Fire Reetardnant Overalls

Vivo Study

Bardot (Bogota) - June 2010 - Photo: Flavio Vargas

1. The first time I climbed on stage to sing did not, but to pretend to sing. Parties were 20 years of LANS (in 1991) and I won $ 3,000 in a contest fonomímica in which shared first place with a second grade student. I can not deny that I liked the applause, but pretend it was Antonio Aguilar and singing Ay Chavela and John Charrasqueado not be as fun as it would actually sing something or play an instrument in public.

2. As Wilmar Granada - the music teacher - took us late on the Feast of Love program at the College in 1992, my mother turned to hate him forever. Luisito stayed there, Beto and I with our recorders in hand and our songs assembled and immaculate dress uniforms.

3. She (my mom) I had enrolled in classes for recorder in the Rafael Pombo and three months of school I went to the advanced level, so I did in one year what the other kids did in two. The closing of the school year with a presentation made at the Teatro The Founders and I remember when the curtain opened I was stunned with these lights on the face and the black trench with that seen in the background, in which one makes little distinction certain faces in the audience and that rumor, the constant rumor that one can not stop thinking if it is doing well or not.

4. It was the May 30, 2009. We started the show to launch the album with a rare introduction to Cinema and close to Amanacer. 18 months Nocturne recording made sense that afternoon. Sometimes I see Telecafé transmission and still moves me a little. It was at that same theater's founders. The black pit of audience murmuring had joined the lights and cranes of a television crew. It had been nearly 17 years.

5. The first presentation of GEOS (Psychological Operations Task Force) was also carried out outside that same theater in 1998 and I then I thought that six years was an eternity, it was nice to play there again after that debut, after traveling girls' schools in Manizales, treble in hand, playing Andean music with the folk group of the school and collecting phone numbers to which then I did not dare to call (that shyness that still can not get me out of all off).

6. Sara Loop was the best band that was before forming Gatoblanco. We were there Sebastian, Manuel and I, along with Matthew Finch (guitarist, vocalist and composer of all songs) more Caliche (a scratch DJ who made the fashion acetates hip hopper) testing every Saturday afternoon at the home of Garcia. Having never made a single concert, Loop Sara died in obscurity as a pleasant memory.

7. We introduce ourselves as Vortex and chose the name in the taxi, as we autodenominábamos the No Name Band, but then went Ultrack and Mr. Orange. That was the first time I played live with Sebastian and Manuel. Horizons Gym Parents booed us. We open with Ava Adore Smashing Pumpkins. It was June 10, 2000 and my mother was serving 39 years. Three years later we were Gatoblanco.

8. Being in a band that plays live is meaningless. It makes no sense. Record and record songs that one does not come out to play is like having many sexual encounters without a single orgasm. When the curtain opens and you see a bar, nightclub, theater or any dark space qualified by these blinding lights recalls for what makes music. There is no feeling comparable, there is no pleasure more spiritually satisfying than to hear someone singing a song of yours.

Gatoblanco - Cinema - Revolution Bar (Bogota) - September 2010