Still, trio Friendly Fires, who chatted to the Herald in their only face-to-face interview in Buenos Aires before their sound check at La Trastienda last week, beg to differ about their heritage. It seems local rock royalty such as former S Club 7 singer Paul Cattermole (okay, bubblegum pop royalty), punksters Your Demise and Enter Shikari and pop band Saving Aimee were born there, while 80s crooner David Essex lives there. As did the revered comedian (in Argentina certainly) Benny Hill. But the Fires are very much the UK’s band of the moment, playing the main British music festivals including Glastonbury, touring the world and releasing their fifth single Kiss of Life two weeks ago — frankly they are the only Albanian musicians we should be caring about. And all that has been a mere year’s work since the release of their eponymous debut album.

Taken to task over their home town, bearded guitarist Edd Gibson is jokily defensive. “Actually The Zombies (a rock band formed in 1959) went to the same school as we did. I met the drummer’s daughter who told me that. That’s very rock ‘n roll!”

Despite their understandable fondness for their roots, drummer Jack Savidge lives just down the road in Hatfield, and Edd is now based in London, for the unrock ‘roll reason that “my parents moved to Devon which is pretty inaccessible.” However, vocalist Ed Mac has stayed close by. “I live just outside St. Albans and that’s where we have our studio and where we record. If I moved into London it would be hard to find a place where I could make a lot of noise and not get any complaints. And it wouldn’t be very cheap either, to rent somewhere then soundproof it.” How very practical of this electro-indie trio — it sounds like they had a university education.

Jack, who looks worn-out and originally wasn’t up for being interviewed but decides to get in on it anyway, adds: “Coming from St. Albans has actually helped us as we’ve been able to make as much noise as we like for 10 years. We’ve got a lot of respect for bands who come from inner cities and have to worry about paper-thin walls!”

“Can you imagine having to be creative in a space you’ve rented for two hours?” ponders Ed, the eccentric Englishman bedecked in calf-length trousers, lace-up brogues and striped green-and-black socks. (“These are my last few items of relatively clean clothes,” he admits later on, having just arrived from Brazil.) “It seems a really odd way to write music and be creative. The fact that we did have our own space to play until the early hours just let all that creativity run out,” he says.

STUFF OF DREAMS. The Fires’ story is verging on a classic musical fairytale: they met while at school and set up their first punk-focused band; vocalist Ed then released some of his own music on a label while in his late teens; once they graduated from university, the trio was signed up to XL Recordings. Now, thanks to their eponymous album, Friendly Fires have been nominated for the Mercury Prize, a coveted British award for the best breakthrough album of the year, alongside Kasabian, Bat for Lashes and Florence and the Machine. Although not touted as the favourites, the Fires certainly stand a solid chance among the aforementioned faves.

But has it been too much too soon? Twelve months can be a long time in the public eye. Edd disagrees. “It doesn’t seem like it’s happened quickly for us, to be honest. It took us quite a while to even get a record deal. I remember how lots of press were writing about how surprised they were that we didn’t have a deal, so for us it’s been more slow-burning. Our album came out last September and to be nominated for the Mercury this year when others have come out more recently…”

Jack chips in. “We definitely thought everyone would have long forgotten it by the time the nominations were announced. Florence and La Roux, for example, were released in the past two months so it’s good that we’ve kept there and gained some momentum.”

The band had dallied about with two smaller labels, releasing two EPs and a single, and the conversation turns to whether they need the support of a larger label to become successful. Anyone can upload music on to their MySpace website or make a podcast — just how necessary is XL for them?

“To really get anywhere and make headway in a mainstream music scene you definitely need the support of a label,” says Edd. “Unless of course you’re The Prodigy and have enough of a profile to do it yourself. It’s not just about some eccentric billionaire spending his money on you and hoping to get something back out of it.”

“Even with smaller labels, they are often funded in the beginning by bigger ones,” says Ed, “and you need money from somewhere. You’d have to borrow and need a lot of time to invest in everything to do with the label. If you’re a touring band you don’t have the time to do that.”

Obviously this is their first South American jaunt and they have taken in Rio, Sao Paulo and Mexico City, recounts Jack. A minor dispute leads to his being quickly corrected that Mexico City isn’t strictly “south.” Again, does touring this continent so soon seem a bit odd? “To play South America is very much a goal for us as a band, especially Brazil and Argentina, because our music is somewhat influenced by samba,” says Ed. “I really enjoyed Brazil but having seen the countryside in Argentina, I think I might like it more.”

Edd adds: “It’s surprising for us that many more bands don’t bother to come here. I don’t know if people miss it out or don’t lobby their management to come. It seems a real shame.”

They are also surprised at the high cost of gig tickets in Argentina. “I think they are charging more for our show than for last night’s dinner,” says Edd, and it is an issue that local fans in general pay more than their European counterparts to see a favourite band. For last Wednesday’s gig at La Trastienda, one had to fork out a minimum of 180 pesos to get in, some 30 pounds. When Friendly Fires play a homecoming show in St. Albans next week on September 3, some quick internet research reveals the cheapest ticket to be on sale for a mere… £12.

TOUR OF DUTY? Money matters aside, let’s get friendly. When the Fires play live they have a fourth man in tow, Rob Lee. But it’s as a trio that they can’t wait to start writing and recording again and the toll the past 12 months has taken on their music-making process is clear. Touring has naturally helped to raise the band’s profile and is vital. “It’s really important at this stage as we’ve just started out, but we’re now at the point where we’re selling out quite big venues in the UK,” says Edd. “But I don’t think that for the second and third albums touring will be quite extensive as it has been for just one record.”

Ed adds: “The record came out in September 2008 and we toured it while people were still discovering it. Now, more than ever, people are discovering it so we’re now on our second time round promoting it. It’s a good problem to have but it means we’ve toured twice as much.

“I’m surprised we’ve managed to write a song and release it (Kiss of Life came out on August 11, 2009) because of the touring schedule we’ve had. It’s hard to get yourself in the frame of mind for being creative when you’re travelling for a month on a bus, just waking up to set up your equipment — you get into this repetitive cycle and for us, to be able to write properly, we need to be back home in our little personal space. We need to labour it. We’re not the kind of band that can pick up an acoustic guitar and write a song at the back of the bus; it’s just not how we write music and a lot of our music isn’t even chord-based. They don’t start from a guitar but from a drum or synth line.”

But it’s not quite over yet. Over the coming weeks they will play electronic music festival Creamfields in Liverpool, Reading rock festival and Bestival, a fun three-dayer on the Isle of Wight. This gig will be a bit of a landmark as Ed explains. “We last played Bestival two years ago, the only time, we closed the festival in one of the tents, and everyone piled in to see what we were all about. We did a really good show and felt that from that moment that things were starting to take off, that labels were showing real interest and that the general public started to understand what we’re about and got into it. It will be good to go back and play main stage to see how the crowd react this time round.” They aren’t convinced by my attempt at getting them to play Creamfields Buenos Aires (the largest in the world) and Edd is adamant that they’re keeping November free for writing.

Three, of course, can be a crowd but having played together for so long, Ed, Edd and Jack seem to have it worked out, as Edd says. “We know when it’s time to let someone get on with their individual bit. It’s good to write together but sometimes it just needs one person to take it a bit. We’ve been writing together for so long that we know how it works and now it’s about finding the momentum, just keep going. If you hit a block, get out of it, and it’s best to move onto something new.”

Named after a track on the Section 25 album Always Now, Friendly Fires are riding on the crest of a wave and if they’re too polite and home counties to be rock ‘n roll, well it doesn’t matter too much as they’re electro-indie boys with a Mercury nomination under their belt anyway. And politeness and niceness can take you far — recognised by a fan and asked to sign a Union Jack flag on the street, Edd offered to put her on his guest list, quipping: “It’s not like we know anyone in Argentina anyway so we might as well ask randoms from the street to come along.” That said, spotted as soon as they stepped out of the hotel, the trio jointly agree that is was “scary to be recognised” so clearly the fame game hasn’t affected gone to these boys’ heads yet. It seems like a sensible St. Albans upbringing will stand them in good stead for dealing with a long career ahead of them.

First published in the Buenos Aires Herald in August 2009.

But it took a visit to the Maritime and Prison Museum for this austral city to make sense. Located on the Beagle Channel, Ushuaia is in Tierra del Fuego province whose very name incites passion, desire and a need to conquer and unravel the mysteries that this Argentine island holds. And at 1,000km from Antarctica, closer still to Cape Horn, a home to pirates and prisoners, seals and penguins, Malosetti’s nephew, the guitarist Raúl, summed up the city’s beginnings, which start in 1896, in an interview. “Those inmates were the reason Ushuaia came into existence. Guards and security followed those prisoners. And then the prostitutes arrived.”

And although that is the simplistic reason for explaining the city’s foundation, the multi-functioning museum tells the stories of the almost-naked Yamana Indians who were forced into man-made clothes by colonists and died out within a matter of years, navigational dramas courtesy of steely sailors attempting to put their surname on a slice of the new world, pillaging pirates who felt protected by the Beagle Channel, the Norway-England battle to reach the South Pole first as well as the marine life which has always called Tierra del Fuego home, and of course the ball-and-chained prisoners who wore Xeneizes stripes and hacked down trees come rain or shine to build a railway line.

Man continues to try and outdo nature but after a mere six days in one of the toughest climates in the world and witnessing Ushuaia’s winter intensify, the best Man can do is attempt to keep up with it. But even the harshest of weather hasn’t keep music lovers away from the six-day jazz festival.

Photo by Horacio Sbaraglia
More info: http://www.jazzalfin.com.ar/
Part two to follow, if, of course, the World Cup doesn’t get in the way.

A barren scrub area in Chaco province, El Impenetrable, also made its big-screen debut in A Place Called Los Pereyra, director Andrés Livov-Macklin’s first feature-length film. This documentary doesn’t simply focus on the day-to-day amenities Los Pereyra’s residents are used to dealing without (namely electricity, running water and telephones), but encourages viewers to consider the way they undertake charity work.

Although A Place… hasn’t made it to the lofty heights of competition level at BAFICI, no matter, the fact it is screening is a feat in itself. Five years after first visiting Los Pereyra, a remote hamlet some 50km by dirt track from nearest town Miraflores (phoneboxes: one), Livov-Macklin’s 81-minute documentary opened in Argentina four days ago, four years after he filmed with a three-strong crew: a camera operator, a sound recordist and an assistant director.

The Buenos-Aires born filmmaker, who lives in Montreal, had heard about a fund-raising project organised by Northlands, a private school in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires. Teenage “godmothers” would head to Los Pereyra for a week, taking donations such as food, pens and footballs to the tiny primary school, also offering their friendship and their own brand of solutions to the impoverished community — and so Livov-Macklin became a wall fly to the group of girls and their teachers.

He says: “It has taken a very long time mainly to be shown here because we had little funding. It’s hard to raise money although we received money from the Jan Vrijman Fund, and the National Film Board of Canada also chipped in. We only had US$30,000 and a film of this calibre really needed US$200,000 to make it. It was a constant battle.”

Not only did a lack of finances present a continual battle for the director and his Canadian producer, Hugh Gibson, but El Impenetrable really does what it says on the tin: it’s a difficult environment in which to live and work, to simply exist.

“This charity project has very much been at the will of the teachers, who have now retired,” says Livov-Macklin, who stayed on five separate occasions in Los Pereyra. “But there’s no water, no toilets — you have to do your business in the bushes — there’s no electricity, and a lot of bugs, snakes and scorpions. And there’s no security whatsoever. You could be attacked by a wild animal. The kids were playing football and my cameraman was standing on a rock for 20 minutes. It turned out there was a snake underneath which the kids then stoned to death — but it could have been my cameraman who ended up dying from a snake bite.”

From a similar educational background to the “godmothers” (Livov-Macklin went to St. Andrew’s School), he says the driving force behind the documentary is a question directed towards himself.

“It’s self-reflection because in high school we had a godparent scheme which is very common in Argentina. Community centres, schools and churches get together and sponsor a school. My friends went on these field trips, and I always used to wonder what people thought of us. My frien went for a week and then came back. What do they think: was it like a UFO landing for them? It’s a bit like that, I think. And that was the driving question.

“The godmothers are idolised and these godmothers in a way are me, and so are most audience members — people from the city — and the film answers the question of what would happen if I went to stay in the jungle for a week. My main concern was what goes on with the villagers, not with the godmothers who are similar to me or you. So we shot before, during and after the godmothers had gone.”

Going back to 2005, he describes his own UFO-like landing in Los Pereyra. “The first time I went was a year before the godmothers to see what was going on. The villagers immediately knew I wasn’t from there as my face was as red as a tomato. It’s very hot, deserted, with dense vegetation and temperatures often reaching 45 degrees. But I didn’t have much contact with them over the couple of days I was there. I returned a few months later by myself just to observe for two weeks and I slept in the school library on the floor.

“I had my picture camera with me and sat in classes. I’m sure the kids were wondering who I was and what that thing — the camera — was with me.” Did they question you? “No, they were very quiet — I think they were shy.”

Livov-Macklin visited the community three more times, during which the parents made their voices heard. “They were very concerned about how I would portray them. Every now and then when they go to Miraflores and are able to watch TV, they see that poor people are demeaned on screen. Most TV stations are from Buenos Aires and the media can be particularly nasty towards that kind of people.

“I heard ‘we don’t want to be seen as monkeys’ an awful lot.”

In order to gain their trust and help them understand what he was doing, the filmmaker used some of Robert J. Flaherty’s methods (director of the first commercially successful feature-length documentary).

“I would put the camera somewhere and explain what we wanted and if we wanted them to talk about something in particular. After shooting, we’d all sit around a monitor and watch it so they would understand that what we had just shot was exactly what they had said. And they approved. A lack of knowledge can produce fear. If people don’t know what’s going on, then they are scared so we broke that barrier — then they were very generous about letting us film whatever we wanted.”

This fly-on-the-wall film wasn’t scripted, insists Livov-Macklin. “All we knew is that the godmothers would come, then they would leave and that something would happen. We just didn’t know what.”

A Place Called Los Pereyra. Directed and produced by: Andrés Livov-Macklin. Also produced by Hugh Gibson. Argentina/Canada, 2009. Distributed by Chapeau! Films.

From the Herald

But until now, a word has never been publically uttered about Escobar by the people closest to him: his family. Following his 1993 death after a prolonged effort from the Colombian military, US special forces and death squad Los Pepes, Victoria Henao Vallejos, Juan Pablo Escobar and Manuela Escobar, respectively the drug baron’s wife, son and daughter, fled the country.

To cut to the end, the family moved to Mozambique but ended up in Argentina. And 16 years on, after countless proposals, Escobar’s son has finally agreed to share his memories in Pecados de mi padre (Sins of My Father), a documentary by Argentine director Nicolás Entel, in the hope of ending the violence in Colombia.

Preferring to be interviewed in Spanish as “we are talking about very delicate subject matter and I might not be able to communicate the correct message if I don’t do it in my language,” Sebastián Marroquín, as Juan Pablo is now known, is polite, calm and maintains eye contact throughout.

RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. Saying that “everybody thought it logical I would become ‘Escobar 2.0’,” Sebastián is now an architect, married and based in the Palermo neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. But why has he chosen now to speak out?

“I’ve rejected lots of money-making projects because they glorified the gangster style and image of my father. I never agreed with that idea because it seemed the opposite message to the lifestyle that I’ve chosen to lead. So I’ve always said ‘no’ to those kinds of proposals.

“But Nicolás suggested telling the story from the children’s point of view, not just mine, so as to integrate everybody else’s point of view. And that’s when I thought this story could have an interesting turn.”

By the children, he is referring to Rodrigo Lara Restrepo and the Galán brothers, Juan Manuel, Carlos and Claudio, sons of the murdered politicians who meet Sebastián for the first time in Pecados.

“Nicolás in fact called me a year before and I said ‘no’. I’ve never hidden what has happened to me from anyone, but I realised this would give a vision to other families who have suffered at the hands of violence. But I think everything happens for a reason with specific synchrony.

“So I wanted to tell the story but not more of the same in which they simply tell the story and don’t leave you with a message. I always wanted to find another way of telling it — not so I was putting my father on a pedestal — but so we become aware of it so it doesn’t happen again.

“We were still exposed when we changed our identity and residency and when your secret place is no longer secret, and neither is your name, that let me to realise that there is nothing left to hide. The only thing that remained was to advance and share with the next generation what has happened.”

Sebastián has returned twice to Colombia: once to meet the Galán brothers and second, for the premiere. He left his homeland aged 16 and although he doesn’t sound obviously Colombian, he also has no distinctive Argentine accent either.

“I spent half my life in Colombia as Juan Pablo and the other half here as Sebastián so I feel I’ve learnt from both places and I feel part of both. I miss Colombia. It has changed for the better and has more hope than before, in terms of its security, economy and healthcare. Which is why I miss it even more. But I think I can be more useful for Colombia by being outside of the country. I’d like to return, when I’m older. But it isn’t possible for the moment, and I don’t think it’s prudent, either.”

CHANGES. After such upheaval from a young age, including the adoption of a new identity, surely documenting his current life means his life will change again following the international release of Pecados?

He says simply: “It already has changed. With respect to my names. But there is nothing else to hide which gives us the peace of mind to do a project, to share it. They’ve already discovered who we are here, they’ve investigated us for the past 13 years, and there is nothing more to hide so the only thing to do is move on and share this story.”

But putting himself in the spotlight after all this time still seems contradictory. Why do it? “For several reasons. I’ve learnt a lot of lessons from the worlds of violence and drug trafficking. And I chose not to continue down those paths. Not because I’m afraid or fear the law but because I have an intimate and human conviction that to enter those games is not the right thing to do. That’s what the violence I’ve suffered has taught me. I feel I have a social and moral task to return the message that life has taught me.

“Turn on the TV and you’ll see programmes that allude to the cartels and they show everything through rose-tinted spectacles. Beautiful girls, cars, mansions, money. It’s all wonderful. That’s the height of being a drug dealer. The suffering and death comes after that if you’re successful. So it’s important to me to show the opposite to what everybody thinks, the glamour, and all that.

“Kids enter the game as if nothing has ever happened before and I can see generation after generation clashing, and we’re in the same situation. I want the violence to stop, not just for me but for Colombia.

“There is also the necessity to ask for forgiveness for my father’s actions. They aren’t mine but I have to say to you that society has persecuted and punished us as if we were Pablo Escobar. The film allows a minute’s silence to hear our voices and to say ‘this is our story, this is how we live, please understand that to be someone’s son doesn’t mean they are also an accomplice’.

“The documentary is a way for us to send this message to society that they separate us as individuals and not as cartel members. We are members of the boss’ family, but we aren’t the cartel.”

MOVING ON. Following 16 years as Juan Pablo and another 16 as Sebastián, is this a new stage for him? “I don’t even know who I am!” he laughs. “We don’t know where we’re going! But does anyone really know? I think it’s important to live with both sides of the story, the negative and positive from the first part of my life and apply that experience on a daily basis. I’m going to continue working and making money in the correct way without hurting anyone and this new life gives the opportunity of a profession here in Argentina with this identity. I have to live with this mixture. I’ll never be able to escape from my past, nor from my father, but if I can transform the present and also the future, well…

“I am trying to transform the reality that everybody thought it logical I would be come ‘Escobar 2.0’. Everybody expected that. Even me. But I realised in time, what we could do meant we could invite Colombians to understand that violence must not be generated. ‘Someone killed your dad, so when you’re older you go and kill someone else’s dad.’ The circle never ends.

“What takes places in the documentary is important. The children, we sit down, important characters in Colombia’s life, to end the violence. Let’s take a new path, unexplored, but we talk about a new path in order to inspire others.”

Even though many people expected Sebastián to follow in his father’s footsteps, a moment of choice had to occur for the young man. “I never considered the possibility of abandoning my father. I would not allow that as a son, as it would be an unforgivable disloyalty for me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep today if I didn’t have the clear conscience of having a been a loving and respectful son towards my father, despite everything he did to society. That is the test of family values.

“But I could never have produced that violence. In life I criticised him. But it wasn’t in my hands, aged 14, to tell my father, because the FBI, the CIA, not even all the police in Colombia, nor all of his enemies could stop him. But I used to fight with him about the violence going on in Colombia. However, he was full of excuses for justifying it. That he’d suffered at the hands of violence that justified to him what he was doing. The same circle…”

NEW DAWN. Starting life anew didn’t come without its complications. Having lived briefly in Mozambique, a war-torn country which at that time didn’t have any food on supermarket shelves, according to Sebastián, they headed back to South America. Given a three-month tourist visa by Argentina, the family decided to stay here. “At that point , three months seemed like a lifetime to us,” he says.

But at least they would have had money on their side to help them start afresh? He says: “We came here with what any plane passenger can bring. We were a family of four travelling and brought everything we physically could plus US$40,000. And with that we started a new life.” Although he is now a Palermo-based architect who happened to be investigated for 13 years by the Argentine Supreme Court because of his family connections, Sebastián and his family also make a living from the rights to his father’s image.

Discussing the documentary, how did the relationship work out with Nicolás ? “Well I did say to him, ‘please don’t lie about my father’s story.’ I’m used to that happening. And I wanted it to be dedicated to telling the truth but I didn’t have any control over the editing. Of course, lots of information was left out. A 30-year story can’t be squeezed into 90 minutes — it’s impossible.

“But the idea was always to tell it from the children’s point of view. I haven’t just met with Rodrigo, Juan Manuel, Carlos and Claudio. I’ve met lots of people — before I filmed anything — to ask their forgiveness that nobody is ever going to know about, people who prefer to remain anonymous, and I haven’t excluded anybody. I haven’t just met victims of my father but also people who caused damage to my father, conversations in which I forgive but have also asked for forgiveness.”

Also read it in today’s Herald, Thursday, April 22, 2010.

But God was on his side back in 1940 and and Jones deigned to follow in his coal miner father’s footsteps, instead choosing music and to search out the limelight.

His first band, Tommy Scott and The Senators, had a bit of a name for themselves in 1963, but when he released debut album Along Came Jones two years later, recognition came thanks to It’s Not Unusual, an easy-listening track and his second single which went to number one in the UK and closed his Luna Park show. In 1965 he also released What’s New Pussycat, which also made it onto the set list.

With his bushy white hair — no mean feat to have a headful at 69 — and bushy white beard, Jones wasn’t physically so different to the God he thanked for giving him his voice, or indeed to actor Morgan Freeman, according to Welsh Elvis fan Fiona.

Smart in a leather jacket, Mr Jones definitely does not look his age and kicked off the night, accompanied by his 10-piece band, with the Bono-scribed song Sugar Daddy from latest album 24 Hours (2008).

Although his teeth are a bit day-glo and slightly offputting, Jones is so bloody happy and revelling in his performance that a close relationship with his dentist can be ignored.

Give A Little Love was followed up by a stupendous third track of the night Thunderball (1966), theme to the James Bond film. Wow, it was heaven to hear 007 live and barely warmed up, Jones was in full belting-them-out force.

First pelvic thrust of the night came at track four with In Style And Rhythm, also from 24 Hours, and Jones included funk (Hard To Handle), country (Green Green Grass of Home, 1966), easy listening dance (She’s A Lady, 1971) and rocky pop (Mama Told Me Not To Come, 2000) in the 25-strong set, keeping the generations happy.

First ovation of the night came at the half-way point with his beautiful acoustic version of ballad I’ll Never Fall in Love Again but it didn’t stop there. Once the country section was over, Leave Your Hat On, Sex Bomb and Kiss kept the packed auditorium on its feet, roaring full approval although fortunately the ladies in the audience remembered it was 2010 and refrained from throwing underwear as if it were 1967.

See the original here

Kitchen implements take over

La bella y la bestia (Beauty and the Beast) is a firm part of fairy-tale history as a similar fable holds roots in Greek, Indian and African mythology. Ever since it was Disneyfied and turned into an Oscar-winning film in 1991, (a twentieth anniversary DVD is surely on the cards), it is a firm fixture in film collections everywhere, not least those of little girls’.

The musical love story’s return to the Teatro Citi and Buenos Aires after 12 years is being heralded as a fantastic return for local theatre, but the cynic and sodium lover within can’t help feeling that it may just all be a sugary singing and dancing overdose slathered in dulce de leche and topped with miniature merengues, ready to clog already weak arteries.

PROPPED UP. Two decades is a long time for any one, so it is safe to assume that La bella’s sets and props have come a long way since it first played in Argentina. In fact, one friend who saw it back in the day and went to last week’s première, said: “It blew my mind away. I’m thinking of suing my mother for having me 20 years too early.”

So armed with pretzels, ham sandwiches and a bag of salt to counteract any adverse reactions, it was off to the street that never used to sleep, Corrientes.

As expected, Beauty herself is all sugar and spice and all the nice things that little girls are made of. Neat and sweet, Magalí Sánchez Alleno, who was recently the first understudy as “Christine” in Phantom of the Opera at the same theatre, was innocence personified in a pale blue pinafore but with a voice more than capable of amplifying itself over the live orchestra.

The first indication that La bella is breathtaking is when dotty old dad Maurice trundles along, horns a-honking and lights a-flashing on his hand-built, four-wheeled, log-cutting steam engine. Full marks to the props department. Received by Bella (munch down a pretzel here), Maurice is preparing to enter his life’s work into a competition, and in his patchwork trousers and red scarf he sets off for his big moment.

But when night falls, Maurice is attacked by wolves who steal his scarf, and like the beggar woman before him, he ends up at the foreboding castle, looking for a bed.

Bella reaches the end of her tether when the village idiot and sidekick to her wannabe beau Gastón, Lefou, turns up with the neckwarmer wound tightly round his scrawny neck. And so she sets off to find her beloved father, who is being held prisoner at the castle by the disgusting and beastly prince.

His abode, an albatross around his hairy neck as he can’t leave it and will therefore never be able to find a belle to woo to break the spell, is fantastic. Nooks and crannies that reach up to the sky and crooked, chandelier-lit staircases form the monster’s lair, and the enormous cobwebs draped over the ceilings allow it abandoned authenticity. The ogreish Beast (Martín Ruiz) leaps about monkey style between balconies, roaring disapproval at his (dis)enchanted staff, Sra. Potts the tea pot (Marisol Otero, who played Bella in the same production 12 years ago), Dindon the clock (known as Cogsworth on the big screen and played here by Ricardo Bangueses) and Lumière the candelabra (Carlos Silveyra). This trio are absolutely hilarious: Dindon is the campest clock you could ever hope to tell the time with, French butler Lumière is witty, saucy and beguiling while here’s hoping Ms. Otero has the highest tier of health insurance available because her arm spout must surely ache after each performance.

Following Bella’s hostage release agreement and amid all the beastly bellowing comes a wonderfully comic scene. Rightly fed up, Bella refuses to come down to dinner. To get his way as usual and persuade her to join him, the Beast goes through the motions of commanding, (“no”), begging (“no”), grovelling (“no”) and is finally forced into courtesy, just about stuttering out the word “please”. (“No.”) Paw firmly down, the Beast flies off the handle and demands that she starve that night.

EAT ON YOUR FEET. But naughty Lumière disobeys the boss much to Dindon’s disdain and in the “Our Guest” scene, where the butler he lays out a sumptuous spread for Bella, is absolutely mind-blowing. This is musical theatre as it should be: releasing the imagination and taking it to a different planet, if not galaxy, with a dancing cake slice, a frolicking sugar pot, even a cavorting corkscrew. A cutlery set teams up with its fellow kitchen implements to rise up against the angry, ugly, vicious Beast who is being so horrid to Bella (munch down a pretzel here). I love it! With plates spinning and wine goblets dancing tipsily, this scene alone is the perfect antidote to glum autumnal nights, ever-increasing inflation, a global economic crisis and no payrise. With Lumière and the kitchen crew on her side, you know that it will all be alright on the night.

Beauty and her Beast are back. Back together, well, you’ll just have head to the street that never used to sleep to find that out. And please don’t wait another 12 years for the fabulous production to come back. Pretzels are not included.

The Magic Numbers' as-yet-unnamed third album comes out in May 2010

After releasing album number one (The Magic Numbers in 2005) which included the ultra-contagious songs Love Me Like You and Love’s A Game from which the “mistake” lyrics come, tracks that are so 60s-influenced it feels like the Magic Numbers have been around for 40-odd years, the self-titled debut was indecently quickly followed up a year later by Those the Brokes in 2006. This was enhanced by further touring and so after the musical, media mayhem, a break was in order.

Bassist and vocalist Michele says: “The main dream after touring was to do what we wanted so we spent a year setting up a studio. That was a big thing to get done but because we’re really hands on and want to do everything ourselves, it took a while to learn how to use the desk. We then took six months to record the next album and I’ve been recording my own on the side which has been a bit of an escape. Romeo has helped me a bit with its production.”

Infinitely less headline-grabbing than Oasis’ Gallagher brothers, these credible siblings don’t let rivalry get in the way, explains Michele. “We all grew up together, and we can sit in a room and don’t have to say anything to each other. It’s really comfortable, no one has anything hidden, we’ve seen each other in our ups and downs, but because we toured so much, I think we lost the family side of things a bit.”

So although they haven’t actually had a break, the laid-back attitude which at the forefront of their music reflects the pace they choose to work at, so it was going to take longer than average to make all these plans come to fruition. Still, a few years have whizzed past and it’s back to the grind, albeit at a slower pace.
“We’ve just finished out third record so we toured about 20 small venues to try it out and get ourselves out there for the fans,” Michele adds. That tour had a great conclusion with a larger show at Wiltons Music Hall in London, she adds. “Playing new tracks there felt good, it’s the start of the year — it felt like we were back.”

From west London although the Stodarts lived in Trinidad when they were younger, the Magic Numbers have always had good times doing the smaller circuit, and were up for repeating the experience before the April release. Michele adds: “It was really fun and a conscious thing to do before the album comes out and the chaos begins again.”

Although the band have had no time to acclimatise and are unlikely to appear in swimwear or even shorts, they will be giving fans a chance to reacquaint themselves with some Naughties pop classics while treating them to new material at the same time.

Where & when
Magic Numbers play the Rock & Pop Arena at ArenaBeach in Mar del Plata, Route 11, 200m south of the lighthouse. Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 3pm. Admission: free.

Full story on Wednesday’s paper (January 13, 2010).

Photo courtesy of David Collett.

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Inzucare Orchestra

1. Whale watching in Patagonia
They say you never forget the first time you see a whale and I cannot disagree. As a southern right surfaced on the rosy dawn horizon in May, my spectacles fell off and in fact I saw nothing of these 17-metre-long cetaceans. A boat trip from Puerto Pirámides in Chubut province rectified this and to be within spitting distance of several pods at the start of the whale-watching season was breathtaking.

2. Radiohead live
The British rock band caused a huge stir when tickets for their March gig went on sale. Thom Yorke’s band were long-awaited in BA and they did not disappoint one millimetre. His heart-wrenching vocals were beyond perfection, and tracks came from most of their seven albums, including In Rainbows (2008). Icing on the cake was Creep, one the band says they no longer play live — so powerful and fulfilling it satisfied the most die-hard fan.

3. McFly interview
Good sports of the year go to McFly. In an interview with the British pop heartthrobs, they handled a taxing Argentina quiz perfectly, even if they barely knew any of the answers. Despite their youth (between 21 and 23), they are old hands at the pop game and their Trastienda gig was beyond perfect. Knocking out all the hits, the night was enhanced by easy access to the bar for the three over 18s in the crowd (me and two mates).

4. Inzucare Orchestra (photo)
With a penchant for the unusual, I finally tracked the 10-piece swing band down at the Avellaneda Jazz Festival. Nothing like men in suits expertly wielding brass instruments and bongos to put a glossy shine on an average evening, plus more people should check out Teatro Roma for a return to the olden days of glamour.

5. Oasis didn’t live forever
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. You could cut the tension with a knife between the Gallagher brothers on stage at River Plate stadium in May.The lacklustre 75-minute set showed a complete disregard for their fans plus singer Liam kept vanishing. So dry, it’s a wonder how they ever came up with the band name. Disappointed and letdown, there’s no maybe about buying inevitable reunion tickets: I definitely won’t be.

Left, Matt Graham and David Labi

He arrived in BA in 2007 as “I wanted some fresh air in life. I’d been to film school in LA and then got an assistant’s job with quite high stress levels right after that, and I was fed up with going to parties on Saturday nights and talking about who you know, ‘can you get me into this meeting’ or ‘I’m doing better than you’. Los Angeles is a very insular world so I was desperate. After doing a post-grad in writing for screen and television at the University of Southern California (USC), I came here basically to concentrate on my writing career and to escape Los Angeles.”

Last Night… is a contender for the title of ultimate expatriate film for several reasons. First, its principle roles are played by foreigners based here permanently — a North American leading man is supported by a Kiwi actor. Second, the driving force is from the UK, thanks to its British director and producer David Labi, and script writer Matt. Some financial backing came from independent sources in the US, and of course the plot revolves around an expatriate who runs into trouble on his final evening in the Argentine capital.

Matt talks about how the project got started and how their ideas matched. “I met David through a mututal USC friend who set us up. We got on well right away and started to spend time together and talking about doing a project. We went to the cinema one rainy afternoon as I was depressed about the language school, and we saw a terrible Keanu Reeves film called Street Kings. That inspired us to do a film too, but about the expat community in BA itself. We were both into that terribly clichéd ‘Paris in the 1920s’ idea and keen on turning that into something on screenand knew we didn’t want to make an art movie of a cityscape with a moody voiceover.”

The suspense film clocks in at seven-and-a-half minutes, and in those 660 seconds Matt says he and David wanted to depict Buenos Aires’ expatriate community, which is very small. “Everyone knows everyone else here, and the environment is very conducive to the arts. But I always feel like an outsider here no matter what I do, so the main charcater is like that. He’s leaving, but he’s sucked in by a mysterious girl. His main conflict is trying to escape from his responsibilities, and if I analysed my own life, I think I came here to do exactly that. I didn’t want another assistant’s job.”

Matt also suggests that the modern world has played its part in creating this need to escape. “We live in an increasingly uncertain time, and the idea of conventional normality is breaking down fast. Depending on nature of your work, you can go anywhere — I could work in Antarctica as long as I had an internet connection,” he says.

BUGGED OUT. David Labi, however, got bitten by the Buenos Aires bug four years ago. Coming to Argentina to learn Spanish, he was so infected that he inadvertently remained on a more permanent basis. “I was travelling around the world, and ended up staying as I made a feature documentary. There was a rumour about a reported Holocaust survivor, an old woman, who lived at the end of the world on an island in Patagonia, so I decided to go and find her. And I found her, I became a filmmaker, and all that took me to the end, and past, my ticket extension.”

In the early days, having an Argentine girlfriend meant having a fairly a low profile on the expat scene, but after editing a bi-monthly magazine aimed at the long-termers living here, he became more involved, and then met Matt.“We both had the same ideas, and although it kept morphing into something different, I think the final product, bizarrely, is very close to the original idea we had. It’s come full circle.”

Although other foreigners have filmed shorts in Buenos Aires, David thinks this is a more encompassing project. “I think this is the first film about the expat experience. Although it’s fiction, it’s very much about an expat’s view of Buenos Aires and it’s not showing it from a porteño point of view. If it’s not too presumptious of me, it’s the ultimate expat film.”

Explaining further, he adds: “It’s like a mysterious fantasy but I tried to show the different elements of life here in it. You’ve got the expat bar, the drunken rich best friend who screws all the time… it’s charicatured but it shows the different worlds, with the main character penetrating the city, which he’s always wanted to do.”

Premièring in San Telmo on December 9, 2009, David is in the process, as director and producer, of trying to get Last Night… onto the international film festival circuit, and has submitted it to BAFICI 2010, the Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival.

“At some point I will be putting it online, but I want to get it out to the festivals first. And if anyone is holding a party or cultural event and would like to show it, then we’re interested in that, too.”

What would you, as a foreigner in Buenos Aires, do on your last night? Here are some suggestions: http://www.sorrelmw.com/expats-in-ba

In the Buenos Aires Herald:http://www.buenosairesherald.com/BreakingNews/View/19738

For more info check out: http://infernobuenosaires.blogspot.com/