; in fact, many of them were already showing their preference for one side or the other of the political divide, and would be actively involved in their chosen faction. One example of note in this scenario is Darío Santillán, a fan of metal music who was a member of a militant left-wing group and who is remembered for having been assassinated by police forces on June 26, 2002. Santillán’s death came during the unrest that swept Argentina as part of widespread protests against the sitting government over economic policies that sank the country into a deep depression.3 We can also mention some Argentinean bands who openly adopted an ideological stance in their musical output and overall work: these include bands that would be placed under the banner of National Socialist Black Metal, such as Uriburu, and Anarchist (or Red) Black Metal as is the case of Profecium. Nonetheless, these examples in no way constitute the norm in the scene. In truth, value judgments pertaining to scene’s sociopolitical context would be made under the umbrella of metal; such judgments would avoid explicit mention of any specific political ideology or political party. Part of the reason for the exclusion of a concrete ideological and political stance had to do with the scene’s belief in maintaining unity at all costs. If there was an ideological and political stance, it was in the shared belief that only equality, fraternity, and a shared disdain for the system,4 the latter of which had to be fought to the end, would keep metal together. We will see this insistence on unity manifest later, when we touch upon Iorio’s earlier tendency to avoid siding with any one particular political tendency, a tactic used to hide one’s ideological affiliations. This will be discussed in more detail below. Consequently, Iorio’s somewhat surprising decision to define and make public his sympathies for the extreme right represented a monumental shift in the scene, one after which many of its participants felt the need to either latch on to the previous noncommittal tendency or fully break with tradition and openly voice their choices. Needless to say, this gave rise to great division among audience members; but perhaps more importantly, it caused many individuals to grapple with their respective identities. Their musical taste had not only been defined by their conscientious and intellectual affinities to the ideological positions expressed in the musical productions they enjoyed, but also by their emotional attachment to those productions; theirs was a connection not just at the conscious level, but also at the visceral and irrational

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levels. Thus, to engage with Iorio’s newly manifested opinions was to grapple with one’s own being. To explore the ways in which metal was used as a tool capable of expressing political subjectivity by the members of the Argentinean scene, I resorted to using netnographic5 analysis techniques. This involved scrutinizing certain Facebook groups and fan pages where members of the metal community discussed a notorious photograph which made the rounds in 2017. In the photo, Iorio appeared side by side with Alejandro Biondini, a right-wing political figure who is known in Argentina as a filonazi.6 The picture gave rise to a plurality of reactions among the metal community, which in turn caused many to adhere to and identify with specific political ideologies. These stances covered the wide political spectrum, and as a result caused many in the community to take sides. This study specifically analyses posts made during the year 2017 on two Facebook pages, Iorio lo más grade del heavy nacional7 and IORIO_oficial, as well as the fan page Anti-Iorio. These pages captured an array of stances which included both voices of support for and detractors of the musician. In addition, this chapter also considers the events and fallout that ensued after the BA Rock8 Festival’s organizers decided to cancel Iorio and his solo band’s presentation at that year’s festival. The decision came after organizers expressed concern over fears that Jewish advocacy and human rights groups could potentially undertake escraches9 during the band’s performance as a way to protest Iorio’s link to Biondini. Once the organizers removed the band from their line up, the remaining artists listed on the bill would collectively cancel their respective presentations in a show of support for Iorio and his group. In doing so, the artists once again emphasized an apolitical attitude, most of them defending the musician strictly as a fellow member of the metal community, and thus, choosing to ignore Iorio’s political positions. This chapter’s focus on audienceship responds to the need to account for and understand the heterogeneity contained within the Argentinean metal scene, a quality which is all the more visible and defined in the genre’s audience. This heterogeneity can easily be seen in the way its members celebrate, ignore, and/or repudiate each band, responses which are in no way uniform. Similarly, and after finding inspiration in Antoine Hennion’s writings (2002), it is my contention that metal studies need to “rehabilitate” the metal consumers, that is, those who listen and participate in metal as audience members, particularly when we consider the area’s conventional focus on musical productions. Given the vastness of Argentina’s geographic territory and the difficulties that arise in attempting to account for metal audiences throughout such a wide expanse, I have limited this study to the exchanges that take place on Facebook. Though limited, studying the exchanges taking place on Facebook

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allowed me to observe the ways in which fans from very distinct locations within Argentina participate. Choosing the social media website as the center of these exchanges is, in fact, relevant and of the utmost importance if we consider that, starting in 2016, Iorio and his solo band began to actively use that space. In addition to making Facebook the official mode of communication for the band, Iorio would also create his own YouTube channel under the name Iorio channel. There, he shares self-made videos of himself and other authors who deal with political matters and which are revealingly titled Con el Canto no me Alcanza10. In essence, his choice of title positions these videos as supplements to his wider musical oeuvre. Before I proceed with the analysis, it is pertinent that I offer a summary of the many dialogues Iorio engaged in pertaining to nationalist ideology throughout his artistic career. For this outline, I not only considered his musical productions but also looked at statements he made in the media. Later, I will analyze the way his ideological pronouncements were received in the Argentinean metal community, particularly as seen during discursive exchanges between members of those fan groups and fan pages on Facebook already mentioned. Special attention will be given to those exchanges that took place right after the infamous photo of Iorio and Biondini came to light as well as after the cancellation of the band’s appearance on the BA Rock festival on the part of the festival’s organizers. IORIO AND NATIONALIST IDENTITIES Born in Ciudadela on June 25, 1962, Ricardo Iorio grew up in town of Caseros, a community located in the Tres de Febrero municipality of Buenos Aires. His family was comprised of mostly fruit and vegetable farmers. In 1978 he began his musical career when, at the age of sixteen, he helped found the group V8, considered by many to be the first thrash metal band in Argentina. He served as the groups singer, bassist, and main songwriter. His interest in metal was not born out of some need to mimic the North American metal tradition; his incursion into metal responded to a desire to stand apart and distinguish his music from the rock music being produced at the time in that country. In the process of developing his brand of metal, Iorio would grapple with two distinct preoccupations: first, he wanted to help define the basis for a distinct type of metal which he saw as exclusive of Argentina; second, he would meditate on his surroundings, thus working on defining a sense of self and origin. His attachment to his Argentinean context would lead him to increasingly adopt references to that which was local; to achieve this connection, Iorio would resort to nationalistic pronouncements, not just within his

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work, but in all of the activities that took place beyond the limits of the band and its music. In all of the groups he belonged to, Iorio would serve as the main songwriter; thus, he would infuse each bands’ lyrical output with his own beliefs. As far as those activities occurring at the periphery, his visibility as the leader of each of his bands brought with it continued interest on the part of the media, which caused Iorio to offer more interviews than any other member of V8 and his other groups. Thus, Iorio would be granted the space necessary to disseminate his ideological and political beliefs. The localist inflection that abounds in Iorio’s work contributes to a dialogue on the various forms of nationalism,11 a dialogue that does not occur in stasis. This fascination with nationalism has remained constant throughout his oeuvre. However, when it comes to the ideological content found in his works, and by default in Iorio himself, this would vary over time. To fully comprehend this process, it is important that we understand that his ideological positions can, in effect, be read as attached to his identity. After all, Iorio does not only identify with metal and its community, but with Argentina per se. As I alluded to above, this interplay between metal and nation is a key component to defining the Argentinean scene and the political identities of its participants. Simon Frith’s work on identity is useful in considering this interplay. As Frith has argued, “Identity is mobile, a process not a thing, a becoming not a being” (Frith 1996, 109); consequently, music manifests “as an experience of this self-in-process” (Ibid). Keeping this notion in mind, Iorio’s political identity developed in a dynamic manner; it does not originate as a homologous reaction or a type of reflective act, but is itself the product of the various examinations the artist developed, through music, in response to his contemporary sociopolitical surroundings.12 When it comes to V8, references to Iorio’s Argentinean context are lacking; this may be because during that time, he was more concerned with offering metal as an option against what was known in Argentina as “hippie rock,” a genre mostly associated with the middle class which he considered aloof and hypocritical. It should come as no surprise that Iorio himself identified with the working class13 having himself grown up in a family of workers. To this we must add the fact that, during that time, Argentina was under the shadow of a dictatorship comprised of a plurality of military juntas; under this regime, any explicit criticism of the regime would have been censored. Criticizing the social conditions of the nation would be seen as a criticism of the regime. By the time Iorio would found his second band in 1987 under the name Hermética, Argentina had returned to being a democracy. This new political reality allowed for the freedom of speech, a factor which led Iorio to write harsher and more direct lyrics. With Hermética, Iorio would zero in on the

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Argentinean context, offering many of his personal readings of the nation’s reality in song form. The recurrence of the local as a theme in this new chapter invites an analysis of the many ideological possibilities found in the inventory of nationalisms. This plurality, I would argue, is in great measure due to the polysemic nature of Hermética’s lyrical output. Their songs did not seek to offer a totalizing political perspective, but instead developed as part of their objective the constant criticism of the many situations ailing Argentina and Latin America in general. Similarly, the criticism found in Hermética’s songs can be interpreted according to a wide array of dissimilar, often opposing, political ideologies. In other words, the songs are open to interpretation. This quality fostered the existence, within the songs themselves, of a contradictory discourse which at times could seem amicable to nationalism, while at others seemed catered toward the Right. Let us tease these inherent contradictions out. One way in which many have seen a nationalistic inflection in Hermética’s work is in the way the songs come to the defense of those marginalized by society, particularly the working class. The songs also express a direct opposition to dictatorial systems. Finally, the band has occasionally dabbled in the recording and performing of protest song covers, as is the case with a song like “Si se calla el cantor,” made famous by Argentinean folk singer Horacio Guarany.14 That being said, right-wing nationalism equally creeps its way into Hermética in the form of an elitist hermeticism, as signaled by the band’s name. This attitude comes in many forms. First, in the notion, as far as Hermética is concerned, that metal is for a select few, that is, metal keeps out the unwanted. This extends to the second form; that is, the exclusion of the foreign, seeing the latter as a purveyor of the culture of the masses and the destruction of native peoples. In fact, we owe Hermética for initiating Latin American metal’s move toward embracing indigenous culture into its music and art (Calvo 2018). Having said all this, it must be said that the band never explicitly voiced any attachment to a specific political ideology. On the contrary, through his work with Hermética, Iorio promoted an apolitically political meditation which used metal as the ideal critical tool. After the dissolution of Hermética, Iorio would create the band Almafuerte in 1995. With this new group, Iorio’s work toward defining Argentinean metal would come front and center. The engagement with local cultural elements exponentially grew, starting with the band’s name choice. The name Almafuerte was intended as an homage to the great poet Pedro Bonifacio Palacios, whose nickname was Almafuerte.15 Furthermore, the band became known for actively using patriotic iconography as well as local musical genres, such as tango and folk music; their engagement with topics seen as

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wholly Argentinean in nature; and the commemoration, by way of concerts and presentations, of important patriotic holidays. Previously (Calvo 2012, 2014, 2016), I have written about what I perceived as an underlying ideological dimension contained in the work of Almafuerte, a dimension that manifests as a type of “Argentinean nationalism tending towards essentialism” (Calvo 2014, 135). That being said, this tendency is merely a prevalent ideology; I make this distinction because it in no way captures the totality of the band’s output. In truth, one can elucidate certain dialogues occurring in these songs with left-wing nationalism but also with right-wing nationalism. This can be seen in the presence of some contradictory and odd choices. For example, the band has defended the indigenous, the poor, the workers, and las Madres de Plaza de Mayo,16 while simultaneously celebrating anti-democratic figures, fascists, and leftist militants. Those expressions that could be seen as showing a right-wing nationalist tendency seem to hide behind the act of play and the ludicrous (Calvo 2012). Keith Kahn-Harris has called this practice “reflexive anti-reflexivity” (KahnHarris 2007), a type of play whereby musicians resort to the use of polysemic registers as a way to not explicitly reveal xenophobia or homophobia. One way of achieving this is through the use of humor; the artists make pronouncements which on the surface seem like jokes, the artist hamming up the tactic to make it seem as if they are naive to their own ulterior motives. This is precisely the tactic used by Iorio during his days with Almafuerte. Initially, he would offer up passing expressions, often humorous, which on the surface seemed quite discriminatory and fascist; these would, however, increase with time, making their presence felt in various interviews, including those given to the metal and rock media as well as media of general interest. In effect, the rhetorical operations used by Iorio both in his music and in his mediatic appearances helped blur the lines, making it almost impossible to decipher a totalizing message. Consequently, audiences came to accept his polemic and fascist expressions as a way to generate controversy, something that was seen as part of the metal tradition (Hjelm et al. 2013). Prior to 2017, some analysts (myself included) saw Almafuerte’s nationalist bent as a mechanism voicing the members’ stark opposition to the neoliberal system that taken over the country during the 1990s (Semán et al. 2011, Calvo 2016). Nonetheless, following the events of 2017, many of us had to reassess and reread Iorio’s oeuvre. Iorio’s explicit political revelation followed the dissolution of Almafuerte that same year. Soon after, he would found his eponymous band. Now in his fifties, Iorio saw the need to define his own ideological stance. It is at that moment, during an interview, where he began to openly express his views, self-identifying as an “ultranationalist” and an “anticommunist.” This moment represented a break from the “antireflexive reflexivity” that

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had come to characterize the musician. Following his pronouncement, Iorio would appear in a Facebook post that would change the Argentinean metal landscape forever. The post, uploaded on August 18, 2017, by the Press Secretary of the political party Bandera Vecinal,17 shows Iorio inside of a café located in Luján, a town in Buenos Aires. In it, Iorio can be seen shaking hands and hugging Alejandro Biondini. The latter is an ultranationalist politician who, during the 1990s had been attached to right-wing Peronism,18 and who on many occasions, through questionable shadow operations, had tried to bring about the creation of political organizations rooted in the philosophies of Nazism. The sight of the two men together caused great distress in the metal community, bringing about the rupture of the scene into diverging factions. Many were surprised, not just because Iorio had finally decided to express his ideological beliefs openly, but because he had chosen to fully embrace a political party, an act that many saw as going against the guiding principles of the metal community and it apolitical will. Later, the musician would come out to say that he was not affiliated to Bandera Vecinal; his approach had merely been born out of a mutual interest in nationalism on the part of both men. However, the damage had been done. One of the immediate effects of the photo was the dismissal of Iorio’s solo band from the BA Rock Festival. The organizers had made the decision after they had received a threat that, should the musician be allowed to perform at the festival, activists would engage in an escrache against the musician and the festival. The news came to light in the festival’s official fan page, when on October 8, 2017, the organizers posted an explanation stating that the decision had been taken to protect the musician as well as the audience. They had received word that NGOs affiliated with both the Jewish community as well as human rights advocates intended to disrupt the event. While both events, the photo and the cancellation, had a lasting effect on Iorio—following the situation, the artist returned to his old ambivalent ways, renewing his antireflexive reflexivity practices—the effects were even greater within the Argentinean metal scene, as musicians and audiences alike began to express their own respective political ideologies, creating widespread polarization among the scene’s participants. At the same time, many tried to reclaim the apolitical stance, all in an effort to maintain the unity that had characterized the movement prior to Iorio’s statements. In the following segment, I will analyze the way in which these events made their way and were addressed on Facebook at the time. As mentioned above, I will deploy the technique of netnography, which consists in the use of ethnographic methodologies in the reading of online activity. Through netnography, I have positioned myself as an outside observer whose focus is the ways in which the audiences interacted during the fallout of Iorio’s

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comments. As the technique demands, I did not participate in any type of active engagement; neither did I interfere in the interactions of the participants in these forums and fan pages. I merely documented the interactions. Given that it is a qualitative tool, my analysis consisted in the description and comparative analysis of the data collected. FOR AND AGAINST IORIO As already stated, once Iorio defined his political stance, members of the metal community followed suit, assuming the same attitude and openly revealing their respective political ideologies, each consequently finding themselves in one of two distinct factions: one group was comprised of those who unconditionally supported the artist, while the other group engaged in a full-fledged effort to distance themselves from him. The first group found a welcoming space in two Facebook groups: Iorio lo más grande del heavy nacional and IORIO_oficial. The former was created by a group of fans who wanted to celebrate the musical career of the artist. The page also allowed fans to tap into their love for the artist, for they felt a need to openly express their respective feelings toward the musician. The latter was the official online presence of Iorio’s solo band. The page is managed by the musician’s representatives and members of his band, and its purpose is to disseminate information about the artist and his future events in as quick a manner as possible. Consequently, one can surmise that Iorio and the band now felt a need to have an official channel to combat rumors and false information. Despite both groups representing two diverse segments of the musical landscape (the first one created by the public, the other one set up by managers), they resemble each other in that their members generate posts and comments showing their support of the artist, going so far as to call him a founding father and the patriarch of Argentinean metal. As such, they see him as an important figure who is to be followed, imitated, and from whom they can learn a lot. Nonetheless, the fervor shown to Iorio grew massively after his solo band was dismissed from the BA Rock Festival. On the threads, those who came to Iorio’s defense seemed to consider him untouchable, displaying immense hostility toward anyone who dared criticize him. Often they would attack this type of criticism by quoting the singer himself, using lines like “Vayan a estudiar”19 against his opponents. Phrases like this one served, in the mind of his supporters, to show that these who were against Iorio did so because they either did not know him personally or had not studied sufficiently, making them ignorant to what fascism actually meant. Moreover, many fans began posting photos of

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themselves with the artist as a way to ground and provide veracity to their belief in him. Similarly, other members of the community expressed their appreciation for Nazism and Fascism. In fact, this segment coalesced around a tendency to post memes which displayed widespread intolerance toward communism, feminism, sexual diversity, immigration, and even fans of cumbia music.20 Furthermore, many submitted posts in which they showed support for Argentina and any Malvinas War veterans. This collection of fans attacked Iorio critics by saying that they were “lefties” and members of the “thought police,” who, they claimed, contradicted their pacifist and inclusionary lectures by not allowing anyone with opinions other than theirs to voice their views. They engaged in this without ever considering the discriminatory tendencies of right-wing ideology. This group, needless to say, labeled the BA Rock Festival’s decision an acton of censorship. The same happened in the group IORIO_oficial, where members published their own photos or photos of others carrying picket signs with the slogan “Todo aquello que despierte consciencia será prohibido. Aguante Iorio,21” the first part of which represents words said by the singer himself. The photos showed fans in their places of work, wearing t-shirts, sporting tattoos, and carrying albums allusive to Iorio and his bands. Others posed with the singer while more still showed their children wearing t-shirts and boasting haircuts meant as tributes to the singer. Many of these posts included information about the place of origin of the post itself, attesting to the fact that these posts came from a multitude of places in the country. While the accuracy of this location tool may be questioned, it still carries a degree of relevance if we consider that those posting determine their geographic location on the website; thus, it could be argued that this choice is itself a marker of a person’s virtual identity. On the other hand, many fans also showed their disdain for Iorio’s political ideology, a fact that was mainly seen with the publication of opinion pieces written by intellectuals affiliated to the Argentinean metal scene. This reproach also extended to the coordination of festivals and left-leaning collective practices which sought to define metal as antifascist and pro-human rights. This type of expression could be seen in the Facebook fan page AntiIorio, which itself had been preceded by Metaleros anti-Iorio. The latter had an on-again/off-again lifespan since many of the artist’s most vocal followers would constantly denounce both pages to Facebook, in an attempt to prevent the pages from posting memes and comments critical of the singer. Content would be uploaded on both fan pages which sought to reveal the contradictions inherent in Iorio’s pronouncements throughout his career. Often, these posts tapped into the use of humor, while at other times they resorted to aggressive forms of critique which would not only focus on the

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artist, but which on many occasions attacked those fans who shared his ideology. But beyond these diverse forms of attack, the majority of the comments made by the fans exhibited a collective sense of sadness, anger, and deception. Most fans saw themselves at a crossroads: while most did not agree with Iorio, they could not automatically omit him from their musical tastes or choices. Many tried to differentiate the artist from his life’s work; however, any reminder of the Biondini photograph would make it difficult for them to separate one from the other. Nonetheless, some members of the community insisted on that separation as a way to maintain the unity of the scene. In what follows, I will look into these efforts. SAVING METAL THROUGH THE APOLITICAL Within the maelstrom of positions for and against Iorio, there was a third choice that presented itself as the apolitical stance. Its intention was to distance the metal scene from any political ideology by positing the scene as a place that was immune to political conflict, instead lifting equality and brotherhood as its main qualities (Hill 2013). As Niall Scott explains, this third choice believes that “heavy metal shuns politics in the governmental sense of the term, but also in the sense of avoiding conflict that can do damage to the unity of what it means to be metal—a being that transcends political perspectives and identities” (Scott 2013, 241). The approach of defending and privileging metal as a way to homogenize and smooth out the differences generated among the scene’s participants after Iorio’s statements and actions were fully displayed among various musicians and media personalities within the Argentinean metal scene. These individuals revealed their positions through posts uploaded to their respective fan pages on Facebook. First, a multitude of metal bands took to their pages to react to the BA Rock Festival organizers’ decision by withdrawing their participation from the festival. In their respective post on Facebook, each band expressed solidarity with Iorio, seeing him as brother to everyone in the metal community. They collectively saw the cancellation of his band as an act of censure against metal, not solely against Iorio. At the same time, the media made an effort to distance politics from metal by publishing articles and photos which highlighted Iorio’s charity work, thus appealing to the sentimental side of the metal community. This was a concerted effort directed at defending and improving his image, all while avoiding any reference to the photo with Biondini or offering any critique of the singer’s apparent support of extreme right-wing ideologies as something bad or worthy of criticism. Efecto metal’s fan page serves as an example of this widespread mediatic effort. The magazine’s journalists published photos of Iorio receiving and

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interacting with a group of Qom youths in Camarines. The Qom are an indigenous people who hail from the Impenetrable Chaco. By uploading these images, the journalists sought to highlight Iorio’s commitment to the aborigines, a marginalized sector of society. The reaction to these images was wide and varied. Some celebrated the images as a positive event, while others saw in the images a sad contradiction. The latter would make a point of posting the artist’s photo with Biondini. Like Efecto metal’s, many of the most prominent voices in metal media avoided any mention of Iorio’s photo or his statements; in essence, they were protecting metal from any elements that could harm the community’s sense of unity. In stark contrast, many in the underground Argentinean media—including programs like Estación Rock in Bariloche and fanzines like Enterrado Vivo out of Western Buenos Aires—expressed their views in quite an explicit manner, many expressing great surprise at what they had considered up to then an enigma. In a way, the surprise shown by many should serve as proof that Iorio’s “antireflexive reflexivity,” which he had used to remain noncommittal to any political discourse, had worked, generating a prevailing sense of confusion in the metal audience. Through his deployment of this mechanism, he had managed to find inclusion, respect, and claim in the Argentinean metal community throughout his career, thus succeeding in respecting a central tenet found in metal: music and ideology were two realms that needed to remain separate. Because of this reining perception, his jokes and ironic comments were celebrated as manifestations of his rebellious artistry, a practice that was wholly accepted within metal culture. METAL AND POLITICS IN THE ARGENTINEAN SCENE Through the preceding netnographic analysis undertaken on the mentioned Facebook fan pages, I have been able to show the ways in which politics traversed Argentina’s metal scene back in 2017. Politics resignified the metal identities that had been developed up to that moment. Even though politics had undoubtably been present within the scene long before that year, in the form of value judgments and social critiques, 2017 marked a flash point in the history of Argentinean metal. Politics became a reality within the scene. It breached metal brotherhood’s protective shell and laid bare the individual and collective ideologies that had remained hidden until then, ideologies that became amplified with each decision to either support or shun Ricardo Iorio, the seminal figure within Argentina’s metal scene. The presence of diverse views and ideological positions sheds light on the heterogeneity that makes up the Argentinean metal scene. Similarly, the

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analysis of the interactions which took place on Facebook showed the level of agency attained by audiences, a fact that became palpable in the decisions taken by fans with regards to their respective metal identities. These decisions were informed by ideology and emotions alike. Considering that in the aftermath of the events of 2017 there has continued to be an increased political presence in Argentinean metal, future studies would be needed to analyze the new exchanges between metal and politics and the ways in which these take place in both online and offline spaces. Such approaches would allow for an expanded consideration of the interpretations undertaken by participants within the scene, especially when it comes to their sociopolitical context and the dialogues they establish between metal and local cultural elements at both ideological and emotional levels.

NOTES 1. Later in the chapter, I will explain that the bands who best exemplify these relations are Hermética y Almafuerte, two bands which have become role models for the many metal bands which not only fuse metal with local music, but which also use local cultural symbols in their names and imagery. 2. The hypothesis and findings presented here originally formed part of my doctoral dissertation entitled La Escena Bonaerense de la Música Metal: Estudio en torno a Hermética como Centro de Sentidos y Disputas (Buenos Aires’ Metal Music Scene: A Study Focusing on Hermética as the Center of Meanings and Disputes), which was undertaken at the Facultad de Periodismo y Comunicación Social at Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Faculty of Journalism and Social Communication at the National University of La Plata) and which was funded by the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de Argentina (National Council for Scientific and Technical Investigations in Argentina; CONICET). 3. The assassinations of Darío Santillán and Maximiliano Kosteki occurred in the context of a political, economic, and social crisis that spilled over in Argentina starting in December 2001 and which continued into the following year. Given that more than half of the populations found itself below the poverty line, public protests including the cacerolazos (protests where participants bang on pots and pans) became a constant reality. Both individuals were members of the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados (Unemployed Workers Movement), one of the groups that took to the streets on June 26, 2002, to demand higher wages and state welfare for the unemployed. 4. The System as a concept found in Argentinean rock music took on a variety of meanings, many of which were not shared by the subgenres that originated under the genre’s umbrella. For example, 1980s pop-rock and new wave were vocally opposed to heteronormativity, something that was in fact celebrated in the metal community. In this case, The System was seen by metal heads as signifying Christianity, the police, the social elites, colonialism, capitalism, and mass culture.

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5. Netnography represents an analytic method, first proposed by Miguel del Fresno (2011), which consists in the use of conventional ethnographic methodologies in the cyberspace environment. Netnography analyzes the interactions between participants, seeing these as an extension of the sociability that takes place both in online and offline exchanges. 6. Someone who is pro-Nazism, that is, a lover of all things Nazi. 7. Trans. Iorio, the biggest thing in national Heavy Metal. 8. BA Rock or Buenos Aires Rock is a rock festival that took place in the city of Buenos Aires (then known as Capital Federal) during the years 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1982. The event was known for bringing together the most famous rock musicians and musical groups in Argentina. The 1982 edition included a presentation by the group V8, who became the source of controversy for the way the band treated the mostly hippie audience. Organizers tried to revive the festival in 2017 as a way to celebrate the history of the genre in the country. The cancellation of Iorio’s presentation became an important development within the metal scene, for many would be reminded of the treatment they lived through during the events that took place in the 1980s. 9. There are protests which are done with the intention of directly harassing and voicing displeasure at a public figure. Protesters mobilize to a public space where the target is expected to be in attendance. These can take place at the person’s home, place of work, television presentations, or, in the case of Iorio, at a concert or public presentation. 10. Trans. My voice is not enough. The word canto carries multiple meanings in this context. It is clearly a reference to singing; therefore, Iorio’s singing is seen as not being enough to communicate all he has to say. However, Iorio’s use of canto must also account for the notion of a poet who declaims. In Latin America, poets are seen as philosophers. Thus, for Iorio to declaim his worldview or beliefs is not enough; he must also disseminated them visually and discuss them with others in order for them to gain the influence and reach they demand. 11. As is the case in other countries, nationalism can take on multiple meanings. In the context of Argentina, which became a nation-state, there arose two perspectives on the term: on the one hand, nationalism was seen as the imitation of a European brand of nationalism, with its move toward progress as the driving force; on the other hand, it was seen as a promoter of tradition and all things autochthonous. Nevertheless, nationalist ideologies would go on to acquired different meanings through time, each responding to the sociopolitical processes that developed throughout history. 12. For more on this, read Historia de la Argentina Contemporánea: De Perón a Kirchner (2016) by Marcos Novaro. Novaro presents as general picture of Argentina’s recent history. Another text worth mentioning is the article La Identidad Político-ideológica del Gobierno de Macri: ¿Una Nueva Derecha ha Emergido en Argentina? (2016), by Martín Astarita and Sergio De Piero, in which the authors analyze the ideology behind President Mauricio Macri’s government. 13. Iorio’s identification becomes much more explicit during his Hermética days. Nonetheless, references to the working class can be found in V8 songs, such as Muy

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Cansado Estoy (1983), in which the musician sings from the perspective of a worker. For more on this topic, read El Perro Cristiano (2012), a biography of Iorio written by Ariel Torres. 14. Horacio Guarany was an Argentinean fold singer born in Santa Fe in 1925. The aforementioned song was written in the 1970s when the artist became affiliated with the communist party. The song was meant as a protest against the censuring he had been subjected to by the government. 15. Pedro Bonifacio Palacios, also known by the nickname “Almafuerte,” was an Argentinean poet and teacher who lived from 1854 to 1917. Growing up in a humble family, he would go on to defend the working class and be highly critical of the government in his work. 16. Starting in 1977, a group of mothers assembled on Plaza de Mayo, one of Argentina’s main public squares. Their common bond was the disappearance of their sons and daughters at the hands of the dictatorship. The women joined together as one voice, demanding information from the dictatorship. It marked the first time a group of citizens publicly challenged the regime. Some of these mothers would themselves be subjected to “disappearance,” that is, kidnapping, torture, and murder. 17. The political party became legalized and instituted in 2004, this despite being accused multiple times of harboring a Nazi ideology. In truth, the party has had weak showings during elections for it does not possess sufficient supporters. 18. Peronism is a political movement which arose during the 1940s, taking its name from populist soldier and politician Juan Domingo Perón. Since its emergence, it has gone on to splinter into multiple avenues; these include left-wing and right-wing factions. 19. Trans. Go study. Something akin to “Go pick up a book.” 20. In Argentina, rock music positioned itself as the antagonist to cumbia music. This positioning mainly responded to an issue of authenticity: rockers accused cumbia musicians and aficionados of producing music that did not consider “serious” issues. When it came to metal music per se, the accusation became centered on capitalism: while cumbia promoted theft as a way to confront the system, Argentinean metal condemned any type of delinquency, instead promoting hard work and the working class. 21. Trans. Anything that awakens our awareness will be prohibited. Stay strong, Iorio.

REFERENCES Calvo, Manuela B. 2012. “Un Análisis Socio-Semiótico Comparativo de los Discursos que Conforman el Metal Pesado Argento de Almafuerte.” Master’s Thesis. Argentina: Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. ———. 2014. “Diálogos que Construyen un Modo de Nacionalismo Argentino en el Metal Pesado Argento de Almafuerte.” In Encuentros, Tránsitos y Desplazamientos: Culturas y Literaturas en Tensión y en Diálogo (II), edited by María Cristina Dalmagro and Aldo Parfeniuk, 120–137. Argentina: Buena Vista Editores.

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———. 2016. “Almafuerte: Metal Pesado Argento and its Construction of Argentinian Nationalism.” Metal Music Studies, 2 (1), 21–38. ———. 2018. “Perspectiva Indigenista en la Música metal de Argentina.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1), 147–154. Del Fresno, Miguel. 2011. Netnografía: Investigación, Análisis e Intervención Social Online. España: Editorial UOC. DeNora, Tia. 2003. After Adorno. Rethinking Music Sociology. USA: Cambridge University Press. Dunaway, David K. 1992. “Music as Political Communication in the United States.” In Popular Music and Communication, edited by James Lull, 36–52. UK: Sage Publications. Frith, Simon. 1996. “Music and Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, edited by Stuart Hall and Paul Du Gay, 108–127. Los Angeles, USA: Sage. Hennion, Antoine. 2002. La Pasión Musical. Argentina: Editorial Paidós. Hill, Rosemary Lucy. 2013. Representations and Experiences of Women Hard Rock and Metal Fans in the Imaginary Community. Doctoral Thesis. UK: University of York. Hjelm, Titus, Khan-Harris, Keith and Mark Levine. 2013. “Introduction: Heavy metal as controversy and counterculture.” In Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures, edited by Titus Hjelm, Keith Kahn-Harris and Mark LeVine, 1–14. UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd. Kahn-Harris, Keith. 2007. Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. UK: Berg. Provéndola, Juan Ignacio. 2015. Rockpolitik: 50 Años de Rock Nacional y Sus Vínculos con el Poder Político. Argentina: Eudeba. Regev, Motti. 2013. Pop-Rock Music. UK: Polity Press. Scott, Niall. 2013. “Heavy Metal and the Deafening Threat of the Apolitical.” In Heavy Metal: Controversies and Countercultures, edited by Titus Hjelm, Keith Kahn-Harris and Mark LeVine, 229–243. UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd. Semán, Pablo, Vila, Pablo and Cecilia Benedetti. 2011. “Neo-liberalism and Rock in the Popular Sectors of Contemporary Argentina.” In Rockin’ las Américas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America, edited by Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Eric Zolov, 261–98. USA: University of Pittsburgh. Varas-Díaz, Nelson and Niall Scott. 2016. “Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience. An Introduction.” In Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience, edited by Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott, vii–xiii. UK: Lexington Books. Varas-Díaz, Nelson; Mendoza, Sigrid and Eric Morales. 2016. “Porous Communities. Critical Interactions between Metal Music and Local Culture in the Caribbean Context.” In Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience, edited by Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott, 101–123. UK: Lexington Books. Vila, Pablo. 1985. “Rock Nacional. Crónicas de la Resistencia Juvenil.” In Los Nuevos Movimientos Sociales, edited by Elizabeth Jelin, 8–12. Argentina: Centro Editor de América Latina.

Chapter 9

America, Avenge Yourself The Emergence of Combative Discourse and Other Recent Directions in Contemporary Argentinian Metal (An Exploration in Three Movements) Emiliano Scaricaciottoli

FIRST MOVEMENT—HISTORY OF A PARRICIDE Argentinean heavy metal can only be read in the key of politics; as another political subject in the panoply of social and cultural relations that materialized during the last military dictatorship (1976–1983) and which, I would argue, has been the only true subculture (Hebdige 2004, 180–181). Toward the end of 2013, when the first Feria del Libro Heavy de Boedo1 (Buenos Aires) took place, the Group for Interdisciplinary Research on Argentinian Heavy Metal (GIIHMA for its acronym, in Spanish) posited the notion that Argentinean metal has for many decades adopted a national or nationalist tendency. This premise similarly argued against the inclusion of national metal (as the imaginary, though much too real construct, that it is, at least in poietic terms) under the rubric of “national rock,” a position we defended alongside Oscar Blanco in our book Las Letras de Rock en Argentina: Desde la Caída de la Dictadura a la Crisis de la Democracia, 1983–20012 (2014). The GIIHMA became a pioneer in setting the tone for Argentinean metal in its national inflection, a role which included the group’s militancy against the dictatorship during the latter’s last tenure. Similarly, V8 and Los Violadores (that brotherhood that stood up against the dictatorship’s repressive apparatus) would represent the other arm of this collective “anti-system revindication”; that is to say, they were a veritable riot squad that adopted an ethics of violence which overshadowed their aesthetic practices. Esthesis, pure 201

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and beautiful esthesis, harbored in a paradigmatic violence that was capable of exhorting everyone to shame the BAROCK 82 and the Festival de la Solidaridad Latinoamericana3 during the Malvinas War, and more directly, the bands that participated in these festivals, whom they saw as joining the ranks of corporate “national rock.” In their eyes, these bands, and “national rock” per se, served as accomplices to the repressive apparatus, willful agents responsible for stunting youth activism. This was not an era in which one could call for a truce. On the contrary, it was a time for engagement. At the same time that it meditated on the responsibilities allotted to the workers’ movement, national metal took charge of the responsibilities the national bourgeoise (its pretend counterculture anchored in “national rock”) had neglected: Closer in nature to the Ayopaya Thesis,4 the conciliatory and reformist utopia of class oscillates—at least in the lyrics written by Iorio, as found in V8, Hermética, and Almafuerte, all of whom are pilars of national metal—between the shores of falangism, on some occasions, and a Peronist nationalism, on others. (Scaricaciottoli 2012, 68–69)

I believe in the need to avoid historicizing Argentinean heavy metal, in the need to avoid subsuming it to the lazy Wikipedia-like format within which rock journalism has tried and failed to place it. While early on we managed to gather those initial sketches that sought to think of Argentinean metal in a critical manner, it was not until the first Feria del Libro Heavy that we would come to fully develop a serious and militant space capable of reading our national metal against Our-America, against the losses incurred by the working class, and which, in the context of our present parricide, has joined forces with the Women’s Movement and the defense of the indigenous people. It is during the first Feria del Libro Heavy in Boedo where a seminal roundtable took place—organized by Gito Minore entitled “La recepción de Iorio en la academia5” (Minore 2014, 23–38) and in which both Manuela “Nuna” Calvo and I participated—which provided the first steps toward the shedding of any dogmatic or celebratory stance toward national metal. In that roundtable, the participants shed light on the latent contradictions that would lead to the demise of Argentinean national metal. During one of my interventions there, I would propose the following: To see Kosteki and Santillán6 back in 2002 wearing Hermética t-shirts is of the utmost importance, even if Iorio doesn’t give a damn about that fact. I myself don’t give a damn about what Iorio thinks. For me, it is extremely relevant that they were wearing those t-shirts and not those of Charly García or Los Piojos7. They were not wearing Charly García or Los Piojos t-shirts! They were wearing

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Hermética and [Darío Santillán] died wearing a Hermética shirt! It is not a negligible fact. (Scaricaciottoli 2014, 37–38)

It is this path, this attitude—in tone, in approach, and in vision—that the GIIHMA would follow as a key actor in the studies of metal in Argentina and the region in general. It is an attitude that rejects having our written output scrutinized within the masturbatory exercises found in the academy and in its claims of scientific rigor. In 2015 we published Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino (Scaricaciottoli 2015)8 as a way to bypass the academy altogether. We were not interested in arguing with doctoral students. Neither were we interested in promoting our respective epistemic fields, with numbers, data, or other measurable particulars. Instead, we were fully invested in the task of artfully engaging and applying metal9; we were in search of its language, we wanted to write in its ruins, and we wanted to expand the teachings of Cristian Ferrer, that is to say, we wanted to find “the music in Weber, the adventure and femininity in Simmel, the esotericism in Saint-Simon” (Ferrer 1990, 22). Theory is nothing other than a cluster of imaginary rented jobs that claim seats and offices within the cloistered academy. Consequently, our collective stance is that, within the university, metal should be militant; it should join the union strikes of the CONICET10 fellows, the demands for better salaries of the teachers’ syndicates, and the constant battles—unequal and combined, to echo Trotsky—undertaken by the entire education community. Metal will be radical or it will not be anything at all. In this incessant search for the language of metal, we found ourselves enmeshed in an aporia: the need to think of a space for metal, a new space for the Metal Brigades, but which was, oddly enough, located within the metal movement itself. We have no reason to think of metal as an “object of study.” In any case, metal is a subject, a subjectivity that slips through any attempt to enforce evaluable, quantifiable, and/or classifiable parameters on it. In fact, we would argue, metal is so elusive that even these considerations as posited by the GIIHMA are themselves completely refutable precisely because metal is a dynamic movement; it is only through the constant engagement with debate and dialectics proper that we can aspire to forge new explorations and considerations of metal. In the case of the 2001/2002 crisis and the deaths left in its wake (the assassination of thirty-nine civilians and the massacre that took place at the Puente Pueyrredón;11 Kosteki and Santillán were among the dead), we could not undertake any task other than to preserve the History (and here we emphasis the capital H) of militancy against the bourgeois State and its ideological apparatus for cultural dominance. In this sense, national metal proves insufficient to tackle the new tendencies brought to light by the recent Right-wing neoliberal turn in Argentina that began in 2015.12 In this sense, to insist on the continuation of any type of analysis of Iorio’s endorsement and

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adoption of the worst aspects of the fascist Right is, inarguably, an exercise in miserableness. In this sense, we repudiated any study and/or text that paints national metal as the only form of Argentinean metal, as its only example; that is to say, as Argentinean metal’s original and sole identikit. Iorio is, in effect, a class enemy, and his oeuvre will be left behind to aid in the study of our movement’s dialectical spiral. We perpetually repudiate the adulators of academic papers; we repudiate the uncritical amusement they find in constantly returning to Iorio. They are our enemies, too. SECOND MOVEMENT—A GUIDEBOOK TO DESTROY AND KILL In Parricidas: Mapa Rabioso del Metal Argentino Contemporáneo13 (Scaricaciottoli, 2018), I posited a way to approach what has taken place in national metal from 2001 to the present. There, I argued that Iorio’s realignment under the banner of an unstable and blurred conservative worldview evinced not only his fall into a static, ultranationalist, and Catholic path, but also into a “no-man’s-land” (Reynolds 1994), the latter particularly taking place after the disbanding of Almafuerte in 2016. With the lack of a novel framework of dominant territorialities and in an environment defined by Integrated World Capitalism (Pacheco 2019, 28), we have seen the arrival of a damaging subjective conservatism. This new reality is compounded by the parallel arrival of new voices in the metal scene which had up to now remained in the shadow of Iorio, awaiting the right moment to move into the light after an agonizingly long wait. Argentina continues to navigate a landscape punctuated by cultural trenches—not quite subcultural; the country remains enmeshed in a war that has not ended. We have been forced to consider our defeat closely; the defeat I am talking about is the one lived by the working class following the country’s return to democracy in 1983. This reconsideration of the labor movement represents a topic which Argentinean metal must undeniably take up. Metal must take a side: either as a unifier of classes prone to escapism, or as a promoter of militancy against the system; there is no middle ground in this. A misguided analysis of the circumstances could potentially lead us to underestimate the against-the-grain lawlessness that has manifested in certain Argentinean metal poetics over the past couple of years. It is precisely with this in mind that we have called for the symbolic parricide of Ricardo Iorio and, by extension, the consideration of other frameworks that circulated clandestinely within the contemporary metal scene. This framework must traverse a path that goes from criollo Stoner (Los Antiguos and Sauron) to folk-metal (Raza Truncka and Arraigo); it must wander across post-national metal (Carajo) and juvenile

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metal (Heavysaurios); it must also kiss the shores of gender expression in metal—that is, a feminist metal that flies the flag of the Women’s Movement in their battle for legalizing abortions14 and against the pervasive patriarchal dominant found in national metal. This is a rabid territorial map, to say the least—a map that refuses artificial borders, even in light of the ebbs and flows of segmentation and blending that occur with each sub-genre. The convivial fellowship displayed by Stoner, Death, Groove, and all the other traditional genres, living side by side in what at times were close quarters, developed into our powerful present; into a melting pot of new poetics which took the most disruptive aspects of national metal and guided these in the direction of newer battles. Much like Argentinean metal, the parricide must also be read in the key of politics. What artistic missions does our movement have in the present climate? Can we talk about a uniform, compact metal movement? Speaking about the complex nature of liquid societies, Zygmun Bauman (2004) affirms that the less baggage these societies carry, the faster they will progress. Ours is such a society. The liquidity of our inventory of references, that is, of our symbolic system of social and political references, led to the rise of kirchnerism,15 its ascent to power from 2003 to 2015, and to its ability to co-opt many of the popular movements that had existed up to that moment. Does co-optation necessarily mean demobilization, at least in the Argentinean context? If we transfer this question to the realm of Argentinean metal, we will be confronted with the curious deterioration of the ethics national metal had helped construct. That is to say, there is a glaring lack of novel references that can guide and aid in the parricide, a set of principles that can show the way. In any case (and only if we assume an optimistic position; something we very much dislike), what we find is a rhizome of references. The time has come to materialize, even demand, new voices in Argentinean metal. And having new voices is not enough; we must amplify them beyond the realm of musical production. The metal scene is well aware of the need for new names; however, it is also aware that those names will not come from the performance stage. We will continue to lack shepherds if the herd continues to be a herd. Seen this way, it is no wonder why Iorio continues to exert such a large post-mortem lure. His gravitational pull harms us. Consequently, we must seek out the most lucid voices of our generation. One voice which immediately comes to mind is that of Pato Larralde, nephew of perhaps the most preeminent folklorist our country has known. In fact, it makes entire sense that we invoke Larralde, much the same way Sarmiento invoked the shadow of Facundo Quiroga;16 after all, his uncle has been covered innumerable times by Iorio himself. But it also makes sense because Larralde, through both of his bands—Sauron and Los Antiguos, is in effect the greatest of parricides.

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THIRD MOVEMENT—PATO LARRALDE, LOS ANTIGUOS, AND SAURON: FORGING THE PATH OF ARGENTINEAN METAL The final chapter in the book Parricidas: Mapa Rabioso del Metal Argentino Contemporáneo, entitled Tributo a Pappo: Re-escritura y Profanaciones en el Movimiento Stoner Criollo,17 proposes a reassessment of the semantics found in the work of Larralde. It is undeniable that Larralde weaponized Stoner metal, seeing it as a hybrid tongue which brought together the more progressive aspects of 1970s Argentinean rock (i.e., the micro-poetics of Norberto “Pappo” Napolitano, leader of Pappo’s Blues and Riff18) and the more traditional features of national metal (i.e., the poetics of Ricardo Iorio, a line that promoted the indigenous struggle, class warfare, and the reappropriation of national symbols by the most displaced sectors of Argentinean society). However, of greater import is the fact that Larralde developed and maintained an ethical slant in his work, which allowed him to masterfully scrutinize his milieu. All in all, I chose Larralde because he knew when and how to avoid the turn toward the Right that claimed Iorio as one of its victims. Furthermore, Larralde never denied his affiliation with national metal. In the present confusing climate that sees many metalheads (especially those who have attained degrees and tenured jobs) spurning their former allegiance to national metal (circa 1980s–1990s), Larralde remained faithful, opting in the process to rewrite the best of Iorio, the best of Pappo, and the most genuine aspects of that metal subculture that hit the streets and offered its voice in the battle against the military dictatorship. Larralde found wastelands in those lineages; rebellious topographies, mestizo renegades fleeing the State, the old rifles that belonged to the malón.19 He undoubtably found a revolutionary history of the indigenous, of the gaucho, of the ones who had been demoted in the social ladder, of the “Gil Trabajador.20” The southern desert (be it in Argentina, or in the United States) is the effigy of the infertile, of the most anti-capitalist attitude found at the heart of the financial world. The desert bears witness to a silenced native history, of the bloodiest of pre-bourgeois civil wars made in the name of nationhood, and of those who have been summarily excluded: the peasant, pilgrim of California, Mojave, Sonora, Chihuahua. To venture into forgetfulness, to be swallowed by the empty territory, is itself polysemic: is it an act of escapism or an act of rebirth? I harken back to the films of Hopper and Antonioni,21 the hostility found in the death valleys, spearheading the new man, or better yet, the new civilization: to civilize, populate, multiply. The communes reproducing, in some measure, the humanist ideals and the accompanying imaginaries. No revolution was, after all, constructed upon the total destruction of the culture it defeated. The formulation of a civil genesis which starts from a

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multifaceted negation of the capitalist reality can and must be constructed paradoxically. The desert is an inverted baroque, its vast emptiness makes it unbearable, redundant, excessive, dangerous, and voluptuous. The desert feeds on modernity; anthropophagy willing, the object absorbs the subject, the technical devours Man, his reason, and his hope. The territory speaks. Stoner metal at the continental level, imagined for Sonora or Mojave, that is to say “for export,” first came to light in the work of Los Natas, perhaps the first, even if subconscious, expression of criollo stoner. The white helicopter and the casualties of the 19th and 20th of December,22 the disoriented expressions of Kosteki and Santillán at Avellaneda Station, and the smile of Fanchiotti23 deserved an alternate micro-poetic construction, an alternate lyrical tendency that aligned with the national orientation of Argentinean metal. Is it impossible to reconcile the introspective tendencies of North American stoner metal (which I will label Occidental) with the tendencies found in criollo stoner metal (which I will label Oriental), particularly when thinking of the discursive demands and necessities of the movement? Introspection and self-reflexiveness, cement and desert? The stoner that originates from Las Pampas perambulates among undefined lineages, multiple parentages, and errant origins. Starting with Pappo’s Blues Volumen 1 and culminating in “July 93” with Deacon Jones, the micro-poetic connections of local stoner metal with Pappo’s imaginings of the city and the countryside, the desert and the masses are torturous and undeniable. It is perhaps recently with Pato Larralde that the lineage becomes settled, vindicating itself during a critical moment of the movement, during a moment in which Sauron and Los Antiguos (see figures 9.1 and 9.2) have begun to dispute face to face the direction national metal will take. Stoner metal finds its territory in the realm of the written text, it finds its place in the post-Almafuerte metal landscape. In his book Un Desierto para la Nación: La Escritura del Vacío24 (2010), Fermín Rodríguez rewrites a phrase initially contained in Juan José Saer’s El Entenado25: “Tierra es esta sin . . . , al mismo tiempo que alzaba el brazo y sacudía la mano.”26 Una tierra sin: a land without. The discussion about whether the land is also voiceless, as Rodríguez asserts, will be left for another time. For the purposes of this chapter, the notion of absence should suffice. The consolidation of a land that signals absence (political, identitarian, fundamentally nominal) challenges the copula Sarmiento used back in 1945 in order to hide a peculiar disjunctive: civilization or barbarism.27 The history of the barbarized desert is the History of the desert of the “squatter”: “bandas de jinetes nómadas, indios, gauchos solitarios, partidas de soldados, desertores, arrieros, caravanas de carretas, viajeros criollos y europeos, pulperos, estancieros y peones”28 (Rodríguez 2010, 15). The panoply of residues listed by Fermín Rodríguez as the counterpart to “civilization” is the same collection with which Pato Larralde—gauchesca

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Figure 9.1  Argentinian Band Los Antiguos. Source: Image provided by Andrea Meikop.

Figure 9.2  Argentinian band Los Antiguos in Concert. Source: Image provided by Andrea Meikop.

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willing29—opens himself up to be accused of engaging in “Völkisch.30” Of all the possible rewritings of the desert that are at Pato’s disposal when writing his lyrics, one will precisely be that of the “bandas de jinetes nómadas, indios, gauchos” and another one—one which is of great interest to us in this chapter—is that of the residue found in the desert of Argentinean rock. With Pato, the focus will no longer be on some consecrated tradition of national rock; instead, the focus will be on the silenced, the omitted, the bastardized, or those who have been neglected. And for Pato this can only mean one individual in particular: the figure in question is none other than Pappo. The desert in Larralde’s many voices becomes a sodden painting, ruined by the revelry of a night spent in infernal and supernatural vestments. One need only take in the lyrics contained in Sobrenatural (2003) by Sauron to glean a sense of his oeuvre’s direction. Larralde’s “jinete,” as projected in the lyrics of Sauron, is not only drawn to the visual tradition of the gauchesca or the indiada raquelina31: it is equally drawn to Tolkien’s mythology. Surely, the “jinete” refers to the Nazgûl who ride at the behest of Sauron and who perambulate as mere specters due to the degenerative effects of the rings.32 In this as well as in the Ranquel tradition, the “jinete” is heavily tied to a Dionysian power, which disrupts any symbolic register. In other words, Larralde’s “jinetes” stand as a perfect syncretism of historical characters and subjects that have been omitted by the history of the winners. Let us remember that Sauron is himself a fallen one, in that sense promoted by the Christian tradition. The fallen, those tempted by evil, howl, sing, and often celebrate with a less-than-human language their wanderings through the world of rules. They coalesce behind and cloak themselves in contagion, like bands, packs, herds, gangs. They wallow in the desert, immortalized, in a trance that divests them of their collective bodies (institutionalized bodies), and separates them of the designation assigned to them: barbarism, for example, is understood as the opposite of civilization. However, one is only “barbaric” when the colonizer (or the hygienist, to borrow Sarmiento’s designation) determines it. This status as “barbaric” is understood as pure negativity, as pure othering, against the call to civilization. Barbarism and its set of practices not only incorporate leisure, but they also invite a state of trance, a trance dictated by the infertile landscape of the desert; in that landscape everything rots, fades, and is reborn in Oriental forms (spirits, specters, ghosts, and subterranean entities). The orientality found in the formulation of an ethos, as Nicolás Rosa argued in his reading of Sarmiento in El Arte del Olvido33 (2004), is, in effect, a process of rewriting, not in the sense of it being a mandate to replace that which is lost or absent, but in the sense of registering a trance in a process that sees the latter not as a document but as a monument. There where truth is requested, one will only find triviality and desire. It is the History confronting the “story,”

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the fiction of the “I” (disseminated as an autobiographic extension) which disrupts the collective expectations. This was a thesis I forcefully argued alongside Oscar Blanco in our book entitled Las Letras del Rock en la Argentina: De la Caída de la Dictadura a la Crisis de la Democracia 1983–2001 (2014): The hypnosis of the “zombas” involves a dual movement (despited Adrián Dárgelos’ rejection of this argument) that involves the need to contend with the negative trance brought on by the fetishized merchandise—in a Baudelairian sense, because it is the most concrete of examples—and the hypnosis of “not doing” that which they ask you to do as part of the workforce. There is no exchange of potency in the sense one comes to expect in the realm of merchandise. That is to say, if the “zomba trance” does not provide room for the creation of an unreality in the Sartrean sense, one that neutralizes one’s being-in-theworld, we will be overtaken by schizophrenia. (Blanco and Scaricaciottoli 2014, 230)

In effect, the trance promoted by Babasónicos appealed to a particular group (the “zombas”) which occluded productivity. There was in the background of that exchange a debate with a marxist semantic field invested with notions of value and labor. In the case of Los Natas, the trance appealed to a hallucinating worldview (Toba34). Pappo described it with great effect in his Volume 1, and Larralde applied it wisely to the story of the ancient astronauts, which itself served as the basis of Los Antiguos. With its incursions into medieval mythology by way of Tolkien, to the harshest of urban inflections in Manal35 and, of course, Pappo, Larralde’s permanent reference to the work of Pappo at the audiovisual level has a dual purpose. It was, in the first place (as noted by Walter Broide, drummer of Los Natas and, presently, Poseidótica), an attempt at creating a musical work that invited the listener into a state of trance (think unending guitar solos for unending concerts which also contained unending acts of lyrical improvisation). However, it was also an attempt at exerting control over a peculiar urban creative material. Here I am referring to that industrial and secular tradition originated by Javier Martínez, who focalized his poietic energies into considering ways to traverse the pain of the city by seeking (a paranoid) refuge in active thought. I would not go so far as to agree with a certain rock journalist who labeled him the “Heidegger de La Paternal.36” but there is no doubt that he did seek out, through his lyrics, a way to “disinterpellate” himself, a way to distance himself from the quotidian alienation and find spaces that could be called a desert of ideas, or a desert for ideas. There is an undeniable link between Pappo and Larralde when it comes to evoking metaphysical assemblages, magical apparitions, and certain manifest

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intimacies or inner selves. Accordingly, one could argue that Volumen I represents the origin story from which one can delineate three separate poietic lines, three topos (i.e., poetic themes, places, and rhythms in his lyrics): first, an anarchy-libertarian phase linked to the decentering of the subject as the latter pertains to History; second, the body’s tremulous vibrations upon entering a trance state; and third, the problematization of language as a key to unlocking that History, the truth, and the methods of accessing the truth. Certainly, my argument is a purely imaginative act, intent on making sense of the landscape in which Pato Larralde recovers these three poietic lines. This recovery begins with the contradiction of emerging out of a negative (ominous, averse) movement for Argentina’s rock culture and is succeeded by an attempt to equate, analogize, or develop a genealogical lineage, an exercise that precisely because of the danger it involves becomes all the more tempting. The task involves expanding the master code (Pato doesn’t want to become a disfigurement or a bad copy of Pappo in the lyrical realm), or better yet, as Jameson (1979) would say, transfer the master code to the master narrative. The work needs to become an imaginary projection, a fantasy of sorts, not an instrument in search of the “truth.” I want (and this I also owe to Jameson) to make the History of Argentinean metal an “absent cause” (to borrow Spinoza)—a History only accessible in a textual form. The lyrics of Pappo and Larralde have a longed-for filiation, but in the end they are rewritings, of each other and of all that preceded them. Isn’t that the case with Iorio, who rewrites and celebrates the tango and the milonga37 in his gorgeous 2014 album recorded with the Cordone brothers38? Anyone who tries to find a “cover” in that album is misguided, quite simply wrong. What one finds is an artifact rewritten by the biological subject (his history; it is Iorio’s and no one else’s), rewritten by the grain of the voice (in Roland Barthes’s words). It is rewritten in those distinctive, unrepeatable speech organs, even in its modulations of silence. Thus, the act of rewriting represents the most essential of parricidal acts. To kill Pappo is to revive him in each “paraíso de dolor39” that Pato assembles in his texts. At this juncture, Adorno comes to mind. He defended the notion that all works of art, even individual ones, write a we. In his thesis, there is a collective unconscious, a sensorial and affective structure that responds to an epoch, to an incomplete (and, thus, critical and unsustainable) present, to an absent word. In his Teoría Literaria III seminar and in most of his classes, Nicolás Rosa would always find a way to repeat the same metaphor centered on the notion of prosthesis: “Me pica el brazo.”40 Upon uttering these words, he would always proceed to scratch an inexistent limb, a nod to the theory of the phantom limb. That same phantom itch, read in a social or generational key, could very well represent that notion of a we. Who is the we that has materialized in Larralde’s lyrics? What theoretical

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tendency—for those that understand sarcasm—should stoner metal follow? Certainly, Pato never detached himself from the path that for so long had led him to Los Natas (so many deserts, so many suns, so many kilometers, so many girlfriends, so many decals). But he did fall in line behind a we that carried within the DNA of the ancient (astronauts) fathers. Pappo was for Argentinean rock, at least up to Buscando un Amor (2003), a bo(a)rder,41 an undesirable. Following Pappo & Amigos (2000) he attained some much deserved, and distinguished, visibility. Stoner metal, thus, became in his wake an important pathway through which its practitioners can rewrite—as if painting on a great unblemished canvas—the history of the ancient ones who gave shape to the rings of the metal movement, or, to echo Gito Minore, metal culture at large. The act of parricide is, in a certain way, the task of realigning a lineage. Sarmiento did it with his father-in-law, with Moses, with History. To pilfer History, to take away its place on the throne, to profane it, is also a sensual act: it is not an individual act, it does not depend on the will to power of a single subject; instead, it depends on a desecrated we. Any contemporary instance of that most ubiquitous of graffiti—“La H no murió42”—will never carry with it the voice of those who lived through the foundational myth. In any case, what is being rewritten is the loss, the invocation of the ghost, revealing the insufficiency of the present language. With Pato, the act of rewriting is, justly, the inverse. It changes the sign that has been attached to “insufficiency.” The present works in the genre are, in any case, an embellishment of the past, of that language which the ancient ones created; but it is never an insufficiency: “Music says We directly, regardless of its intentions” (Adorno, 1997:167). That we, heavy as it is, is the foundational stone, a heavy heritage, which stoner metal will bring to the fore in each lyric, reconnecting with its past, with its genealogy. In that deserted we, Argentina’s metalheads perambulate.

NOTES 1. Trans. The Boedo Heavy Metal Book Fest. 2. Trans. Argentinean Rock Lyrics: From the Fall of the Dictatorship to the Democratic Crisis, 1983–2001. 3. Trans. Latin-American Solidarity Festival. For more regarding these events, see Oscar Blanco and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli. 2014. Las Letras de Rock en Argentina: De la Caída de la Dictadura a la Crisis de la Democracia, 1983–2001. Buenos Aires: Colihue. 4. The Ayopaya Thesis is a manifesto written by Walter Guevara Arze (1912– 1996) where the author gives voice to the people of Ayopaya, an agricultural province in Bolivia predominantly comprised of a multitude of indigenous communities.

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The text serves as an outline for the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement) which Guevara helped found. 5. Trans. The Treatment of Iorio in the Academy. 6. Maximiliano Kosteki (1979) and Darío Santillán (1981) were activists affiliated with the Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados-MTD (the Unemployed Workers Movement) who, during the 2002 protests against the government, were shot and killed by police. For more on them and the events that led to their deaths, see Scaricaciottoli, Emiliano (Comp.). 2015. Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino. Buenos Aires: La Parte Maldita, 1° edición. 7. Charly García is an Argentinian singer/songwriter who rose to prominence during the Second Wave of National Rock in Argentina. He is an essential figure in the development of Argentinian Rock culture. His career began with the creation of the band Sui Generis in 1969. García would eventually continue as a solo artist, releasing his second album, Clics Modernos, in 1983. The latter would become one of the most influential and highly regarded albums in the history of Rock music, not just in Argentina but throughout Latin America, in part thanks to its pioneering sound and its release after the end of the dictatorship. Los Piojos were an Argentinean Alternative Rock band. They were formed in Ciudad Jardín (a province in Buenos Aires) in 1988. They disbanded in 2009. 8. The book mentioned here will see the release of an English-language edition entitled In Black We Are Seen: Seven Approaches to Argentinian Heavy Metal, this in great measure thanks to the help of Nelson Varas-Díaz, the editing work of Daniel Nevárez Araújo, and the bravery of Intellect Books. 9. Trans. Artizar: To make more artful or to lift to the level of art. 10. The Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (National Council of Scientific and Technical Investigations, or CONICET) is an institution affiliated to the Office of the Secretary of Science, Technology, and Productive Innovation in Argentina. 11. See Scaricaciottoli, Emiliano “Piedra libre: Tenciones referenciales en las letras de heavy metal argentino a partir de la crisis política de 2001/2002” in Emiliano Scaricaciottoli (Comp.) Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino, Buenos Aires, La Parte Maldita, 2016. 12. Following a worldwide trend toward populism, Argentina elected Mauricio Macri, a hardline conservative candidate, as president in 2015. Following four years of Neoconservatism under Macri, and the latter’s failed attempts at stabilizing the Argentinian economy, Argentinians would vote against the incumbent, electing Alberto Ángel Fernández, the liberal leader of the Frente de Todos coalition, as their new president in 2019. For more on the Macri effect and its connections to metal culture, see Caballero, Diego “Argentina. Huellas metaleras de la macrisis” en http:​/​/www​​ .resu​​menla​​tinoa​​meric​​ano​.o​​rg​/20​​19​/07​​/30​/a​​rgent​​ina​-h​​uella​​s​-met​​alera​​​s​-de-​​la​-ma​​crisi​​s/ 13. Trans. Parricides: Rabid Map of Contemporary Argentinean Metal. 14. This battle continues in light of the legislative defeats that occurred in 2018. 15. Kirchnerismo or Kirchnerism is a left-leaning populist ideological movement aligned with Peronism born in Argentina in 2003, following the election of Néstor Kirchner as president.

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16. Facundo Quiroga was a popular caudillo from the province of La Rioja in Argentina, who was assassinated in Barranca Yaco on February 16, 1835, while trying to serve as mediator between the governors of two provinces in Argentina. For more on Quiroga, see Facundo: Civilización y Barbarie. (1845). 17. Trans. Tribute to Pappo: Rewriting and Desecration in the Criollo Stoner Movement. 18. Napolitano also helped found other bands, many of which were responsible for the emergence of metal in Argentina and which would be harbored under the larger poetics of “Rock Metálico.” 19. Malón is the word given to the act of raiding enemy fortifications and territories. The word originates from the surprise attacks undertaken by Mapuche tribes against Spanish forces in Chile and Argentina between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. 20. Trans. Ignorant worker. The word gil is Argentinean slang used in a pejorative sense to call someone ignorant, naïve, or gullible. Gil Trabajador, title of a song by Argentinian band Hermética, contained in their 1991 album Ácido Argentino. 21. Easy Rider (1969) and Zabriskie Point (1970) respectively. 22. The political crisis of 2001 brought about the end of Fernando De la Rúa’s government. Having served only two years as president, and responding to widespread protests, De la Rúa submitted his resignation on December 20, 2001, and proceeded to abandon the Casa Rosada (the presidential mansion) on a white helicopter. During the days leading up to his resignation, a total of thirty-eight civilians had been murdered by Argentinian police forces. 23. Alfredo Fanchiotti, who had served as commissioner of the Federal Police, would be convicted on January 9, 2006, for his role in the murder of both Maximiliano Kosteki and Darío Santillán. 24. Trans. A Desert for the Nation: A Writing of the Void. 25. Trans. The Witness. 26. Trans. Land is this one without, at the same time that he lifted his arm and shook his hand. 27. Sarmiento’s book is titled Civilization and Barbarism (1945). 28. Trans. Bands of nomad riders, natives, solitary gauchos, parting soldiers, deserters, mule drivers, cart caravans, criollo and European travelers, shop keepers, ranchers, and laborers.” 29. Juan Ignacio Pisano offers an important meditation on this subject in his essay “La pasión y la ética: un lugar para la palabra y la tradición en las letras de Iorio,” contained in the book Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino (La Parte Maldita, 2015). 30. Völkisch is a German term lacking an English equivalent. The root, volk, translates to a people. In its general sense, the word captures a folkloric essence or tendency. With the rise of Nazism in the early twentieth century, the term has come to be aligned with ideologies that harbor nationalism and racism. 31. The words ranquelina or ranquelino, used here as adjectives, come from the mapuche word ranquelche meaning “people of the sugarcane fields.” The word is comprised of the root, ranquel, which means “plain,’ particularly one as found in

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the South American pampas, and the suffix che, meaning “people.” Furthermore, the word is used when refering to those belonging to the Tehuelche or Aonikenk peoples who lived in the Northwest plains of the Argentinian pampas. 32. The author here is making a reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings book series, originally published between 1954 and 1955. 33. Trans. The Art of Forgetfulness. 34. The Toba people, also known as the Qom people, are an indigenous group inhabiting the Central Chaco in the Argentinian pampas. 35. Manal was a blues and rock group, comprised of Alejandro Medina (bass, vox, and keyboards), Claudio Gabis (guitar, harmonica, piano, and organ) and Javier Martínez (drums and vox). The trio was established in Buenos Aires in 1968 and would disband in 1971. 36. Trans. The Heidegger of La Paternal. La Paternal is a district in central Buenos Aires. 37. Tango and milonga are musical styles that originated in the Río de la Plata region, located at the border between Argentina and Uruguay. 38. Guitarist duo that played for Argentinian Tango singer/songwriter Edmundo Rivero. 39. Trans. Paradise of Pain. 40. Trans. My arm itches. 41. The choice of using bo(a)rder responds to the need to include two simultaneous and complementary meanings. First, the idea of Pappo representing an undesirable, temporarily boarding in a space where he is unwelcome. Second, to understand Pappo as someone on the fringes of each space he inhabits, even the space of rock and metal. Thus, Pappo represents simultaneously the edge of these spaces and something wholly outside of these spaces. 42. Trans. The H did not die. The phrase alludes to the group Hermética, a band fronted by Ricardo Iorio from 1987 to 1994.

REFERENCES Adorno, Theodor. 1997. Aesthetic Theory. UK: The Athlone Press. Bauman, Zygmund. 2004. Modernidad Líquida. Argentina: FCE. Blanco, Oscar and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli. 2014. Las Letras de Rock en Argentina: De la Caída de la Dictadura a la Crisis de la Democracia 1983–2001. Argentina: Colihue. Blumetti, Frank and Carlos Parise. 1993. Heavy Metal. Argentina: Ediciones Karma. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 2000. Mil Mesetas: Capitalismo y Esquizofrenia. Valencia: Pre-Textos. Ferrer, Cristian. 1990. “Melodías, Sonetos, Papers.” Babel, Revista de Libros, 18, 22–23. Hebdige, Dick. 2004. Subcultura. El significado del Estilo. Spain: Paidós. Jameson, Frederic. 1989. Documentos de Cultura, Documentos de Barbarie: La Narrativa como Acto Socialmente Simbólico. Spain: Visor Distribuciones.

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Minore, Gito, Calvo, Manuela and Emiliano Scaricaciottoli. 2014. “La Recepción de Iorio en la Academia.” In Cultura Metálica: Ponencias, Debates y Exposiciones de la 1° Feria del Libro Heavy de Buenos Aires, edited by Gito Minore, 23–38. Argentina: Clara Beter. Pacheco, Mariano. 2019. Desde Abajo y a la Izquierda. Movimientos Sociales, Autonomía y Militancias Populares. Córdoba: Cuarenta Ríos. Reynolds, Simon. 1994. “Post-Rock.” The Wire, 124, 31–48. Rodríguez, Fermín. 2010. Un Desierto para la Nación: La Escritura del Vacío. Argentina: Eterna Cadencia Editora. Rosa, Nicolás. 2004. “Parte Segunda: El Oro del Linaje.” In El Arte del Olvido, edited by Beatriz Viterbo. Rosario: Editorial Beatriz Viterbo. Sarmiento, Domingo F. 1962. [1845] Facundo o Civilización y Barbarie. Argentina: Sopena. Scaricaciottoli, Emiliano (Comp.). 2012. “Linajes y Rupturas de una Imaginación Humanista, Almafuerte, Castelnuovo, Iorio.” In Boedo: Políticas del Realismo, edited by Miguel Vitagliano, 53-76. Buenos Aires: Título. ——— 2015. Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino. Argentina: La Parte Maldita, 1° edición. ——— (Comp.). 2018. Parricidas. Mapa Rabioso del Metal Argentino Contemporáneo. Argentina: La Parte Maldita.

Section IV

MARGINALITY AND CULTURES OF RESISTANCE

Chapter 10

The Transfiguration of the Deity Maximón as a Practice of Resistance in Metal from San Pedro Sacatepéquez, San Marcos, Guatemala Mario Efraín Castañeda Maldonado

In this chapter,1 I make a brief and general analysis of two of the songs from the band The Maximones, included in their cassette entitled Váyanse o Mueran (Leave or Die) (2018). The objective is to explain the importance of the band The Maximones in the recovery of pre-Hispanic elements as expressed in the figure of Maximón and the use of contemporary resistance elements through their adoption of thrash metal. The chapter seeks to analyze the content of historical resistance that the band enunciates following its appropriation and resignification of the deity Maximón (Rilaj Mam). Two key questions will be addressed herein: What type of social criticism is reflected in the interpretations of The Maximones throughout their album “Váyanse o Mueran”? Also, what is the importance of Maximón (Rilaj Mam) as a central element in the identity of the group and the lyrical content in their music? In order to do this, the chapter first paints a portrait of Guatemala through a historical synthesis. This synthesis takes into account the construction of racism during its different stages, including economic submission, exclusion from the political sphere, denial of the indigenous populations under the category of indio, and the plot toward cultural extermination of the indigenous populations in the name of a “civilizing” processes. Regarding this last stage, the figure of Maximón has become one of the referents of resistance, signifying the spirituality of the native and mestizo/Ladino peoples and primarily being cast as a provider and protective character. Afterwards, this chapter explains, in general terms, who Maximón (Rilaj Mam) is and the difference that exists between San Simón/Maximón. These last names are, among others, those that can receive the figure of Maximón 219

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depending on the context. Then, the analysis will focus on the band The Maximones, showcasing some of the aspects that give the band its identity as a long-standing musical project that rose out of the shadows of the group Carroña por Represión (Rotting From Repression; CPR). The chapter relies on the concept of the structures of feeling as developed by Raymond Williams (1977), to explain the meaning of the lyrics in the songs Plegaria (or Prayer) and Maximón, doing so from a historical and experiential perspective. Finally, the chapter moves on to the interpretation of the songs from the perspective of Global Analysis, as proposed by Uwe Flick (2013; 2014), to evidence the thematic scope of the content in both compositions. GUATEMALA: BETWEEN COLONIZATION AND LIBERAL/NEOLIBERAL SPOLIATION Located in the northernmost segment of Central America, Guatemala, like other countries in Latin America, has felt the effects of colonization. To understand the relationship between the figure of Maximón and the band The Maximones, it is important to contextualize part of Guatemalan history. The Spanish invasion and the establishment of its colonial rule starting in the sixteenth century laid the foundations of a racist and exclusionary society. The indigenous population resisted in many ways, particularly through its entrenched spirituality. The indio was subjected to pillage and neglect. Over this scaffolding a social stratification system was built which established whiteness as one of the mechanisms of exclusion. The country’s independence from Spain in 1821 was, in effect, the product of a political pact between conservatives and liberals, who in turn denied the participation of the indigenous population in the forging of a new society. The annexation into the Iturbide Empire (or First Mexican Empire) and the subsequent failure of an attempted Central American unification, evidenced that the disputes between both sides, would prolong the confrontation over the domination and consolidation of a State that built an idea of a nation without any other referents beyond those of the elites. From the last quarter of the nineteenth century until 1944, liberals maintained the political and economic control of the country, thanks in great part to the support of the United States and the influx of German capital (financial system, rail, production, and external marketing of bananas and coffee). In light of this, farming became the axis of domination of social relations in rural areas (Tischler 2005), while in urban areas, precarious industrialization subsumed the population in a social stalemate under military authoritarianism. At this time, the “civilizing” agendas of the elites and the State were at their peak. “Civilizing” the indio meant stripping collective ownership of land, subjecting them to forced labor on farms and in

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infrastructure projects for the State, and eliminating their culture so that the country could then move toward “progress.” The so-called “Democratic Spring,” which began with the October 1944 Revolution that overthrew Federico Ponce Vaides, achieved through the governments of Juan José Arévalo Bermejo and Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán the modernization of the State through social reforms of great impact and structural changes. These reforms included the Agrarian Reform. The latter would lead to the overthrow of Árbenz by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1954, primarily because of the effects of the reform on the profits of the United Fruit Company (UFCO).2 This intervention generated a climate of ideological polarization which would boil over into a series of coups which led to the Internal Armed Conflict (1960–1996), a war which saw the active involvement of the United States and in which, during its most violent stage (1970–1985), the counterinsurgent State massacred indigenous and peasant populations, especially those located in the highlands. Ten years before the end of the war, a process of democratization began (1986) generating hope within civil society that the conflict would soon end. However, the implementation of neoliberal policies and the inability of the State in defining an inclusive political agenda guided by the Peace Treaties, contributed to deepening inequities and the accompanying economic, political, and social consequences. The conflicts over the defense of natural resources against mining and hydroelectric power are still ongoing and have generated the imprisonment and murder of several community leaders. In addition, the political crisis of 2015 evidenced not only the high level of corruption present within the government but also its links to political, economic, and military actors involved during the internal war. This generated a struggle between the elites themselves, which has had as a consequence the closing of spaces for political participation for anyone in organized civil society. Maximón, as we will see here, becomes a popular reference accompanying the Guatemalan population in their different types of resistance, but particularly among indigenous populations where the cult of Maximón and the practices that define it, are, dialectically, in tension with the different forms of local and national power. WHO IS MAXIMÓN? Much has been written about Maximón, particularly from a cultural, sociopolitical and religious perspective (Marín 2014). This segment will try to elaborate a precise definition of who Maximón is, his characteristics, and his importance in the cultural life of Guatemala. Defining Maximón is not an easy task. The complexity around his cult is enormous. Maximón is the

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expression of the ambiguities of a long-standing religious conflict because it is part of “an agreement to disagree in the field of religious beliefs (which) is still the undercurrent of the apparent peace from a situation that has already lasted over 400 years” (Mendelson 1965, 201). According to Manlio Soto Paiz’s (2018) work entitled “Maximón y Lo Inconsciente Colectivo —Arquetipo y Simbologías” (Maximón and the Collective Unconscious— Archetype and Symbologies), Maximón is a deity that cannot be understood or explained from Western parameters such as “idolatry,” “primitivism,” or even Christian moral categories such as “good” and “bad” (Soto 2018, 52). This refers in particular to the Maximón who is venerated in Santiago Atitlán, a municipality of the department of Sololá, located in the west of the country. Maximón is the object of veneration throughout the Republic. However, there is a difference between the Maximón (Rilaj Mam) of the Tz’utuhil population of Santiago Atitlán and the Maximón from other villages, where he is also known as San Simón. In that sense, Rilaj refers to the elders of the town and Mam to the ancestors, grandparents, wise men, and women who harken back to the beginning of time, as well as to an “ancient nawal.” Part of the ambiguity mentioned by Mendelson is the fact that the deity receives additional names to those already mentioned, which include San Simón, Judas, Judas Tadeo, Simón Pedro, and Pedro de Alvarado, reflecting the conflict and the partial, but constant resolution as a negotiation between Christianity and the original Mesoamerican spiritual and religious conception (Taracena 2003, 2). The Rilaj Mam protects traders, helps farmers’ crops, and is an intermediary in both requests for good and, sometimes, evil (Taracena 2003, 5). Its sacred place is a temple-guild which people from any social stratum, ethnicity, or religious creed can visit. This guild, made up of people who offer their trades for free, takes care of and maintains the rituals dedicated to Maximón as well as the temple structure and social organization. That is, it contains a charge system that dates to the pre-Hispanic period and represents a community’s prestige. The Telinel is one of the important positions within this guild, because the person chosen is responsible for dressing the image of Rilaj Mam. In addition, during the Holy Week commemoration, the Telinel dances, walks, and eats with the image (Taracena 2003, 4; Paz 2014, 63; Cabrera 2015, 161). However, this form of organization has been violated at different times by the growth of fundamentalist churches, and especially during the bloodiest stage of the internal war (1980s) as part of the counterinsurgency of the Guatemalan State in the impoverished indigenous and peasant communities (Taracena, 2003, 3–4). Regarding Maximón’s origin, there are several legends based on the oral tradition which refer to the creation of the deity from the tz′ atel (Erithrina corallodendron) or “whistle tree” (Soto 2018, 50). According to these, Maximón was created out of a need to reorganize the sexual order. Similarly,

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the relationship with the Popol Wuj or Popol Vuh (sacred book of the Quichés) represents him as a being who travels through different universes, flies, prophesies, can see through things, acquires different forms, and invokes the help of other spiritual beings. For the Tz′ utuhil population, its presence evokes the participation of ancestors, protective spirits, and saints for agricultural benefits and protection against diseases, enemies, and anything that hinders general well-being (Taracena, 2003, 6). The latter, says Taracena referring to Mendelson, corresponds to the cyclical vision of time among the Tz′ utuhil people where events are repeated with a pattern of salvation from social conflicts (Taracena 2003: 6). Maximón (see figure 10.1) is represented in the form of a rustic sculpture of a human figure made with tz’atel wood, a tree used for traditional medicine, divination, ritual practices, and amulets due to its supernatural and mystical properties. He wears the skof or white cloth shorts made in a loom and adorned with bird figures, and an ajtun or heather shirt in red, blue, and green colors. In addition, he usually carries a red and brown tzute on his back, a garment worn by the principals3 of the traditional guilds and authorities of the K′ iche′ , Kaqchiquel, and Tz′ utuhil peoples who live around Lake Atitlán, Sololá, which symbolizes power and hierarchy. Finally, he also uses Texanstyle leather boots. The head is covered with handkerchiefs embroidered with several colored figures and tied around the neck: there is a considerable amount of silk handkerchiefs in the manner of ties (Taracena 2003, 2). It is important to emphasize that Maximón differs from San Simón since those who worship each are different according to cultural and conscientious interests4 (García 2017, 19). However, the two share the commonality of belonging to a guild.5 The first, called Rilaj Mam or the Great Grandfather,6 is revered throughout all the year but, especially, during Holy Week, as Nawal of importance, mainly in Santiago Atitlán, Sololá, In the case of San Simón, according to Carlos René García Escobar (2017), one of the many images of him in Guatemala is in the municipality of San Andrés Itzapa, department of Chimaltenango. The main characteristics of its magical and semi-religious cult are expressed through a life-size image that bears mestizo clothing, black hair and mustaches, a cane of the Mayan guild kakchikel and, unlike Rilaj Mam, it never goes out in procession. It is a mestizo saint revered through prayers, colored candles and different meanings. There is, additionally, the practice, on the part of visitors, of cigar smoking and being sprayed on the body with herbs called “of the seven mountains,” together with a liquor intake called “Quetzalteca.”7 It is attended by people from different social classes, ethnicities, and genders, as well as politicians and military personnel who have held high-level positions within the Guatemalan State (García 2017: 18). It is evident that San Simón is called interchangeably Maximón, but both are different. San Simón belongs to the indigenous and

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Figure 10.1  Maximón Represented in the Form of a Rustic Sculpture of a Human Figure Made with tz’atel Wood. Source: Photo provided by Mario Castañeda.

mestizo/Ladino spaces which makes it a syncretic, pluri-, inter-, intra-ethnic, and cultural phenomenon (Taracena 2003, 6). Establishing all of the above will allow us to better understand the meaning of the band The Maximones and the validity of Maximón as an expression of religious and cultural resistance as will be explored in the next section.

THE MAXIMIONES: METAL IN RESISTANCE The Maximones is a metal band from the municipality of San Pedro Sacatepéquez, a department of San Marcos, Guatemala. They formed in 2013 and consolidated in 2015. The band is comprised of guitarists Robin

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Orozco (Vucub Camé) and José Chavarría (Xic Patán/Xic and Patán), bassist Juan Carlos Fuentes (Chamia Jolom/Chamiholom), vocalist Ludwing Orozco (Hun Camé/Hun Came), and drummer Roberto Oliva (Xic Patán/Xic and Patán).8 They identify themselves as having a thrash-hardcore-punk-metal sound. Their music evolved after several of the members participated in another group called Carroña por Represión (Carrion By Repression; CPR).9 They explain the name of the band as follows: Something that greatly influenced the name of the band was that with CPR we had a song called “Maximón.” Obviously, what we wanted to convey with that song was identity, pride, something of our own; syncretism and, say, all that culture from our country. (. . .) We put the name for some of our influences because we like thrash metal and punk. We made a mix of bands that we liked10 and in the end it was something like a joke, a satire, but it was our own. (. . .) It was then that Maximones came out as a figure that is resilient, not as much as St. Simon who people worship, but in the end, it was a figure that the Catholic Church had to accept and people continue to worship him. Then it is based as a tribute to (sic) the resistance of the peoples, that we decided to give it that name (The Maximones, interview March 2019).

Defining the name of the group implied two important aspects: first, the link with their previous trajectory as an anti-establishment musical project, and second, their identities as mestizo, a fact which the band’s name brings to the fore.11 Therefore, talking about syncretism raises two defining ideas: (a) the mestizo conception of the members about the historical events that have influenced them politically, socially, economically, and culturally, and that are expressed in their songs, and (b) the concept of “syncretism”—which is nowadays a forgotten category12 in certain academic fields, but which is often used in everyday life—enters into a political positioning dialogue. Therefore, the syncretism mentioned in the previous quotation, in this case seen from the perspective of Flavio Rojas Lima who explains it as a dialectical process of two opposing components in permanent opposition and not as the “indissoluble mixture of two cultural aspects (. . .) or the cohesion of two contradictory slopes that come together and give rise to a third expression” (Hernández 2014; Rojas 1983), suggests that the presence of the Mayan elements is stronger than what is superficially appreciated. In an interview with the digital media outlet El hijo del blues (The son of the blues), The Maximones extended their reasons for naming the band, arguing that the concept of the band from its conception, was to tell our own stories and experiences. Much of the ancestral wisdom of the original peoples were told that way, orally, they were transmitted from mouth to mouth. We were particularly

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influenced by Popol Vuh (. . .) and along with that, the social situation in Guatemala also marked us, which we have been replicating since the conquest and colonization, and then by a local mercantilist State which is where we live today, with a systematic processes of a total breakdown of the social fabric, through the imposition of social models foreign to our culture, such as the case of Christianization. (. . .) Much can be said about Maximon [sic], there are various currents and concepts, from the saint, the sorcerer, the Mayan god, etc. But we wanted to reinvent a character, half god, half extraterrestrial13 (see figure 10.2) and managed in that sense, half myth and half reality. Investigating a bit we were struck by the concept of Maximón [sic], which the Mayan T’zituiles (sic) brothers of the region have on the shores of Lake Atitlán in Sololá. There he is known as Rilaj Mam “Grandpa Maximon” [sic], (. . .) giving the role of protector of forests, cornfields, waters and the T’zituil people (sic). (Hijos del Blues, interview transcribed July 2017).

We understand that an anti-establishment artistic expression such as the one offered by The Maximones (see figure 10.3) strengthens from a mestizo

Figure 10.2  Cover Artwork for the Album Váyanse o Mueran by the Band The Maximones. Source: Image provided by Robin Rodrigo Orozco.

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Figure 10.3  The Maximones in Concert. Source: Photo provided by Ana Cecilia Cóbar Falla.

perspective the approach to complex processes of which they are part of directly and/or indirectly. Also, the affinity with different forms of resistance of the indigenous peoples is assumed from an angle of clear self-identification with their struggles, as well as with other peoples that are resisting against mining, hydroelectric, and other processes of plundering natural resources and population. That is, the use of “syncretism,” as a word through which The Maximones interpret and position their music and lyrical contents, is not problematic as long as it is understood from other saberes (a more experiential rather than cognitive type of knowledge) and linked to the resistance of the different peoples in Guatemala. In that sense, the figure of Maximón is represented as an expression of resistance through a metal band. That is, the vision of the world from the perspective of the members of The Maximones represents the continuity by other means of this conflicting exchange of cultural elements (Rojas 1983, 93–104). As such, it expresses its permanence in time through the different forms of its opposition as Rilaj Mam or Maximón. From that approach, one would not speak of syncretism from the perspective of the group around Rilaj Mam/Maximón, since its presence in the concrete life of the peoples venerating him remains with many elements typical of ancestral saberes.

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“VÁYANSE O MUERAN,” MAXIMÓN IS WITH US!: THE SOUNDS AND VOICES OF RESISTANCE In 2017, the CD entitled “Váyanse o Mueran” was released under the Xibalbá Record label. A year later, Nebiros Productions made a cassette edition of this album. The CD contains eight songs; the tape added an extra song to the tracklist. The additional song is a live version of the song S.S.A. (acronym for Siempre Seremos Anarquistas—We Will Always be Anarchists, also performed by CPR), originally from the Mexican band Trincheras de Guadalajara. Unlike other Guatemalan metal bands, The Maximones concentrate their lyrical output on a constant attention to social criticism and denunciation. Although the mestizo character constructed in their lyrics refers to interpretations of local, regional, and national contextual influences, their proposal is framed within interpretations of what they see as the convergence, or fusion, of what is real with otherwise fictional components. This dialectic draws attention to their creative process and the ways in which it develops; in these ways The Maximones invite us to interpret their music not only from what is given, which in this case would be their final recording, but from what we carry as individuals from the social experience. This brings to mind Raymond Williams who argues that the structure of feeling refers to concerns with meanings and values as they are actively lived and felt, and the relations between these and formal or systematic beliefs are in practice variable (including historically variable), over a range from formal assent with private dissent to the more nuanced interaction between selected and interpreted beliefs and acted and justified experiences. . . . Yet we are also defining a social experience which is still in process, often indeed not yet recognized as social. (Williams 1977, 132)

Expanding Williams’s approach, Cáceres (2014)14 explains that artistic creation is conditioned in totality as an understanding of the world; a relationship between consciousness and reality where the subject/object duality is not considered, because human interaction in the art production process is found within daily activities and in a diverse range of images that are in the permanent communicative act. The structure of feeling is the understanding of the culture of a period and in its entirety, without dualisms, and appreciating the transformations of social experience through interpretation and practical experience in its emergence, before moving to a greater level of articulation, not only between external aspects of the structure but within it (Cáceres, 2014). Thus, we place this continuity of the medium’s duration in Guatemalan social time, since CPR was constituted and transformed by recovering creations made in the 1990s with the articulation of The Maximones in the second decade of

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the twenty-first century. Thus, they create a continuity marked by a geographical space, the link with the national situation, and the recovery of the cultural aspects experienced and inter-textualized from literature, work, and student life, as well as several of its member’s social activism. These processes are under development and not yet completed. This can be seen when they state: What do we want? We want to live well, we want to live in peace. What does that mean? We are neither communists nor socialists, because we would have to be in another system to really say we are communists. What we want is a speech in favor (. . .) of the most disadvantaged. Soon, nothing: crisis of garbage, of water, that is, all those things, someone has to say the ugly things and the things nobody likes, right? (. . .) We have lived it (The Maximones, interview March 2019).

The preceding quotation can be understood from the perspective proposed by Williams, in the sense that The Maximones can foster this conflict within the dominant cultural production, which tries to hegemonize or subordinate other expressions. This emergence is in constant renewal and creation. Therefore, its potential lies in the fact that the forms created as static and finished cannot be perceived: Regarding the composition of music (. . .), we have always had that vision of, for example, as Maximones, trying to make songs that are not only made up of three chords and that’s it. I’m not demeaning those kind of songs because with two chords, three chords one can express a lot; but we try to make complete songs. We like to be one step ahead of what we can give. (The Maximones, Interview, March 2019).

That means that experience is always under development, creating and entering into conflicted relationships in which human experience contributes to the understanding of reality and its capabilities, where the rational and emotional converge, and where the individual has the possibility to modify the rules of their experience and experimentation. In general, the lyrics of all the songs refer to processes of social and historical resistance against the Spanish invasion, as well as the importance of Maximón as a figure that accompanies and protects the peoples. Social justice is demanded and the impact of capitalist violence expressed in fear, consumerism, corruption, and foreign interference is questioned by rescuing and highlighting the ways in which the subaltern sectors confront different forms of domination, in addition to invoking Mesoamerican musical and literary influences. In concluding this segment it must be mentioned that The Maximones have undergone a process which began with moments of recovery of their inherited

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artistic production (from the time when they were CPR), and culminated with a stage of conceptual renewal in their musical and lyrical output. The social experience consists of individual and collective perceptions and interpretations complemented by individual creations in terms of musical composition. Creation, which is in constant motion, is nourished by events of short and long duration, condensed in the present, not as a dead past, but as a living, re-signified experience. The analysis of the songs Plegaria and Maximón in the next section will evidence this. “VÁYANSE O MUERAN” IN TWO CONCRETE REFLECTIONS This section analyzes the content of two of the songs recorded by the band: Plegaria and Maximón. The criteria for choosing them can be boiled down to the following: (a) first, they are two songs produced during their CPR era and recreated for this recording along with others that are exclusively part of the material of The Maximones; this allows us to factor in the continuity from the emergence to the development, and (b) second, in the case of the song Maximón, the song itself addresses the social, political, economic, and cultural complexity of Guatemala, thus providing us with a window not only into the band’s thought and creative process, but into a useful representation of the country. In order to approach these songs, I have decided to rely on the Global Analysis approach, a methodology which helps elaborate “an overview of the thematic scope of the text” (Flick, cited in Mac Donald 2014, 2). The approach was conducted in four stages: (a) the preparation of a table that includes each line of the lyrics of the songs, a summary and an initial transcription of the text; (b) a table containing keywords; (c) a generator of central categories and ideas in alphabetical hierarchy; and (d) a section for the reconstruction of the story. The lyrics of the songs have been written as they are heard in the recording. It is worth noting that coding the sentences of the lyrics from the superficiality of the texts, that is, the a priori reality of each one, is part of the act of textual analysis which itself hopefully allows us to make visible the created statements and narratives (Flick, quoted in Mac Donald 2014, 7). The objective is to find what is outside the text by reconstructing the narrative, another textual reality (Navarro and Díaz, cited by Mac Donald 2014, 7) to be examined beyond those same lyrics in the syntactic sphere. The second step involves moving from the syntactic to the semantic, from the textual to the interpretative, allowing us to find the text’s meaning (Navarro and Díaz, cited by Mac Donald 2014, 8). The third step helps in identifying what is outside the text, in order to achieve the unification of the schematic and interpretative

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levels so as to describe the central nodes of the discourse. The resulting reflection reaches the level of interpretation, a minimum explanatory level considering that we are dealing with two individual songs whose origin is dependent on the production of a cultural object framed within a process of medium and long data. The analysis will address Plegaria first, and then Maximón, thus respecting the order in which they appear on the CD and the cassette (see tables 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3). The hierarchy synthesizes the following aspects: 1. The context in which this song is intertextualized with some paint or mural, possibly corresponding to the late 1980s or early 1990s, when the so-called Internal Armed Conflict (or Civil War) was still latent. 2. Cultural resistance through Maximón as a companion to the fighting processes of the excluded populations merges along with the guerrilla presence. It works in the context of the Cold War and the possibilities of seizing power through revolutionary violence. The “homeland” is vital in that it synthesizes the geographical, but also brings together the struggles, and is inferior in hierarchical terms to Maximón, while he accompanies this process of suffering and, at the same time, of liberation. The lyrics were composed after having seen a mural at the University of San Carlos in the mid-1990s in which the Our Father prayer had been turned into a kind of request for help: “Our Father who is in Havana.” This intertextuality refers to a revolutionary expression15 within the context of the internal war (1960–1996) in which, according to the band, it was a desperate cry from the people who remained in the crossfire because of repression: Guatemala supplied the dead and the army the bullets (The Maximones, interview March 2019). Throughout the lyrics it is evident that in the intervention of the religious discourse constituted by the “Our Father,” the mural or painting expresses a prayer that transforms the Catholic religion into an obviously political form. Thus, the prayer is thought to favor Guatemala in particular and Central America in general whose situation of violence was marked by wars, particularly in Nicaragua and El Salvador. This transformation of the prayer is re-signified and accompanied by the presence of Maximón (see tables 10.4, 10.5, and 10.6). The previous hierarchy presents the following elements as fundamental: 1. The local/national identity emerges based on practices that remain through time and in everyday life as long as they are understood as recognized activities in which a considerable amount of the population participates through the veneration of a provider and protective image. 2. The mediations for exercising the corresponding rituals to offer and ask Maximón are characterized by the use of local origin objects. 3. Popular ritual accompanied by alcohol intake.

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Table 10.1  Coding 1: Summary and Initial Transcription of the Song Plegaria Lyrics of the song Plegaria. The Maximones, Váyanse o Mueran (2018) Spanish Padre nuestro que estás en la Habana santificado sea tu régimen Venga a nosotros tu ideología insana Hágase tu voluntad en toda Guatemala

English Translation

En todo el territorio centroamericano

Our Father who art in Havana, hallowed be thy regime Thy insane ideology come Thy will will be done throughout Guatemala In all the Central American territory

Plegaria centroamericana Plegaria centroamericana

Central American Prayer Central American Prayer

Dios te salve patria mía, ayudados por la guerrilla Llena eres en desgracia, Maximón está contigo

Hail homeland, aided by the guerrillas Full of disgrace, Maximón is with you

Plegaria centroamericana Plegaria centroamericana

Central American Prayer Central American Prayer

Haznos el favor de acabar con la burguesía Líbranos de tanta lacra policía Llena eres en desgracia, Maximón está contigo

Grant us the favor of ending the bourgeoisie Deliver us from the corrupt police Full of disgrace, Maximón is with you

Plegaria centroamericana Plegaria centroamericana Line No. Summary and transcription 1 Prayer to Fidel Castro

Central American Prayer Central American Prayer Original text by line

2 3

Fighting ideas Change the country

4 5

Change Central America Prayer

6 7 8

Armed struggle for liberation Homeland wounded but not helpless Prayer

9

Class struggle

10 11

Against the abuse of power Homeland wounded but not helpless Prayer

12

Our Father who art in Havana, hallowed be thy regime Thy insane ideology come Thy will will be done throughout Guatemala In all the Central American territory Central American Prayer Central American Prayer Hail homeland, aided by the guerrillas Full of disgrace, Maximón is with you Central American Prayer Central American Prayer Grant us the favor of ending the bourgeoisie Deliver us from the corrupt police Full of disgrace, Maximón is with you Central American Prayer Central American Prayer

Source: Own elaboration based on the lyrics of the song Plegaria.

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Table 10.2  Coding 2: Keywords of the Song Plegaria Line No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Keywords Our father, Havana, regime Ideology Will, Guatemala Central American Territory Central American Prayer God, homeland, guerrilla Full, disgrace, Maximón Central American Prayer Ending, bourgeoisie Corrupt, police Full, disgrace, Maximón Central American Prayer

Source: Own elaboration based on Coding 1—Table 1.

Table 10.3  Coding 3: Generator of Categories and Central Ideas in Alphabetical Hierarchy Based on the Song Plegaria Category Conversion and re-appropriation of Our Father prayer Socialist ideology

Armed struggle

Maximón as a companion and protector

Reconstruction of the Story Change in the content and meaning of the “Our Father” prayer to claim a relevant historical moment of the popular and guerrilla struggles in Central America. Prayer to Fidel Castro, seen as the equivalent of a maximum leader of the Latin American Revolution, from an intertextuality perspective (revolutionary prayer included in a paint or mural). Awareness of the political and social processes of the Central American region and the need to eliminate corruption, abuse of authority, and the bourgeoisie. The guerrillas as an important subject in the liberation of the Central American people. The liberation is found in the relationship with Maximón and the search for the elimination of the bourgeoisie and its violent control apparatus: the police. Maximón shelters the country and accompanies her in the fight. Although the prayer is Central American, Maximón is limited to the concept “country.” The homeland is the space that harbors social ills and, while suffering, awaits the arrival of a socialist ideological model through armed struggle and the accompaniment of Maximón as a caretaker.

Source: Own elaboration based on the Coding 2—Table 2.

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Table 10.4  Coding 1: Summary and Initial Transcription of the Song Maximón Lyrics of the song Maximón. The Maximones, Váyanse o Mueran (2018) Spanish English Translation Cerdos asqueados de tanto chupar Sello de oro venado y ron Botrán.

Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum.

Yo soy nacionalista y alabo a Maximón. Que abunde la cusha, que role la mota, frijoles de brujo, candelas de cebo, esencias de mirra, aceite de clavo.

I am a nationalist and I praise Maximón. Let the cusha* flow, let the mota** roll, sorcerer’s beans, bait candles, myrrh essences, clove oil.

Cerdos asqueados de tanto chupar Sello de oro venado y ron Botrán.

Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum.

Maximón haznos favores queremos frijoles, queremos más cutos. Que abunde la cusha, que role el chancuaco, peyote y hongos, y que nos protejas.

Maximón do us some favors, we want beans, we want more cutos***. Let the cusha flow, let the chancuaco roll****, peyote and mushrooms, and protect us.

Yo soy nacionalista y alabo a Maximón. Que abunde la cusha, que role la mota, frijoles de brujo, candelas de cebo, esencias de mirra, aceite de clavo. Cerdos asqueados de tanto chupar Sello de oro venado y ron Botrán. Line No.

Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum.

Summary and Transcription

1

Excessive liquor consumption.

2 3

National and cultural claim. Use of narcotics and elements for ritual worship of Maximón.

4

Excessive liquor consumption.

5

Request for traditional foods and liquor. Petition to eliminate corruption and political crime.

6

I am a nationalist and I praise Maximón. Let the cusha abound, let the mota roll, sorcerer’s beans, bait candles, myrrh essences, clove oil.

7 8

Excessive liquor consumption. Use of narcotics and elements for ritual worship of Maximón.

9

Excess liquor consumption.

Original Text by Line Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum. I am a nationalist and I praise Maximón. Let the cusha flow, the mota roll, sorcerer’s beans, bait candles, myrrh essences, clove oil. Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum. Maximón do us some favors, we want beans, we want more cutos. Let the cusha abound, let the chancuaco roll, peyote and mushrooms, and protect us. I am a nationalist and I praise Maximón. Let the cusha flow, let the mota roll, sorcerer’s beans, bait candles, myrrh essences, clove oil. Pigs disgusted from drinking too much Gold Seal Deer and Botrán rum.

Source: Own elaboration based on the lyrics of the song Maximón. * Homemade rum, equivalent to moonshine. ** Spanish slang for marijuana. *** Alcoholic drink. **** Cigars.

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Table 10.5  Coding 2: Keywords of the Song Maximón Line No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Keywords Pigs, drinking Nationalist, Maximón Cusha, mota, beans, sorcerer, candles, myrrh, oil Pigs, drinking Maximón, beans, liquor Maximón, favors, political thieves Liquor, tobacco, natural drugs, protection Cusha, mota, beans, sorcerer, candles, myrrh, oil Pigs, drinking

Source: Own elaboration based on Coding 1—Table 4.

The song “Maximón” is expressly a construction of vindication and affirmation of the presence of one of the most revered images in Guatemala. Created during the end of the twentieth century, it is impregnated with the last parts of the internal war and the early stages of the members of CPR, who were in the department of San Marcos, experiencing the conflict and the conditions which were different than those lived in the capital. In addition, the social construction of being young at that time is reflected.

Table 10.6  Coding 3: Generator of Categories and Central Ideas in Alphabetical ­Hierarchy Based on the Song Maximón Category Drunkenness and natural drug National and local identity Maximón as a supplier and protector Rituals

Reconstruction of the Story The exacerbated alcohol consumption is established from a meeting space. Collective socialization where alcohol and natural drugs are the mediators. Nationalism is recognized as part of an identity discourse by local/national practices linked to the figure of Maximón, which may be Rilaj Mam or San Simón, depending on the context. Food and popular uses of intoxicating drinks synthesize two common daily problems in most villages. Without specific offerings there is no complete veneration. All the elements of the ritual for veneration must be based on key requirements for Maximón.

Source: Own elaboration based on the Coding 2—Table 5.

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MAXIMÓN AND THE MAXIMONES RESISTING In conclusion, this analysis states that The Maximones is one of the few metal bands in Guatemala addressing social issues and criticism in their discourse. The elements that make up this positioning revolve around: (1) the recovery of historical memory and collective memories; (2) the impact of the Internal Armed Conflict (1960–1996); (3) the popular ritual of ancestral heritage in permanent opposition to the religious, political, and cultural impositions; (4) the U.S. interference in politics and economics, and through direct damage in the form of medical experiments; (5) the struggle fought by the indigenous peoples before the Spanish invasion during the sixteenth century; and (6) the established fear from political control and corruption. Aspects of musical creation are permeated through both social and musical influences derived from punk and metal. Its continuity after the existence of CPR and their subsequent transformation into The Maximones evidences the band’s artistic bent, linking local (ritual), national (political processes and society), and regional elements (Central America). Maximón articulates the sociocultural elements in their process as a group and, together with their individual experiences, is presented as a cultural creation denouncing and re-signifying the sense of belonging to a territory. Maximón is transfigured since he is identified, recognized, and vindicated in all of his many faces, and in the different expressions he manifests, from being the Rilaj Mam to possibly being San Simón. NOTES 1. A profound thank you goes out to Ramiro Mac Donald, Diego Vásquez, Lina Barrios, Ricardo Sáenz, Susana Álvarez, Marco García, Omar Lucas and Ana Cecilia Cóbar Falla. 2. The documentary Los Diablos no Sueñan (The Devils Don’t Dream; 1995), by Andreas Hoessli: https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=BJd​​​glJ5I​​vIg can be helpful for understanding the overthrow of Árbenz in addition to the extensive bibliography written about it. 3. According to Flavio Rojas (s/f), in an analysis of his ethnographic work between 1979 and 1980 and conducted in a Quiché town, it may also be applicable to other communities in the region. It defines that the main ones are the leaders (Aj-Patán or those who serve) of certain parts of the town. They appoint the men who lead the guilds for two years as well as the indigenous mayor or second mayor. They administer justice in local minor conflicts, organize community benefit work, are mediators between national authorities and communities through the relationship established with the Ladino or Mestizo City Hall, and are representatives of the community outside of them. I assume it is from the northern and western highlands.

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4. It is important to emphasize that both are venerated throughout a vast extension of the national territory, but the cult of Rilaj Mam is more specific of peoples originating in western Guatemalan, while San Simón, also called Maximón, is more venerated in mestizo population. 5. The guild is an important structure as an organization of cultural resistance against the modernity that violates the indigenous identity (Rojas, s/f, 259). 6. Ri Laj Mam means old grandfather. Laj Mam is Grandfather, Maximón: Ma refers to Man while Maxim is Moored. That is, Man/Grandpa Moored known as Sacred Wrapping. 7. Also called “eighth” or “cuto.” 8. This part shows the real names and pseudonyms of each member. The latter are taken from the Popol Vuh, known as the “Sacred Book of the Quichés” or “The Book of the Word.” 9. Another reason for naming the group like this is because CPR was also the acronym of the Resistance Population Communities, which were fleeing from the Guatemalan army siege against the civilian population during the Internal Armed Conflict, particularly during the 1980s until the signing of a peace treaty in 1996. The ages of the older members are 37, 42, and 45, while the two youngest are 25 and 31 years old. 10. They specifically mentioned The Misfits, but one can also consider bands like The Exploited and The Clash, among others. 11. This is how they identify themselves, according to a telephone communication with Robin Orozco, guitarist of the band, on July 20, 2019. 12. Archaeologist Diego Vásquez and anthropologist Lina Barrios, in personal communication, explained that from an Anthropological perspective, “syncretism” is an obsolete category. Its use is considered as the denial of social elements of organization and culture of many of today’s Mayan communities. Instead, they say, it is more appropriate to use “resistance.” 13. In personal conversation with Robin, guitarist of the group, he explained that this idea of “extraterrestrial” was also part of the creative process of mixing other subjects of interest and tastes of the members as an object of fiction. This is reflected on the cover of the disc and cassette “Váyanse o Mueran,” which represents, in some way, the warriors of Xetulul, referred to in the song “Tambores de Guerra,” where the reflection on the conquest highlights the human but not earthly qualities of these warriors. The cover art was made by Boanner Lares. The image corresponds to the cover of the disc and the cassette. 14. In: https​:/​/sc​​ielo.​​conic​​yt​.cl​​/scie​​lo​.ph​​p​?scr​​ipt​=s​​ci​_ar​​ttext​​&pid=​​S0718​​-237​6​​ 20140​​00100​​010#6.​ 15. Within the war context, the University of San Carlos de Guatemala was one of the most important institutions in terms of academic, cultural, social, and political resistance against repression. Many students participated in student associations, and professors were linked to different sectors of the social upheaval or the same armed movement which agglutinated in the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit (URNG).

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REFERENCES Cabrera, Roberto. 2015. “Ri Laj Mam (Maximón) y San Simón: Dos Cultos y Rituales en sus Contextos e Identidades Socio-Histórico-Culturales: Precolombino, Colonial, Independiente, Moderno y Postmoderno / Global.” In Cabrera: Testimonios, Entrevistas, Documentos—Colección Retrato Hablado, 151–172. Guatemala: Catafixia Editorial. Cáceres, Jorge. 2014. “Las Formas Fijas y Sus Márgenes: Sobre ‘Estructuras de Sentimiento’ de Raymond Williams. Una Trayectoria.” UNIVERSUM, 29 (1): 173–191. Flick, Uwe. 2013. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Data Analysis. USA: SAGE Publications. ———. 2014. “Challenges for Qualitative Inquiry as Global Endeavor: Introduction to the Special Issue.” Qualitative Inquiry, 20 (9): 1059–1063. García Escobar, Carlos René. 2017. “San Simón, Ícono Sagrado de los Relegados de los Cristianos”. Revista Egresados, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Escuela de Historia, 4: 14–20. Hernández, Oswaldo. 2014. “Flavio Rojas o el Ritual de la Resistencia.” In Plaza Pública. doi: https​:/​/ww​​w​.pla​​zapub​​lica.​​com​.g​​t​/con​​tent/​​flavi​​o​-roj​​as​-li​​ma​-o-​​el​-ri​​ tual-​​​de​-la​​-resi​​stenc​​ia Mac Donald, Ramiro. 2014. El Araucano: Proyecto Investigativo Cualitativo. ChileGuatemala: Universidad de Artes, Ciencias y Comunicación (UNIACC). Marín, Mónica. 2014. Prostitución y Religión: El Kumbala Bar y el Culto a San Simón en un Lugar Llamado Macondo de la frontera México Guatemala. Thesis to obtain an MA degree in Social Anthropology. Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS). Mendelson, Michael. 1965. Los Escándalos de Maximón. Guatemala: Seminario de Integración Social Guatemalteca, Ministerio de Educación. Paz, Guillermo. 2014. “El Poder del Rilaj Mam (Maximón).” In Revelaciones - El Retablo, El Rilaj Mam, La Banca, edited by Guillermo Paz Cárcamo, 63–75. Guatemala: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes. Rafael, Carlos. 2017. “Entrevista a The Maximones.” El Hijo del Blues, August 25, 2017. http:​/​/elh​​ijode​​lblue​​s​.net​​/blue​​s​/art​​i​culo​​?a​=72​ Rojas, Flavio. 1983. “El Sincretismo Cultural: Un Enfoque Sincrético.” Anales de la Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala, 57 (9): 89–121. Soto Paiz, Manlio. 2018. Maximón y lo Inconsciente Colectivo: Arquetipos y Simbología. Guatemala: Editorial Universitaria. Taracena, Julio. 2003. “Aproximación a San Simón y Maximón: Dos Íconos Representativos de la Religiosidad Popular Guatemalteca.” La Tradición Popular, 143: 1–16. Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, Centro de Estudios Folklóricos (CEFOL). The Maximones. (2018). Váyanse o mueran (Casette). Guatemala: Nebiros Prods. The Maximones. 2019. Interview carried out on March 2, 2019. The Maximones. 2019. Interview carried out on April 28, 2019. Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. UK: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 11

La Periferia Marginal Contexts for Metal Music in the State of México Alfredo Nieves Molina

Since the 1980s, various rock culture scenes have found the space for origin, development, and transformation in the great metropolises of México; this includes urban spaces with higher population density and economic activity such as Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Ciudad de México (Mexico City). These evolved into complex forms of sound, ideology, identity, and consumption, either under the direction and domination of large cultural industries or via self-managed economies. Thus, different metal music scenes were forged in México in light of geographic, economic, and cultural variables, which shaped the ways of listening and using music. My objective in this chapter is to analyze the existence of a type metal music that developed within a context of marginality through the effort of a large group of musicians and fans that belonged to the complex scene known as “urban rock,” a variant practiced in the metropolitan area of the Valley of México. This is a liminal space that completely covers Ciudad de México and borders part of the State of México, a long circuit with characteristics of social precariousness, with emerging cultural practices, and in constant tension with the social context of the area. To achieve this objective, this chapter, first, describes the social and geographical context of la periferia (the periphery). It will, then, explore the role of rock music as well as the insertion of metal music in urban rock manifested there. Finally, the chapter engages in an analysis of iconographic sources that contain references to musical practices and their context, as well as with interviews and fieldwork accumulated throughout my visits there, to highlight the differences between the musical practices of said periphery

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and Ciudad de México. Through the analysis of these sources, interviews, and fieldwork carried out in the urban rock and metal music concerts of this so-called periphery, the chapter seeks to demonstrate the practices and contexts of marginalization and political invisibility faced by various metal bands that have developed within the realm of “urban rock.” This includes the prejudices accentuated by differences in social, geographical, cultural, and economic characteristics. In order to do this, it is first necessary to understand the socio-geographical context, and the conformation of these practices, through a historical approach. THE SOCIAL AND GEOGRAPHIC CONTEXT OF THE PERIPHERY The setting for this study was the urban agglomerated zone of the State of México, located in the central region of the country and almost entirely covering Ciudad de México. Figure 11.1 shows Ciudad de México in white, the State of México in green, and the urban agglomerated area of the Valley of México in gray. The State of México is the federal entity with the largest number of inhabitants in the country, amounting to sixteen million Mexicans. With more than seven decades of government under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), it is the most coveted electoral platform by the country’s political parties with eleven million voters. If we add to this the almost nine million people who are concentrated in Ciudad de México, the metropolitan area of the Valley of México is ranked as the fifth most populous city in the world. The characteristics of this State allow us to understand the complexity of this city where multiple musical scenes have developed, including those related to metal music. Among the most serious problems faced in the State, one could highlight its having the highest crime incidence in the entire republic (INEGI 2018), the second highest unemployment rate (Forbes 2018), and the highest number of feminicides (García 2017), surpassing Ciudad Juárez in Chihuahua, necessitating a gender alert in 11 of the 125 municipalities that make up the State of México. By the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, several processes derived from government policies promoted the displacement and reconfiguration of the urban agglomerated zone, also known as la periferia, or “the periphery.” These included the rise of neoliberalism as an economic policy based on the mandate of President Miguel de la Madrid, the economic crises that forced the displacement of peasants from other states of the republic to Ciudad de México in search of work, and the lack of work and study opportunities for a new generation of Mexicans that needed to

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Figure 11.1  The Metropolitan Zones of the México Valley. Source: Image in public domain.

be incorporated into the country’s economic system (Detor 2016: 11–13). All of these elements shaped housing development in areas around the City of México. In the ensuing chaotic expansion, and without planning and infrastructure on the part of the local governments, lack of employment and scarcity of educational options in the State of México forced people to commute on a daily basis to Ciudad de México. This happened under a system of insufficient and precarious public transport that suffered from high crime rates inside the travel units that moved through the road networks, and which simultaneously increased environmental pollution. This

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disorderly and exponential expansion of the urban space took over areas in need of conservation, such as forests, rivers, basins, and crop fields, which are habitats for almost two thousand endemic plant and animal species (López 2019). According to the geographer Irma Escamilla, the most common form of this type of expansion via irregular settlements is what she calls the “ant growth,” with small families selecting and defining what they consider to be their space by placing four sticks on the ground, and then building their houses around these with materials such as cardboard, sheets, and partitions. Initially, these were settlements with a few people; however, they gradually grew in an uncontrolled manner. This imbalanced process and the accompanying loss of protected land jeopardizes the city’s sustainability, increases environmental pollution, and has effects related to climate change (Ibid). The so-called periphery can be best understood as a liminal space. By liminality, I refer to what Arnold van Gennep has defined as the rites that accompany a transition of place, characterized by the first phase of separation, a second marginal phase labeled the “threshold,” and by a final phase he calls “aggregation” (van Gennep 1969). Victor Turner defined liminality as a concept that entails attributes of certain agents who are not in one place or another, cannot be assigned positions by law or conventions, and are generally subject to fragile or disadvantaged conditions in the face of other social actors (Turner 1988). Although the periphery, understood as a liminal space, can be seen as a confluence of large groups of people from the State of México and Ciudad de México, the differences in the socioeconomic and political characteristics of both entities coexist in sharp contrast, and reflect conditions of inequality in the quality of life of its inhabitants. Therefore, these differences become visible in cultural practices, and specifically in the ways of listening, behaving toward, and consuming music. On the one hand, Ciudad de México has shown a historical tendency toward center left governments with progressive policies; this has made the city the central space of the country’s political life, the most important economic/financial district, and the trendsetter in the country’s cultural and educational development. This contrasts with “the periphery” which has a center-right government that has been in continuous power since 1925, led by the political party that previously held the presidency of the country for more than seventy years. The State of México has a high concentration of industrial zones, is one of the states with the highest poverty rates, and is disadvantaged in terms of access to schools and academic opportunities when compared to Ciudad de México. In the next section, I analyze the context of rock and metal in this geographical space and its social reality of liminality/marginality, always keeping in mind the ways in which these conditions contrast with those found in Ciudad de México.

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INTRODUCTION TO THE URBAN ROCK OF “THE PERIPHERY” “The periphery” is undoubtably of particular importance for the study of rock and metal scenes. This complex megalopolis has developed in its midst a rock industry that summons thousands of young people and adults to concerts, in what are locally known as tocadas, every week of the year throughout the various municipalities that make up the State of México. This space is characterized by informality, has little or no security at events, and is cared for by scarce staff in its organization of rock concerts held in squares, esplanades, or streets (Martínez 2013: 147). Figure 11.2 shows all the municipalities that make up the State of México, which almost completely covers Ciudad de México. “Urban rock” is a category used by music fans, musicians, cultural industries, and journalists to designate the music that circulates in this liminal space. By “periphery” we should understand a socially constructed space represented by the geographical strip composed of several municipalities of the State of México, which surrounds Ciudad de México, but which also includes spaces within that city that border the State of México. The periphery is distant from the main work, academic, cultural, and health spaces of the center, and more importantly, from the strategic points and concentration of economic power of the City of México. Thus, the periphery is made up of large swaths of population living in conditions of inequality and vulnerability. Urban rock should be understood as the diverse and varied musical output associated with various rock cultures that make up a scene in the geographical space of the periphery. Among the musical forms and styles that converge in urban rock, one can find punk rock, blues, rock and roll, ska, rockabilly, and various subgenres of heavy metal. These styles represent those musical and cultural practices that are rejected, stigmatized, and negatively marked by cultural industries, as well as by fans and musicians, in the center of Ciudad de México. The Conformation of Urban Rock Urban rock originates in the early 1980s. Although the conformation of this scene is built on the excessive growth of Ciudad de México and the lack of employment and educational opportunities, urban rock is also the result of exchanges and the hybridization of multiple musical styles and scenes. Before explaining the intermixing of the types of music that make up urban rock, it is necessary to understand how the conformation and identity of the fans in that scene, known as the “chavos banda” or “rockers,” has developed. The fans are the main actors, traversing their space under conditions of invisibility and finding themselves subjected to the stigmatizing practices of the

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Figure 11.2  Municipalities of the State of Mexico. Source: Image from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography for public use.

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mass media, who will integrate the amalgam of musical styles into the circuit of the periphery. During the early eighties, young people experienced conditions of abandonment, marginalization, oppression, and discrimination in the emerging settlements of the State of México and some parts of Ciudad de México. They congregated in the corners of their neighborhoods to spend their free time, ease their shortcomings, and gestate an identity generated by these contexts. There, the street would become a space appropriated in the name of communal living (Detor 2016: 15), characterized by the group’s constant listening to U.K. and U.S. rock musicians and bands like The Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Janis Joplin, Eric Burdon, and The Animals. Mexican groups like La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata, Three Souls in My Mind, Peace and Love, and El Ritual, among others, also formed part of their daily musical diet. Without defining them as a specific category or genre, this amalgam of bands was listened to and called “heavy rock” or simply “rock.” The scarce diffusion of this music and its “hard” sound fit perfectly with the ever-present sense of marginalization. Thus, fans gradually adopted an identity that manifested their otherness in society; that is, with differences based on ways of living and perceiving life though social and musical practices (Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra, Mendoza and González-Sepúlveda 2014: 252). These differences had an impact on society and were amplified by the mass media and governmental institutions. Many young people who did not find spaces to study and work, found alternatives in spaces of criminal activity. “Pandillerismo” emerged, and thus gang members became conflated with “chavos banda”—this in great part due to the shared fashion and music trends of the time, as they also met to listen to rock music and hang out. The term “chavos banda” was coined by a television news program with great impact and dissemination in México (24 Horas), inappropriately generalizing this lifestyle and lumping in all young people lacking opportunities in urban México who had been highly impacted by the onset of neoliberal practices (Detor 2016: 14, 17, 19). One of the first manifestations of this experience of marginalization was the painting of the motto “There is no future” on the city walls (Ibid, 14). The “chavos banda” can be considered the very first lumpen urban social group, establishing unity based on shared family problems, social exclusion, lack of job opportunities, and precariousness (Íbidem, 17–18). From these diverse groups of young people scattered throughout various parts of the city and the metropolitan area, “bands” emerged, demanding visibility and belonging throughout public spaces. The political character surrounding rock cultures, and its identity-generating processes, fostered tensions related to race, class, gender, and age (Peza 2013: 11). In this sense,

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the violent quarrels and conflicts between bands from the same neighborhood (which often extended to all-out wars for territory with distant neighborhoods) were detrimental to the social actors of these very same groups. Perhaps, at least hypothetically, it was a way to become visible in these social spaces. In addition to this network of oppression, we must add the participation of the family nucleus and educational institutions, who championed an ideal way of life based on education, work, marriage, procreation, and religious participation. This discourse saw young people who did not pursue this model, or simply did not have the conditions to carry it out, as “lazy,” “delinquent,” and “people without a future.” In a difficult context generated by multiple forces where the strategies of action and exit for many young people were limited to the street, joining a neighborhood band, and, of course, playing various genres of rock music became a way to deal with the situation. Subsequently, each individual who was part of a band or the so-called “chavos banda” would generate identities through the adoption of a diversity of musical genres that gradually arrived to the country, such as gothic, metal, and punk, among others. The agglomeration of various musical genres into the urban rock circuit was a process which encompassed different eras of rock in México. For example, the insertion of the first manifestations of metal music from the late 1980s is one of them, derived from the media’s widespread rejection of this musical style. While local metal bands persisted and gained legitimacy within Ciudad de México, another part of the local metal scene found shelter within the urban rock circuit, sharing stages and fans. We could say that the conformation of urban rock has been a place created and adopted through the displacement of various genres of rock that had no opportunity to be part of other settings. This happened because of the political ruptures between institutions, the media, and the conformation of an aesthetic shaped by foreign musical scenes (which were effectively adopted and institutionalized in the spaces of the great urban areas of México). The conformation of the diversity of rock sounds in México, including metal, was interrupted during 1971 by censorship, prohibition, the systematic persecution of musicians by the federal government, and the closure of spaces where these sounds were produced, were young people met and socialized. Replicating the Woodstock Festival that took place in the United States, the Avándaro Festival was held in México in 1968, gestated by companies and promoters of the entertainment and television industry. It was carried out in the town of Valle de Bravo, in the State of México, and gathered more than 200 thousand people (Ibid 407). The festival was characterized by a lack of organization and disorder due to not being able to fully cater to the crowds gathered at the event. This instilled fear in the political and government structures, triggering persecution and harassment within spaces of

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youth socialization around rock music. Events like the 1968 student movement and the 1971 Halconazo,1 through which youth and student organizations demanded better conditions and social justice, the release of political prisoners, and rejected the government’s oppressive policies, were strongly repressed through the massacre of students at the hand of the army and paramilitary groups. There would be no more festivals and meeting spaces for young people. Listening to and playing rock music would be severely affected. By order of the government, public spaces were closed and both musicians and consumers suffered repression and confinement in prisons through widespread detention raids or apañones. The mass media would ignore the youth and their practices, choosing to promote other cultural products such as ballad music, soap operas, and fútbol. By the eighties, and with the repression by the government at a lower level due to the effectiveness of the mass media in the coordinated submission of the general population, some rock groups managed to survive and settle in these new times. In this new decade, other currents would combine and find their space at the periphery of the city. One of the scenes formed in this new context was that of the rupestres. Influenced by the new protest song, the nueva trova or the nueva canción, this musical style had a simple structure, entrenched in the blues and R&B, with strong sociopolitical content in its lyrics, and poetic elements. These discourses would also be ignored by the music industry (Paredes and Blanc 2009: 416–430). The simplicity of its acoustic sounds and the messages, chronicling the plights of society, would gradually find a space in peripheral forums, being adopted more and more by the youth that concentrated on the banks of the city. Also, the austere image of their musicians and the covers of their albums would help reflect the aesthetics of urban rock. By 1985, groups like Three Souls in My Mind would change their name to El Tri. Groups like Banda Bostik and Tex Tex would emerge, becoming bands with a huge following, and constantly hosting tocadas in the circuit of the periphery. Although groups like El Tri were able to play in mainstream spaces in Ciudad de México and throughout the Americas, most bands at the periphery would not achieve those opportunities. More recently, the entertainment industry has tried to incorporate these bands into their festivals and co-opt their vast number of followers. However, this process has failed because the financial means of urban rock fans do not allow them to pay the costs of entry, buy souvenir, or consume food and beverages at these events, which are aimed at middle class or upper middle-class audiences in Ciudad de México. In terms of their musical production, most of these bands would find a space to record their albums with the label Discos Denver, a self-managed family business that had a niche for the production of records. It would face

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rejection by a certain sector of musicians and fans from the center of Ciudad de México who associated the label with low-quality products accompanied by poor album artwork aesthetics. Denver Discos’ catalogue lists rock, metal, urban rock, Gothic, punk, ska, and several other genres (Spirit of Metal 2020). The label’s catalogue includes a total of 1,104 albums, out of which the largest category is urban rock, with 534 releases. The metal category contains 150 albums from bands like Next, Transmetal, Leprosy, Azrael, Luzbel, Lvzbel (Huízar), and Fecalator, among many others. It is worth mentioning that Discos Denver acquired the rights of one of the first metal labels in México, Avanzada Metálica. The most important series of albums released under this label were the Escuadrón Metálico—Proyecto I, II y III, which were compilation albums from the first stages of the metal scene in México formed between 1986 and 1989. The compilations included bands like Gehenna, Aspid, Z, Khafra, Ramses, Alucard, Gog, Xyster, Cuero y Metal, Abaddon, Transmetal, Inquisidor, Next, Six Beer, and Charon. It represents a testimony and an important record of the history of metal in México. A review of the Denver Discos catalogue tells us about the first metal bands to be associated to the urban rock scene, and shows the considerable number of albums they released in this scene, while being unable to find contracts or spaces with more traditional metal labels. On the contrary, they did it in the field of urban rock through Discos Denver. The spaces filled with urban rock were found in the municipalities of Nezahualcóyotl, Ecatepec, Cuautitlán, Naucalpan, Metepec, Texcoco, Chalco Valley, and Tlalnepantla, to name a few. Their activities took place in improvised spaces on the streets or vacant lots, esplanades, and cultural centers belonging to municipal governments. It should be noted that the performance of urban rock concerts was not exclusive to the State of México, and was also present in other States in the central area of the country such as Tlaxcala, Puebla and Hidalgo, among others. They also appear in some areas of the City of México such as Iztapalapa, Iztacalco, Tláhuac, and Xochimilco, which border the State of México (Gatica 2018). Although there are specific places that are traditionally identified for hosting these concerts, such as the Civic Center of Ecatepec and the Civic Center of Tlalnepantla, emerging spaces constantly appear with some regularity. Sometimes events are held on a single occasion, either because they did not attract the expected number of audience members, or because they lacked permits by the local authorities. In all cases, whether in traditional or emerging spaces, there is a latent possibility of cancellation of these events in light of the fragile economic marginality of urban rock. An important feature of urban rock is its organizational structure characterized by self-management procedures, engagement with the informal economy, considerable and constant risks of cancellations of events, and

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their counting with little or no security (there are frequent fights inside and outside the spaces where the concerts take place). There are a large number of event organizers, and they are generally people who host events individually or through small groups of partners, without forming legally regulated companies. This contrasts with the consortiums of the entertainment industry in Ciudad de México that are more organized. This informality generates many difficulties when hosting concerts at the periphery. Some of these include problems like (1) the use of rented audio equipment of poor quality or heavily deteriorated due to lack of economic resources; (2) the precariousness of the streets and roads in some municipal areas which makes accessing these spaces difficult for fans from other colonies (Alanís 2018); and (3) the lack of permits granted by the municipal authorities to carry out the events. These represent just a few of many obstacles. Despite these problems, the organizers and fans manage to meet in these spaces constantly. The consumption of inhalable substances such as thinner and toluene is frequent in urban rock concerts. Thus, the recurring police raids represent a risk factor for fans in these circuits. In these repressive exercises, without legal basis, police abuse and arrest participants during concerts. In light of the high levels of stigma against the groups and communities that make up the scene, extortions are carried out under the premise that all fans consume illegal substances and commit vandalism. They are singled out by their way of dressing, their personal accessories, and for frequenting meeting points before and after concerts. These arrests through raids have taken place since the establishment of the very first meet up spaces for young people who listened to rock and continues to be a widespread practice today (Detor 2016: 2. 3). All these problems that are manifested within the peripheral rock scene correspond to the realities of marginalization and social decomposition of the urban agglomerated zone. These problems would be reflected in the lyrics of urban rock made at the periphery, lyrics which address issues such as drug addiction, prostitution, migration, crime, discrimination, abuse of authority, and family problems, among others. By contrast, rock established in Ciudad de México starting in 1985 had support from the record industry and the radio stations, quickly finding niche followers among the young middle-class population. It emerged in bars and forums in privileged neighborhoods such as Coyoacán, the Naples neighborhood, and the Zona Rosa (Paredes and Blanc 2009: 436–440). From that moment on, and in this particular geography, the entertainment industry would help shape and grow an audience identified with rock and eager to consume it. The entertainment industry institutionalized spaces such as stadiums and arenas to accommodate the massification of rock. Metal music would be appropriated by the entertainment industry, the latter bringing international groups to Ciudad de México beginning in 1992

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(Iron Maiden 2019), supplying the demand of a conformed scene with sufficiently large and nourished followers. Spaces such as the Palacio de los Deportes, Arena México, Teatro Metropólitan, National Auditorium, Foro Sol, and the Autodromo de los Hermanos Rodríguez would become venues for metal concerts with large investments in organizational infrastructure, spaces for disabled people, food areas, ticket sales with electronic systems and well-established points of sale, large security forces, organized parking lots, radio advertising, and stores for the sale of the bands’ official merchandise. In summary, it was a very different way to experience metal music than the one experienced at the periphery, within the urban rock scene. Metal in Urban Rock The first metal bands that took part in the urban rock circuit were Luzbel, Ramses, Transmetal, Next, with Garrobos and Leprosy joining them later. Spanish bands like Ángeles del Infierno and Mago de Oz would later tour there with great support from the fans of the scene. Rata Blanca visited from Argentina and shared the bill with local punk, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll bands, such as Mara, La Banda Bostik, Lira N ‘Roll, El Tri, and Interpuesto, among many others (Alanís, 2018). Historically, one can point to two processes that facilitated the incursion of metal bands into the periphery. The first was the hosting of concerts in spaces of the State of México where events by groups of different musical genres were organized. Carlos Alanís, vocalist for the band Next, commented in an interview that during the mid1980s, both rock and metal bands shared the stage. The shaping of scenes was happening. Alanís commented that the band Enigma! (a pioneer group of hard rock and heavy metal in México) played in one of these events, opening the concert and being followed first by Next (thrash metal band), and having the band Mara (blues rock group) as the final act. The attendees did not question the mix of genres represented by these bands, but simply enjoyed their presence at the event. The second process is related to the few opportunities that existed, and continue to exist, within México’s music industry. Metal music was and is no exception. At the very beginning of a translocal scene, which was already established in the country and specifically in the metropolitan area, there was a displacement of local musicians in light of the concert organizers’ preference for foreign bands. The Mexican bands began to demand their place in the promotional posters; promoters compromised by merely granting limited space to these, with small fonts and placing these bands early in the bill. These expansion processes began in 1987 and came to an end in 1992 with the implementation of metal concerts by local cultural industries. In figure 11.3

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Figure 11.3  Poster for Metal Concert Held in 1989. Source: Photo provided by author.

we can see a metal concert poster of the year 1989 held in the State of México. Although there were concerts and recitals made up solely of local bands, which served as the starting point in laying the foundations of a local scene, that scene’s exponential growth and expansion to other states of México was mainly due to concerts by foreign bands. While this happened, local bands sought strategies to disseminate and produce their own music with the desire to find better conditions than those in México. Some migrated to the United States (Domínguez 2017: 51). The aforementioned bands opted to develop part of their career in the circuit at the periphery, betting on the greater frequency of concerts that could be booked there, in contrast to the events organized by the cultural industries in more legitimized and organized spaces. Although they would take part in these metal music activities, most of their concerts were held in the context of urban rock. The bands that entered this circuit would later have difficulty inserting themselves into traditional metal concerts, given the stigma that followed them for engaging with the marginality of rock music in the State of México. On the other hand, metal bands found in urban rock fans a profile of eclectic preferences, reflecting the plethora of musical genres present at those concerts. Mexican metal that established itself in the urban rock circuit would experience generalized rejection by fans, bands, and the media in Ciudad de

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México, who considered both the tocadas and the musicians themselves as second-class entities. They would be condemned for playing to marginalized audiences in these informal spaces. These audiences were denigrated through systemic racism (Lanzagorta 2017), built on prejudice toward the phenotypic attributes of indigenous people and their dark complexion. As if this were not problematic enough, they would be linked to music reproduction spaces that were associated with high levels of criminal activity. Juan Partida, drummer for the band Transmetal, commented that one needs to exercise bravery and open-mindedness to play metal alongside other rock genres in the periphery circuit (Zúñiga 2016). Lorenzo Partida, bassist for the same band, commented that metal in México was somewhat of a race of endurance, as companies have humiliated and ignored the work of local metal bands (Íbidem). The situation is complicated, given that within the context of Mexican metal bands in Ciudad de México’s scene, musicians and fans understand that playing in the urban rock circuit is condemning oneself to play there forever. Thus, some prefer to avoid these spaces and audiences, nourished by the dream of reaching new listeners and playing in larger venues outside of Ciudad de México, as part of building a successful musical career. It should be noted that there are nuances within the fans’ rejection of bands in the urban rock circuit. Metal bands such as Luzbel have enjoyed high esteem among the first audiences of Mexican metal, but not enough to create a stable following with new audiences. In other cases, such as with the bands Transmetal and Next, the tenacity of their careers has allowed them to fluctuate between the urban rock circuit and other spaces in Ciudad de México, thus gaining the respect and recognition of both groups of fans and the media alike. In light of this widespread rejection, urban rock is excluded from media dissemination through magazines, radio, or television; there are some minor exceptions like Banda Rockera, an independent publication that journalistically records and disseminates the events of the scene (Canal Once 2018), which has recently begun to use social networks on the Internet. Also, the introduction of these metal bands’ catalogues, and those that circulate among the urban rock circuit, to digital streaming platforms has been slow. Thus, the consumption of this music continues to happen mostly via live performances, and the purchase of both “pirated” and original records. The economic difficulties faced by local fans still limit their consumption of this music via the Internet. Finally, one important mechanism to understand the remoteness of urban rock and metal music made at the periphery is its visual dimensions. Musical iconography allows us to approach these visual aspects of musicality and their social meanings. Before describing some of these visual dimensions of marginality, we must first delve into the potential role of musical iconography in the study of rock and metal in this context.

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MUSICAL ICONOGRAPHY FOR THE STUDY OF ROCK AND METAL OF THE PERIPHERY Musical iconography is a tool used in academia that examines the history of art and allows researchers to obtain organizational, biographical, anthropological, and symbolic information from music-related visual materials; it also grants access to their symbolic meanings in representative and communicative contexts (Duarte and Ochoa 2017). Studies of musical iconography in Latin America have focused their attention on colonial art (Roubina 2016) and have recently turned their gaze toward research on popular music and rock (Medeiro and Nogueira 2013). Within the research field of musical iconography there is consensus that the images under study should contain elements that represent musicians, musical instruments, scores, musical performances and musical notation symbols; that is, all those elements and representations related to the musical experience (Duarte and Ochoa 2017). However, discussion about the limits of defining the sets of descriptive and taxonomic elements of musical iconography entail an ongoing debate (Sotuyo and Araujo 2016). If we take into consideration the context of the visual elements under analyis, it becomes necessary to adjust the questions asked by the researcher, and examine the source of those elements. Thus, for example, visual sources of organological study in Latin America during colonial times should consider issues of transculturation of Novo-Hispanic instruments (Roubina 2010). If we take these considerations into the study of rock and metal cultures, we must recognize that the elements related to this music are not limited to the visual narrative discourses used by bands, fans, and cultural industries. There are other extramusical elements that are identified with a specific music scene and that account for modes of expression, such as those represented on the covers of albums, posters, t-shirts, and other modes/formats of visual content. This entails the need to incorporate new objects of analysis and study into musical iconography when applied to metal music. The visual elements that make up narrative discourses of the actors of a scene help them communicate their own aesthetics, ideologies, and expressions, congruent with the contexts in which they reside as groups (Nieves 2019). Some important examples of visual elements that we can mention are band logos, album covers, tattoos, clothing, magazines, video clips, scenography, and the performance itself, as produced/consumed by musicians, followers and the music industry. This is what Deena Weinstein has called the “visual dimension of heavy metal” (Weinstein 2009: 27). The representation of these elements in their visual form should be considered as evidence of the context of a social reality, which needs to be investigated.

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Thus, specifically for the iconographic study of the rock and metal scenes addressed in this chapter, and through a broadening of the discussion about the inherent limits of the sources used in musical iconography (Sotuyo and Araujo 2016), I propose the following criteria for the analysis of visual sources in the context of rock and metal music. First, one must contemplate the complexity of the social, economic, and cultural contexts since the twentieth century, which cross and shape the collective discourses and thoughts of the times, and that operate within the studied scene or scenes. Second, one must incorporate into the study an analysis of the iconographic sources of the visual elements involved in creating the music, as well as those extramusical visual elements that could have relevant significance within the narrative and ideological discourse of the cultural and musical context. This should be done taking into consideration the communicative intentionality of those visual elements based on the re-semanticization exercised by the actors in the scenes. For example, the tongue used as a logo by The Rolling Stones is an extramusical symbol; that is, it does not refer to or represents any music or sound. The image is re-semanticized to represent eroticism and disobedient behavior, which are closely associated with the band. Thus, the analysis of these extramusical visual elements can provide pertinent information for the understanding of the social and cultural context and should be incorporated into the corpus of elements of the study and analysis carried out via musical iconography. Third and lastly, a multidisciplinary perspective should be considered to understand the function or functions of the re-semanticized elements that operate symbolically within the scenes. Disciplines such as anthropology, socio-logics, and semiotics, among others, are necessary for the analysis of the context in the formation of communities, identities, classes, genres, and other topics surrounding metal music. Although the universe of communicative visual elements within the scenes is ample (such as album covers, t-shirts, scenographic elements, and tattoos, among others), the iconographic sources I use here met the following criteria in order to obtain information for the present analysis: (1) Posters or concert posters—This source provided information about the place, location and timing of an event, costs and forms of payment, band logos, participants, number of bands playing, hierarchical order of the bands gathered through the organization in the poster and proportionate size of their logos, duration of the event, identification of musicians and instruments in the image, and overall graphic designs related to rock and metal culture. (2) Pinta de barda (Painted walls)—This visual source, in addition to the information provided about the bands and the place where the concert would be held, is distinctive and located in urban spaces that communicate information to the local public.

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(3) Photographs of the concerts and stills from documentary films—This source documented musical practices, relations between audience and musicians, and the scenographic elements of the performance. The following section develops these sources in greater detail. URBAN AND METAL ROCK POSTERS: OTHER MARKERS OF LA PERIFERIA Both concert posters and handheld advertisements used in the periphery circuit evidence the graphic and visual conformation of this space in the State of México. These posters are distributed and placed on the walls and telephone poles of the different municipalities, becoming part of the daily urban landscape. Posters and handheld advertisements are distributed in the Tianguis Cultural del Chopo. This is a key space for the conformation of various rock scenes in México beginning in the year 1980, and nestled in a neighborhood in the north of Ciudad de México. It is a point of socialization and exchange/ sale of music in different physical formats. In addition, other objects such as magazines, fanzines, and t-shirts from various rock scenes are sold. The handheld propaganda shown in figure 11.4 was distributed in the late 1990s. It is made with a single ink color in order to reduce printing costs. The poster shown in figure 11.5 belongs to the same urban rock circuit at the periphery. Stemming from the use of new technologies that allowed for the production and design of homemade posters, different colors are being used, making the posters more attractive and allowing for their distribution in social networks. The posters provide information on the cost of the event, which is low compared to those organized in Ciudad de México. They also reflect the diversity and the large number of bands that participate at the periphery. The posters evidence the diversity of genres that are grouped into one event, where one can find bands representing metal, punk, ska, rock and roll, and the blues. One can also see the location of the municipality in which the event will take place. Many of these posters include the statement “100% confirmed,” and reflect an attempt to appease the public in the face of constant cancellations of events, due to lack of permits through the corresponding municipal authorities, or to band cancellations. Many of these concerts are not carried out under the legal protection of contracts and bands are open to scams by alleged organizers. The poster indicates the place where the event will be held, ways of arriving there (using landmarks such as bus terminals), and on some occasions, small maps of the neighborhood where the event will take place. In addition, the design of these posters must be done rapidly due to the large number of events that take place every weekend. This contrasts greatly with the events organized by the cultural

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Figure 11.4  Handheld Propaganda. Source: Photo provided by Ubaldo Martínez Dávila.

industries that plan and disseminate their posters months before the events take place. One of the primary intentions of these posters is to show, at a glance, the sheer number of groups and musical styles included in an event. This diversity of groups translates into an event lasting more than twelve hours, thus allowing a greater space to express the social, collective, and individual catharsis

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Figure 11.5  Poster for rock concert at the periphery developed with new technologies. Source: Photo provided by Producciones Lerma.

necessary to counteract hostilities and difficulties faced in the context of the State of México. Rock and metal music surpass pure entertainment roles, and serve as catalysts for frustrations and hostilities in the context of everyday life in these spaces. In this extended period of time, bands have mobility and can play up to four concerts in one day throughout different municipalities of the periphery, if hired to do so.

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Figure 11.6  Poster for the 2018 Heaven and Hell Festival Held in Mexico. Source: Photo provided by Carlos Andres Alcaraz Marquez.

By contrast, posters from festivals and concerts in Ciudad de México include information on how to purchase tickets via electronic banking systems, sponsor logos, and transport companies that can be hired via mobile applications (see figure 11.6). They evidence the differences in the economies and forms of consumption between the urban rock audiences at the periphery,

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and those attending the spaces controlled by the entertainment industries in the City of México. On many occasions, a tocada or concert at the periphery can summon up to 3,000 attendees. In other cases, they can only draw an extremely small audience. The photo presented in figure 11.7 was provided by Carlos Alanís, vocalist of the band Next, and evidences the emerging spaces for listening to rock and metal. One can notice the forms of coexistence between fans and musicians, in a production “market” marked by austerity. Another iconographic characteristic which defines urban rock and in which the participation of metal bands can be observed is the painting of walls that announce the concerts at the periphery. Visible from public transport or personal automobiles, and spread along the streets, avenues, and roads of the State of México, the painting of walls is an effective and low-cost medium used by concert organizers to transmit information. This is an important element to understand the economy of urban rock and the ways of spreading information about these events. The “pintada de bardas” is an activity organized by various groups that are divided into zones to cover the dissemination needs of rock music events, at times also serving other genres of music. On average, the artists paint fifteen walls per day to cover the demand (Zúñiga 2016). The photos presented in figures 11.8 and 11.9 are still images from the documentary entitled En la Periferia, by Alberto Zúñiga, which shows the daily urban landscape of the State of México and its walls.

Figure 11.7  The Band Next Playing at the Periphery. Source: Photo provided by Carlos Alanís, singer for the band.

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Figure 11.8  People Painting Promotional Wall. Source: Photo provided by Alberto Zúñiga from the documentary film La Periferia.

Figure 11.9  Finished Promotional Wall. Source: Photo provided by Alberto Zúñiga from the documentary film La Periferia.

FINAL THOUGHTS When one reflects about metal music in México, it is necessary to consider that there are several scenes, and not just one, that make up Mexican metal. Some of these scenes are separated, in conflict, and nuanced by dualities such as distance/unity, legitimization/denial, to mention a few. In addition, these

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scenes are influenced by the multiculturalism of the Mexican context, the disparity between the economic classes of musicians and fans, and the variety of geographic spaces. As part of these broad realities, there is a generalized denial and marginalization of the metal scene inserted in the urban rock of the periphery by a large number of followers and musicians in Ciudad de México. These condemn the scene for not considering it a way of developing valid musical careers. This rejection of urban rock spaces also translates into the dismissal of its audiences. Socioeconomic differences, coupled with the prejudices of social actors, foster separation and social isolation. The historical construction of the periphery’s context and its iconographic particularities help us understand this space and its relationship with metal music. This is important, as it is through the analysis and study of our Latin American scenes that we can account and expand the discussion about the diversity of factors that influence the region, and shape cultural practices related to metal music. While there is a common language and there may be points of convergence, the processes of conformation and development of Latin American metal differ greatly throughout the continent (López Ramírez and Risica Carella 2018; Torreiro 2017; Varas-Díaz, RiveraSegarra, Mendoza and González-Sepúlveda 2014). Mexican metal in urban rock contexts is the result of the need to be inserted in a more active economy, which offers continuity to the trajectories of the bands themselves, especially those that belonged to the first generations of heavy music and thrash metal in México. These bands suffered through greater precariousness, which is typical when forging a scene in light of the economically difficult contexts in most Latin American countries. In addition to this, Mexican metal itself was relegated to being the warm-up act for acts visiting from the United States, which arrived in the country beginning in 1987 to the State of México, and that were organized by local promoters (Gatica 2019). Foreign bands took center stage in the preferences of local fans, both in the center of Ciudad de México and in other parts of the country. Cultural industries would promote and appropriate a very lucrative market by generating concerts and festivals from Anglo-Saxon bands that were worldwide favorites. The urban rock circuit at la periferia would be the only viable option for many Mexican metal bands in order to actively maintain their musical careers and gain the economic sustenance needed to live. For fans and consumers of the urban rock scene, metal is a complementary genre among many other musical styles that characterize this context. Future research on this topic should develop spaces for dialogue and reflection, between academic actors, fans, and other audiences, to understand and counter prejudices and accusations against the social groups that compose la periferia.

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NOTE 1. “El Halconzo” is the name given to the murder of 120 university students that protested on June 10, 1972. The “halcones” was a military group controlled by the CIA in México that aimed to repress manifestations during the presidency of Luis Echeverría Álvarez (El Heraldo de México 2019).

REFERENCES Alanís, Carlos. 2018. Personnal Communication with Singer from the Band Next. September 2, 2018. Canal Once. 2018. “Banda Rockera: La Revista.” Accessed November 11, 2018. https://canalonce​.mx​/itinerario/​?p​=20049. Detor Escobar, Álvaro. 2016. Caos Urbano México Punk. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Domínguez, Olivia. 2017. Transhumancias Musicales y Globalización: El Metal no Tiene Fronteras. Mexico: Plaza y Valdés. Duarte, Sonia and Luzia Rocha. 2017. Iconografia Musical: Organologia, Construtores e Prática Musical em Diálogo, Volume 3. Portugal: Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estética Musical, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa. El Heraldo de México. 2019. “¿Cómo fue la Masacre del Jueves de Corpus de 1971 o Halconazo?” Accessed April 2, 2020. https​:/​/he​​raldo​​demex​​ico​.c​​om​.mx​​/cdmx​​/ como​​-fue-​​la​-ma​​sacre​​-del-​​jueve​​s​-de-​​corpu​​s​-de-​​​1971-​​o​-hal​​conaz​​o/. Forbes. 2018. “Los Estados con Mayor Desempleo y Más Informalidad.” Accessed September 1, 2018. https​:/​/ww​​w​.for​​bes​.c​​om​.mx​​/los-​​estad​​os​-ma​​yor​-d​​esemp​​leo​-m​​a​ s​-in​​forma​​lidad​/. García, Jacobo. 2017. “Estado de México: Capital del Feminicidio.” El País, May 17, 2017. Accessed September 1, 2019. http:​/​/elp​​ais​.c​​om​/in​​terna​​ciona​​l​/201​​7​/05/​​15​/me​​ xico/​​14948​​692​55​​_0106​​50​.ht​​ml. Gatica, Francisco. Personnal Communication with the Bass Player for the Band Ramses. September 2, 2018. INEGI. 2018. “Incidencia Delictiva.” Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía. Accessed September 1, 2018. http:​/​/www​​.beta​​.ineg​​i​.org​​.mx​/t​​emas/​​i​ncid​​encia.​ Iron Maiden. 2019. “Iron Maiden Tours. Fear of the Dark Tour—1992.” Accessed December 22, 2019. https​:/​/ir​​onmai​​den​.c​​om​/to​​urs​/f​​ear​-o​​f​-the​​-da​rk​​-tour​​-1992.​ Lanzagorta, José Ignacio. 2017. “El Silencioso Racismo Mexicano.” In Nexos: Economía y Sociedad. Accessed August 31, 2019. https://economia​.nexos​.com​ .mx/​?p​=402. López, Patricia. 2019. “Avanza la Marcha Urbana sobre CdMx.” Gaceta UNAM, January 14, 2019. Accessed January 14, 2019. http:​/​/www​​.gace​​ta​.un​​am​.mx​​/avan​​za​ -la​​-manc​​ha​-ur​​bana-​​​sobre​​-cdmx​/. López Ramírez Gastón, José Ignacio and Guiseppe Risica Carella. 2018. Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena Metalera Peruana (1981–1992). Lima: Sonidos Latentes Producciones y Discos Invisibles.

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Martínez Hernández, Laura. 2013. Música y Cultura Alternativa: Hacia un Perfil de la Cultura del Rock Mexicano de Finales del Siglo XX. Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana. Medeiro, Daniel Ribeiro and Isabel Porto Nogueira. 2013. “Ecos do Underground: Iconografia, Memória e Identidade de Uma Cena Rock No Extremo Sul do Brasil.” In Anais do 2o. Congresso Brasileiro de Iconografia Musical, 328–347. Brazil: Repertório Internacional de Iconografia Musical Brasil. Nieves Molina, Alfredo. 2019. “Aproximación a Contextos Marginales del Rock en el Estado de México a través de su Iconografía Musical en el Paisaje Urbano.” In Iconografía Musical na América Latina: Discursos e Narrativas entre Olhares e Escutas, edited by Pablo Sotuy Blanco, 125–138. Brazil: Universidad Federal Da Bahia. Paredes Pacho, José Luis and Enrique Blanc. 2009. “Rock Mexicano, Breve Recuento del Siglo XX.” En La Música en México. Panorama del siglo XX. Tomo I, edited by Aurelio Tello, 393–483. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica - Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes. Peza, María Del Carmen, De La. 2013. El Rock Mexicano: Un Espacio en Disputa. Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. Roubina, Evguenia. 2010. “¿Ver Para Creer?: Una Aproximación Metodológica al Estudio de la Iconografía Musical.” In I Simpósio Brasileiro de Pós-Graduandos em Música. XV Coloquio do Programa de Pós-Graduaçáo em Música da UNIRIO – November 8–10, 2010. Roubina, Evguenia. 2016. Cuadernos de Iconografía Musical, Vol. III, Number 1. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Sotuyo Blanco, Pablo and Pedro Ivo Araujo. 2016. “Acciones Estructurantes para la Musicología en Brasil: El Banco de Datos RIdIM-Brasil para Fuentes Documentales Visuales Relativas a la Cultura Musical.” Cuadernos de Iconografía musical, 3 (1): 9–32. Spirit of Metal. 2020. Denver Discos y Cintas. Consultado el 2 de abril de 2020. https​ :/​/ww​​w​.spi​​rit​-o​​f​-met​​al​.co​​m​/es/​​label​​/Denv​​er​_Di​​​scos_​​Y​_Cin​​tas/7.​ Torreiro, Gustavo. 2017. “El Heavy en la Argentina como Subcultura: Identidad y Resistencia.” In Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos: Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino, edited by Emiliano Scaricaciottoli, 21–35. Argentina: La Parte Maldita. Turner, Victor. 1988. El Proceso Ritual. Spain: Taurus. van Gennep, Arnold. 2008. Los Ritos de Paso. Spain: Alianza Editorial. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, Rivera Searra, Eliut, Mendoza, Sigrid, and Osvaldo González. 2014. “On Your Knees and Pray! The Role of Religion in the Development of a Metal Scene in the Caribbean Island of Puerto Rico.” International Journal of Community Music, 7 (2): 243–257. Weinstein, Deena. 2000. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. New York: Da Capo Press. Zúñiga Rodríguez, Alberto. 2016. En la Periferia. Mexico: Sinestesia Ads, Media & Films—Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes.

Chapter 12

Differences in the Sociopolitical Perspectives of Brazilian and European Völkisch Metal Guilherme Alfradique Klausner

INTRODUCTION: THE STUDY OF IMAGES AS A GUIDE FOR THE COMPREHENSION OF THE IMMEDIATE SOCIAL CONTEXT During the last few years, I have conducted research on the connection between some heavy metal subgenres, heroic-aristocratic literature, and reactionary thinking, from a non-situated global perspective. The forces responsible for such connections are related to the rejection of bourgeois society for the sake of a hierarchized society, the concession of a position of social primacy to the hero, and the belief in a cosmological foundation of society. Such connections appear throughout a series of readings, from Homer to Ernst Jünger, that transcend the field of literature and include a diversity of art forms in a tradition that is, to a lesser or greater extent, suited to bourgeois society, but which criticizes the latter and elaborates its own vision of Man and society. In such a tradition, heavy metal works as a generator of spaces for discussion and social interaction, as a summarizer of thoughts, and as a source of readings (Klausner 2019). To understand this connection, I have studied the long historic patterns of usage of certain images.1 My purpose was not so much to engage in an analysis of the authors, but to analyze the historical repetition of images and their reception through time (Klausner 2019, 17 and 176–177). My conclusions point to long patterns of repetition of images that emerged at precise times of history, which had been formed during hundreds of years through different sources, related to mythology, medieval romance, and/or a politicized notion of history.2 265

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An especially important image is that of the barbarian. Foucault presents the barbarian as the one that is opposed to the noble savage, and who appears as a representation of the origin of French aristocracy in narrations such as the one by Boulainvilliers.3 According to Foucault, the barbarian is a character of history and of tradition whereas the noble savage would be a representation of the Third Estate and of the “absence of tradition” of the economic power (Foucault 2005, 231–233). In this first figure, there are already indexes of the barbarian abstract machine which will serve as the assemblage for Robert E. Howard’s character Conan, The Barbarian. The connection made by Bloch between Boulainvilliers and Gobineau which, including Wagner, may extend to Hitler, doesn’t seem so absurd when following Voegelin’s line of the Nordic idea.4 If we add to this Nietzsche’s philosophy and its mistaken apprehension of the aristocratic behavioral code (see Elias 1998, 167 and MacIntyre 2007, 129), which involves a complex exchange of opinions between the philosopher and Wagner, and the avowedly fascist aesthetics of Conan, The Barbarian (Poole 2018, 199–201), we begin to imagine the landscape defined by Eco as Barbarian Middle Ages, a land filled with raw and outlaw feelings. According to the author, it’s in this Middle Age where Conan, The Barbarian and the Wagnerian opus live (Eco 1986, 129). In prior work, I have analyzed these images, making a point of establishing their connections to other images, through the analysis of the letters exchanged between authors who worked with them, their readings, and so on (Klausner 2019, 68). The image of the barbarian is still important for heavy metal, even nowadays, and it is connected to a series of other indexes, abstract machines, and machinic assemblages, which are idiosyncratic, political, social, and economical, such as: (a) the processes of centralization of the French kingdom and the nobility’s loss of power before the bourgeoisie and the king (known in the Western world as political modernity—the barbarian would then represent this originary freedom of the noblemen against the king of France’s pretensions of domain and, at the same time, the power of tradition [militaristic, juridical] against the economic power—Foucault 2005, 170); (b) the role assumed by violence in the formation of the German habitus during the Second Reich and the Third Reich (Elias 1998, 19 e 167; Klausner 2019, 77–81), that gave birth to the Wagnerian representations of a mythical German past, which play a central role in the aesthetic-political nation-building project; (c) the contraposition (exemplified by the very figure of Conan) and the juxtaposition with life in the big cities during the twentieth century, which

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assumes, at times a quality of artificiality (as opposed to the life of the barbarian in nature), and at others one of a city of chaos, very much associated to a different, smaller image: the one of the detective/police officer in hard-boiled fiction—Carpeaux 2008, 2.805; (d) the Nietzschean philosophy and the philosophies of his successors, focused on the most individualistic aspects of nobility (in a common inflection of Boulainvilliers’ almost anarchic thinking), among which one can find Ragnar Redbeard and his Might is Right or The Survival of the Fittest, a piece of work that is still influential among followers of a particular brand of Satanism (LaVeyan), extremist Right-wing groups, and white supremacists; (e) the role played by the cult of the body and physical strength in certain social male groups, specially since the 1980s, when comics based on Robert E. Howard’s writings reached worldwide success and Conan is subsequently premiered at the cinema, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, a then-renowned bodybuilder; (f) role-playing games, in which the barbarian is a central character, specially in the popular game Dungeons and Dragons, inspired by Howard’s5 writings; (g) the images that preceded the barbarian (such as the violent Amadis and his generic successors, who relate the noble lineage to grotesque violence, as an emblem of their aristocratic character—Heng 2003, 115 and ss.; Carpeuax 1961, 395; Klausner 2019, 64–68) and those that are parallel to the barbarian, such as the one of the gothic/decadent aristocrat; All these processes, among others, are connected between themselves because of the images involved, forming a great map (Klausner 2019, 175). As a result, some continents may be formed by the constellations (and galaxies) of indexes and abstract machines, which end up participating in overlapping assemblages. These constellations and galaxies are defined by their history as well as by their political polarization. Images are like guides in these continents, because they are useful for both interpreting their most varied historical, social, and political circumstances, for they share indexes with these circumstances and synthesize them (and, in that regard, we may arrive to concepts like MacIntyre’s character, [MacIntyre 2007, 27–29], Weber’s ideal type, [Weber 1992, 136 e ss.] or Wittgenstein’s form-of-life [Wittgenstein 2000]; see Klausner 2019, 33–36). One of those continents, which is important for heavy metal, is what I will call throughout this chapter völkisch.

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HEAVY METAL, GOTHIC ROMANCE, ROMANTICISM, AND VÖLKISCH AESTHETICS Romanticism and, before that, gothic romance (which laid the groundwork for it) implied changes in the arrangement of indexes of some images, inherited6 by them, as some sort of synthesizer. Those images were not taken in a positive manner by the imagetic framework of political modernity and, still today, they generate discussion about the reactionary nature of romanticism.7 That perspective, one I do not agree with, is based on the prominence given to these images (the main ones being that of the barbarian and of the gothic aristocrat8) in some branches of romanticism, although, as any other literary style, or even more than in most of them, romanticism welcomes a variety of political tendencies.9 Some of the most polemic debates surround the apprehension of such images by National-Socialism. The Löwy and Sayre’s typology, which I use as a paradigm in my work, defines a specific type of romanticism as fascist,10 in which the völkisch ideology appears as a central element. I have managed to identify how different elements of this völkisch ideology ended up in reactionary romantic movements (I chose to use this term to refer to what Löwy and Sayre call restitutionist, conservative, and fascistic romanticism; all that interested me about them were the shared images—Klausner 2019, 100) and, also, modified in their indexical arrangements, in heavy metal. However, I have yet to define this ideology. Although I am aware of the ambiguity entailed in the term völkisch after the Nazi experience, my use of the term does not necessarily refer to that ideology and its history. When I utilize it, I am evoking the neo-romantic trend that became a cultural fever in Wilhelmine Germany. Its roots date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century, when movements tried to recover/ discover a common culture for the German population, which was not unified at the time (Volk means folk, people). Names like Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm (in Folk studies), Otto Gierke (in Law), Johann Gottlieb Fichte (in Philosophy), Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (in Politics— Kurtagić 2010, 2811) may be considered precursors of that trend. When Germany was unified by the Prussians, in 1871, that tendency became much more popular and gave rise to a series of writers and movements (such as the Wandervogel) who sought to affirm the German idea of nation. As part of this völkisch worldview of the time, I would like to point out some of the dominant elements: the love for the German soil, for the “German traditional way of life” (incarnated in peasantry), for the German habits in Law and Politics, and for German history. In one word, the love for the German Sonderweg, a term used to describe the specificity of the German political unification and modernization process, but that could also

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be employed in a more vague way, to define the sense of singularity that the Germans would cultivate concerning their culture in comparison with those of other national groups (Elias 1994, 21 e ss.). Those elements would express themselves through an apology for primitiveness that rejected modern technologies, ways of life, cultures, and politics, as well as through a populism that, despite being focused on the peasants, left room for political authoritarianism. Nazism widely utilized the völkisch ideology aesthetics and many völkisch writers became Nazis. Nevertheless, völkisch thinking and Nazism are not the same—suffice it to say that Nazism is a political movement, whereas the völkisch ideology, despite involving images that may have a political character, was never completely integrated into a political movement. However, that does not mean they are not connected. VÖLKISCH METAL IN EUROPE AND BRAZIL: A CASE STUDY OF THE BANDS ARANDU ARAKUAA, ARMAHDA, AND MIASTHENIA When I use the term völkisch to define the sociopolitical perspective that some bands show in their lyrics, I mean to highlight the presence of those elements (the valorization of the fatherland and the traditions, even if there is not a valorization of the National State or if the traditions valued are not those considered hegemonic) and the possibility of them being coopted by extreme Right-wing movements (not necessarily neo-Nazi ones, though). I have selected the bands Arandu Arakuaa, Armahda, and Miasthenia because they use those elements, but they also aesthetically and politically express rejection toward the easy association between nationalism and extreme Rightwing ideologies. Völkisch ideology represents an element in these bands’ aesthetics construction in three noticeable ways: promoting an implicit or, sometimes explicit, supposedly comic, connection (in a variation of what Keith KahnHarris calls reflexive anti-reflexivity—Kahn-Harris 2007, 152–156); presenting itself as apolitical (Shekhovtsov 2009); or seeking to emphasize the connection between the band members’ political engagement and that of their fans, as well as the aesthetics they cultivate (like in the case of National Socialist Black Metal bands) The barbarian is the central image of European völkisch metal. Bands like Graveland, Metsatöll, Amon Amarth, Arkona, and Burzum, among others, utilize it, attracting, toward their constellation of semantic and semiotic associations, interpretative keys for their work given by political myths in which the barbarian figure also takes on a special role (Griffin 2006, 27–28).

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In Brazil, for reasons that would demand a deeper study, there is a structural repetition of certain aspects of the völkisch continent, such as the exaltation of primitivism and of the ancient knowledge of Native people (especially Arandu Arakuaa and Miasthenia). They also recover aspects of Native religions (in the case of Miasthenia, this involves an anti-Christian rhetoric) or even, a tragic reading of the symbols of imperial Brazil’s history (as in the case of Armahda), all without automatically attracting the chain of associations to reactionary political thought.12 The differences between these groups and their scenes are not that great, in part because, at least since the nineteenth-century Brazilian romanticism, there is a strong conformation of the discourses related to national identity (Schwarcz 1998: 200 and ss.)13 that revolve around the Native American and the great patriotic hero14 figures. Brazilian völkisch metal works with that worldview, allowing them to be approached as a whole. This vision tends to pasteurize the relation between the native peoples and the colonizers, as well as the approach of “the great characters of the nation,” creating discourses that allow for the flow of messages between artists and scenes, highlighting the traditional nature of the heavy metal language (which is noticeable in the utilization of the barbarian image). Only the previous existence of such tradition eventually allows new readings to be made (Eliot 1934: 14–15). An example of that is the way in which the band Armahda, from São Paulo, has treated the subject of one of its songs, Dom Pedro II, the last Brazilian monarch, deposed in 1889.15 During a personal communication, Maurício Guimarães (vocalist) and Renato Domingos (guitarist) affirmed the following: The idea for that song came from reading the book 1889 by Laurentino Gomes. He is a journalist and writer whose talent even caused envy amongst some historians, since he really described scenes from the past in a very interesting and captivating way, successfully inviting the reader to reflect on Brazilian history. That is exactly what Armahda wanted to do: bring interesting issues related to past events into our songs. As simple as that. Logically, in addition to the mentioned book, we consulted other materials, including biographies and theses on the issue, elaborated in renowned universities, just like we did to study the subjects of our other songs. We had the opportunity of interviewing Dom Bertrand, great-great-grandson of Dom Pedro II, who personally received us and also gave us a book to help our bibliographic research. We had very interesting and respectful conversations with him about history, the events that took place in his family, Antônio Conselheiro, Padre José de Anchieta, José Maria, and also about science, religion, and the

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environment. When we showed him the song and its lyrics, he said it was a “hopeless” song. That was the term he used to define it. By that time, we hadn’t defined the final version, but we decided to keep the “hopeless” lyrics. It was a sad story, a sad song, and we were satisfied with the accomplished mission of approaching Brazilian history, in a truthful way. For some reason, the second reign was not addressed in detail at the schools where we studied as kids. The history classes’ guidelines chose to prioritize issues like the French Revolution, the Enlightenment, or the Industrial Revolution, and the Brazilian cinematographic productions sought to ridicule the whole imperial period. It seemed like a boycott. The life of D. Pedro II, just like Luís Carlos Prestes’, is phenomenal. Logically, these “outliers” took initiative in order to benefit the people, but they also made mistakes that history has judged as very serious ones. There are no saints in the history of Brazil.

The mentioned book, by Laurentino Gomes, was the last part of an especially popular series in Brazil, that added a journalistic format16 to the standardized discourses of the Brazilian Academy. The path traveled by the musicians reveals a common practice in heavy metal, one that is central for defining the stylistic limits of subgenres. I am talking about the tendency to transform a specific interest on a certain subject (through a new perspective, developed through research) into the object of an artistic product. The musicians also highlight the way in which that research reiterates some aspects of a discourse that is standardized by some sort of heroic humanism and, at the same time, innovates it. (With regards to this aspect, I am thinking of the way they engage in consultation with living members of the imperial family,17 and in their highlighting of the melancholic aspect of D. Pedro II, who is seen as an eminently public person, in comparison to his father, D. Pedro I, whose personal life outweighed the public one.) Such romantic and identitarian historiographical tradition also has a reciprocal relation with other traditions. When asked in a personal communication whether he liked the Intérpretes do Brasil and the romantic indigenist literature, Zândhio Aquino (vocalist and guitarist in the band Arandu Arakuaa) answered that he “preferred literature that was made by indigenous authors: Kaká Werá Jecupé, Daniel Mundukuru, Eliane Potiguara, Kamuu Dan Wapichana, amongst others.” Nevertheless, that does not imply a rejection of Brazilian nationality. While they do sing in languages other than Portuguese (even though they have recorded a song in Portuguese), it is possible to think of their work as not interested in emphasizing a different nationality, as it

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often happens in other Latin American countries. Therefore, authors that manage to engage in a dialogue between native cultures and Western culture, such as Viveiros de Castro, are likely to be taken into account in these narratives.18 Brazil does not have a very strong cultural split, like other colonized countries.19 The undisciplined aggressiveness of colonization, added to the centralization of the State, deprived of any national project (meaning one that would involve society’s organization for a political/economical/social purpose), and the incentive toward the establishment of erotic relationships between different populations (indigenous tribes, colonizers, and Africans brought to the country as slaves) have dissolved any true sense of ethnicity, except for the one based on a common culture, which is a combination of the elements of different cultures involved in the colonizing project. That does not mean there is no tension, but Brazil can be understood as one entity, at least culturally. We can now return to the image of the Native American. I argue that the influence of romantic writers of the nineteenth century persisted, and those depictions were (and still are, by the way), broadly disseminated in every channel. “He, Peri, the invincible warrior, he, the free savage” (ALENCAR, 1990, p. 167) is not far from “Amazonas in arms / Wild militias / [. . .] / Free as the wind / Indomitable / Guardians of the gold of Omagua” (from the song Novus Orbis Profanum, by the band Miasthenia), which establishes a connection between the image from the game Araní (see figure 12.1) and the following excerpt of the song Abaré Angaíba (Bad Priest, in Tupi language), by the band Arandu Arakuaa, both emphasizing the heroic role of the indigenous person: Akó îagûá-nharõ, akó îagûá-nharõ, xe pyatã— As an angry jaguar, as an angry jaguar, I am strong

Arandu Arakuaa and Miasthenia, groups that come from regions that are closer to the lands the State conceded to the Native Americans, write songs that are more related to the indigenous culture and admit that such proximity is strengthened by personal and academic contact. They are also committed to the preservation of an indigenous resistance memory, the first band focusing more on the Weltanschauung of certain tribes, their cosmology, and the second on the resistance to the invasion and evangelization of the natives by the Europeans. Armahda, on the other hand, writes songs about Brazilian history as a whole. Even with images that are accompanied by elements that, in Europe, acquire a political fascist connotation, here, the barbarian has not yet been an object of political polarization.

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Figure 12.1  Promotional Image from the Game Araní. Source: Image provided by Diorama Digital, with support from ANCINE/BRDE/FSA (http://aranigame​.com​/home/).

CONCLUSION: TRADITION, TRANSGRESSION, AND ANTHROPOPHAGY IN NATIONAL VÖLKISCH METAL Brazilian culture still shows itself as anthropophagic (a term that has been used since the literary modernism of the 1920s to specify the process of absorption

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of elements that are native in other cultures into the Brazilian culture20), absorbing völkisch heavy metal traditions, and adapting them to the Brazilian reality. The images portrayed by this Brazilian völkisch metal are accompanied by a series of indexes and abstract machines that are all-around similar to the ones that accompany the studied character of the barbarian, because there is a whole convention that comprehends this kind of character, associated, as a rule, to freedom and tradition. The Native American is our barbarian—and, as such, he is a force of reaction. But he transgresses the tradition of reaction embodied by the barbarian. The bands that utilize his image, although keeping the völkisch character, move away from a fascist association. I do not believe it is possible to find a reason that justifies the choice of those images to represent völkisch and neither that such form of representation is motivated by a simple desire to “look into the past.” I attribute this historical phenomenon to the tradition of representing the elements of völkisch through the image of the barbarian and the Native American, a tradition in which social, political, economical, and other elements play a role, built out of a certain worldview and in which völkisch metal is a form of artistic expression, influenced by both other artistic objects (like books, films, and music) and by non-artistic phenomena, like the economy. But that in itself would entail a completely different investigation. The thematic delimitations of the work of the three bands considered here are different but that does not deconstruct their semantic unity, for they speak the same language: when we talk about D. Pedro II, we are closer to those talking about indigenous people than to those whose work is engaged in plain social criticism. The Native American, no longer the noble savage, is a figure of tradition. No wonder the movement Levante do Metal Nativo21 developed and found a niche in this space. The purpose of this text was to understand how it is possible to transgress the confines of a tradition like völkisch within another such tradition as that of heavy metal without depriving it of its characteristics. Furthermore, this text wanted to understand how such belonging and transgression take place in Brazil. More than trying to prove the thesis defended here, I wanted to paint a mental image. Beyond academic purposes, I hope the article awakens the reader’s interest in the bands, authors, and works cited. Finally, I make Armahda’s words my own: How about the Brazilian bands? Is there something about our sound that could make someone recognize Brazilian metal just by hearing it? We believe the selection of bands in the Levante do Metal Nativo could be an attempt to answer that question. Our people, for historical reasons, are a great mixture of the planet’s peoples, different ethnicities, different religions, lots of inequality. So, it’s not so easy to identify this “cultural intersection of sonority.”

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Maybe a more honest way would be to gather bands that choose to approach issues related to Brazil’s history and culture, putting together a list of bands that could help a foreigner understand what goes on here, through the spectrum of those who enjoy heavy sounds. [. . .] The Levante do Metal Nativo may be a national initiative, but not a nationalistic one, after all, those who like heavy music know it is borderless.22

NOTES 1. Working with concepts put forth by Deleuze and Guattari: indexes, abstract machines and machinic assemblage—ibid., 21. Consequently, I have recently chosen the term images, which includes indexes and abstract machines, the reworking of indexes through time and space, and their non-limitation to a certain material source of culture; that is, not necessarily a pictorial representation of an idea, but the mere representation of an idea. For more on this line, see Schmitt 2000, 68. 2. I refer to Carlo Ginzburg’s work on structural myth indexes (Klausner 2019, 176). In that respect: “According to Ginzburg, these common features indicate an unit: there is belief in the existence of a common ritual base behind the initiation which a young man goes through to be considered part of a society and of a specific group of men (Männerbund), and that such initiation is understood as a symbolic death. Behind all these similarities there would be a common source: Euro-Asian relations that would have transmitted common shamanic ritual practices (ibid., p. 189) and that, in the Indian-European trajectory, are specifically associated to the scythians, responsible, for geographic reasons, for the mediation between Indo-European and Asian peoples (ibid., p. 220–222; [. . .]). That relationship would have been constant, a true cultural exchange that created a new culture, which is the Western culture (ibid., p. 267–269). Anyway, there was a pre-civilizational contact, meaning that it happened before the settling of the historical sedentary civilizations, whose well-defined existence was known by contemporaneity in its plenitude, among these diverse peoples occupying Eurasia and North-Africa. The heroes are those whose stories are told in successor societies. In those stories, the constantly evoked aristocratic quality of the characters has the clear political expedient of facilitating connections between dynasties that overcome each other, as well as of intensifying the connection between dynasties and the people” (Klausner 2019, 37). All quotes are from (Ginzburg 2012). Regarding the concept of successor societies, see (Klausner 2019, 23 or MacIntyre 2007, 121). 3. Who is associated by Marc Bloch to a Germanist discourse of nobility, an “anticipated Gobineau,” and the creation of the feudal system idea as an idiosyncratic peculiarity of the Middle Ages—Bloch 1987, 11–12; it is necessary to consider that the noble savage appears as a new man model that questions the European civilizational certainties—Hazard 1964, 28–29.

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4. It starts as part of zoological studies, with Lineu’s Homo Europaeus, the idea of Caucasian by Blumenbach, the idea of a white active race by Klemm, the “blond giant, with a long head and blue eyes” by Gobineau, the Indo-Germanic race by Schlegel, the Aryan as an enemy of the Semite in Renan’s work, the German as a biological type by Chamberlain and Woltmann, the recovery, by Lapouge, of the Homo Europaeus, in association with the Aryan and, finally, “the creation of the term Nordic race by Joseph Deniker” (Sandoz 2010, 101). There was an attempt to, through the association of this biological element with mythical elements, associate Germans to “the ancient Teutonic heroes from the Icelandic sagas, the Eddas, and the Nibelungenlied as being representations of the best of mankind” (ibid.). Alfred Rosenberg, editor in Völkischer Beobachter, ideologist of the Nordic Volkskultur, racist theorist, anti-Semite and anti-catholic, was the Nazi herald of this “intellectual tradition.” The great poet of this Teutonic heroism tradition would be Wagner. Wagner, in his Der Ring des Nibelungen intended to unite everything: from the Nibelungenlied to the Völsung Saga and the poetic and prose Eddas. These sources were not organized, but neither was Wagner’s political intent, for he at times tended toward anarchy, and at others, defended monarchy. To this heterodox combination, Hitler gave credit for his reflection on revolution (and on how to be a revolutionary artist—Chance 2003, 75–76 and 90). 5. In that respect: https​:/​/ww​​w​.web​​citat​​ion​.o​​rg​/qu​​ery​?u​​rl​=ht​​tp://​​www​.g​​eocit​​ies​.c​​ om​/rg​​fdfaq​​/sour​​ces​.​h​​tml​&d​​ate​=2​​007​-0​​7​-20.​ Accessed on 28.08.2019. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the creators of Dungeons and Dragons, after having their company, TRS, accused by J.R.R. Tolkien estate of copyright violation, decided to publish a list of the greatest influences for their game, to answer what was considered by Tolkien estate as illegitimate appropriation of various unique aspects of the stories created by the English author, proving that such aspects could be considered original, but not unique, in the end of the Dungeon Master’s Guide first edition. In my dissertation, in a similar way to what I have done here with the image of the barbarian, I showed how the images of the good king and the loyal knight are associated to events diverse as the creation of a game like Dungeons and Dragons and the Revolta do Contestado (Contestado War) in Brasil (Klausner 2019, 57–58). 6. In that respect: “Heavy Metal, in the studied subgenres, will consider exactly the indexes and abstract machines that are more familiar to the gothic as a tradition that comprehends various elements that may be assembled in the most diverse ways. The work made by the gothic authors of the eighteenth century with those elements was different from the one made by the authors that used those elements in the Baroque, also different from the ones in Romanticism, and so on. [. . .] These indexes have a history. They can be used in assemblages that are absolutely different, but if the purpose is to direct a certain force to its optimum expressed power, it is important to consider such history. An index means something beyond the expression of its author’s desire, especially as the very expression of such desire already comes with a certain semantic load. All of this is recovered especially to have a better understanding of what it means to say that (a) heavy metal (at least in these studied subgenres) is a variation of romanticism; and (b) heavy metal takes these indexes from the gothic drawer inside the romanticism closet. These indexes are not born in the romanticism

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closet; they get there with time, as societies change and those indexes are used or not. [. . .] Therefore, the most natural thing is to admit that heavy metal is a variation of romanticism and, as a result, enjoys the same indexes and abstract machines mentioned above. Also, in the studied subgenres, it is essentially gothic—not in the sense of the definition given to the heavy metal subgenre called Gothic Metal, but meaning, to repeat the metaphor, that it is inside the gothic drawer of the romanticism closet” (Klausner 2019, 101). 7. For a mapping of such discussion, see Löwy and Sayre 2001. 8. The usage of the barbarian and the gothic aristocrat images in romanticism would be a form of antimodern reaction and a vindication of anti-liberal, anti-egalitarian and anti-democratic structures associated with a mythical past. We are not defending here the existence of a “reactionary essence” in romantic literature, but the fact that, as mentioned before, romantic authors, as well as any other creator of an artistic work, including nowadays’ heavy metal musicians, when evoking these images, these ideas materialized in means of communication (and art is here understood as a mean of communication), activate all relations established by these images in the world of culture and that are known by the receptor. Therefore, it is not important whether the creator of an artistic work wanted to give a certain meaning to a certain creation, but the meanings that this creation acquires in relation to other cultural symbols that are traditionally associated with the images which they work with. 9. In this manner, Löwy and Sayre have worked with various romanticisms that they called revolutionary and/or utopic (Klausner 2019, 100). 10. “[. . .] where the Nazi ideology may seem more purely pastoriented: in favor of traditional peasant life as opposed to the frenzy of large cities, in favor of the old gemeinschaften as opposed to today’s gesellschaft. It is true that Nazism unquestionably drew this theme, along with others (e.g., the specificity of the Germanic nation and the mythology of its origins, the völkisch ideology, the radical critique of Enlightenment thought and of liberal-democratic ideals), from the cultural arsenal of Romanticism. [. . .] What are the defining features of Romanticism in its fascistic form? [. . .] the Romantic critique of rationality is taken to its outer limits; it becomes a glorification of the irrational in the pure state, a glorification of raw instinct in its most aggressive forms [. . .] the individualist pole of Romanticism is severely attenuated, if not entirely suppressed. [. . .] Nostalgia for the past focuses most characteristically on the instinctive and violent barbarian prehistory of the human race; on Greco-Roman antiquity in its warmongering, elitist, slaveholding dimensions; on the Middle Ages (in Nazi painting Hitler sometimes appears as a medieval knight); on the rural Volksgemeinschaft; and on the mythic time of origins. [. . .] Benn presents—and espouses—[. . .] what Evola calls the Traditionswelt: the world of primitive societies from the period between the Homeric era and that of Greek tragedy, in the Orient and in the Nordic countries as well as in Greece. After this period, there is decadence (Verfall), the advent of the degenerate modern world. According to Evola (and Benn agrees with him), fascism and Nazism make it possible for the first time to reestablish a connection between peoples and the lost Traditionswelt. [. . .] In reality, the fascist perspective is oriented toward the new as well as toward the old, as we can see from numerous terms such as ‘new order,’ ‘new Europe’” (Löwy and Sayre 2001, 66–69).

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11. Alex Kurtagić is a British author, artist, and musician connected to the North American alt-right and to the European traditionalist movements, which pursue the preservation of a common tradition in Europe unite all European nations. In Black Metal, he searches for tools to promote the “counter the assault on white identity” (Kurtagić 2010, 23). Kurtagić believes Black Metal can be interpreted, in its poetics, as a recovery, if not a continuation, of the Revolutionary Conservatism discourses and of the völkisch movement as a whole, which were spread throughout Germany in the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century (ibid.: 27, that “thought organically rather than mechanistically, emphasized quality as opposed to quantity, prized folk-community (Volksgemeinschaft) as opposed to class conflict, believed in the Führerprizip as opposed to ochlocracy and parliamentarism, glorified war as opposed to unheroic economism, and rejected progressive liberalism, egalitarianism, and the banal commercial culture of urban industrial civilization. [. . .] Oswald Spengler, Ernst Jünger, and Carl Schmitt, along with Arthur Moeller van den Bruck (who coined the phrase ‘Third Reich’) were representative of this movement”—ibid., 31), as well as the mystic traditions born in Germany and Austria and with which they helped kindle Nazism (ibid., 29/30). Kurtagić associates the decline of Christianity in society around the 1960s, as well as the skepticism toward politics and the hostility between the Left and the Right, with the resurgence of these discourses. He also talks about a new awakening of interest for occultism, exemplified by the lyrics of the first period of heavy metal’s development (ibid., 31/2). He affirms: “Bathory’s Thomas Forsberg articulated the view that Christianity was a foreign religion, a form of Judaic spiritual conquest that sought to crush and eradicate indigenous European paganism. During the 1990s, this view became widely influential in the Black Metal subculture, especially in Scandinavia. Anti-Christian views within the Black Metal scene usually fall into two categories: Nietzschean (often mediated through Anton Lavey’s “Satanism”) and neo-pagan. [. . .] This outlook is explicitly völkisch, evoking the unity of blood and soil, of race and nation, and of spirituality and the Volk” (ibid., 32). Kurtagić recognizes the antimodern quality of the thriving discourses in Black Metal (ibid., 33), which try to present a common that rests on landscape, in the collective unconscious, in the lost pagan soul, in the lost heroic spirit from a distant past (words by ibid.: 34), a nostalgic recovery of the lost community. The interest in Kurtagić’s analysis lies on the perception of the affinities of his work with ones by other members of Black Metal community, including Michael Moynihan and Varg Vikernes (in that respect, ibid., 23–24; Goodrick-Clarke 2002, 207 and ss.), but it is not restricted to this community. His analysis is applicable, in terms of the indexes and abstract machines they evoke (Volksgemeinschaft, Führerprinzip, glorification of war), to other heavy metal subgenres, including the ones treated in this chapter. 12. As the central objective of this article is to promote the integration between the theory and the testimonies of the bands, the recording of the more properly biographical aspects of these will be done here: Armahda is a power metal band whose songs deal with themes of Brazilian history and folklore and that has already shown concern about a possible misinterpretation of his lyrics; Miasthenia is a pagan black metal band whose thematic, aesthetic and political relationship with a portion of the second wave of black metal has not gone unnoticed (Moraes 2014: 61–63); and Arandu

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Arakuaa is a folk metal band with lyrics in Tupi, Xerente, and Xavante. I contacted the three bands and the three were very helpful in answering my questions. Armahda, founded in 2011, has its name inspired by the 1893 Revolta da Armada in Brazil. The band has already stated: “We believe that the majority of the fans we acquired, knew us and liked our sound because of our themes, so little explored in Brazilian rock/metal “(in https​:/​/mu​​ndome​​talbl​​og​.bl​​ogspo​​t​.com​​/2016​​ /07​/e​​ntrev​​ista-​​arma​h​​da​.ht​​ml​?m=​1). Together with bands like Arandu Arakuaa, they were part of the Project called Levante do Metal Nativo. Today Arandu Arakuaa is no longer part of the movement, but maintains a good relationship with its members. Arandu Arakuaa (which in Tupi-Guarani means: “wisdom from the cycles of the heavens” or “wisdom of the cosmos”—the name came from the book A Terra dos Mil Povos: História Indígena Brasileira Contada por um Índio, by Kaká Werá Jecupé, about Tupi-Guarani cosmology), started in April 2008 and has already participated in the World Forum on Human Rights, at the invitation of the event organization, as well as in a biographical series about the Brazilian director of horror films, José Mojica Marins, Zé do Caixão (the “Coffin Joe”), has two recently released clips (https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=n5C​​​3xD​_M​​9CA and https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​ /w​​atch?​​v​=1xC​​​1y1xa​​3ac) and are responsible for the production of the soundtrack for the game Araní by Diorama Digital, with support from ANCINE/BRDE/FSA (http:// aranigame​.com​/home/). The information was taken from the band’s release, sent, along with the lyrics and their translations, upon request made by the e-mail aranduarakuaa​@gmail​.co​m, and provided in personal communication. Miasthenia started in 1994. It had initial references in Greek and Egyptian mythologies, but Inca mythology was already present in the first demo. They do not define themselves as “fully Black Metal” and believe that the band has a political stance (in https://youtu​.be​/psopuZbK03c). Its leader, Susane Hécate, is a history teacher and is concerned “with the historical education related to Amerindian cultures and the process of colonization and evangelization of America that destroyed and demonized everything that was different and that jeopardized the pillars of Christianity and the colonial exercise of domestication/slavery/exploitation of our lands and peoples “. Their albums are, as a rule, conceptual and have themes such as “the beliefs and cosmo-stories of the ancient Mayans about death, in Legados do Inframundo (2014); the diverse sects and indigenous resistance movements to the christianization and colonization, in Supremacia Ancestral(2008); the anthropophagic rituals of the Tupinambás, in Batalha Ritual, and the old kingdoms and stories of conquest, in XVI (2000) “(in http:​/​/roa​​die​-m​​etal.​​com​/r​​oadie​​-meta​​l​-ent​​revis​​ta​​-mi​​ asthe​​nia- conte​nt-an​d-mus​icali​ty-st​rengt​henin​g-the​-meta​l); the most recent one deals with the contrast between colonizing Europe and the colonized indigenous peoples, focusing on the mythical amazons (identified with the very real coniupuyaras - on which the band made a clip: https://www​.youtube​.com​/watch?v=KjfZsvMwucY). The topic is also of interest to Susane in academic life; in 2012 she published the work Por uma História do Possível: Representações das Mulheres Incas nas Crônicas e na Historiografia (in https​:/​/ww​​w​.fac​​ebook​​.com/​​miast​​henia​​/post​​s​/375​​940​00​​24991​​ 76/). Among the works that served as a reference for the content of the albums are the “‘Inferno Atlântico’ and ‘O Diabo e a Terra de Santa Cruz’ by Laura de Mello e

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Souza, the ‘Heresia dos Índios’ by Ronaldo Vainfas, ‘O selvagem e o Novo Mundo ‘by Klaas Woortamann. They all reveal the pagan resistance and the ways in which Christianity was projected in America through the demonization and extirpation of indigenous knowledge and practices” (in http:​/​/sat​​anicd​​estru​​ction​​zine.​​blogs​​pot​.c​​om​ /20​​10​/01​​/entr​​evist​​a​-mia​​​sthen​​ia​.ht​​ml?m=1). 13. See among the discourses of the group known as Intérpretes do Brasil and the one of their interpreters, Barros 2014; Freyre 2003; Lynch and Paganelli 2017; Klausner 2019, 132–136 [for an association between the mentioned above, the reactionary discourse and the gothic tradition], but also Fausto (Dir.) 2006; Matta 1997; Vianna 1987; Faoro 1958; Holanda 1963. 14. Given the exploratory character of this chapter, we should mention (although briefly), for all of those who can occupy the position of the great patriotic hero, D. Pedro II, for our greatest interest is in the circumstantial aspects involved in this idea of the great patriotic hero and that of the Native American, the mental landscapes in which such images inhabit and the way in which they are constructed. 15. The song is called The Last Farewell, and it can be listened to in the following link: https​:/​/op​​en​.sp​​otify​​.com/​​album​​/4LFz​​Edy9V​​KWVD0​​DFr83​​4At​?s​​i​=hMG​​ 9UShU​​​RtqOE​​vC6yN​​kchQ.​ 16. In that respect: https​:/​/ww​​w1​.fo​​lha​.u​​ol​.co​​m​.br/​​ilust​​rada/​​2013/​​08​/13​​31185​​-laur​​ entin​​o​-gom​​es​-co​​nclui​​-a​-tr​​ilogi​​a​-de-​​livro​​s​-de-​​histo​​ria​-d​​o​-bra​​sil​​-d​​e​-mai​​or​-su​​cesso​​-no​ -p​​ais​.s​​html.​ 17. But they avoid over politicizing (“It’s a thin line, the important thing is to raise a discussion”); or being interpreted as “monarchists,” as it has happened; or becoming idols for the radical nationalists—“it’s dangerous, it is not and has never been our idea” in https​:/​/ww​​w1​.fo​​lha​.u​​ol​.co​​m​.br/​​saopa​​ulo​/2​​014​/0​​9​/151​​0242-​​banda​​-paul​​istan​​ a​-faz​​-heav​​y​-met​​al​-ba​​seado​​-na​​-h​​istor​​ia​-do​​-bras​​il​.sh​​tml. Accessed on 07.30.2019. In personal communication: “Truth is, there isn’t, in Brazilian political history, a ‘hero’ or ‘heroine’ that hasn’t been a disappointment, at some point, even with good intentions. The band does not intend to present, let alone impose, a political posturing. We try to be impartial, as opposed to what occurs nowadays in national journalism, and we understand the difficulty it represents. I believe we can suffer the same criticism that a history teacher does, but we don’t think it’s fair to escape polemical issues. Our purpose is to promote the listeners’ interest in the events we approach. The listeners then will study and come up with their own conclusions, and that’s a good thing.” Answering another question: “the band had adopted the decision to display, in live shows, the Brazilian Imperial flag ALWAYS side by side with the Republican flag, trying to clarify that we approach distant past events AND ALSO the ones of a more recent past. It seems like the message was not that clear to the public. In social media, we were clear about accepting suggestions for our next albums’ subjects and we constantly receive messages asking us to approach points of view that are related to extremist and ridiculous posturings. We receive messages from members of different political parties that want to use our music for their own benefit, and that has happened with both Right and Left-wing parties. It’s like some sort of ideological warfare. As a band, we escape such disputes, for we are not interested in pleasing politicians, but in remembering historical events that could help society. Maybe it

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could even help politicians to understand the people’s needs. Our purpose is historical, didactical.” 18. Zândhio, in a personal communication, stated: “We greatly admire the professor’s contribution. ‘To think from an indigenous point of view instead of thinking about the indigenous people.’” It is important to understand how the nationality issue also reverberates in the band Miasthenia, who affirms, concerning the usage of Brazilian national symbols, that “black Metal is something absolutely different from any cheap and conservative idea of nationalism, from positivist political ideas. We are completely against anything that brings mottos from positivism, such as the one expressed in the flag: “ordem e progresso” (order and progress), which only reflects a conservatism, which we are not part of. We are in favor of chaos!! What the fuck is that whole little kids singing the hymn thing? My hymn is called ‘Black Vomit’ (Sarcófago), that one can be on every show!! (in http:​/​/sat​​anicd​​estru​​ction​​zine.​​blogs​​ pot​.c​​om​/20​​10​/01​​/entr​​evist​​a​-mia​​s​then​​ia​.ht​​ml​?m=​1). 19. There has always been and there’s still nowadays, of course, a certain submission of the Native American and African cultures in relation to the European culture in those spaces which are open for hierarchization (such as education and government institutions), but such submission is not absolute (which doesn’t mean it’s not intense or violent) and everywhere, there is a sort of compromise. Although it’s common for the Brazilian upper classes to emphasize their European ancestry, their way of life is deeply impregnated by elements that come from the cultures of Native Americans and of the Africans brought to Brazil. Nevertheless, the incorporation of foreign political and academic activisms, especially those from the USA, without adaptation to our realities, in various areas of the political spectrum, serves as a warning sign to the change in sensibilities and, at the same time, as promoter for the intensification of such change. In that respect, Bolsonaro’s government politicies, more onerous than any other phenomenon, are also an object of reflection for Zândhio, from Arandua Arakuaa, who, in a personal communication, when asked about the current Indigenous situation, stated: “It’s always a situation of struggle for nature preservation and for the right to continue to exist. Now, with a government that is avowedly an enemy of indigenous people and other minorities, the situation is even more delicate. But the fight continues, for this has always been indigenous land.” In addition, when asked about the inflexible social hierarchies in indigenous societies, intrinsically related to their cosmology, which is the main subject of Arandu Arakuaa’s lyrics, he answered: “When it comes to indigenous societies, it’s impossible to separate their culture from their social organization and cosmovision. When I’m composing, I don’t think about the music just with this mystical, social and political sense.” 20. The foundational text is by Oswald de Andrade and, curiously, he contrasts and goes beyond, in an almost dialectic effort, noble savage and barbarian (Andrade 2017). 21. The Levante do Metal Nativo is, as it is written in its Facebook page (https​:/​/​ ww​w​.fac​​ebook​​.com/​​levan​​temet​​a​lnat​​ivo/), “a musical wave that is getting stronger day by day into brazilian metal scene” that unites bands that “mix their music with brazilian elements: Rhythms, History, Culture and Folklore to brand new styles of heavy music.”

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22. For those who are interested, the Levante do Metal Nativo has a Spotify playlist: https​:/​/op​​en​.sp​​otify​​.com/​​playl​​ist​/7​​dTmnw​​tWFmT​​hB​G9R​​vtLSw​​O.

REFERENCES Alencar, José de. 1990. O Guarani. Brazil: Ática. Andrade, Oswald de. 2017. Manifesto Antropófago e Outros Textos. Brazil: Companhia das Letras. Barros, Fernando Monteiro de. 2014. “Brazilian Gothic: Allegories of Tradition in Gilberto Freyre and the Catholic Novelists of the 1930s.” Athens Journal of Philology 1 (3, setembro): 209–220. Bloch, Marc. 1987. A Sociedade Feudal. Spain: Edições 70. Carpeaux, Otto Maria. 1961. História da Literatura Ocidental—Volume II. Brazil: O Cruzeiro. ———. 2008. História da Literatura Ocidental—Volume IV. Brazil: Senado Federal. Chance, Jane (Ed.). 2003. Tolkien the Medievalist. UK: Routledge. Eco, Umberto. 1986. Travels in Hyperreality. USA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Elias, Norbert. 1998. 1994. O Processo Civilizador, v. I: Uma História dos Costumes. Brazil: Jorge Zahar. ———. 1998. Os Alemães. Brazil: Jorge Zahar. Eliot, T. S. 1934. Selected Essays. UK: Faber and Faber. Faoro, Raimundo. 1958. Os Donos do Poder: Formação do Patronato Político Brasileiro. Brazil: Editora Globo. Fausto, Bóris (Dir.). 2006. O Brasil Republicano, v. 9: Sociedade e Instituições (1889–1930). Brazil: Bertrand Brasil. Foucault, Michel. 2005. Em Defesa da Sociedade: Curso no Collège de France (1975–1976). Brazil: Martins Fontes. Freyre, Gilberto. 2003. Casa-Grande & Senzala: Formação da Família Brasileira Sob o Regime da Economia Patriarcal. Brazil: Global. Ginzburg, Carlo. 2012. História Noturna: Decifrando o Sabá. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. 2002. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. USA: New York University Press. Griffin, Roger. 2006. The Nature of Fascism. USA: Routledge. Hazard, Paul. 1964. The European Mind 1680–1715. UK: Penguin. Heng, Geraldine. 2003. Empire of Magic: Medieval Romance and the Politics of Cultural Fantasy. USA: Columbia University Press. Holanda, Sérgio Buarque de. 1963. Raízes do Brasil. Brazil: Editora Universidade de Brasília. Kahn-Harris, Keith. 2007. Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge. UK: Berg. Klausner, Guilherme Alfradique. 2019. For the King, for the Land, for the Mountains: Heavy Metal e Imaginação Política Reacionária—Dissertação de Mestrado. Brazil: Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.

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Kurtagić, Alex. 2010. “Black Metal: Conservative Revolution in Modern Popular Culture.” The Occidental Quarterly, 10 (1 Spring): 23–38. Löwy, Michael and Robert Sayre. 2001. Romanticism Against the Tide of Modernity. USA: Duke University Press. Lynch, Christian Edward Cyril and Pia Paganelli. 2017. “The Culturalist Conservatism of Gilberto Freyre: Society, Decline and Social Change in Sobrados e Mucambos (1936).” Sociologia e Antropologia, 7 (3 sept./dec.): 879–903. MacIntyre. Alasdair. 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory, 3rd Edition. USA: University of Notre Dame Press. Matta, Roberto da. 1997. Carnavais, Malandros e Heróis: Para Uma Sociologia do Dilema Brasileiro. Brazil: Editora Rocco. Moraes, Lucas Lopes de. 2014. “Hordas do Metal Negro: Guerra e Aliança na Cena Black Metal Paulista.” Masters Thesis. Brazil: Universidade de São Paulo. Poole, W. Scott. 2018 Wasteland: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror. USA: Counterpoint. Sandoz, Ellis. 2010. A Revolução Voegeliniana: Uma Introdução Bibliográfica. Brazil: É Realizações. Schmitt, Carl. 2000. The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy. USA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Schwarcz, Lília Moritz. 1998. As Barbas do Imperador: D, Pedro II, Um Monarca Nos Trópicos. Brazil: Companhia das Letras. Shekhovtsov, Anton. 2009. “Apoliteic Music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and “metapolitical fascism.’” Patterns of Prejudice, 43 (5 December): 431–457. Vianna, Oliveira. 1987. Populações Meridionais do Brasil: Populações Rurais do Centro-Sul. Brazil: EDUFF. Weber, Max. 1992. Metodologia das Ciências Sociais. Brazil: UNICAMP. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2000. Philosophical Investigations. UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Section V

LIBERATION THROUGH METAL MUSIC

Chapter 13

“A Scream that Makes Us Visible” Latin American Heavy Metal Music and Liberation Psychology Eliut Rivera-Segarra, Jeffrey W. Ramos, and Nelson Varas-Díaz

Psychology, as a scientific field of study, broadly aims to better understand the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of individuals and groups within a given socio-cultural and political context. Within these very same historical and cultural settings, music represents an artistic cultural production used to express human creativity. As such, there is a long tradition of psychological research focused on music as an important object of study. Some of these examples include the study of the role of music on perception and cognition (Stevens 2012), learning (Tamminen et al. 2017), literacy development (Gordon, Fehd, and Mccandliss 2015), well-being (Daykin et al. 2018), and therapy, as a tool capable of alleviating multiple health conditions (Bradt and Teague 2018; Gallagher, Lagman, and Rybicki 2018; Särkämö 2018), among many other areas. Heavy metal music (HM), as an artistic cultural artifact, has not been the exception. However, much of the initial psychological research on HM was conducted in a somewhat limited, decontextualized, and acritical manner. Some of the first research studies on HM emerged from the field of psychology during the late 1980s, when rock and HM became some of the largest selling musical genres. This initial work was mostly concerned with the potential negative effects of the music on youth’s mental health and as an instigator of antisocial behaviors. Although these concerns were not exclusive to psychology, they certainly helped reflect two issues of particular interest to the field: (1) the zeitgeist of that historical time in which HM was perceived as deviance from, and a threat to, traditional values; and (2) the ideological alignment of the field of psychology with this worldview. For 287

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example, some of these studies argued that HM was linked to an increase in delinquency (Singer, Levine, and Jou 1993), suicidal ideation and self-harm (Martin, Clarke, and Pearce 1993), and higher rates of reckless behaviors such as drug use (Arnett 1991), just to name a few problematic outcomes. Although we have argued elsewhere that perhaps this research could have been driven by genuine concern over youth and their health, the end result was the portrayal of HM as the cause of various psychopathological symptoms and social problems (Varas-Díaz et al. 2015). It is important to highlight that these types of pathologizing psychological approaches toward new and misunderstood topics are not new. Traditional psychological research (which focuses on prediction, control, and generalization) was (and with a few exceptions, still is) ideologically aligned with concerns over deviation (Parker 2007). To paraphrase Venn (1998), traditional psychological research is based on a particular view of the subject as “normal,” and everything that falls outside this view, is to be considered problematic or pathological. Thus, as HM and its participating subjects fell outside that view of normalcy, psychology’s assumed role entailed linking them with social problems and pathologies which justified and demanded the redistribution of mechanisms of control. This undoubtedly fueled (and sometimes seemed to confirm) the moral panics of the 1980s. Furthermore, the field’s emphasis on the “consequences” of consuming this type of music ignored key social, cultural, and political dimensions of the phenomenon. This, almost inevitably, led to a miopic and decontextualized view of HM and what the latter meant for the youth. Unfortunately, psychological research has not done enough to address the misconceptions about HM music that it contributed to create. To date, scarce research studies, mostly from the subfield of social and community psychology, address HM from more critical perspectives including its reported benefits to people who consume it (Howe et al. 2015; Rowe and Guerin 2018; Varas-Díaz et al. 2015). In light of this, it is fair to say that psychology has legitimized oppressive practices carried out in the name of “normalcy,” by disqualifying practices, knowledges, and belief systems that are critical of the societal contexts in which they are embedded. However, this hegemonic view of psychology has not gone unchallenged, particularly in Latin America. One of the most important challenges to this traditional view of this discipline has been liberation psychology. A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO LIBERATION PSYCHOLOGY Liberation psychology emerged during the 1980s in El Salvador, while the country was enmeshed in a civil war (described in detail in chapter 2 of this

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book). The discipline was initially proposed by Ignacio Martín-Baró, a priest and social psychologist by training, who was killed by the Salvadoran army because of his antiwar ideals. Heavily influenced by thinkers such as Orlando Fals Borda (Fals Borda and Anisur Rahman 1991) and Paulo Freire (Freire 2018), Martín-Baró questioned the production and imposition of knowledge carried out via traditional Western psychology. He proposed a different psychological endeavor that questioned who ultimately benefited from the produced knowledge of psychological research, and how it addressed the socially relevant issues of Latin America (e.g., political violence, racism, and genocide) (Barrero Cuellar 2015). These questions, and the mobilization of psychologists behind them, paved the way for a new Latin American psychology interested in generating knowledge alongside communities, focusing on their plights, and aiming to transform their social and political realities of submission, domination, and oppression (Barrero Cuellar 2015). Understanding social oppression, and contributing to efforts of liberation alongside oppressed people, was to become the task of a truly committed Latin American psychology; hence, the new discipline’s name, liberation psychology (Flores Osorio 2009). For this type of psychology, liberation would become an ethical-criticalempowering and democratizing process in which individual, communal, and institutional conditions of inequality and oppression would be questioned and transformed (Maritza Montero and Sonn 2009). Although liberation themes emerged within the Social Sciences during the second half of the twentieth century, the idea of a liberation psychology was unheard of until it was proposed by Martín-Baró. In order for psychology to be a liberating activity, it had to be ideologically aligned with freedom and committed to engaging in practices that aimed at nurturing communities’ potentials for action, which often remain invisible to them because of historical, cultural, and social conditions of oppression (Maritza Montero and Sonn 2009; Ignacio Martín-Baró 2006). In order to achieve this goal, Martín-Baró proposed three key themes that would define the liberating practice of psychology: (1) recovery of historical memory; (2) de-ideologization of reality; and (3) conscientization of a collective. Let us examine each individually, in order to explore how these are relevant to HM music in Latin America. Firstly, the recovery of historical memory can be defined as the rescuing of traditions and practices abandoned in the past that could be useful for current liberation practices. The urgent need for daily survival, which entails the need to focus on the here and now, leaves people without a clear sense of their own past (and of an alternative future, for that matter). Dominant power structures feed from this lack of historical anchoring in order to continue their oppressive practices. However, this oppressive reality is not natural or a-historical. By recovering the people’s historical memory, psychology aids in the re-discovery of a group’s roots and can help identify

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previous lessons from which they can build a new potential future of their own (Ignacio Martín-Baró 2006). In this sense, lessons learned from previous experiences of struggle can help navigate current and future manifestations of oppression. Secondly, the de-ideologization of the everyday experiences and realities aims to expose the common daily practices that justify oppression as normal, natural, and common sense (Domingo Jiménez 2009). This allows groups and communities to rescue the particular original experiences as objective facts of their own, rather than as natural and normal experiences which disguise oppressive practices (Ignacio Martín-Baró 2006). In order to achieve this, psychology, as a field, needs to engage with and adopt the perspectives of communities and accompany them in their path toward liberation. Lastly, conscientization is a Freire-inspired concept which entails the de-coding of the world people are embedded in as a way to understand the mechanisms of oppression and dehumanization which oppress them (Burton and Kagan 2009). Through education, awareness, and, most importantly, dialogue, people and groups develop a critical social and political conscience that fosters their capacity to transform and change their personal, communal and social situations; a capacity that is constantly devalued in them by the dominant power structures (Ignacio Martín-Baró 2006). Evidently, these themes are very distant from traditional psychology’s desire to control and predict cognition and behavior. It sides with the oppressed, aims to foster communal understanding of the factors that foster that oppression, and challenges them through specific actions. The main themes of liberation psychology open up an interesting reflexive exercise to surpass the traditional examination of HM music carried out within this field. Several questions arise in this scenario: What if HM music were interpreted through the lens of liberation psychology? How would the main themes of liberation psychology help us understand HM music in a different light? In light of these questions, this chapter aims to draw from the three previously discussed themes posed by liberation psychology to examine HM as a liberating practice in Latin America. We will argue throughout this chapter that HM serves as a vehicle for a psychosocial process of trauma recovery by engaging in committed actions aimed at emancipating people from oppression and, thus, echoes the ideals and practices of liberation psychology. But before engaging in this analysis, it is important to briefly examine HM in the Latin American context and its links to social oppression in the region. A FIGHT AGAINST OPPRESSION As this book evidences, Latin America is a diverse and complex region. The region’s varied geographical, cultural, political, economic, and historical

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characteristics make it almost impossible to provide a single comprehensive and uniform narrative about it. However, one unifying issue does stand out for the countries in the region: the majority of the nations and communities that comprise Latin America have undergone or continue to undergo some form of social oppression. From fifteenth-century colonization, constant violence against indigenous peoples, and the ongoing imposition of neoliberal policies, oppression, in its multiple manifestations, has been an ever-present experience for over 500 years across the region. This particularity is key for understanding HM’s role in this context. Research and scholarship addressing HM in Latin America have only recently begun to garner attention worldwide through the publication of several books, special issues in journals, academic conferences, documentaries, and university courses on the topic (Scaricaciottoli, Varas-Díaz, and Nevárez 2020; Varas-Díaz, Azevedo, and Nevárez 2018; International Society for Metal Music Studies 2021; Varas-Díaz 2018b; 2018a). One common argument in this interdisciplinary scholarship has been that HM in Latin America seems to have a different role than in other contexts where it has emerged and thrived. That is, HM in Latin America seems to be more explicitly concerned with social and political issues. Of course, this does not mean that social and political issues are absent from HM in other contexts. After all, HM from its early beginnings has been a reflection of the settings in which it has been manifested. However, the day-to-day realities of oppression in the majority of Latin American countries have led to the production of a particularly attuned music genre where the cultural, social, and political issues of the context (particularly those related to oppression) take central stage. In our previous publications, we have described HM in Latin America as decolonial, drawing on the works of Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo on coloniality (Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra, and Nevárez 2019). Coloniality refers to forms of domination and structures of oppression (e.g., based on race, ethnicity, gender, political positioning, social class) that were used to sustain the colonial experience of the fifteenth century, which have morphed to support the current Western modernity project (Quijano 2007). This “dark side of Western modernity,” to use Mignolo’s term (Mignolo and Walsh 2018), has been critically examined by HM in Latin America. For example, interdisciplinary research on the topic has documented how HM challenged Western ideologies imposed on local communities in El Salvador (Pack 2018), addressed the violence experienced during the internal armed conflict in Perú during the 1980s (Núñez De la Luz and Rivas 2018), resisted neoliberal politics of exploitation against the indigenous populations in Chile and México (Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra, and Nevárez 2019), challenged traditional female gender roles in the Caribbean region (Varas-Díaz et al. 2017), critically reflected on the colonial legacy of Christianity (Varas-Díaz and

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Morales 2018), and, in some instances, explicitly positioned itself against the brutal dictatorships of the region (Sánchez, chapter 3 of this book). Research has reflected the ways in which HM music, like many other forms of art, has engaged in a decolonial agenda for Latin America. It serves as a source of reflection and engagement in actions that intend to emancipate people from their daily experiences of oppression. In this way, HM in the region has the potential to, and in some places has already done so, become a liberating praxis in light of the region’s colonial experience. However, despite problematizing and proposing ways to address oppression at the individual, communal, and societal levels, psychological research has largely neglected the in-depth understanding of this process. This is where we understand that HM’s traditional endeavors into social critique, and particularly decolonial reflections for the Latin American region, are well aligned with liberation psychology. In light of this, we draw from this reconceptualization of the psychological endeavor in order to better understand the process through which HM aims to address oppression in Latin America. The findings presented in this chapter are part of a broader ten-year-long, community-based research project conducted in several Latin American countries: Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, México, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, and Colombia (Varas-Díaz and Rivera-Segarra 2014; Varas-Díaz and Mendoza 2015; Varas-Díaz, Rivera-Segarra, and Nevárez 2019; Varas-Díaz 2021). The research team implemented a mixed-methods research design using ethnographic observations (over 1,000 hours), in-depth interviews with community leaders, musicians, local fans, and scholars (n = 70), surveys (n = 402), and even documentary filmmaking (GonzálezSepúlveda 2015; Varas-Díaz 2016; 2018c). For the purpose of this chapter, we focus on the results from the in-depth interviews carried out throughout this process. Interviews conducted in Cuba, Perú, Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, and Colombia were carried out by the third author (VD). Interviews conducted in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and México were carried out by the first and third authors. Following a hybrid deductive/inductive analytic framework, we implemented a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006). All three authors participated in the analysis of the data. We have organized our findings following the three previously discussed themes of liberation psychology: (1) recovery of historical memory; (2) de-ideologization of reality; and (3) conscientization of a collective. Below we address each theme with examples from different countries in the region. THEN: RECOVERY OF HISTORICAL MEMORY As stated earlier, recovery of historical memory aims to rescue traditions and practices abandoned in the past that could be useful for current

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liberation practices. The strategies used to rescue these traditions and practices of the past are varied, with some proving more explicit than others. However, they all aim to re-discover forgotten or suppressed experiences/ practices in order to learn from the past and build an alternative future. Part of recovering that memory entails remembering how oppressed groups in society have become ostracized, and why they are, as a result, marginalized. We initially crossed paths with this theme in Argentina, where HM is used as a vehicle to shed light on communities living at the periphery of society, and who have been deprived of rights in their own cultural contexts. This is particularly important when it comes to indigenous groups (Calvo 2018). Search our history! Who were the outcasts? Who were the outsiders who had no rights? I think that in that sense, metal in general seeks to empower those who are disadvantaged or marginalized, culturally and socially. It is in that search in which these bands look at their own contexts to see who are those disadvantaged and marginalized. Who are those that are outside the hegemonic culture. It is because of that that they look toward indigenous peoples. (Scholar/ Researcher—Argentina)

The concern over the re-discovery of indigenous peoples was a particularly salient topic across many interviews. Thus, the recovery of the indigenous past, and their present day conditions, has been a key issue that Latin American HM has addressed in order to talk about historical memory. This is particularly relevant to one of the participants from Perú, who stated: “We cannot deny our indigenous origins. I think our indigenous origins make us angry, our . . . it makes us angry. We want to banish it from our past and our history” (Musician—Perú). In light of this social negation of the importance of indigenous identities in the region, HM has worked to highlight the use of indigenous languages and cultures, as a way to foster pride among its listeners. Another Peruvian musician stated: We must move to address our roots, of the Incas, musically, thematically, and historically. We have to make the Peruvian or Latino proud of what was here before. Everything is a reflection (of your context), and singing is a reflection of the people. If there are things people keep quiet, and we don’t like it, we still have music as a tool. (Musician-Perú)

This last quotation stemmed from an interview with a Peruvian metal band, which mixes folk sounds and themes with death metal music. For example, they addressed the recovery of memory through the integration of the Quechua language into their lyrics, in order to sing about indigenous oppression during the Spanish conquest (see table 13.1).

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Table 13.1.  Lyrics of the Song El Obraje from the Album Testimonios by the Band Kranium from Perú Spanish/Quechua Obrero que luchas por sobrevivir, en tus manos el don de trabajar, nunca quisiste ser esclavo, castigado, torturado y explotado, Conquistadores, se aprovecharon de tu inocencia . . . KITIMUNKAN, ARI . . . KITIMUNKAN ÑOQAN KANI INKA RICUSAJMI . . . MACCHU PICHUTA, SACSAIHUAMANTA OLLANTATA . . . TICARINKA LLACHAYNINTA, VISÑIRICUNANPAC ANCHA MUNASKAY QOSQO LLACTAYMANTA PACHA ¡INTIC TUCUY CUCHU, . . . KUNA CAMA!

English Translation Dear worker who struggles to survive, in your hands the gift of work, you never wanted to be a slave, punished, tortured and exploited, Conquerors, they took advantage of your innocence . . . It will come back, yes it will come back . . . I am the INKA And I will see it bloom Macchu Picchu, From Sacsayhuaman to Ollantaytambo and pour out your light of wisdom from My dear Qosqo, to the last corner of this land!

NOW: DE-IDEOLOGIZATION OF REALITY The recognition of the past allows peoples and groups to critically examine their current realities and experiences, which in turn leads to an understanding of who exactly benefits from their exploitation. By understanding this, people are able to expose the oppressors’ ideology, which is frequently interpreted as natural and common sense. We experienced this view of HM music while visiting México, where artists used it as a de-ideologization strategy. For example, while engaged in our interview work, one musician explained how HM served as a vehicle for his band to uncover oppressive power structures that keep people in their country in an ever-present sense of dread (what Martín-Baró conceptualized as fatalismo) (Martín-Baró 1994; Sánchez 2005) and alienation. He drew inspiration from another local artist (the 1990 Nobel literature prize winner Octavio Paz) in order to address this issue via the lyrics of his songs. He explained: From the Aztecs to the Mexicas, there was this pyramidal structure of seeing the world and seeing power, like all of us, being at the base of the pyramid and giving everything to one person, right? To one who is the cacique, who is the chingón, placing all confidence on him so that you no longer have responsibility to exert; there is someone who exerts it for you, right? Either a god or an employer, right? So I think a little bit of that idea stayed in our collective unconscious as a society . . . in someone who exerts power, we have no responsibility

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for that power nor do we have to demand anything, but rather stay at the base of the pyramid. That’s what Octavio Paz argues . . . and we have that kind of feeling of being a conquered, defeated, lost people. Our roots, our customs, our worldview, is not valid in this new world. (Musician—México)

This de-ideologization of reality was not limited to oppressive experiences in the distant past. In Argentina, another participant elaborated on HM’s role in making visible and targeting multiple forms of current everyday oppression. He particularly emphasizes the need to critically challenge a neoliberal worldview that aims to make people believe that if they work hard enough, they can make it under any condition. I think that Argentinian and Latin American metal is a scream that makes us visible . . . it was a scream to say, here we are! And from that, and as we can, let’s start a dialogue about some issues that are not being seen. I am talking about political systems. I am talking about poverty. I am talking about discrimination. I am talking about bodies, expelled by normality. I speak of diverse sexualities. If we talk about colonialism of power, because let’s say, it is also, let’s say decolonial, in terms of making visible . . . the decolonial, it is not only the conquest, it is not only the conquest of America. The decolonial somehow also implies knowing how power operates, right? . . . A shadow, a myopic view of social problems, that highlights one life story out of thousands of people who do not make it, and sets it as an example to tell you, “you can do it, under any condition.” The reality is that you cannot make it under any conditions (Musician—Argentina)

The de-idealization of reality also extends to challenges toward racism and xenophobia, particularly when these relate to one’s own indigenous identity. Conceptualizing those identities as undesirable is yet another mechanism of oppression. A HM musician from Perú explained how HM music aimed to push people into questioning this reality. Here the word cholo is used, for example, to contemptuously describe the indigenous. So a cholo may be an indigenous person, but at the same time a brute, a thief, a dirty person. Our own choledad, that is to say, the Andean in us, has been very difficult to integrate into our history, our society, to live with it. Our musical proposal seeks to integrate, recognize, and give a space to our indigenous identity. The line that we propose is in musical terms a concrete presence of Andean elements, but in terms of lyrics we pose a whole questioning, a reflection about making that musical fusion. Our lyrics speak about thinking about exclusion, thinking about fear, thinking about terror. It is a call to reflection; it is a call toward questioning. There is no integration without facing a conflict. It

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is impossible to integrate without going through that process of acceptance of those aspects that annoy you the most about yourself. The lyrics shed light on what it means for us to be integrating our roots. (Musician-Perú)

Participants in Argentina also echoed this concern over the oppression of indigenous communities. Another participant emphasize that although HM certainly addresses indigenous concerns, it made sure to also address experiences of social oppression faced by other social groups. He described how HM in his country aimed to address the plights of all silenced subjects. I think that the concern with the indigenous, or the indigenous-themed lyrics of national metal, respond to an objective, concrete struggle. Yes, without a doubt, the concern with the indigenous, the indigenous cause in the lyrics of the National metal, responds to an objective political agenda, yes? . . . But National metal, of national inflection, does it with all the silenced subjects. Tren Loco is the band, on that particular album (entitled Sangre Sur), which was highly celebrated by Hugo Chávez, who has understood the most and is most committed to reading Latin American reality. (Scholar—Argentina)

A specific example of how HM is intentionally used to uncover the multiple disguised ideologies of those in power can be found in another quotation from one participant in Argentina. In this case, there was an explicit questioning about the celebration of the “discovery of America” by the Europeans, which was reinterpreted as a holocaust for the indigenous peoples of the region. The participant further elaborates on how this critical examination of this naturalized and normalized event also fosters a critical approach toward other forms of exploitation, such as neoliberalism, and sees it as an example of how colonialism continues to morph and oppress the peoples of Latin America. He stated: We have a song called 500 Years of What?, written by the Patagonian poet Hugo Jiménez Agüero, which questions what is celebrated in Europe on October 12. This was a very large massacre, right? Which is not considered a holocaust. They celebrate a mass murder. That oppression not only started by taking everything away, but it continued with a permanent oppression. That oppression perhaps no longer continues with the massacres of the original peoples as it was before, but yes, it continues to marginalize the original peoples. Those five hundred years of colonialism, now they manifest themselves in a, more than anything, sort of intellectual brainwash, right? They make you see that neoliberalism is the only solution. In Latin America, we already tried these economic recipes which explode, every ten years, in more misery for the people. That is also a form of colonialism. (Musician—Argentina)

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NEXT: CONSCIENTIZATION OF THE COLLECTIVE This final theme examines a key practice in Latin American HM. That is, HM serves a pedagogical purpose of educating and awakening listeners in order for them to develop a critical and political conscience to transform their personal, communal, and social circumstances. One Mexican musician described this process in the following manner: The way in which I conceive myself, and I conceive my music, is that our music is not foreign to our being. We are our music and our music is linked to what we live. We live here in Mexico City, and that is a reality that touches us every day. And I think it is a very political reality. So everything that we are experiencing affects us politically as well, they are political decisions that are influencing our way of living, seeing, and relating to the world. Then I believe that if we give way to this conception, and see things that way, we can better understand that politics is not foreign to us. In other words, politics does not make you go to vote; it does not make you choose a party. Politics makes you understand the reality in which you live and take a position or question, question rather than take a position, question the relationships that you are creating socially, economically and whichever other ways they are. (Musician—México)

Participants from other countries also echoed this particular understanding of how their context and experiences are embedded in particular political realities. In this case, there is an understanding of the close link between political and economic ideologies that continue to oppress the people. HM is used to educate listeners about these matters, and thus, the music is understood as an inherently political endeavor. One Chilean musician stated: We are against many things, and that is having a political stance. Here in Chile there are many issues because there are many things that are happening. The issue of privatization of many services here in Chile motivates bands to address these issues, and they do it. . . . So, clearly, whoever tells you that metal is not political or that we do not have a position on things is, I think, totally wrong, in my opinion. (Scholar—Chile)

HM music, in addition to fostering an understanding of its surrounding context, also serves to engage people in an engaged self-reflective practice. As one participant explained: Not only for music, because I like music, but the message fascinates me; because it is not only playing with a band, it is to raise awareness. That is

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who we sing to; to the conscience. We must raise awareness, do you see? (Musician—Puerto Rico)

Another participant echoed this understanding, arguing that Latin American HM allowed them to become aware of their context, investigate about the root causes of its problems, and denounce those circumstances. They understood that this was the main reason why HM was not given a lot of support from the establishment. (HM) makes you investigate. It makes you study. It makes you say “come here, this is not music to wiggle your asses.” No. Heavy metal gives you that chance to say “well, I am here in this country, these things are happening, and I can denounce them with my music. I mean it is violent. I can denounce it.” So, that’s something that cannot be given a lot of support because it’s going to create a revolution for you. (Fan—Dominican Republic)

In addition to raising this type awareness, HM in Latin America also served a concrete political purpose. As one participant explained, metal fans had become actors involved in the political mobilizations in his contexts. They had gone from listening about these issues though HM music, to acting to transform them. He explained: You are hardly going to see a mobilization with a lot of boys and girls with Madonna shirts; right? We can understand what we mean. Generally, you will see boys and girls with Hermética shirts, with V8 shirts, with Almafuerte shirts, with Malón shirts, with Tren Loco shirts, yes? With t-shirts of those bands that, in their messages, in their lyrics, in their aesthetic proposal, promote intervention. The intervention on the streets. This means, that is not an aesthetic of complaint; right? It is an aesthetic that is proposed as a policy of intervention. So there is a sensitivity that is evidently capturing, learning from heavy metal, and which then translates into each social mobilization. That is something very unique, yes? That is something very unique. (Scholar—Argentina)

Finally, in one of the most eloquent elaborations of how HM serves to foster conscientization, a participant explained how HM helped propose an open, honest dialogue about a new alternate future. He further explained that this was the guiding principle of their HM proposal; challenging the genre in the Latin American context to question the realities of Latin America. As he explained:

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Sometimes it seems that silence unites. It seems that avoiding some themes, which can somehow distance us, unites. It would be necessary to take a deep look at the nature of that union, right? If silence unites, then we have a big problem. We think that if there is something that will unite us, it is dialogue, and we extrapolate that to music. We have a song called Traen la Pregunta (They Bring the Question). Those social classes bring the questions that nobody wants to answer. Our genre should be encouraged to ask those other questions. It must be able to connect with its origin, at least the Latin American origin, which is not to entertain. It is not to entertain people. We repeat this phrase at every concert. We don’t come here to have fun. We come to propose other questions. We come to heal ourselves in the encounter. We come to encourage ourselves to ask those other questions. In Latin America there is a pedagogue, perhaps one of the most relevant, whose name is Paulo Freire. He coined the phrase el que enseña a aprender y el que aprende al enseñar.1 Many of the members of our band worked a long time, myself among them, in vulnerable neighborhoods in Buenos Aires and I believe that, working alongside boys and girls in those neighborhoods, we cultivate the way that we are choosing to be in the world. (. . .) Going back to what we were talking about; what is metal if it is not a scream that makes visible all the people who will soon be hit in Latin America in the coming years? What is metal, if not that? If it’s not that, it’s nothing. (Musician—Argentina)

As it is undoubtedly clear, the participants showcased here, whether knowingly or unknowingly, have and continue to actively engage with the themes of recovery of historical memory, the de-ideologization of reality, and the conscientization of the collective. In a sense, we could argue that metal, at least in Latin America, stands as a textbook praxis in what liberation psychology is all about. Even while each individual voice is capable of expressing its own worldview, these all coalesce in what is nothing other than an intervention into the Latin American ethos. The larger voice, that screams, seeks emancipation from centuries of coloniality, oppression, and invisibility. HM and liberation psychology, thus, are not strange bedfellows, but are, in effect, manifestations of the same path. “ . . . Y COMPRENDIÓ AL PENSAR”2: A DIFFERENT PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH FOR HM MUSIC IN LATIN AMERICA In this chapter, we have aimed to examine how HM in Latin America serves as a vehicle for engaging in committed reflections and actions, aiming at

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emancipating people from their oppressive realities. We have achieved this by drawing from central tenets of liberation psychology and providing specific examples from a ten-year-long community-based research project across several countries in Latin America. We have done this with two main purposes in mind. First, we wanted to highlight that, despite the ideological alignment of traditional Western psychology and its concerns with pathology and social deviation, the existence of other more critical psychological models can help the field surpass its own limitations, while simultaneously supporting a different understanding of HM’s role and impact in peoples’ lives and the communities throughout Latin America. On the one hand, our use of liberation psychology in this chapter aims to make visible a psychological approach that emerged from the Global South and which is often neglected by scholarship in the Global North. Furthermore, our work also aims to foster the use of psychological approaches that integrate into their frameworks an explicit discussion about social and political issues to better understand HM, in contexts such as Latin America, from a more critical perspective. This is key in order to shed light on how HM supports psychosocial processes of resistance toward, and recovery from, oppression for people and communities. Secondly, we wanted to further emphasize HM musicians in Latin America who use this music as a decolonial strategy and, by extension, as a liberating practice. Interpreted through the tenets of liberation psychology, our results evidence that HM outright addresses the ever-present consequences of the colonial experience, that “darker side of modernity.” It does so systematically and outside traditional entities like political parties or movements. It does so by using music to talk about issues of importance for understanding coloniality, such as the use of native languages (recovery of historical memory), unmasking oppressive ideologies (de-ideologization of reality), and educating and bringing awareness to one’s temporal and spatial place in society (conscientization of the collective). In this sense, HM in Latin America serves as a source of social critique, while also helping people imagine an alternative future, much like other musical genres in the region, like Nueva Canción did during the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, although addressing all the manifestations of oppression in the region is inevitably incomplete due to the region’s diversity and ever-changing complexity, we do hope this reflection provides a different perspective regarding the role of HM in the process of psychosocial recovery from historical oppression in Latin America. As neoliberal policies continue to burn away the Amazon, imperial and colonial relations foster the disappearance of the coastal shores in the Caribbean, and right-wing populism exponentially grows in popularity and erodes democracies, it remains to be seen how HM music in the region will adapt and continue to serve as a reflection for liberation for its

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listeners (in both the Global South and the Global North). We hope this chapter will be useful as part of the historical memory documenting the liberating role HM has played in Latin America up to the present, and how a different approach within the field of psychology can help us better understand this musical genre.

NOTES 1. He who teaches how to learn and he who learns while teaching. 2. In reference to Inti-Illimani’s song Retrato from their album Canción para Matar una Serpiente released in 1979.

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Chapter 14

Metal Migration The Latin American Diasporic Experience in Heavy Metal Daniel Nevárez Araújo

For many years now, Latin America has served as an important bastion for heavy metal music. While in some regions the consumption and production of metal music has undergone radical fluctuations, Latin American markets for the most part have remained constant, both in their interest in the music—as evinced in the amount of tours that travel to the region—as well as in the proliferation of bands that have originated from the region. This proliferation even led Esther Clinton and Jeremy Wallach back in 2015 to declare that “today’s multi-racial Latin American metalhead population may rival Europe’s” (274). In fact, recent numbers back such an assessment. On April 2019, TuneCore, an independent digital distributor, announced that heavy metal music experienced an increase of 154 percent in global streaming (Billboard Staff 2019). South America, in particular, accounted for 31 percent of that increase. Over the last decade, we have witnessed a similar rise of Latin American Metal Music Studies, its practitioners producing an ever-increasing amount of articles, books, and even documentaries. Recent works such as the Special Issue on Latin American Metal (Varas-Díaz et al, 2018) published by the journal Metal Music Studies, and documentaries like Heavy Metal Islands: Culture, History, and Politics in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music (2016) and Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America (2018), both developed by Nelson Varas-Díaz and his team, attest to this increased activity. Yet, more is left to be done in our exploration of this lost horizon. This chapter aims to add to this area of scholarship by looking at a very specific experience within the topic of metal in Latin America. Latin American metal musicians working and performing outside the geographical confines of 305

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Latin America have made their mark in the metal world abroad. Participating in influential bands as well as lesser-known groups based outside of their native countries, these musicians bring their particular cultural sensibilities and experiences to bear in the expansion of the vast heavy metal sonic tapestry. The diasporic experience places the musicians analyzed in this study in a space of double, sometimes triple, consciousness,1 to borrow W. E. B. Du Bois’s term (2007). Diasporic Latin American metal musicians have adopted new lands in order to pursue their musical dreams. In this pursuit, they are occasionally forced to straddle the identities they developed in their homeland and those they adopt in exile. Some of them have found ways to maintain their cultural roots by bringing Latin American sounds, textures, and motifs into the musical output of the bands they belong to. Others have opted to assume fluid or hybrid identities which are more interested in negotiating a multitude of personalities, spaces, and options, out of which being Latin American represents but one. But overall, the subjects of this study bring their selves—their early lives, their philosophies, their languages, their world views—into these bands. It is this specific influence and construction of the self that the present study seeks to understand. Ultimately, the present chapter aims at understanding the multiple ways in which the diasporic metal identity is developed, constructed, and defined, by listening to the testimonies of those who have lived that experience. In exploring the construction of identity, this study is also interested in answering, even if in a cursory manner, some complex questions about metal, the self, and the communities the self interacts with: Do these musicians feel like outsiders? Where do they feel they belong to? Can we speak of metal bands as self-contained, “porous” communities that mimic the nations they inhabit?2 Or do bands behave in ways exclusive to themselves? Do individuals feel like they belong to or in “metal?” Do they feel like migrants? And perhaps more interestingly, can we speak of metal as a nation, one that comes to replace or supplant the traditional ones that harbor them? We often speak, academically and colloquially, of the “metal community,” a community that transcends national boundaries, which is brought together by its members’ love and appreciation of all things metal. Historically, depictions of this community have been dominated by White, Northern, Western, male identities.3 Consequently, what happens when this community experiences the incursion of influential “others” that break with the “historical” dominant? Can we speak of the incursion of people who do not fit this mold as a form of migration, that is, a migration into metal? And if so, is there full integration/assimilation, or do Latin American metal musicians remain in their own “land” throughout their tenures in the various bands they create and perform with? The present study intends to approach these and other questions as they pertain to the diasporic experience of Latin American metal musicians.

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To answer these questions, I have conducted interviews with six musicians: Marcela Bovio of Ma¥an (ex-Stream of Passion, ex-Ayreon), Martín Méndez of Opeth, Diego Tejeida of Haken, Tito Quiñones of Saint Diablo, and Paul Rivera and Juan Marte of La Armada. In choosing the participants of this study, I sought out musicians who had been born in Latin America; had mostly grown up, studied, and started their musical careers in the region; and had eventually moved to a country in the Global North to continue their careers. The individuals contained herein represent the few who responded to my emails and Messenger requests. My efforts aimed at a higher participation (there are, after all, many more musicians who share the experiences defined above), but many other musicians were either unwilling, on tour, or in the studio at the time of inquiry, and could not offer substantial time to conduct interviews or were simply not interested. In addition to Skype or phone interviews, I consulted archival interviews, analyzed lyrics and music, and engaged in the comparative analysis of the associated bands’ output against more “traditional” referential bands. Additionally, I have consulted research on Diaspora Studies—particularly as it pertains to the Latin American Diaspora—studies on migration, and studies on transoceanic and regional movement. In the end, this chapter attempts to paint an initial picture of the Latin American metal diasporic experience. Before we continue, a word on the framing of the questions. The interviewees were asked a sequence of questions which were designed with Social Identity Approach and its theories in mind. Social Identity Approach is a theoretical set comprised of Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory. This set, usually associated with the work of Henry Tajfel and John Charles Turner, develops the notion that the self is a construct built out of the interaction of two forces which converge in the process of developing one’s identity: these forces are “individuality” (e.g., personal self, personal self-perception, personal self-beliefs) and what can be called group/social influence (Turner 2012). Turner, in particular, believed that individuals are greatly defined by the different realms to which they belong. Each individual, he posits, has their own interests, tendencies, desires, and needs; however, we are social beings, and as such our individuality is influenced by our social interactions. This entails voluntary and involuntary membership in a multitude of groups, which ultimately push and pull the self, moulding it into what it becomes. This becoming is always in flux; in other words, defining the self is never a static action. Consequently, we never reach a final self; instead, we work and go through a multitude of selves throughout our lifetimes. With this frame in mind, the questions were designed to explore the realms of membership of the interviewees. Moving from macro- to microconsiderations and vice versa, the interview process led to painting individual pictures of each person’s sense of belonging in the various groups to which

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they subscribe. Thus, the process posed questions about the interviewees’ sense of belonging as it pertained to their birth countries, their adopted countries, their families and friends, their bands, and the metal community at large. Considerations of citizenship, ethnicity, race, gender, movement, and migratory status were addressed, directly and indirectly, during these interviews. After moving them through all these considerations, the process ultimately landed on the consideration of metal as its own space. Thus, the interview process was designed to test and understand each individual’s sense of belonging to the myriad groups they subscribe to. As far as considerations of diaspora are concerned, Social Identity Approach also informs my choice of language here. Throughout this chapter, it will be noted that I have used the word diasporic instead of diaspora. While this study is influenced directly by Diaspora Studies, my choice of language responds to the recognition that the dominant usage of the word diaspora usually refers to communities defined by political, cultural, ethnic, racial, or other forms of collective persecution. Given that this study is looking at individuals and not at fully defined communities, I have chosen to refrain from the use of the word diaspora proper. Instead, I am identifying individual experiences that are diasporic in nature. That is, while some of these individuals identify as members of a particular diaspora (i.e., the Dominican diaspora in Chicago, the Uruguayan diaspora in Sweden), their individual experiences should not be taken as definitive or emblematic of the diaspora with which they identify. Nevertheless, my study borrows from the language and the frames of theory used when studying diasporas. These include words and ideas like “other,” hybrid, exile, outsider, citizenship, imagined communities, transnationalism, memory, homeland, and adopted country.4 In a sense, this is also a way of recognizing the macro and the micro, the individual and the collective; these individuals may move within the diaspora, but this approach seeks to give voice to their very peculiar experience as metal musicians of Latin American origin, clearly a life few have experienced. Ultimately, this work is interested in listening to these individuals and documenting their experiences, thus providing information that will serve not just Metal Music Studies and Diaspora Studies, but other areas of research and academic work. THE SONG OF EXILE For the past ten years, Marcella Bovio has called The Netherlands home. There, she has been part of a handful of influential metal bands and projects which have cemented her status as one of the preeminent female voices within the genre. Born in Monterrey, México in 1979, Bovio noted during our interview the geographical proximity of her birthplace to the United

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States, which she sees as an integral part of her upbringing, and credits with her exposure to metal in general. As I did with every interviewee, I asked her to paint a picture of those formative years in México. Her childhood memories are mostly positive. Her godfather was the director of the Music Conservatory in Monterrey. Early on, her godfather saw great potential in her, so he recommended that her parents place her in music school, which they did as soon as she turned five. Early on, she studied concert flute. But as the years progressed, her learning included violin, guitar, piano, and jazz harmonization. Eventually she landed on singing, to which she would devote most of her energy. Because of her schooling and her proximity to the United States, she also learned English at a young age. During adolescence she discovered rock music, predominantly in Spanish—groups like Caifanes, Soda Stereo, and Héroes del Silencio. One late night, while listening to Monterrey Radio, she discovered a show called Distorción which was fully devoted to metal music. She calls this her awakening into metal. Soon, she was consuming doom and classical music side by side. These influences led her to form her first band, Hydra, which was a progressive doom outfit. That first group led to a second one called Elfonía, an ambient, experimental, and prog-jazz group which would go on to record two albums, the second of which reached the ears of Arjen Lucassen, who would invite Bovio to participate in his group Ayreon, an invitation that would lead to her moving from México to Holland permanently. In her ten years of residence there, she helped found the group Stream of Passion (2005–2016) with Lucassen and became a member of the groups VUUR and Ma¥an, the latter of which has become her main group since 2017. Simultaneously, she has pursued a solo career, having so far released two albums and an EP. Bovio’s connection to México remains an integral part of her identity. Her entire family resides there, a huge reason why she tries to visit the country once a year, though she admits that it has become increasingly difficult due to the high cost of travel. She also retains many of the friends she had before she left. Consequently, every time she visits, she explains, “it’s as if I’ve never left.” During our interview, she expressed a desire to return permanently. In fact, much of her songwriting expresses this longing for home. One needs only to listen to a song like “Exile” (from her work with Stream of Passion) to get a sense of her perpetual wish to return. As she sings in that song, “An ocean pulled us apart, But one day we’ll meet again.” However, work prevents her from turning this longing into a reality. She is a software developer in Holland and believes that the labor climate there offers better opportunities and more flexibility, something she is currently unwilling to trade. (According to her, her workweek in Holland can be four days, whereas in México, most jobs require six days.) Thus, she does not envision returning anytime soon.

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Talking about Holland, she remained equally positive. Before moving permanently there, she knew many people, mainly members of the metal community, who welcomed her with open arms. Traveling there to record albums and sing at concerts served as a test run for her full transition. Eventually, though, she moved because she began a relationship (with Johan Van Stratum, bassist for Stream of Passion, a relationship since dissolved). Bovio shared that her initial transition was quite difficult. Winters in Holland can be deep and the nights become rather long for someone used to warmer climates and longer days. During those early months, she could not communicate with family and friends on a regular basis. Culturally, she felt like an outsider. As an example of this outsider status, she recounted one of her first experiences with public transportation in Holland. Upon embarking a train with Van Stratum, she proceeded to start a conversation with him. The latter, though, remained silent, ignoring her addresses. Following a few attempts at conversing, she grew frustrated, after which she confronted Van Stratum, demanding to know why he would not respond to her inquiries. He, in turn, explained in a low voice that people in Holland remain quiet while using public transportation. Coming from México, where the public transportation space represents an opportunity to engage with others, known and unknown alike, in conversation, Bovio found this rather odd. In fact, she states that this was one of the first times she felt like a foreigner there. In her assessment of the train anecdote, she added the following: The Dutch are very particular. They are highly respectful of space, they’re very proper, and very honest. But when you don’t adjust to their rules, they become uncomfortable. They let you know about it explicitly. When you use electric stairs, you have to stand on the right side. If you don’t, they will tap you on the shoulder and let you know. In moments like these, I feel like a migrant. I become aware. I’m used to it and I follow the rules. I understand them. But when I go to Spain or México, I find myself saying “the people are different.” I feel the distance between them and myself.

Bovio’s sense of being a migrant would be shared by others in the study, as we will see below. However, each interviewee develops their own language or adopts a different word or notion to describe this sense. We will return to Bovio below, once we have met the remaining participants. LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED As was the case for Marcela Bovio, metal music invited Martín Méndez to trade his birth country for new lands. But Méndez’s trade feels a lot more

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fortuitous than Bovio’s. For over twenty years now, Méndez has been an integral member of the seminal Swedish band Opeth, his bass playing evolving and featuring more prominently with each release. Born to what he describes as a poor family in Montevideo, Uruguay on April 6, 1978, Méndez’s story is one of constant movement. At the age of five his family moved to Buenos Aires, but after five years there, his family decided to return to Montevideo. His father had been a bass player but, upon the birth of his son, decided to abandon music altogether. Soon after the family’s return to Montevideo, Méndez found his father’s bass in the house and began picking at it. Early on, his father taught him what he knew of the instrument. Given the family’s financial status, Méndez sees the presence of the bass in his house as a stroke of luck. The same status forced Méndez to work at a young age, helping his father in his carpentry business. Over time, Méndez would collect some money thanks to his work and would gather enough to buy an amp and other equipment. He eventually met Martín López (ex-Amon Amarth, ex-Opeth, Soen) and the two of them forged a friendship based primarily on their musical goals. He knew at an early age that he wanted to devote his life to music. Therefore, as soon as he turned seventeen, he, along with López, would scrounge up some money, recorded a demo, and, after selling his bass and all his equipment and borrowing some additional money, would buy a one-way ticket to Sweden, the home country of many of the bands they both admired in the metal world. Having absolutely no knowledge of the language, Méndez initially depended on López who had a cursory knowledge of Swedish and English, given that the latter had been born there and had lived there for some of his earlier years (López’s mother is Swedish and lives in Sweden.) It did not take long for them to connect with the metal community there and establish themselves as sought-after musicians. In fact, Méndez recalls those early days as a paradise of sorts, one where the Swedish government subsidized rehearsal spaces for up-and-coming musicians. Each town had a cultural center, with 5–6 rehearsal spaces available. Metal music emanated out of these spaces 24/7, an experience he describes as impactful. At the time, Méndez would enroll in language school and picked up Swedish relatively fast. Eventually, both Méndez and López would stumble on a band ad looking for a bassist and a drummer to join a band in Sweden; the band was Opeth, a group they both admired. Recognizing this as the opportunity they were looking for, they both auditioned, López being hired first and Méndez following soon after. The rest, as the cliché goes, is metal history. In the subsequent twenty years, Méndez has remained connected to Uruguay, though not as much as he would like to. Like Bovio, he retains many family and friends from his birth country and the region. However, his greatest connection nowadays is with the music of the region. As he explains:

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Latin American music was present in my life before metal. I never had a CD player until I reached Sweden. I had a cassette player at the age of 14–15, and got some tapes. But it wasn’t much. Therefore, I was brought up on radio music and what my grandfather listened to, which was tango. Tango and folk music from the Rio Plata region. Milonga, you know. I basically grew up on that. And I’ve never abandoned that side. Lots of latin jazz, Cuban music, samba, bossa nova. That music interests me a lot. I’ve always loved the folklore of Latin America and South America. It is musically and rhythmically rich. And that is reflected in the way I play. It’s hard to point to a particular song. It’s more in the way I play. I don’t do it intentionally but all those rhythms influence me in one way or another.

Even though he is quick to point out that “he is culturally from Uruguay,” he also describes that this connection is a bit problematic. He has not visited the country long term in thirteen years. Five years ago, he played with Opeth there and got a chance to see family and friends, but the time spent there was short. He noted that “I didn’t feel like I was from there. It felt different. The country attracts me greatly and I am working on a new musical project deeply rooted in the country.5 But I can’t say I feel like I belong.” Four years ago, Méndez moved to Barcelona. His wife, a Barcelona native, and he are bringing up their children there, all of whom Méndez explains identify as Catalán. Despite understanding some of the Catalán language, he is the first to say that in Barcelona he feels like a tourist. More on this will be addressed below. THE NAGUAL Also hailing from México is Diego Tejeida. Keyboardist for the British band Haken, Tejeida joined the group in 2008. Born in México City in 1987, Tejeida recalled what he defined as a relatively normal Mexican middle-class childhood during the interview. Tejeida was quick to emphasize what this meant: “Being middle class in México is different from being middle class in Europe. It means something different in each place. There’s a lot of things I took for granted.” In fact, at various times he expressed how lucky he felt to grow up middle class in a relatively poor country, for growing up middle class in México entailed having access. At the age of eighteen, he moved to London in order to study music, pursue a music career, and avoid what he calls “the mentality of music” in México at the time. Moving to England took a lot of adjusting at first for Tejeida. Economically, London made palpable for him the difference in what constituted middle class living in different locations. For much

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of his early days there, he lived on a budget of fifteen pounds a week. Lack of knowledge about the system and culture led him to seek council housing during his college days, an experience which was rough for him. He recounts how during the first five weeks of living in London, his flat was broken into. His entire month’s budget was stolen three weeks before Christmas. His passport was also taken. At the time he had planned to visit México, but losing all his money and passport basically stranded him there. The experience made his other roommates, also Mexicans, leave London permanently. However, as Tejeida proudly explains, “If what I did were easy, everyone would do it.” Thus, he remained in place, pursued his studies, found work, and in time became more integrated into British culture and life. After eight years of living in London, he moved back to México where he has resided for the last six years. When asked about his motivation for returning, he explains that, contrary to London, the cost of living in México allows him to own his personal music studio and equipment. However, although his mother, sister, and nieces reside there, too, he vehemently expresses that he does not feel a part of the system there. He loves Mexican food, culture, and history, but in talking about these, Tejeida projected himself as someone who absorbs his surroundings without investing his self in mores, ideology, or tendencies. In fact, he works from home, venturing out only when necessary. Present-day technology allows him to send his session work to Europe. Tejeida also spends some time in New Jersey, since he currently has a girlfriend who resides there. All this movement has made Tejeida suspicious about notions of belonging. More on this will be discussed below. For now it will suffice to repeat the words he expressed encapsulating his life’s philosophy: “As long as you adapt, you make yourself home.” THE ADOBO Listening to the first seconds of the final song in the album Republica (2008) of the band Saint Diablo, specifically a song titled Paradise, transports the listener to a nighttime soundscape. However, to those in the know, this soundscape is unique. The particular sound in question is the call of the coquí, a small nocturnal frog native of Puerto Rico. To hear this sound in the first album of a metal band hailing from Richmond, Virginia may seem as either an oddity or a chance operation; that is, until we learn that the lead singer of this band is Tito Quiñones, a “110% Puerto Rican. Boricua, USA” as he proudly proclaims during our interview. Born in Puerto Rico in the 1970s, Tito found himself on the move at the age of two, when his father, an engineer, was hired by the Department of Defense and the entire family moved to

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Texas. There, his father trained for two years, after which they relocated to Fredericksburg, Virginia.6 Although he grew up in Virginia, he recounts how his family, himself included, remained intricately tied to Puerto Rico throughout his childhood and adolescence, visiting the island at least once a year. For the most part, Quiñones would spend every summer and Christmas in Puerto Rico. On multiple occasions, his parents sent him on his own to Puerto Rico, where he spent entire seasons with his grandparents. This constant movement corresponded to his father’s philosophy: he wanted his son to remain connected to his roots, but he also believed that in order for the family to progress and have opportunities, he needed to move them out of the Island. Quiñones recalls these days with great fondness. Decades later, most of his family still resides on the Island. Those that do not, currently reside in the Eastern United States, but they still return to the Island during the Christmas holidays. And though his father still owns property there, in the later years Quiñones himself has stopped flying back there as he used to. Nevertheless, he still feels deeply connected to the Island. More so the less I go, which is kind of a weird feeling. It’s almost like I’m in love with the paradise of the mind. And the reality of it isn’t really what I’m using to make my calculations. I mean, I’m not there every day. I may even be looking at it from an emotional, nostalgic point of view, because I don’t get my bread there every day. I don’t get my coffee there every day. It might even, even though I’m 110% from there and all my family is there, it’s almost like an “I still get to go home” feeling versus “I’m at home” feeling. I think that that disconnect physically has always made it an emotional connection that I think I would have taken for granted if I’d actually spent more time on the Island.

His childhood memories of Texas and Virginia, though mostly positive, are peppered with reminders of his otherness. He vividly recalls understanding this, noting that at the age of four, when, having fully learned Spanish first, he was held back in school by teachers who placed him with younger children because they deemed his intellect as that of a toddler. He also recalls asking a girl out to prom, only for that girl to be grounded by her parents who did not want their daughter going out with a Puerto Rican. Quiñones adds: You live through the stimuli of being pointed out. “You’re in the out. You are Puerto Rican so you might be white enough. But you’re still on the out. Don’t get cocky. Sooner or later we’re gonna put this membership of yours under the microscope.” To have learned that before I had the grasp of the language, that’s got to echo throughout your personality, throughout your creative mindset. It comes out in the music, whether I want it to or not. I sometimes fight the urge for

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that to come out. Even when I’m writing a love song, it ends up being something to do with the experience of the other.

Quiñones met Justin Adams during his high school days and, inspired by their mutual love of music, they founded Saint Diablo. As Quiñones puts it, he is the “metal implant. My input into my metal band is to make the metal band less metal. I’m the adobo7 that they throw into this big box of screws and bolts of metal.” Quiñones has spent most of his adult life in Virginia. He earned a degree in Criminal Justice from Virginia Commonwealth University. He spent fifteen years working undercover in the State’s law enforcement units. He also spent time working as a private investigator. Nowadays, he calls Charleston, South Carolina home, settling there with his wife of eighteen years and serving as a victim advocate for the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, helping people navigate their personal issues. But he returns to Virginia anytime he needs to fulfill his duties with the band. Thus, movement continues to define Quiñones’ life experience. VOLUNTARY HYBRIDITY La Armada come off as a force of nature in their music, their live performances (judging from footage available on YouTube), and their collective message. From the outside one gets the sense that the band is a tight-knit group, brought together by a shared sense of purpose, or, at least, a shared mission. Their entire musical output screams of a desire or need to stick it to The Man. And after having interviewed both guitarist Paul Rivera and bassist Juan Marte, this perception became further cemented. Though not a metal band per se, La Armada’s story is deeply rooted and grounded in metal and its community. While the band is now based in Chicago, all of the members of La Armada were born in the Dominican Republic. Growing up in an era when metal became widespread among the rock aficionados on the Island, they initially gravitated like moths around the genre. Rivera spoke of his early days as a teenager, seeing metalheads roaming the tropical island wearing leather jackets, black t-shirts and other accoutrements better left for colder climates. The spectacle made him seek out more, and soon he became acquainted with bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Mayhem, and above all, Death. In fact, as Rivera points out, every member of La Armada went through a similar trajectory, perhaps because as far as foreign music is concerned in the Dominican Republic, metal is king.8 Consequently, since its early iterations, La Armada has wholly been influenced by metal music, and that influence has reverberated even after they have adopted a different genre and eventually a different country. When

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the Internet arrived on the Island, they discovered punk and hardcore. The lyrical content became a game-changer for them. Punk and hardcore’s heavy reliance and interest in sociopolitical themes was something they never saw as a dominant in metal (Rivera makes a side note to emphasize that Chuck Schuldiner is, for him, the only metal lyricist who captured the lyrical essence of punk, and thus, the one metal musician they return to regularly for inspiration). Therefore, it did not take long for the band to devote themselves fully, as both listeners and practitioners, to those genres. Nevertheless, Rivera is quick to point out that a lasting connection to their homeland is captured by those early days of metal exposure. And, furthermore, metal remains a foundation of sorts for La Armada, something that is evident when one hears their riffing, reliance on fast and heavy picking, and occasional incursions into soloing. As noted, their connection to the Dominican Republic remains solid to this day. They were all born and raised on the Island. Their respective entire families still live on the Island. Each communicates with parents, siblings, and friends still living on the Island on a daily basis. Furthermore, they do everything within their power to visit the Island regularly, not just as a band but also as individuals. They visit parents once a year. And as a band they visited three years straight, even though for the past two they have been unable to visit as a collective. They credit this ongoing connection with giving them the particular sound and attitude that have come to be associated with them. As Rivera explains, The Island is a big part of who we are today. In fact, when we sit down to write both the music and the lyrics, we always strive to strike a balance between our current place of residence, Chicago, and our homeland, the Dominican Republic. Which musical elements from over there are we going to incorporate to the musical elements found here? The same goes for the lyrics. Which themes from over here will we discuss and which themes from over there will we touch? Because of the experiences we’ve had in that time, we feel like a hybrid of both countries.

After the first nine years of their existence, the band decided to move to Chicago in 2009. Heavy music served as the bridge that allowed the band to cross from one locale to the other. As with the other experiences, music served as the catalyst to change and movement. The Chicago connection begins in the Dominican Republic. Chicago has a vast immigrant community and a heavy music scene influenced by that immigrant presence. Thus, in 2006 Southcore Records, a label specializing in Spanish-speaking punk bands, invited the band to perform at the Southcore Latino Fest. There they meet other bands, including some from the Dominican Republic, exchanged

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music with some, and forged friendships with many of the others on the bill. The experience was such that they decided to permanently move there. Marte was the first to move. Starting back at zero, they had to get jobs and slowly started buying instruments and equipment, since they had sold theirs in order to fund their move. They received great help from other Latino musicians in Chicago. It is this reception, particularly from the Latinos that were already settled in Chicago, which leads them to see their move there as a positive experience. The city embraced them as their own. While the drastic change from the hot Caribbean days to the frigid winter Chicago nights was a brutal transition for them all, they cite the warmth of the community as the factor that kept them going and made them embrace their decision to move. They are proud to note that they have taught merengue and other Dominican music styles to many of the bands in the scene. In turn, they have made an effort to learn and incorporate styles from other Latino and Non-Latino communities into their music. Regarding these exchanges, Rivera observes, “Personally, I am a better person thanks to the influence I’ve received from living in Chicago. It is a testament to the bonds we’ve developed here.” Rivera’s sentiments echo with the rest of the band, who see themselves as belonging to both the homeland and the adopted city. In a nutshell, they are fine identifying as members of both communities. METAL DEFINED: COMPLEXITIES OF SIGNIFICATION Having heard from each of the interviewees, and establishing some circles around the notions of homeland and adopted land, the process then moved to broadening the notion of identity by including concentric and complementary circles. For this I turned to two concepts in which space becomes a relevant frame of interpretation: the chronotope and the non-lieu. For the first, I turned to Esther Peeren’s reading of Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept.9 In her essay “Through the Lens of the Chronotope: Suggestions for a Spatio-Temporal Perspective on Diaspora” (2006), Peeren argues that the chronotope should be seen as more than just an abstract spacio-temporal construct. In fact, for Peeren it would seem that the chronotope is a tangible, though elusive thing. As she explains, “We all exist within time-space constructions that make us who we are and that govern our lives” (2006, 68), a notion that, needless to say, aligns her greatly with Tajfel, Turner, and Social Identity Approach. Peeren goes on to add that there is no one universal chronotope but a multitude of chronotopes, each distinguished by its own way of constructing, interpreting and living time-space. A chronotope may be specific to a historical period, culture, action, social class,

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or any other group of individuals—however small and insignificant—as long as they are united within a particular perception and practice of time-space organization. Chronotopes may therefore comprise widely different-sized communities, with the smaller ones influenced by the larger ones (and vice versa), but at the same time separate from them in terms of their internal logic. (69)

Thus, the chronotope as seen by Peeren is locatable and in action. The second concept, the non-lieu, or non-place, was developed by Marc Augé in his seminal book Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity (1995). For Augé, identity is defined and cemented by our sense of belonging to a place. These places can be wide and varied, and change according to each individual’s perception. One person’s place can be another’s non-lieu. The non-lieu, in turn, is a space that remains undefined by perception, particularly when it comes to senses of belonging. Thus, Augé famously gives the example of the airport as the prototypical non-lieu: a space where a multitude of people connect from one place to the next, never settling there or attaching one’s identity to that location. The non-lieu is a space in flux, lacking grounding, lacking roots. Consequently, the non-lieu lacks the attributes necessary to build attachment. With these two concepts defined and in mind, I then extended the discussion by approaching two separate spatio-temporal constructions: the band and the nation. In my interviews, the first came to be seen as a manifestation of the chronotope, whereas the second was mostly viewed as a non-lieu. To work my way into the exploration of these two constructions, I asked each interviewee to define metal. The purpose was twofold: asking them to define metal was an icebreaker, a way to have them talk about metal and trust the interviewer; but the question also gave me access to the way they understand language, membership, and their place in the world. Bovio defined metal as an essential part of her life. She describes herself as an introvert, and metal represents the way through which she can express the feelings she harbors within and say things she would otherwise be unable to say. “Metal is about disillusionment, injustice, and personal discontent. Metal is about not feeling part of something, feeling as if you are outside the norm, outside the mainstream. But metal is also community. It has brought me in contact with like-minded people who deep down share the same feelings and sensations.” For Mendez, metal is as he puts it: a style of music that invites you to vent certain concerns. It is about rebellion. It is capable of looking at extreme themes other types of music won’t address. It is about society. It is also a lifestyle, whether you like it or not. I still wear black clothes every day. It is something that remains with you for life. It is a feeling.

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Mendez is aware, however, that his definition is personal and that metal has changed. As he notes, “Metal today has lost its rebelliousness. It has lost its villainous ways.” In the case of Tejeida, he defines it as heavy music. The way to describe it would be the equivalent of horror movies in cinema. That’s kind of the heavier spectrum of music. And I guess one of the most important things of metal is the lyrical content as opposed to mainstream music that most of the times is about love and being hurt. Whereas metal can touch on any sort of genres or topics. It’s mostly defined by its heavier sound and of course the presence of heavy guitars. It’s a big, huge world. Difficult to define it in just one sentence. Metal is not necessarily (attached to violence and death.) In the music I’m producing very rarely the topics of violence are cathartic in that way. There’s bands like Emperor or the black metal stuff which is mostly dominated by satanic or anti-religious discourses. The reason I compare it to horror movies is because metal is not necessarily pleasant. It’s not necessarily something that you turn on the TV and put in the background to sleep. Metal is something that challenges the listener and requires your attention.

Saint Diablo’s Quiñones sees metal as two separate avenues. One avenue comprises the instrumental nature of the music: the way of playing the instruments at a specific volume and in a specific way. The second avenue is concerned with an emotion. I define metal as an expression. . . . For me it’s an emotional outpour. Metal is that raw primal feeling that came from beating rocks, of beating the sides of a cow’s hide. The main theme of metal is survival. That human experience of survival. If you could bottle the experience of being dropped on an island and having to survive off coconut water and bananas and killing things—that’s metal. And that’s the theme that we try to personify when we play. When we say Saint Diablo we’re saying the struggle of being a talking monkey meat sock. The potential of good that we’re capable of doing and the potential of bad that we’re capable of doing. And all the compromises we make in between those choices just to find salvage from sufferance.

For the musicians in La Armada, metal for anyone who grew up in the Dominican Republic meant one thing: “Metal carries the taboo of satanism and malevolence.” This is yet another reason why they moved away from the genre and into punk and hardcore. However, they see some metal as capable of branching out of the prototypical metal themes. As mentioned above, Death and Chuck Schuldiner redefined metal in their eyes. “Chuck

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wrote about philosophy, about the human condition, even about sexuality. That type of metal, more meditative in its lyrical content, is the type of metal we look for.” Thus, while for La Armada metal tends to be about Satan and other aspects associated with evil, the genre has shown the capacity to address other topics and concerns. “There are two ways to see it: you either talk about violence and death as an advocate of that type of behavior or you use those topics as a way to study the human condition, ask why things are the way they are, and possibly offer your own interpretation about these issues. We believe the latter would be the more intelligent way to address this in metal.” CUM MUNUS Etymologically, the word community is comprised of two segments. Cum captures the notion of a people or a group, while munus highlights the aspect that brings those people together. Peeren offers a useful way of thinking of the community thanks to her reading of the chronotope when she states that “the way in which the chronotope is continually reproduced between people signals its association with a form of memory that is not individual, but intersubjective or cultural” (2006, 69). The munus here, for our purposes, is metal. Thus, it is no surprise that in Heavy Metal and the Communal Experience (2016), Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott argue that metal is an imagined community. Benedict Anderson’s concept was meant to be used in reading nations and the ways they form and grow. Nevertheless, in Varas-Díaz and Scott’s reading, I would argue, there is a move toward thinking about metal as a collective of great stability that helps its members define who they are, both as a group and as individuals. Following this line of thinking, I wanted to capture the language my interviewees used in invoking this sense of community. But before presenting this aspect, one additional concern comes to mind. In his book Diaspora Politics (2003), Gabriel Sheffer argues that diasporas are not imagined; they are very much real, because the conditions that brought them into existence were and are tangible. If my subjects are diasporic but also members of an imagined community, this entailed a contradictory existence which needed to be kept in mind. Scott has commented on the paradoxical nature of the metal community, noting how metalheads are lone wolves who also look at the pack to define their identities. To this paradox I must add the paradox of the Latin American metal musician who is at once a member of that imagined community that is metal and also a member of diasporic communities. What happens when both converge in the form of a Latin American metal identity? To tease this contradiction out, I first asked my subjects to talk about the relationships they have with bandmates, what I will call micro considerations. Do they feel part of the band? Is the band

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process democratic in nature? Do they have a say in their band’s decisions? And have they ever felt or do they feel like outsiders in their own bands? Bovio sees the band space as a democratic space. Although she has heard horror stories from other women participating in metal bands, she believes she has mostly been free from toxic scenarios, though she is constantly aware of her status as a woman in a band of mostly male musicians. Nevertheless, the feels fully integrated in her current band, Ma¥an, and states the same about previous bands. Her bands have never made her feel like an outsider. She has had a say in many of these bands as a songwriter. In fact, she credits Arjen Lucassen for being the first person to push her to write songs in Spanish, something she has done since, first with Arjen, then with Stream of Passion, and now with Ma¥an. In terms of relationships, she sees being in a band as a professional job. She enjoys the camaraderie and the occasional friendship but emphasized that her bands have been well-oiled machines fully focused on being bands first and foremost. Mendez, on the other hand, has been with Opeth for over two decades now and sees his relationship with his bandmates as not just professional but personal, particularly when it comes to Mikael Åkerfeldt whom he has known now for twenty-three years. As he says, “It feels natural to be with them all,” a statement that came as a response to him being the only Uruguayan in the band these days. He, in fact, adds, “They treat me like another Swede. I have never felt any disconnection with the band. I’ve never felt like an outsider in my band. We have a lot of respect for each other.” Tejeida speaks of his relationship as a mixture of professionalism and admiration. The members of Haken have always made him feel at home. He notes that each member has a particular personality with some being more outgoing that others, and some wanting to enjoy the social life more than others. For his part, Tejeida sees himself more as a withdrawn personality. Though he occasionally accepts the invitation to hang out, for the most part he prefers to venture out on his own while on tour. The band knows this and each individual respects the other’s traits and space. That said, when it comes to making music, they are all on the same page. In that regard, Tejeida feels like one of the guys and they have welcomed him fully since the beginning. He also occasionally visits some of his bandmates when they are on hiatus, evidence of the kinship he feels toward them. Quiñones’ relationship with his band mainly boils down to his relationship to Justin Adams, the two of them having known each other since high school. Because of this bond, the two of them control the bulk of the band’s decisions, though they do try to make the band a democratic process for the rest of the members. Quiñones is mainly in charge of the lyrics while Adams is in charge of the music, though they each have input in the other’s area. Still, Quiñones sees his relationship with Saint Diablo as a marriage, one in which

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he has had as much of the responsibility and input as his bandmate Adams. Yet, despite all this, he did express that he has felt as an outsider in his own band, Yes, very much so. . . . You put four people into a room and—I come from a specific background, they come from specific backgrounds and those backgrounds aren’t necessarily aligned or parallel. A lot of them are at odds to each other when it comes to historical context. So there’s no way that when you take into consideration what people grew up listening to—they didn’t listen to Menudo, they don’t listen to Héctor Lavoe, they did listen to a bunch of Jimi Hendrix, or they did listen to a bunch of Garth Brooks, or whatever—so there’s not gonna be a way where I don’t feel like an outsider inside my own band if you consider all the differences in points of view. But I’m sure everyone feels like an outsider inside of their own relationships at one time or another. And being in a band is just another relationship, just another marriage, Just another version of a relationship.

Finally, Rivera and Marte noted that, although democratic, the band’s relationship has evolved with the passage of time. Paul noted, There are established precedents. But with each year, you grow as an individual and the project develops. There is always a need to refine how the band works, how decisions are made, especially in the music department. It has been a process of constant reevaluation regarding what works best for us.

Meanwhile, Marte added that “the key to our success is that each member of the collective invests in the band according to their abilities. One person drives, the other cooks, the other handles the emails.” And although they have been together since their days on the Dominican Republic, Marte is the first to say that at times he has felt like an outsider in his own band: “In those first years, definitely. During those years we didn’t know how we would function together.” Rivera for his part adds that even if ephemeral, each of us has gone through that, because we may be a very unified group, but we are all individuals. For example, one of our band members at one point decided to become vegan. No one else was into that. At that moment, that band member must have felt like an outsider. But later on, other band members adopted that lifestyle and it became less of an issue. You learn to adapt or accept another person’s lifestyle.

Following the incursion into band dynamics, I then added the macro consideration of belonging to a nation and how each had felt that manifest in their

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respective lives, particularly in their adopted lands. Earlier I had asked about their experiences both growing up in their homelands and upon moving to their adopted lands; most had been positive in their portraits. But now I asked one specific question: do you feel like a migrant? Bovio did not mince her words: “Yes, I feel like a migrant. Not all the time. But, yes, often. More so recently because the political atmosphere here and elsewhere has turned a bit. But even beyond the political, I do feel like a migrant.” When asked to explain why or give a reason, Bovio offered the following, particularly in reference to a song she wrote titled Nadie lo Ve which was composed following the death of her grandmother: Death is a language. In that regard Dutch culture is very different from Mexican culture given the way they live their faith and death, and music. I went to a Catholic school, with nuns, and I kept some of the things that were taught to me as a child. “Oh God, please help me. Thank God. If God so wills it.” In Holland, nothing has to do with God. It becomes obvious that these are treated as tall tales. In Holland, there is no faith. Things like these open up your eyes to the difference. And the distance furthers that distancing from one’s faith.

Having opened up about this notion of being a migrant, Bovio would go on to express: To be honest I don’t feel like I’m neither from here nor there. Or if anything I feel like I’m half from here and half from there. There are things I identify with, like the people here in Holland, but there are many things with which I don’t. The same thing with México. It’s like being in a kind of limbo.

For his part, Mendez was more diplomatic. No. If I’m being sincere, I feel comfortable. I’m fine and I adapt. But if I’m telling the truth, more than once in my life the thought has crossed my mind that I envy people that feel at home in a particular place. People born and raised in one place. I don’t know why. It’s not that I feel repressed or like a migrant. There have been moments when they’ve made me feel like one, I can’t deny that. But I’m sure that happens in Uruguay with people from other countries. But I can’t claim that I feel like I’m from my own country. And at this point in my life I doubt I will ever feel that anywhere.

Tejeida’s response to this line of question was succinct. By now having established his distrust of the concept of nation, he offered the following: “I feel at home everywhere. As long as you adapt, you make yourself home.” When pushed to elaborate he stated that

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personally I am against nationalism. That is something I really don’t like. Being a national from x or y country makes no difference to who you are as a person. We’re all humans. So I try to avoid those things. I don’t like the idea of claiming my country is amazing. I always use the metaphor of two children at a playground arguing whose mom is better. One kid is going to say “My mom is better. No, my mom is better” and the thing is they’re both the best moms. And I’m sure both have a lot of flaws. I am who I am and I was born in México. But there’s things I love from México and there’s things I hate from México, and there are things I love from England and there’s things I hate from England. I take what I like and I’m realistic about things I don’t like. I don’t think there’s a perfect system.

Because of the colonial status of Puerto Rico, Quiñones answer was quite complex. He expressed never really feeling like he belonged to Puerto Rico or the United States. Thus, he, like Bovio, used the word limbo to express his status. “From the Island’s perspective I was from over there, but from the mainland’s perspective I was from over there.” Asked to elaborate how this affected his personal definition he went on to state: I’m still searching for where I belong. The day I find that I won’t even know that I’ve found it. I don’t know that I will be able to appreciate having found it because I don’t know that I’ll know it. I’m still looking for that place. I do know that that place has to be a place where my wife is, where my family is, where my friends are. I don’t know if it has a zip code, but it is definitely a paradise of the mind. I’m still looking for that place.

When specifically asked whether he felt like a migrant, his answer, however, was more combative in tone: I consider everybody else here a migrant. I’m of the Taino Indian tribe. We were fucking here first. There’s the historical context of that question. Then there’s the strictly political context of that question when it comes to a citizenbased type of inquiry. So on the surface, for me to say migrant, I’d have to say that I came from somewhere else, and from that perspective, if I were to look at PR as a different part of the US, I would say, “I guess we migrated here if PR is not part of the US.” But if it is, and we’re talking about a modern political perspective, then are you a migrant from California when you move to Florida? Are you a migrant? So from that aspect I’m like “If you’re not an American citizen, you’re a migrant.” I could see them qualifying the idea of me being a migrant. But ultimately I go back to my first answer. We were on this hemisphere first before you guys brought your horses and your chicken pox.

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For Rivera and Marte, their migrant status is as Marte put it “undeniable.” While Chicago has extended its arms to them, they have often come across a different type of welcoming elsewhere in the United States. Marte qualified this by defining what it means to be Latino in the United States: “You know that once you arrive here you stop being Dominican or Boricua, or Mexican, and you become Latino. We become part of a diasporic community.” Once he established this, he added, Absolutely we are migrants, especially now with the Trump Administration. It’s undeniable. They remind you of it everyday. And not just as an individual, but as a community we are being targeted. We are going through a difficult moment. We have friends who are going through immigration problems. Because this administration has incremented the severity of migratory laws. And as I told you before, we are a band that will play anywhere. Consequently, we play in many places where people don’t like our message. It has happened before. We have been confronted for having a pro-migrant, pro-human rights message. So, yes, we feel like migrants. Especially now.

To this Rivera added, “that said, we are not a band that is gonna latch on to the idea that we are migrants and that, because of that, you can’t come to our show. We are a band that works hard to put on a great show and because of that you should come to see us.” A LANDLESS HOMELAND: ESTABLISHING ROOTS IN METAL Finally, having approached the spaces of homeland, adopted land, the band, and the nation, and seeing how the interviewees answered, I wanted to return to the concept of metal anew and see whether they saw metal as something greater than the sum of the parts they had earlier defined. More specifically, I wanted to see if they saw metal itself as a space, one that came to substitute the nations some of them saw as questionable or incapable of offering what they were looking for. Was metal a nation-like construct, a country, a collective of a people that harbored them in their unique diasporic experience? When I asked Bovio the question about whether metal was a substitute nation, her eyes glowed, as if she were seeing that collective in her mind’s eye. As a response she offered the following, I just played with Ma¥an in a cruise called 70,000 Tons of Metal. I couldn’t fully enjoy the entire experience because I was sick. But I found it to be the most fabulous thing in the universe that there we were, 3,000 individuals, all

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metalheads, and that we looked precisely like that, like a nation. You feel like you’re in a family. And I feel that same thing every time I go to a festival. I’m convinced that music unites us for a reason. We have all felt a certain discomfort, a certain disconnect. And I feel like this group understands me. We have similar feelings.

After relaying this experience and also sharing the fact that she sees this same dynamic at the Metal Factory, a music school where she serves as one of various music teachers to Holland’s youth, Bovio fully assented that for her “Metal is in fact a nation, one which helps me retain my roots.” For his part, Mendez shared most of Bovio’s vision, though he preferred to call the collective a “brotherhood.” As he explains, Metal has guided me throughout my life. It helped me not get lost along the way, to put it lightly. Music in general, I would say. But for me music in general has been almost 99% metal. It has served me. It has helped me. It has allowed me to feel at home with those who understand and share my love for metal. So in a sense, yes, there is a brotherhood and I have felt it during those moments when I needed it most. It put into focus the reason why I’m here. And because of that, I bet you could place me in any other country and I would easily adapt. Yes, metal is something that unites people and you can see that at the various festivals.

As far as Tejeida is concerned, and has been his tendency, he moved away from the notion of nation, offering instead the idea that metal is a tribe. He referred to the idea of globalization, which in turn has given many access to literature and other cultural artifacts which other generations did not have immediate access to. The speed with which information travels is important to Tejeida, who as a result sees the world moving in the direction where people in different locations respond to similar topics in similar ways. Thus, he rejects the notion of metal as a nation. The image of the tribe, on the other hand, carries the nomadic nature he subscribes to and which he sees as the dominant in metal. For him, metal collectivizes the few, but not to the point of setting dominant standards as a nation would. Quiñones agreed with the notion of metal as a nation, but with reserves. He sees a nation as a “geopolitical construct that holds power in a global stage.” Because of that, he refrains from investing fully in the notion of metal as a nation. In his eyes, metal does not have land, or wealth, or, more importantly, power. However, he did offer the following, Under the premise of a cultural gathering of like-minded people who with commerce basically elect people to higher positions of recognition in that same community, when those people are raised above the rest, with commerce and,

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consequently, are put into the position of cultural leaders and icons, then under that structure, I could say that our musical movement could be seen as a nation. As a people standing together, absolutely.

For Rivera and Marte, the answer is also in the affirmative. To make the point, Marte offered as an example his impression of a tour they recently completed in Northern México: We just came back from a tour in the community of Sonora. It was not a big city. But everyone in that city loves metal. From adults to the elderly to the young. They had a metal culture. Each one of those people received us with a lot of solidarity and everyone loved our music. Those people are a nation. They are a people who have a culture rooted in heavy music and who support you unconditionally. And we have seen that type of culture elsewhere. So yes, absolutely. Metal is a nation.

Rivera assented with Marte, adding that we have seen it in México. We have seen it in Europe. We have seen it in some odd corner of the US. We have gone into bars where we fear for our lives. But then you find out they are all metalheads and suddenly they buy you a beer and a shot. In those moments, you feel that it’s a nation.

Additionally, Marte believes space plays an important role in the constitution of the metal community. To emphasize this point, he added in passing: “People start headbanging and any space is transformed.” Of note in these responses is the language settled on by each interviewee. Bovio’s use of “family” calls attention to tradition and lasting bonds. Mendez’s response captures the notion of fluidity he sees in metal and his use of “brotherhood” speaks of trust and support. Tejeida’s “tribe” harkens to ancestry and mobility. Quiñones’ “a people” seems to call forth the concepts of sameness and shared pride. And La Armada’s “community” brings us back to notions of the local and the regional. Consequently, each sees metal as a collective in which they are individual members. Paul Gilroy has spoken of the idea of the “changing same” when speaking of the black diaspora: “New ‘traditions’ are invented in the jaws of modern experience, and new conceptions of modernity are produced in the long shadow of our enduring traditions” (1991, 126). In other words, even though time goes on, the black experience shares a “sameness” in the way culture and life in general are experienced. While this concept was developed thinking of the black experience, I would argue that the language itself opens the door for application in other realms, as is the case here. There is, in Gilroy’s

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vision, a play of sorts going on: the singular “same” who also helps comprise a collective “same,” each defined by the experience of change, movement, displacement. By extension, we can speak of the changing same of the Latin American metal musician. The singular individual that helps construct the metal diaspora. Their shared metal chronotope gives them continuity and a claim to a collective in movement. Thus, metal, the metal space, can move from one location to another, harboring the identities that traverse it, many of whom ultimately decide to dig their roots in this alternate space and claim their memberships there.

FROM NON-LIEU TO LIEU (UNIQUE?10) In her essay Toccata and Fugue for the Foreigner (1991), Julia Kristeva tries to capture the essence of foreignness with the following words: Not belonging to any place, any time, any love. A lost origin, the impossibility to take root, a rummaging memory, the present in abeyance. The space of the foreigner is a moving train, a plane in flight, the very transition that precludes stopping. (1991, 7–8)

Similar to the moving train and that plane in flight, metal, using Augé’s definition, can be seen as a non-lieu. Metal is a non-space, a transitory one, through which each band and musician moves. Most of us go to a gathering, make of it a space, but do so with the knowledge that once the event is over, that space will cease to exist. But what if this is, in fact, not the case? What if it is more complicated than that? What if we posit that because of its own undefined spacial status, metal becomes in effect a lieu? And what if its transitory nature gives it the flexibility to remain a permanent space? What if these contradictory qualities make of metal a space of respite that follows us wherever we move? I would contend that at least for the Latin American musicians showcased here, metal has become a more tangible construct by choice. Back in their homelands, metal may have been music, sound, style, song, words, and lifestyle. But once abroad, something chronotopically changes. In order to adapt and become members of their new surroundings, they have codified their surroundings through their membership to metal, thus making metal a new spacial dominant, and, in turn, a new space proper. A space that invites and allows presence, enfranchisement. A space where they vote. A space where they voice their feelings, their wants, and their opinions. And above all, a space where they may feel as equals, a part of something else. Regardless of where they

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go, they are always a part of the metal community, even as diasporic subjects. Metal is the here and there; the movement but also the permanent. The bridge and the spaces at each end. For each, metal is the door but also the edifice. Their presence in metal has made metal more cosmopolitan, too. In the concentric circles of belonging, it is in their bands and their metal communities where one could argue each has rehearsed their stake in the wider circles of their homeland and their adopted lands. Having rehearsed these relationships, they get to implement or feel safer in other circles of belonging. But even when their outside circles do not fully embrace them, they can always fall back on metal.

NOTES 1. Double consciousness is a term coined by W. E. B. Du Bois in his book The Souls of Black Folk (1903; 2007). It aims at explaining a psychological and somewhat existential state in which an individual finds him/her/themself inhabiting more than one conflicting realm or identity. Du Bois explicitly developed it to explain the internalized perception of black individuals in racist social contexts, where their identities are simultaneously defined by the self but also by societies at large. Thus, black individuals find themselves grappling with the racist roles and definitions imposed on them by society. The term would also find its way in other contexts, including that of postcolonial studies. 2. For a study on the interactions of metal communities and their immediate contexts and more specifically the notion of “porous communities,” see Varas-Díaz et al. 2016. “Porous Communities: Critical Interactions Between Metal Music and Local Culture in the Caribbean Context.” Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience. Lanham: Lexington Books. 3. For more on the early dominants and subsequent composition of metal, particularly in the Global North, see Wallach, Jeremy et al. 2011. Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music Around the World. Durham: Duke University Press, and Weinstein, Deena. 1991. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. New York: Da Capo Press. 4. For definitions and uses of these and other terms, see: Knott, Kim and Sean McLoughlin, eds. 2010. Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York: Zed Books; Baronian, Marie-Aude et al. 2006. Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics. Amsterdam: Brill/ Rodopi; and Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. 5. The project in question is a band called White Stones, Méndez’s new death metal band. The band name is a reference to Uruguay’s landscape. Furthermore, the band’s logo adapts the sun contained in the Uruguayan flag. 6. Puerto Rican migration history and tendencies are beyond the scope of the present chapter. However, it must be mentioned that starting in 1898, Puerto Rico and

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its people have experienced cycles of migration that have been triggered by a multitude of factors, including economy, war, natural disasters, and the politics of colonialism. For more on these cycles, see Meléndez, Edgardo. 2017. Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States. Colombus: Ohio State University Press; and Whalen, Carmen Teresa et al. 2005. The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. 7. Adobo is a mixture of spices used to add flavor to various food dishes, particularly those involving meat. Adobo is used in many parts of the world, but originates primarily in Spain and Portugal. Adobo made its way into Latin America as a result of colonialism. Nowadays, each country has its variants. In the Puerto Rican context (which is the one that pertains to Quiñones), adobo includes salt, pepper, dried garlic, and a mixture of herbs, the main one being orégano. 8. For a closer look at metal culture in the Dominican Republic, see Mendoza, Sigrid et al. 2018. “Media Representation of Metal Music in the Dominican Republic: Between Oppression and Social Resistance.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 197–208. 9. In his analysis of the novel form, Mikhail Bakhtin developed the notion of the chronotope as a way to understand the temporal and spacial configurations of the different genre types found in the novelistic form. Each genre develops and exploits a different structure of time-space. For more, see Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination by M.M. Bakhtin: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. 10. This chapter was originally written for and presented at the 2019 International Society of Metal Music Studies Conference held in Nantes, France. The conference took place at Le Lieu Unique in Nantes from June 17 to June 20, 2019. This segment’s title is a play on the conference’s setting.

REFERENCES Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Augé, Marc. 1995. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. London: Verso. Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination by M.M. Bakhtin: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press. Baronian, Marie-Aude, et al. 2006. Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics. Thamyris/Intersecting: Place, Sex and Race, Volume: 13. Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi. Billboard Staff. “TuneCore Reaches Record of $1.5 Billion in Artist Revenue.” Billboard. April 29, 2019. https​:/​/ww​​w​.bil​​lboar​​d​.com​​/arti​​cles/​​busin​​ess​/8​​50904​​8​/ tun​​ecore​​-reac​​hes​-r​​ecord​​​-arti​​st​-re​​venue​. Clinton, Esther and Jeremy Wallach. 2015. “Recoloring the Metal Map: Metal and Race in Global Perspective.” In Modern Heavy Metal: Markets, Practices and Cultures, edited by Toni-Matti Karjarlainen and Kimi Karki. Helsinki, 274–282. Finland: Aalto University & Turku, International Institute for Popular Culture. Du Bois, W. E. B. 2007. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Gilroy, Paul. 1991. “Sounds Authentic: Black Music, Ethnicity, and the Challenge of a “Changing” Same.” Black Music Research Journal 11 (2): 111–36. Knott, Kim and Sean McLoughlin, eds. 2010. Diasporas: Concepts, Intersections, Identities. New York: Zed Books. Kristeva, Julia. 1991. Strangers to Ourselves. New York: Columbia University Press. Meléndez, Edgardo. 2017. Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Mendoza, Sigrid, et al. 2018. “Media Representation of Metal Music in the Dominican Republic: Between Oppression and Social Resistance.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 197–208. Peeren, Esther. 2006. “Through the Lens of the Chronotope: Suggestions for a Spatio-Temporal Perspective on Diaspora.” In Diaspora and Memory: Figures of Displacement in Contemporary Literature, Arts and Politics, edited by Marie-Aude Baronian, Stephan Besser and Yolande Jansen, 67–77. Netherlands: Brill/Rodopi. Sheffer, Gabriel. 2003. Diaspora Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stream of Passion. 2014. “Exile.” A War of Our Own. United Kingdom: PIAS/ Rough Trade. Turner, John Charles and Katherine J. Reynolds. 2012. “Self-Categorization Theory.” In Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, edited by Paul A. M. Van Lange, Arie W. Kruglanski and E. Tory Higgins, 399–417. London: Sage Publications Ltd. Varas-Díaz, Nelson and Niall Scott, eds. 2016. Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience. Lanham: Lexington Books. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2016a. “Porous Communities: Critical Interactions Between MetalMusic and Local Culture in the Caribbean Context.” In Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience, edited by Nelson Varas-Díaz and Niall Scott, 101–123. Lanham: Lexington Books. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2016b. The Metal Islands: Culture, History and Politics in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music [Film]. Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Heavy Metal Studies. https​:/​/ww​​w​.fac​​ebook​​.com/​​theme​​talis​​​lands​/. Varas-Díaz, Nelson, et al. 2018a. “Metal in Latin America.” Metal Music Studies, 4 (1): 131–35.Varas-Díaz, Nelson et al. 2018b. Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. Puerto Rico: Puerto Rico Heavy Metal Studies. https:// filmfreeway​.com​/projects​/1489724. Wallach, Jeremy, et al. 2011. Metal Rules the Globe: Heavy Metal Music Around the World. Durham: Duke University Press. Weinstein, Deena. 1991. Heavy Metal: The Music and Its Culture. New York: Da Capo Press. Whalen, Carmen Teresa, et al. 2005. The Puerto Rican Diaspora: Historical Perspectives. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Index

Abaddon (band), 248 abstract machines, 266, 267, 274–78 academic imperialism, 27, 30 Accept (band), 167 Ácido (band), 165–67, 171 Acrania (band), 13 activism, 68, 202, 229, 281 Adams, Justin, 313, 321, 322 adobo, 313, 315, 330 Adorno, Theodor, 211, 212 aesthetic, 19, 69–70, 72–73, 75–77, 82, 93, 95, 98, 110, 115, 133, 135, 137– 38, 156, 167, 171, 201, 215, 246, 248, 253, 266, 268–69, 278, 298; jeans, 52, 75, 113; long hair, 51, 52, 75, 77, 165, 167, 174, 223; posters, 170, 250, 253–56, 258; tattoo, 46, 193, 253, 254; t-shirts, 75, 193, 202, 253–55, 298, 315 Africa, 13, 16, 31, 164, 272, 275, 281 Afro-Caribbean populations, 23 Afro-Caribbean rhythms, 15, 16, 135, 146 Agencia Cubana del Rock, 137 Agonizer (band), 138, 144 agrarian reform, 221 aguante, 20, 193 AIDS, 169 Åkerfeldt, Mikael, 321

Alanís, Carlos, 259 alienation, 44, 56, 113, 210, 294 Allende, Salvador, 10, 61, 77 Almafuerte (band), 189, 190, 196, 198, 202, 204, 207, 298 Almas Inmortales (band), 115, 117, 118 alternative rock music, 118, 213 Alucard (band), 248 Alvacast (band), 15, 165, 167–68, 171–72 amnesty laws, 44–45 Amon Amarth (band), 269 anarchism, 111, 164, 185, 228 Anarchist Black Metal, 185 Ancestor (band), 144 Andean, 15, 16, 113, 295 Anderson, Benedict, 320, 329 Ángeles del Infierno (band), 250 Animals, The (band), 245 Anthrax (band), 15 anthropology, 140, 254 anti-capitalist/ism, 206 anti-communist, 190 anti-fascist, 193 Antiguos, Los (band), 204–8, 210 anti-nationalism, 111, 120 Antonioni, Michelangelo, 206 apolitical (anti-political), 107, 114, 126, 186, 189, 191, 194, 269 333

334

Index

Arandu Arakuaa (band), 269, 270, 271, 272, 279, 281 Araní game, 272, 273, 279 Árbenz Guzmán, Jacobo, 221, 236 Arena Movediza (band), 69 Arévalo Bermejo, Juan José, 221 Argentina, 2, 14–15, 17, 26–28, 152, 165, 170, 172, 175, 183–89, 191, 193, 195, 197–98, 201, 203–4, 206, 210–15, 250, 292–93, 295–96, 298–99, 333, 334, 336–37; Argentina 2001/2002 crisis, 196, 202–3, 213 Arkangel (band), 14, 15 Arkona (band), 269 Armada, La (band), 307, 315, 316, 319, 320, 327 Armagedon (band), 124 Armahda (band), 269, 270, 272, 274, 278, 279 armed conflict, 2, 10, 24, 81, 83, 221, 231, 236, 291, 335; Colombian Armed Conflict (CAC), 2, 24, 81, 91, 100, 335; Internal Armed Conflict (Guatemala), 221, 231, 236–37 armed groups, 81, 85–86, 88, 92–93, 98 Arraigo (band), 204 Aspid Z (band), 248 Astarita, Marín, 197 Athanai (band), 144 Atomic Aggressor (band), 70 Atwood, Margaret, 166 authenticity, 198 authoritarianism, 64, 67–69, 71–72, 112, 163, 174, 220, 269 Avanzada Metálica, 248 Avellaneda Station, 207 Aventi (band), 144 Ayreon (band), 307, 309 Azrael (band), 248 Babasónicos (band), 210 Banda Bostik, La (band), 247, 250 banda rockera, 252 barbarian, 266–70, 272, 274, 276–77, 281

barbarism, 207, 209 Barricada (band), 174 Barrios, Lina, 12 Barthes, Roland, 211 Bauman, Zygmund, 205 Beatles, The (band), 161 Bedoya, Moreno, 89 Belial (band), 70 Berlin Wall, 170, 172 Biondini, Alejandro, 186 Black Sabbath (band), 14–15, 117, 161, 245 Blades, Rubén, 15 Blanco, David, 137 Blanco, Oscar, 201, 210 blast beats, 53, 143 blues, 143, 165–66, 206–7, 215, 225– 26, 238, 243, 247, 250, 255 bodies, 21, 40, 43, 48, 57, 93, 163, 209, 295 Bonifacio Palacios, Pedro, 189 bossa nova, 312 bourgeois/ie, 134, 202–3, 206, 232–33, 265–66 Bovio, Marcela, 307–11, 318, 321, 323–27 Broide, Walter, 210 Broncco (band), 50, 53, 57 Brooks, Garth, 322 brotherhood, 118, 171, 194, 195, 201, 326, 327 brutal death metal, 39–40, 48, 53–55, 57 Burdon, Eric, 245 Burzum (band), 269 Byrds, The (band), 164 Cáceres, Jorge, 228 cacerolazos, 196 cacique, 294 Caifanes (band), 309 Calle, Alirio, 93 Calvo, Manuela “Nuna,” 2, 202 Camilo, Michel, 15 candombe, 164, 173 capitalism, 169, 196, 198, 204, 215

Index

Carajo (band), 204 Caribbean, 7, 12, 291, 300, 305, 317 Carpentier, Alejo, 24 Carroña por Represión; CPR (band), 220, 225, 228, 230, 235–37 Castoriadis, Cornelius, 23 Castro, Fidel, 41–42, 134, 148, 232–33 catharsis, 49, 256 Catholic, 90, 95, 114, 118, 204, 225, 231, 276, 282, 323 Catholicism, 118 censorship (censure), 49, 63, 65, 68, 71, 74, 134, 193, 246 Center for Research and Development of Cuban Music, 134 Central America, 220, 231–33, 236 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 221, 262 Charles Turner, John, 307, 317 Charon (band), 248 Chaska (band), 17 Chavarría, José, 225 Chávez, Hugo, 296 Chávez, Joaquín, 42 Chavos banda, 243, 245–46 Chernobyl, 170 children, 43, 91, 121, 193, 312, 314, 324 Chilean folk music, 63 chingón, 294 Chlover (band), 138 cholo, 295 Chopper (band), 171 Christianity, 90, 196, 222, 278–80, 291 Christie, Ian, 53 chronotope, 317, 318, 320, 328, 330 civilization, 206–7, 209, 214, 275, 278 civilizing process, 219–20 Clash, The (band), 237 classical music, 135, 209 classism, 114 Cóbar Falla, Ana Cecilia, 227 Colonel Adolfo Arnoldo Majano, 41 Colonel Jaime Abdul Gutiérrez, 41

335

colonialism, 9–14, 19, 24, 27, 109, 121, 196, 295–96, 330; colonial era (period), 85, 108, 113, 291; coloniality, 9, 11, 12, 19–20, 291, 299; colonization, 11, 220, 226, 272, 279, 291; neocolonialism, 109; postcolonial, 27, 113, 167, 169 Combat Noise (band), 136, 138 comics, 70, 267 commercialism, 117, 118 Commune–13, 81, 86, 87 communism, 77, 86, 114, 118, 126, 148, 162, 193 community, 21–22, 28–29, 33, 35, 42, 47, 51, 56–57, 72, 75, 82–84, 93, 95, 97, 99, 108, 110–12, 115–16, 120, 122–23, 125, 167, 171, 183, 186–88, 191–96, 203, 221, 236, 278, 288, 292, 300, 302, 306, 308, 310–11, 315, 317–18, 320, 325–28 CONICET (National Council of Scientific and Professional Investigations), 196, 203, 213 conscientization, 289–90, 292, 298–300 conservatism, 75, 204, 213, 278, 281 Cooper, Alice, 119 coquí, 313 corruption, 86, 88–89, 111, 221, 229, 233–34, 236 Cosa Nostra (band), 144 countercultural, 66, 69, 71, 74, 76, 113, 114, 117, 125, 126, 179 counterculture, 61, 67, 69–74, 76, 118, 128, 140, 202 coups d’état, 10, 21, 41, 62–63, 65, 112, 126, 163, 169, 221 Crampus (band), 142 Cream (band), 161 Creedence Clearwater Revival (band), 245 Creole, 113, 174–76 Creole metal, 176 Criminal (band), 69 criollo stoner, 204, 206–7 Crisálida (band), 7

336

Index

Cross (band), 171 Crypt (band), 70 Cryptic Slaughter (band), 53 Cuban music, 16, 133, 134, 136, 146, 150, 152, 312 Cuban New Man, 134 Cuban Rap Agency, 137 Cuban Revolution, 42, 133, 162 Cuchilla Grande (band), 174 Cuero y Metal (band), 248 cultural meaning, 139–45, 149, 152, 155 cultural participation, 139, 141, 152–54 cultural recognition, 139, 141–42, 150, 153 cumbia, 113, 193, 198 Cusatto, Marco, 73 Dantesco (band), 17 Dan Wapichana, Kamuu, 271 Darkening (band), 144 de Andrade, Oswald, 18 Death (band), 15, 315, 319 death metal, 13, 39, 40, 48, 53–55, 57, 70, 81–83, 85, 87, 90–91, 93–95, 98–101, 136, 143, 171, 293, 329 death squads, 43, 45 Deathstrike (band), 53 Death Yell (band), 70 decades: the 60s, 25, 77, 81, 117, 134, 164, 278, 300; the 70s, 27, 61, 63, 67, 113–14, 117, 121, 164, 198, 240, 300, 313; the 80s, 2, 9–10, 39, 44, 63–65, 67, 69, 75, 77, 81–82, 85–87, 90, 95, 98, 108, 111, 113–18, 120–23, 125, 127, 133, 145, 156, 161, 166, 169, 174, 183, 196–97, 206, 222, 231, 237, 239–40; the 90s, 14, 39, 55–56, 82, 85–87, 90, 95, 98, 127, 136, 166, 172–74, 190–91, 206, 228, 231, 255, 278; the 2000s, 44 de Campos, Augusto, 18 de Campos, Haroldo, 18 de Castro, Viveiros, 272 Decesare, Donna, 46

decolonial, 2, 18–22, 25, 27, 49, 291–92, 300 decolonial metal, 20–22; extreme decolonial dialogues, 18–20, 22 Deep Purple (band), 245 de-ideologization, 289–90, 292, 294–95, 299, 300 de la Madrid, Miguel, 240 del Fresno, Miguel, 197 Delugan, Robin María, 47 Democracy, 61, 65, 107, 112, 114, 167, 168, 170, 173, 176, 179, 188, 204 demos, 70 DeNora, Tia, 184 de Piero, Sergio, 197 deportation, 45, 47 desert, the, 206–7, 209–10, 212 de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, 13, 20, 28 Destronork (band), 150 Detenidos (band), 144 D’Haeseleer, Brian, 43 Dharma (band), 118, 119, 123 diaspora, 307–8, 317, 320, 327–29 diaspora studies, 307, 308 diasporic, 305–8, 320, 325, 328 diasporic experience, 306 Dickinson, Bruce, 93 Dickinson-Gómez, Julia, 43, 46 dictatorship, 10, 17, 61, 62, 64, 67, 68, 70, 74, 75 disappearance, 10, 24, 45, 49, 51, 63, 163, 170, 198, 300 Discos Denver, 247–48 discourse, 39, 65, 67, 75, 107–9, 111– 12, 125, 175, 189, 195, 231, 235–36, 246–47, 253, 254, 270, 271, 275, 278, 280, 319 displaced populations, 42 displacement, 153, 240, 250, 328 documentary films, 13, 28; Heavy Metal Islands: Culture, History and Politics in Caribbean Heavy Metal Music (Film), 28, 305; Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America (Film), 13, 28, 305 Dom Pedro II, 270, 274

Index

Doors, The (band), 245 Dorso (band), 69, 74 drug cartels, 10, 81, 86–88, 93, 98, 101 drug trafficking, 81, 85–86, 88–89, 97–98 Du Bois, W. E. B., 306, 329 Dunaway, David, 184 Dunn, Sam, 93, 96 Dussel, Enrique, 25 dystopia, 166 Echeverría Álvarez, Luis, 262 education, 19, 29, 36, 42, 44, 64, 134, 145, 175, 179, 203, 241–43, 246, 279, 281, 290 electro-acoustic music, 135 Elfonía (band), 309 El Mozote, 43 El Salvador, 2, 10, 24, 26–27, 39–57, 231, 288–89, 291 El Sindykato (band), 164 emotions (melancholy, sadness, anger, deception), 12, 14, 16, 49, 90–91, 101, 103, 108, 120, 194 Emperor (band), 318 Engrupo (band), 65 Enigma! (band), 250 entertainment industry, 246–47, 249 epistemicide, 13 Epistemologies of the South, 20 Escamilla, Irma, 242 Escape (band), 138, 144 Escobar, Pablo, 85, 86, 101 Estrella Negra (band), 124 ethics, 11, 201, 205 eurocentrism, 27 Europe, 9, 11, 13, 17, 39, 122, 153, 175, 197, 207, 214, 269, 272, 275, 277, 278–81, 296, 305, 312, 313, 327 exclusion, 20, 64, 68, 110, 122, 137, 185, 189, 219, 220, 245, 295 exile, 62 Exodus (band), 15, 136 exploitation, 9–12, 24, 65, 279, 291, 294, 296 Exploited, The (band), 237

337

extractivism, 20, 28 extramusical, 253–54 extreme metal, 50, 53, 116, 121, 123, 127, 145, 150 Facebook, 186, 187, 191–96 fachos, 174 Fals Borda, Orlando, 288 Fanchiotti, Alfredo, 207, 214 fans, 2, 8, 10, 16, 21–23, 25–26, 49–50, 53, 55, 110, 126, 156, 187, 192–94, 196, 239, 245–50, 259, 261, 269, 279, 292, 298 fanzines, 120, 127, 142, 144, 150, 151, 195, 255 Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), 41, 43, 44, 49, 57 fascist, 57, 190, 193, 204, 266, 268, 272, 274, 277 fashion, 51, 65, 72, 75, 109, 149, 167, 179, 184, 245 fatalismo, 23, 294 Fecalator (band), 248 Feed Back (band), 69 feminicides, 240 feminism, 193 Ferrer, Cristian, 203 festivals: 666 Fest, 150; Avándaro Festival, 246; BAROCK 82, 202; Beat Internacional de Piriápolis Festival, 164; Brutal Fest, 150; Death Metal Holocaust Festival, 70; Festival de la Solidaridad Latinoamericana, 202; Gran Concierto Frente al Mar, 115; Montevideo Rock Festival, 169; Rock the Coast Festival, 7, 22; Salvadoran Metalfest, 55, 57; Southcore Latino Fest, 316; Under the Black Sun Festival, 152; Woodstock Festival, 117, 246 Flick, Uwe, 220 Flotsam and Jetsam (band), 136 folk legends, 17 folk metal, 204, 279

338

Index

folk music, 63, 189, 312 Fongus (band), 14, 15 freedom, 62, 70, 119, 138, 166, 170, 179, 188, 266, 274, 289 Freire, Paulo, 19, 25, 288, 290, 299 frikis, 136 Frith, Simon, 188 Fuentes, Juan Carlos, 225 Galeano, Eduardo, 23 Garaje H (band), 144 García, Charly, 202, 213 García Escobar, Carlos René, 223 Garrobos (band), 250 Gattorno, María, 136, 151 gauchesca, 207, 209 gaucho, 175, 206–7, 209, 214 Gehenna (band), 248 gender, 134, 205, 223, 240, 245, 291, 308 General Maximiliano Hernández, 41, 57 genocide, 57, 86, 95, 289 Germany, 53, 68, 152, 268, 278 Gillman (band), 15 glam metal, 108, 119 globalization, 34, 36, 140–41, 326 Global North, 8, 9, 12, 14, 20, 22, 24, 26, 29–30, 300, 301, 307, 329 Global South, 8, 9, 12, 13, 26, 29, 31, 36, 300–302 glocal, 141, 142, 152, 154–56 Godoy, Angelina, 45 Gog (band), 248 Gomes, Laurentino, 270, 271 González, Liliana, 156 gothic, 246, 248, 267–68, 276–77, 280 Graf Spee (band), 171 Graveland (band), 269 grindcore, 55, 57, 156 gringo, 14, 17 Groove, 205 Guarany, Horacio, 189 Guatemala, 3, 10, 21, 46, 219–24, 226– 28, 230–33, 235–37, 292 Guayasamín, Eduardo, 24

guerrilla groups, 10, 41, 43–44, 47, 86–87, 98, 164, 231–33 guttural sound, 53–54, 57, 143 Hadez (band), 123, 124 Haken (band), 307, 312, 321 Halbwachs, Maurice, 23, 84, 96, 98 Halconazo, 247–62 hardcore, 70, 145, 225, 303, 316, 319 hard rock, 50, 114, 135, 165, 199, 250 Hastur (band), 124 Havana, La, 2, 133, 135–39, 141–56, 231–33 headbangers, 107, 113, 115, 122 heavy metal, 107, 108, 111, 113, 116, 118–25 heavy metal studies groups: Grupo de Investigación Interdisciplinaria sobre Heavy Metal Argentino (GIIHMA), 28, 29, 28–29, 201, 203, 336–37; Grupo Peruano de Estudios del Metal, 28, 108, 125; Heavy Metal Studies Latin America group, 29; International Society for Metal Music Studies (ISMMS), 30, 49 Heavysaurios (band), 205 Helgrid (band), 142 Hellhammer (band), 156 Hendrix, Jimi, 322 Hennion, Antoine, 186 Hermética, 14–15, 31, 188–89, 196–97, 202–3, 214–15, 298 Héroes del Silencio (band), 309 heteronormativity, 196 Hickam, Brian, 109 Hipnosis (band), 138, 144 hippie rock, 188 hippies, 74, 77, 118–19, 123, 156, 167, 188, 197 Hitler, Adolph, 266, 276–77 Homer, 265 hope, 7, 9, 24 Hopper, Dennis, 206 Howard, Robert, 266, 267

Index

human rights, 48, 63, 76–77, 91, 170, 179, 186, 191, 193, 279, 325 humor, 190, 193 hybridity, 16, 113, 145, 149, 184, 206, 243, 292, 306, 308, 315–16 Hydra (band), 309 identity, 16, 17, 23, 32, 42, 43, 56, 63, 65, 75, 108–9, 111, 114–15, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128–29, 139, 144, 161, 175, 179, 184, 188, 193, 199, 219–20, 225, 231, 235, 237, 239, 243, 245, 270, 278, 282, 295, 306–9, 317–18, 320, 329; national identity, 109, 111, 120, 161, 175, 179, 231, 270; Social Identity Approach, 307, 317; Social Identity Theory, 307 ideology, 71, 77, 98, 134, 185, 187, 189–90, 193–98, 232–33, 239, 268– 69, 277, 294, 313 images, 17, 76, 93, 119, 195, 223, 235, 253, 266–69, 272, 274–75, 277, 280, 337 imagined community, 308, 320 In Agression (band), 70 indexes, 266–68, 274–78 indigenous peoples, 11–12, 20, 23–24, 41, 51, 112, 177, 195, 202, 227, 236, 252, 274, 281, 291, 293, 296 indigenous themes, 17, 109 indio, 207, 209, 219–20 industrialization, 85, 162, 220 inequality, 152, 154, 162, 242–43, 274, 289 Inferia (band), 150 Inhumate (band), 150 Inquisidor (band), 248 Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), 240 integration/assimilation, 140–41, 306 Internet, 141, 153, 156, 252, 316 Interpuesto (band), 250 Iorio, Ricardo, 2, 184–95, 197–98, 202–6, 211, 214–15

339

Iron Maiden (band), 14, 15, 136 Iturbide Empire, 220 Jackson, Michael, 169 Jameson, Fredric, 211 Japan, 68 Jara, Víctor, 25 jazz, 15, 133, 135, 309, 312 Jelin, Elizabeth, 82 Jerusalem (band), 116, 117 Jewish, 186, 191 Jiménez Agüero, Hugo, 296 Jimi Hendrix Experience, The (band), 161 Jones, Deacon, 207 Joplin, Janis, 245 journalism, 1, 196, 202, 280 Judas Priest (band), 69, 117, 118, 146 Jünger, Ernst, 265 justice, 11, 45, 58, 82, 86, 90–92, 94, 134, 176, 229, 236 Kabak (band), 39, 54, 56 Kahn-Harris, Keith, 190, 269 Kataplexia (band), 55 Khafra (band), 248 kidnapping, 86, 162–63, 198 Kirchnerism, 197, 205, 213 Kiss (band), 119 Kosteki, Maximiliano, 196, 202, 203, 207, 213–14 Kraken (band), 15 Kranium (band), 17, 294 Kreator (band), 69, 75 Kurtenbacj, Sabine, 46 La Fania All Stars (band), 15 La Gran Horda Metálica del Perú, 116 language, 1–2, 18, 20, 30, 36, 67, 120, 124, 141, 145, 172, 179, 184, 203, 209, 211–13, 261, 270–72, 274, 293, 300, 303, 306, 308, 310–12, 314, 318, 320, 323, 327 Larralde, Pato, 205–7, 209–11 Latin American diaspora, 307

340

Index

Latin American experience, 2, 19, 22–23, 25 Latin jazz, 15, 312 Lavoe, Héctor, 322 leather, 165, 176, 180, 223, 315 Led Zeppelin (band), 245 Leprosy (band), 248, 250 Levante do Metal Nativo, 274, 281, 282 Levine, Alexandra, 179 liberation, 3, 25, 41, 57, 64, 87, 144–45, 155, 231, 232, 285, 287–90, 292, 299, 300 liberation psychology, 3, 287, 289, 290, 292, 299, 300 Lima, 108, 115, 119, 212 liminality/marginality, 2, 217, 239, 242–43, 248, 251–52 Lineberger, Kelley, 44 Lira N’ Roll (band), 250 López, Martín, 311 lo real maravilloso, 24 Lucassen, Arjen, 30, 321 Luft, Murray, 49 Luis Carlos Prestes, 271 Luzbel (band), 15, 248, 250, 252 Lyon-Johnson, Kelli, 42 machinic assemblages, 266, 275 Madonna, 169, 298 Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, 190, 198 Mago de Oz (band), 250 Malón (band), 206, 214, 298 Manal (band), 210, 215 Manduley, Humberto, 134–35, 156 Mara (band), 250 marginalization, 64, 110, 240, 245, 249 Marte, Juan, 307, 315, 317, 322, 325, 327 Martín Baró, Ignacio, 23, 48, 288, 294 Martínez, Javier, 210, 215 Marxism, 63, 76 Masacre (band-Colombia), 90, 93, 94, 97, 99 Masacre (band-Perú), 115, 119

massacre, 40–43, 57, 86, 90, 92, 94, 177, 179, 203, 221, 247, 296 Massacre (band-Chile), 69, 70, 72, 74 mass culture, 196 mate drink, 176 Maximón (Rilaj Mam), 219–38 Maximones, The (band), 219–20, 224– 32, 234, 236 Maxim Rock Theater, 167 Maya, 21, 223, 225, 226, 237, 279 MaYan (band), 307, 309, 321, 325 Mayhem (band), 97, 315 Mazo (band), 124 Medellín, 81–83, 90, 93, 97, 98, 100– 105 media, 19, 39, 62, 67, 72, 76, 109, 113, 151, 179, 187, 188, 194, 246, 251–52 Megadeth (band), 15, 136, 315 melodic death metal, 54, 143 memory, 21, 23, 42–43, 47, 82–85, 90–100, 142, 163, 165, 236, 272, 289, 292–93, 299–301, 308, 320, 328; collective memory, 23, 33, 42, 47, 82–84, 93–98; historical memory, 21, 58, 82, 84, 85, 93, 97, 98, 99, 100, 236, 289, 292, 299–301; personal memory, 82–84, 93; vehicle of memory, 82, 83, 90, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99 Mendelson, Michael, 223 Méndez, Martín, 307, 310–12, 318, 321, 323, 326, 327 Mendoza, Sigrid, 156 Menudo (band), 322 Mephisto (band), 144 Mercyful Fate (band), 15, 75 merengue, 317 mestizo/ladino, 16, 113, 219, 223–26, 228, 236–37 mestizo metal, 16 metal core, 145 metal culture, 3, 26, 56, 77, 108, 110, 118, 120, 136, 138, 141–42, 144, 145, 152–55, 183, 195, 212, 254, 327, 330

Index

Metal Factory, 326 Metal Flea Market, 28, 29 metalheads, 72, 73, 96, 100, 113, 114, 116, 118, 122, 126, 150, 155, 183, 206, 212, 301, 315, 320, 326, 327 Metallica (band), 14, 15, 31, 33, 69, 136 Metal Oscuro (band), 136 metal scholarship (studies), 7–9, 11, 25, 27, 28, 30, 109–10, 125, 161, 186, 308 Metsatöll (band), 269 México, 3, 14, 15, 17, 239–52, 255–58, 260–63, 291–95, 297, 308–10, 312– 13, 323–24, 327 Miasthenia (band), 269, 270, 272, 278–81 Mignolo, Walter, 291 migrants, 44, 306, 310, 323–25 migration, 3, 56, 86–87, 113, 154, 249, 306–7, 325, 329 military: authoritarianism, 112, 220; coup, 41, 62–63, 126, 163, 169; junta, 10, 41, 62; regime, 32, 36, 65, 68, 69, 72–73, 76–77, 166; Salvadoran Military Army and National Guard, 41–46 milonga, 211, 215, 312 mining, 12, 21, 24, 122, 221, 227 Minore, Gito, 202, 212 minors, 81 Misfits, The (band), 237 Moore, Robin, 133 Morales, Eric, 156 moral panic, 8 Mordaz (band), 167 Morello, Tom, 96 Mortem (band), 124 Mortuary (band), 150 Mötley Crüe (band), 119 Motorhead (band), 69, 118 Movimiento de Liberación Nacional Tupamaros, 161 Mr. Dominus (band), 144 Mumakil (band), 150 Mundukuru, Daniel, 271

341

murder, 20, 24, 41, 42, 63, 64, 86, 90, 92, 162, 163, 177, 198, 214, 262, 296 musical iconography, 252–54 mutilation killings, 43 Nadie (band), 65 Napolitano, Norberto Aníbal “Pappo,” 166, 206–7, 209–12, 215 Narbeleth (band), 142 narcos, 44, 101 Natas, Los (band), 207, 210, 212 National Center for Historical Memory, 82, 83 nationalism, 112, 146, 188–91, 197, 202, 214, 235, 269, 281, 324 national metal, Argentina, 202, 204, 206–7 national rock, Argentina, 166, 172, 201–2, 209, 213 national socialism, 268 national socialist black metal, 185, 269 nationhood, 206 Native American, 270, 272, 274, 281 nativism, 111, 112 natural resources, 10–12, 221, 227 nature, 11, 12, 20, 24 Nazism, 191, 193, 197, 214, 269, 277, 278 Necrophagia (band), 53 Necrosis (band), 74 Nemesis (band), 142 neoliberal policies, 10, 221, 291, 295, 296, 300 neoliberal/ism, 10, 21, 34, 62, 64–65, 168, 169, 190, 203, 220–21, 240, 245, 291, 295–96, 300 netnography, 191, 197 New Christian Democratic Party (PDC), 41 New Wave, 77, 118 New Wave of British Heavy Metal, 107, 114, 116, 121, 135 Next (band), 248, 250, 252, 259 Nicaragua, 231 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 266, 267, 278

342

Index

Nimrod (band), 69, 70 non-lieu, 317, 318, 328 Noriega, Manuel, 10 Nostalgia, 110 Novaro, Marcos, 197 oligarchy, 41, 49 Oliva, Roberto, 225 Opeth (band), 307, 311, 312 oppression, 3, 7, 9, 11, 19–20, 23–25, 31, 48, 61, 65, 93, 245–46, 289–92, 295–96, 299–300 Orgus (band), 115, 117–19, 123 Orozco, Ludwing, 225 Orozco, Robin, 224, 226, 237 Orwell, George, 166 Osbourne, Ozzy, 15 otherness, 121, 245, 314 Oxido (band), 115 Palacios, Pedro Bonifacio “Almafuerte,” 198 Pampas, Las, 207, 215 Panamanian dictatorship, 10 Pappo’s Blues (Oswald), 206–7 paramilitary groups, 46, 85–86, 88, 98, 247 Parra, Violeta, 25 parricide, 201–2, 204–5, 212 participative-observation, 108 participatory action research, 28 Partida, Juan, 252 Partida, Lorenzo, 252 Paseo Las Palmas, 72, 73 Patio de María, 136–37, 144, 150–51 Pax (band), 114, 127 Paz, Octavio, 294, 295 peace accords, 39, 45, 46, 92 Peace and Love (band), 245 Pentagram (band), 25, 68–70 performance, 70, 83, 115, 119, 122, 123, 137, 142–45, 151–52, 158, 186, 205, 248, 252–53, 255 periferia (periphery), 108, 188, 239–40, 242–43, 245, 247, 249–53, 255, 257, 259, 261, 293

peripheral, 109, 133, 134, 142, 247, 249 Peronism, 191, 198, 213 Peronist nationalism, 202 persecution, 10, 29, 61, 64, 73, 163, 246, 308 Pink Floyd (band), 117 Pinochet, Augusto, 10, 62, 64, 68, 77 pintada de bardas, 254, 259 Piojos, Los (band), 202, 213 police, 18, 24, 43–48, 52, 67, 77, 85, 136–37, 170, 185, 193, 196, 213–14, 232–33, 248, 267 political action, 183 political modernity, 266, 268 pollution, 242 Ponce Vaides, Federico, 221 Popol Vuh/Popol Wuj, 223, 226, 237 populism, 114, 213, 269, 300 porous communities, 184, 306, 329 porteño, 184 Poseidótica (band), 210 Possessed (band), 53 post-dictatorship, 169 post-punk music, 118 Potiguara, Elaine, 271 poverty, 12, 21, 29, 46, 196, 242, 295 pre-Hispanic, 219, 222 President Carlos Humberto Romero, 41 primitivism, 144, 220, 270 privatization, 10, 297 Profecium (band), 185 professionalization, 139 progress, 11–12, 112, 155, 164–65, 197, 205, 206, 221, 242, 278, 281, 309, 314 progressive rock, 164 protest songs, 167, 189, 247; Cuban nueva trova, 135, 247, 300; New Song (Nueva Canción), 25, 34, 49–50, 56, 73, 135, 247, 300 Psiglo (band), 165 psychedelia, 114 Puente Pueyrredón, 203 punk, 70, 77, 118, 173–74, 183, 225, 236, 243, 246, 248, 250, 255, 316, 319

Index

Queensrÿche (band), 15 Quijano, Aníbal, 11, 291 Quiñones, Tito, 307, 313, 319, 321, 324, 326, 327 Quiroga, Facundo, 205, 214 radical left, 107, 164 Rage Against the Machine (band), 25 Ramses (band), 15, 248, 250 Ranquel Tradition, 209, 214 Rapos, Los (band), 68 Rata Blanca (band), 250 Ratt (band), 119 Raza Truncka (band), 204 R&B, 247 rebellion, 42, 63, 75, 76, 108, 143, 165, 318 reflexive anti-reflexivity, 190, 269 Regev, Motti, 184 regionalization, 20 religion, 11, 35–36, 70, 90–92, 94–97, 120, 133, 231, 270, 274, 278 Renegado (band), 52, 53, 57 repression, 20, 40–42, 46, 49, 51–53, 55, 57, 61, 63–68, 71–74, 98, 135, 166, 170, 179, 220, 225, 231, 237, 247 Repulsion (band), 53 resistance, 16, 20, 23, 28, 31, 42, 57, 64, 65, 75, 82, 83, 90, 95, 97, 98, 110, 112, 115, 163–64, 179, 217, 219, 221, 224–25, 227–29, 231, 237, 272, 279–80, 300, 303, 330 Resistance Population Communities, 237 Revolución de Emiliano Zapata, La (band), 245 Ricoeur, Paul, 96 Riff (band), 14–15, 206 right, the, 41, 166, 185, 189, 206, 278, 281 right-wing, 41, 51–52, 57, 166, 185–86, 189–91, 193–94, 198, 203, 267, 269, 300 Rilaj Mam. See Maximón Ritual, El (band), 245

343

Rivera, Paul, 307, 315, 316, 322, 325, 327 rockabilly, 243 rock music, 10, 36, 50, 67–68, 114, 134, 164, 168, 183–84, 187, 196, 198–99, 213, 239, 245–47, 251, 259, 309 Rodríguez, Fermín, 207 Rojas Lima, Flavio, 225 Rolling Stones, The (band), 245 romanticism, 268, 270, 276, 277 Rosa, Nicolás, 209, 211 rupestres, 247 Rust (band), 69, 70 Sacra (band), 115, 119 Sadism (band), 70 Saer, Juan José, 207 Saint Diablo (band), 307, 313, 315, 319, 321 Salvadoran Civil War, 10, 27, 39–50, 53, 56 samba, 312 San Simón, 219, 222–23, 225, 235–37 Santillán, Darío, 185, 196, 202–3, 207, 213–14 Sarcófago (band), 15 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 205, 207, 209, 212, 214 satanism, 267, 278, 319 Sauron (band), 204, 206–7, 209 scene, 72, 116, 142; global metal scene, 26 Schuldiner, Chuck, 316, 319 Scott, Niall, 107, 183 Sectarium (band), 144 Sed (band), 144 Self-Categorization Theory, 307 self-segregation, 107–8, 115 semiotics, 254, 269 sense of belonging, 56, 110, 236, 307, 308 Sepultura (band), 15, 53, 150 Shakers, Los (band), 164 sicarios, 92 Síntesis (band), 135, 137 Siqueiros, David Alfaro, 25

344

Index

Six Beer (band), 248 ska, 243, 248, 255 Skempton, Simon, 121 Slaughter (band), 53 Slayer (band), 15, 69, 136, 315 Smith, Anne Marie, 122 social class, 88, 121; lower (popular) class, 81, 96; middle class, 63, 70, 81, 107, 113, 114, 119, 188, 247, 312; upper class, 67–69, 76, 114; working class, 10, 20, 27, 29, 96, 164, 188–89, 197–98, 204 social criticism, 147, 219, 228, 274 socialism, 61, 62, 133, 134, 169, 268 Soda Stereo (band), 309 Sodom (band), 53 soft rock, 118 Spanish invasion, 220, 229, 236 Spinoza, Baruch, 211 spirituality, 219–20, 278 State of México, 239–46, 248, 250–51, 255–56, 259, 261 state, the, 62, 64–65, 76, 81, 85, 88, 97, 107, 134, 138, 151, 170, 179, 203, 206, 220–21, 272, 315 stigma, 46, 67, 71, 144, 156, 174, 243, 245, 249, 251, 334; discrimination, 12, 20–21, 245, 249, 295; racism/ racist, 11–12, 96, 114, 134, 214, 219–20, 252, 276, 289, 295, 329; sexism, 11; xenophobia, 11, 190, 295 stoner (band), 152 Stream of Passion (band), 307, 309, 310, 321 street gangs, 43, 46, 47, 57 structural functionalism, 85 Stryper (band), 119 student protests, 63 subculture, 65, 71, 140, 201, 206, 278 syncretism, 209, 225, 227, 237 synth pop music, 118 Tabú (band), 52, 53, 57 Tajfel, Henry, 307, 317

tango, 167, 189, 211, 215, 312 tape trading, 53, 120, 136 Taracena, Julio, 223 Tarkus (band), 114 techno music, 118 Tejeida, Diego, 307, 312, 319, 321, 323, 326 Tendencia (band), 16, 144 terrorism, 42, 86, 169, 179–81 Tesis de Menta (band), 137 Testament (band), 15 testimonios, 42 Teufel (band), 144 Tex Tex (band), 247 Thelema (band), 144 Third Reich, 161, 166, 178 third world, 39, 49, 121 Thomas, Kaitlin, 56 thrash metal, 2, 57, 61, 67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 76, 77, 187, 219, 225, 250, 261 Three Souls in My Mind (band), 245, 247 tocadas, 243, 247, 252 Tokyo Blade (band), 121 Tolic, Yanko, 72, 75 Tolkien, J. R. R., 209–10, 215, 276 Torogoces de Morazán (band), 49 Torres, Ariel, 198 torture, 10, 17, 36, 45, 62, 63, 71, 77, 92, 163, 174, 198, 294 torturers, 174 Totten Korps (band), 70 translation, 1, 18, 30, 111, 232, 234, 279, 294 translocal, 141, 146, 152, 155, 250 Transmetal (band), 248, 250, 252 traumatizing worldview, 43 Tren Loco (band), 17, 18, 269 Tri, El (band), 247, 250 Triana, Borges, 133 Tribal (band), 144 Trincheras de Guadalajara (band), 228 Trotsky, Leon, 203 truth commissions, 42, 45, 76

Index

Tumulto (band), 68, 69 Turner, Victor, 263 ultranationalist, 190–91, 204 underdevelopment, 39 underground, 65, 70, 71, 74, 77 unemployment, 29, 47, 196, 213, 240 United Fruit Company, 221 United States, 8, 9, 14–15, 29–30, 39, 44, 47, 62, 68, 87, 133, 151, 153, 162, 169, 206, 220–21, 246, 251, 261, 309, 314, 324–25 universality, 26, 27 UPA (band), 65 urban rock, 239–40, 243, 246–52, 254–55, 259, 261 urban space, 239, 242, 254, 261 urban tribes, 140 Uriburu (band), 185 US Embargo to Cuba, 24 V8 (band), 15, 187, 188, 197, 201–2, 298 Valija Diplomática (band), 65 Van Gennep, Arnold, 242 Van Stratum, Johan, 310 Varas-Díaz, Nelson, 49, 156, 183 Vargas, Álvarez, 95 Vásquez, Diego, 237 Venom (band), 136, 156 Venus (band), 135, 144 Vidart, Daniel, 176 Violadores, Los (band), 201 violence, 2, 7, 9, 20, 27, 40, 41–43, 46–48, 52–54, 57–58, 66, 71, 81, 85–86, 88, 91–93, 97–98, 107, 169, 201–2, 229, 231, 266–67, 289, 291, 319–20; culture of violence, 40, 42, 43, 48, 57; fantasy violence, 40, 53; structural violence, 85; visuality, 17, 21

345

völkisch, 209, 214, 265, 267–70, 273, 274, 276–78 VUUR (band), 309 Wagner, Richard, 266, 276 Wallach, Jeremy, 12, 26, 31, 32, 36, 179, 181, 305, 329 war crimes, 45 Warpath (band), 17, 69, 71–73 Wa Thiong'o, Ngũgĩ, 13, 31 Weinstein, Deena, 138, 253 Werá Jecupé, Kaká, 271 Werken (band), 17 west, the, 11, 24, 68, 121–22, 222 whiteness, 220 Who, The (band), 161 Williams, Raymond, 220, 228–29 war: civil war, 10, 27, 39, 40–45, 47–50, 53, 56–58, 231, 288; class warfare, 206; Cold War, 39, 77, 161, 231; Falkland Wars (Malvinas), 170, 193, 202; Guatemalan Civil War, 10. See armed conflict; Korean War, 162; postwar, 43–46, 48, 51, 55, 57, 330 women’s movement, 205 worker’s movement, 2, 196, 202 World War II, 161, 171 X Alfonso (band), 137 Xyster (band), 248 yankees, 167 youth, 2, 44, 46, 63–64, 66–69, 71–72, 75–76, 90, 92, 96, 98, 108–10, 112, 118, 125, 155–56, 170, 173–74, 176– 79, 195, 202, 247, 287–88, 326 Yupanqui, Atahualpa, 25 Zapatistas, 19 Zeus (band), 136, 138 Zitarrosa, Alfredo, 176

About the Contributors

Nelson Varas-Díaz is a professor of Social-Community Psychology at Florida International University’s Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies. His work related to metal music addresses issues of community formation, linkages between culture and music, and metal music as a decolonial strategy in Latin America. His most recent book is entitled Decolonial Metal Music in Latin American (2021). He coedited the books Heavy Metal Music and the Communal Experience (2016) and Heavy Metal Music in Argentina: In Black We Are Seen (2020). His work has also been published in multiple journals, including Metal Music Studies, International Journal of Community Music, and the Journal of Community Psychology, among others. He produced and/or directed the award winning documentaries The Distorted Island: Heavy Metal and Community in Puerto Rico, The Metal Islands: Culture, History and Politics in Caribbean Metal Music, Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America, and Acts of Resistance: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. Together, the films have garnered more than thirty sets of laurels in international film festivals. He is one of the editors of the Metal Music Studies journal published by Intellect. He currently directs the Heavy Metal Studies—Latin America group which researches metal in the Caribbean, Central and South America. Daniel Nevárez Araújo received his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, as well as MA in English Literature and a BBA in Accounting, both from the University of Puerto Rico—Río Piedras. He has published essays on topics ranging from comedy and disabilities, to the poetics of the documentary form as well as in the area of medical humanities. He has also served as assistant translation editor for the Massachusetts Review. More recently, he has collaborated with Nelson 347

348

About the Contributors

Varas-Díaz as translator, co-editor, and consultant on various documentary features and published works. Eliut Rivera-Segarra is a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the Ponce Health Sciences University in Puerto Rico. His research interests include stigma, health, and metal music studies. Dr. Rivera-Segarra’s research work on metal music studies addresses culture and communal identities. His work has been published in journals such as Metal Music Studies, International Journal of Community Music, Journal of Community Psychology, and Revista de Ciencias Sociales, among others. He has published several book chapters with Lexington Press, Palgrave McMillan, and Intellect. He serves as an Editorial Advisory Board member of Metal Music Studies. He was also an associate producer of the award winning documentaries The Distorted Island: The Metal Islands and Songs of Injustice: Heavy Metal Music in Latin America. Christian M. Pack holds a PhD in Spanish from Johns Hopkins University, where he completed his dissertation entitled Hellbound in El Salvador: Heavy Metal as a Philosophy of Life in Central America. He has studied the Salvadoran heavy metal culture for over six years and has amassed over five hours of video interviews with artists in the country. He currently works at Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. He lives in Gaithersburg with his wife and children and sings in the metal band, Burn N’ Bleed, in the MD, DC, VA area. Maximiliano Sánchez Mondaca is a sociologist at the Universidad de Chile and holds a Master’s Degree in Social Communication from the Pontificia Universidad Católica. Presently, he is a staff member at Revista Rockaxis. He is a member of the Premios Pulsar de la Sociedad del Derecho de Autor de Chile (SCD) jury, serving in the area of best metal artist. He has curated various exhibitions about metal culture throughout Chile and at the Heavy Metal Book Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 2015, he earned a grant offered by the National Council of Culture and the Arts towards investigations in music, which he used in the development of his project Massacre, 30 años de Thrash Metal. The project earned him the Premio Pulsar 2017 as the Best Published Work in the Area of Music in Chile that year. His areas of interest include culture, music, the youth, and education. He has also worked at the Center of Investigations at the University of Chile and at the country’s Ministry of Education. Pedro Manuel Lagos Chacón is a sociologist graduated from the National University of Colombia, with research interests in applied social sciences,

About the Contributors

349

the teaching of religion, and the Colombian Armed Conflict. Member of the Social Intervention Project Design team at the Corporation for Action and Development for Peace, CORPDEPAZ (in Spanish) in the city of Bogotá. Lover of metal, cumbia, and music in general, especially when he can play it on his clarinet or guitar and experiment with the help of harmony. Latin American millennial and worker born in Cúcuta (Colombian-Venezuelan border). Peripatetic. José Ignacio López Ramírez Gastón received PhD in Music from the University of California—San Diego (UCSD). He is currently a lecturer at the National University of Music (formerly the National Conservatory of Music), where he manages the Electroacoustic and Sound Arts Laboratory. He also lectures on Sound Arts and Popular Music at the Pontificia Universidad Católica of Perú where he is currently teaching (together with Ricardo Olavarría) History of Metal: Extreme Music and Countercultural Resistance, the first class on metal in Peruvian history. In 2018 he published (with Giuseppe Risica) the book Espíritu del Metal: La Conformación de la Escena Metalera Peruana (1981–1992). In 2019 he formed the Peruvian Metal Studies Collective (Grupo Peruano de Estudios del Metal or GPEM), and, with them, he organized in 2020 the exhibition Spirit of Metal: The First Exhibition of Peruvian Metal Music History at the Ministry of Culture. Miriela Fernández Lozano is Cuban journalist and investigator, presently pursuing a PhD at the Universidad Iberoamericana de México, where she is working on a dissertation on Cuban metal in the 1980s and 1990s. The dissertation expands on her previous Master’s thesis entitled Sobre la Escena del Metal en La Habana: Una Valoración de su Desarrollo Cultural del 2007 al 2016, written during her time at FLACSO in Cuba. Her areas of research include cultural studies, particularly as they relate to the area of popular music and metal music. As a journalist, she has contributed to the Cuban cultural publication El Caimán Barbudo, to the Inter Press Service Agency in Cuba, and to the socio-theological magazine Caminos, published by the Martin Luther King Memorial Center (CMLK) in La Habana. Under the guidance of radio personality Carlos Fornés, she developed the segment Punto Extremo for Sabarock, a legendary program devoted to rock and metal music which airs on Cadena Habana. The segment offers a look at metal scenes inside and outside of the Island. María Ximena Rodríguez Molinari was born in Montevideo, Uruguay. She is a fiction writer and investigator, and studied Biological Anthropology in the School of Humanities and Education Sciences at the Universidad de la República. Currently, she studies Interior Design in the School of

350

About the Contributors

Architecture at the ORT University in Uruguay. She has presented at conferences, both in Uruguay and abroad. Has also published in the areas of science and literature. Serves as a researcher for the Identity and Genetics Project, an investigation into societal perception about DNA. Has been a member of the Uruguayan Fantasy Literature Investigative Collective. Has published her fiction narratives in multiple anthologies, including El Narratorio, Líneas de Cambio, Ruido Blanco 7, and the eCreativos Journal. Her areas of research include design, architecture, painting, music, literature, the arts, and how all of these relate to historical, sociocultural, and polical/economic contexts. Manuela Belén Calvo completed her PhD in Communications from the School of Journalism and Social Communication at the National University of La Plata, and an MA in Comparative Literature and Cultures from the School of Languages at the National University of Córdoba. She is the professor of Languages and Literatures at the Instituto Superior San José. Her graduate studies have produced two investigations fully dedicated to the subject of metal music. The first one was devoted to the discursive content in the work of the band Almafuerte and its followers. The second studied the Buenos Aires metal scene between the years 2013 and 2017 and the centrality of the group Hermética. Has been a member of various academic investigative collectives devoted to the topic of music, and particularly metal music as a social phenomenon. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Council of Scientific and Professional Investigations (CONICET) in Argentina and teaches at the Institute of Geography, History, and Social Sciences in Tandil. Her areas of study focus on the reconstruction of social identities through music and other arts, particularly as it concerns expressions of gender and sexuality as manifested in youth communities far from the metropolitan centers. Emiliano Scaricaciottoli teaches literary theory at the Universidad de Buenos Aires and nineteenth-century Argentinean Narratives at Universidad Nacional de las Artes. He edited the first two books put out by GIIHMA: Se Nos Ve de Negro Vestidos—Siete Enfoques sobre el Heavy Metal Argentino (La Parte Maldita, 2016; republished in a second edition in 2017) and Parricidas. Mapa Rabioso del Metal Argentino Contemporáneo (La Parte Maldita, 2018). Additionally, he co-authored (along with Oscar Blanco) the book Las Letras de Rock en Argentina. De la Caída de la Dictadura a la Crisis de la Democracia (1983–2001) (Colihue, 2014). Along with Mauro Petrillo he co-wrote Las Cosas que Te Digo No Repitas Jamás. La Palabra de la Mujer en el Rock (Disconario, 2018) and Toma el Tren hacia el Sur: Postales de Voces Extremas (Disconario-CronosRock, 2019). Furthermore, he included articles in the first two editions of Cultura Metálica (Clara Beter,

About the Contributors

351

2014 y 2015) and in a collection edited by Miguel Vitagliano Boedo entitled Políticas del Realismo (Título, 2012). He has written for El Zordo, Marcha, Anden Digital and La Luna con Gatillo. Finally, he has acted as representative of GIIHMA in the Colectivo de Investigación y Acción desde el Metal de Habla Hispana (CIAMHH). Mario Efraín Castañeda Maldonado studied history and communication at the San Carlos University in Guatemala. He is presently pursuing an MA in Social Sciences at FLACSO and another in Hispanic Literature at the Rafael Landívar University, both in Guatemala. He teaches History of Guatemala, World History, History of Antiquity, and Contemporary History for the School of Political and Social Sciences and the School of Humanities at the Rafael Landívar University. He also teaches Guatemalan History and Contemporary World History at the San Carlos University. Serves as editor for the Institute of Historical, Anthropological, and Archeological Investigations (IIHAA) at the School of History at San Carlos University. His areas of research include the history of politics and culture in Guatemala, socio-historical explorations into Guatemalan rock and metal music, and interdisciplinary studies into Hispanic rock and metal music. Alfredo Nieves Molina studied ethnomusicology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)—School of Music. He is currently pursuing a Masters in Art at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Serves as the coordinator of the Continuous Education Program of the Anthropological Investigations Instituted at UNAM and is also the coordinator of the Permanent Seminary of Metal Music Studies in México. He is a founding member of the Action and Investigation Collective for the Study of Hispanic Metal. He organized the First Ethnomusicology Congress at UNAM and is presently organizing the fifth Biennial Research Conference sponsored by the International Society for Metal Music Studies, which will be held in México City in June 2021. He has presented his work in México, Argentina, Colombia, the United States, Spain, and France. Guilherme Alfradique Klausner holds an MA in Theory and Philosophy of Law from the Law School of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, where he is also a doctoral student. His dissertation research addresses the relations between heavy metal music, heroic-aristocratic images, and reactionary political imagination. He began his academic career studying theory of the state (with a focus on the history of the development of the modern state and its relation with tax law) and his research today focuses on the relationship between imagery, political affects, and virtual reality. His musical endeavors are channeled via the bands Trieb and Ankhalimah.

352

About the Contributors

Jeffrey W. Ramos was born in San Germán, Puerto Rico. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Criminology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica in Puerto Rico. He is presently pursuing a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the Ponce Health Sciences University. His professional work is centered on providing clinical aid during natural disasters. His investigative work is concerned with behavior and public health, with an emphasis on social determinants and structural influences on health. He has conducted investigations and has presented his work on topics ranging from the stigmatizing of transgender people, mental health, suicide, disaster management, to heavy metal.