Karleigh, Sorrel and the Village People

I’ve talked about the *ban* to several people, most of them journalists, and we none of us get it. I don’t interview Fatboy Slim or the Stereophonics every day and it only benefits the paper. Back when I was a kid, the ultimate insult for anything, person, band, place, even your mum, was *village*. So I’ll say this. It was Village People who *banned* me from writing for other sections until March.

And it was also the real singing, dancing the Cop, Indian, Biker, Soldier, Cowboy and the other one Village People I met twice last night. Thanks to my mate Mike who knows the Indian (I know…), my flatmate Karleigh and I went backstage pre-show for some photos. Mental. Which band does that just 30 minutes before show? Shouldn’t they be getting high or doing yoga?

It was awesome not to be reviewing actually and just sing along contentedly to In The Navy, You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real), DiscoTrash – an absolutely awesome medley of every single disco track you can think of – and of course YMCA. The Village People actually taught us how to do it properly: “no monkey M above your head at weddings and birthdays any more” and then the C is meant to move delicately into an A above your head with a slide of your left arm. Who imagined it could be so complex?

Good times, great show, and the Biker’s chest was in pretty good damn condition. I had mentioned this to Mike, whose cousin knows Biker Eric’s girlfriend (yup, he’s straight) so when we were backstage after the show, I was summoned to give it a test-drive. The shame. Really, the shame. I did decline, but we had a good old chat whereby I told him his look (think Derek Zoolander’s Blue Steel) should clearly have a name, and I was incredulous that he didn’t, and we also discussed also the dangers of squashing cockroaches.

That’s right people, village or otherwise, my conversation skills are so much more sophisticated ever since that move to economy.

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.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/PrintedEdition/View/2412

Tom Novy at Space in Ibiza