Arts editor HELEN MUSA previews the new Pura Vida festival that’s destined to set the city swinging

WHEN you’re the lead vocalist and guitarist in a band called Desorden Publico (Public Disorder) whose most recent album is called “Los Contrarios” (The Contrary Ones) and whose favourite theme is “combate” (combat), your audiences should expect mayhem and excitement.

That’s exactly what Horacio Blanco has in mind for Canberra when he and his band of eight storm into the “Pura Vida! In the City” festival, running here until October 6, a celebration of the very coolest in urban Latin music.

Festival organiser Frank Madrid says it’s called “Pura Vida” (Pure Life) after the Costa Rican national slogan of the same name, but it’s understood as “she’ll be right, mate.”

I caught up with Horacio Blanco by phone in Caracas just as he was preparing to tour. This year Desorden Publico, one of Latin America’s top ska bands, has already been around Spain, Germany and Switzerland, but Australia will be a new experience.

Ska, he tells me, has fused 1960s Jamaican music, British punk beats, and Latin rhythms  to make the sensational form known as Latin Ska.

“It’s very urban and a bit aggressive,” Blanco says. “It’s a mixture of two worlds. Back in 1985 they tried to simulate punk, but quickly realised they must adapt it to Venezuelan tastes.

“The result is a very Caracas sound – thank God, it didn’t sound like those bands from England.”

The band’s name was their youthful 1980s reaction to a repressive law-and-order movement, Orden Publico – “We decided we would be the opposite,” Blanco says.

Since then, they’ve been finding public disorder everywhere.

“Our name fits the chaos in the world… we love to see the crowds getting crazy.”

Out of their minds, maybe, but not stupid. “I try to tell the crowds what we’re singing about,” he says. “Our songs are a photograph of reality with a lot of social context and a lot of humour.”

The band will perform at the ANU Bar from 9pm, October 4, with D’Opus, Roshambo and Brazil’s Renegado. Bookings to www.ticketek.com.au

In “Los Contrarios”, they satirise current political intolerance, but they’re really asking the question: “Can we live together?”
“We plan to disorder Australia,” Blanco says.

He’s not the only one. The disorder continues through the festival with social  dancing, classes and demos and dancing in Garema Place over more than two weeks.

As well, there will be what festival organiser Frank Madrid calls “ambassadors of urban music”, performers such as Uruguay’s Martin Buscaglia, Brazilian hip-hop artist Renegado, Victor Valdes and The Marin Brothers’ Andean rock, Australian salsa band Chukale, Buena Vista Social Club musician, Nu Samba Queen Aline Calixto and Venezuelan salsa DJ, Dwight “Chocolate” Escobar.

Brazilian chanteuse Alda Rezende and percussionist Esdra “Nenem” Ferreira will head up “The Girl from Minas Gerais”, a concert at The Playhouse on September 22 that also features Canberra Symphony musicians and a QL2 dancer.

The full Pura Vida program is at http://bit.ly/qyIW5q or as advertised in this edition of “CityNews”.