Friday, February 29, 2008

Punk Rockers in Cuba Tell Fidel Castro And Regime Off

The Castro brothers' cruel regime is all about 50 years of centrally planned scarcity, repression, a cult of personality, mind-numbing groupthink.

Gorki Aguila knows all about it, he was jailed by the regime. Not a journalist or human rights activist, he leads punk rock band Porno Para Ricardo.

The music is loud and simple, the band can be pretty outrageous, and the lyrics are angry and full of obscenities. In other words just about everything great about punk rock.

This is real underground, the price is jail and ostracism, the band is not allowed to play openly. Gorki's lyrics aren't just about blaming the government for misery and alienation. Blame is right on Fidel in language not used in Cuba, where dissidents are forced to follow a very precarious line, and there is somewhat of a Stockholm syndrome towards the father figure. And that's what makes the anarchic spirit and irreverence sound downright refreshing.

This video for the song. "Coma Andante" "The Walking Coma" about Fidel.


Porno For Fidel, parodying a nursery rhyme some sycophant made for Fidel, LOL "millions of us ask God that he stops his heart" "The sooner he dies the better."



With subtitles this is a trailer from the documentary being produced about Cuba's underground music scene, with interviews with Gorki. He is a very well-spoken guy, sort of the mode of a Henry Rollins or Jello Biafra, except he really can go to jail for saying this stuff. .

No comments: