Cacao y Yuca

The avocado’s swing 
    Music has been always a constant jamming between musicians from diverse tendencies, social groups and musical stiles. The members of the full throttle band Quinto Aguacate are always looking forward to find new genres of Caribbean sounds, searching in cities and country sides , avoiding the common place of most folklorists with their mannered musical compositions of cult purity and boring Neo – folklore, made to please the taste of the new worldly “light way of life”, while the music of real expression made in villages and city suburbs pales away waiting for the moment to irrupt in the mass media nets, loaded with a character of constant experimentation and eclectic interpretations, due to the changing dynamics in Venezuelan society, where whisky and rum mixes along in order to dance reguetón, where folklore and rock and roll get mix together with the rhythm of sacred drums; a characteristically symbiosis of an oil rent driven society where things come to stay , a horizon of events surrounding a hollow oil barrel open to multi cultural sounds.
    The name of this quintet derives from the avocado tree (aguacate) used all over Venezuela to make big drums out of its hollow dry trunk, an emblematic instrument used by Quinto Aguacate in most of its eclectic compositions, always transcending new frontiers –according to Edgar Moreno lead vocalist and flute player of the band “all kind of music and sound are suitable for transformations and experimentation, therefore we are heirs of the salsa Brava, the heavy metal, the furious atonalism, we are sibling of the drums, tuned up by fire, lovers of the music of Bach and the colombians corraleros del Majagual, defining our music as “LATA LATINA” a mixture of heavy metal and hard core salsa with Venezuelan drum beats. We are also descendents of Mozart, El gran combo from Puerto Rico and everything that can be transformed into music”
    The band is made up of musicians from different musical currents; Edgar Moreno photographer, anthropologist and classical flute player is the leading vocalist who sings rock and salsa music in the way santeros and afro-descendant folklore singers expresses themselves; Alex Huizi, a brilliant sound engineer who can quite well hit the electric bass with a Venezuelan deep drum sound; Carlos Almaral, a student of ethnomusicology and virtuoso electric guitar player; José Estraño, a motorcycle expert, a pizza delivery boy during the day and an astonishing drummer and timbal player by nite; and his son, Aaron Estraño, a conga player and back slapper gifted student of Afro-Venezuelan percussion. Most of them come from the slum areas located on steep hills and low middle class neighborhoods, in a constant flux riding along the contradictory symbolism of the urban stairs, (the further up you are the worst you are treated). More steps to go up, climbing with heavy gas bottles on the shoulder, while broken elevators make difficult escaping from the many armed thug gangs, always menacing at the improvised “alcabalas” (check point), located at the bottom of the stairs.
    Quinto Aguacate..s compositions are always leading toward a concept of extensive lyrics in the matter of a new protest song style, accompanied by the out of tune Roncadelia Choir, an experience compared to that of the venezuelan variety t.v. show: “El concurso millonario” where a hooded hangman “El señor de la trompeta” (the trumpet man) blows his horn every time a participant sings out of tune, making all the rejected participants suitable fans of Quinto Aguacate since the band asserts that all humans have the natural capability of singing as well as walking or drawing. The group discovers new ways of music by adopting “bluders” in music as virtues, repeating them over and over until they become “suitable experimental sounds for the ears” They also take into consideration popular slang and the way people talk in the country side as a cult way of expression, using it as an effective tool to mess with and ruffle up the feathers of Venezuelans creating musical pieces like 20 kilos 500, a song dedicated to fat people to accept their natural physical conditions. Another song Machete cannibal, depicts ours anthropophagi inheritance, trapped in the body of a cannibal teenager. A censured human phenomenon present in all societies abroad -Rueda de pescado , Round fish - not exactly the one we eat - but the ambushes performed by the low bike riders to common people on the high ways of Caracas. Songs like Cuaima virgen and mil caras, refers to the way salsero musicians always sing to misogyny. A chant to nature is reflected in Cacao y yuca a tribute to the Venezuelan land and two of the main original crops that make up the cultural Venezuelan culinary, overtaken by chocolate bars, refined flours and emblematic symbols of the fast food culture.
    Quinto aguacate performs mainly on the streets and during social communities campaigns in the slums areas of Caracas. Their shows are complemented with graphic campaigns that create consciousness about the pollution of the rivers.. basins and how to deal with the problematic of garbage and debris irresponsible driven by the Venezuelan society. It is December the 23 , rockets, Ben Laden fire crackers and other kinds of assorted fires mix their banging noises with the distorted sounds of the electric guitars, basses and percussion of Quinto Aguacate and many other bands during the annual meeting party given by the inhabitants of the popular suburb El Placer de Maria in Baruta, Caracas to honor their local band, Quinto Aguacate, celebrating the fact of having its own renowned and experimental music band which belongs to a generation of artists who have put forward all their effort to keep the music alive and up to date, in the main stream of Venezuelan new music.
    Venezuela is a country of water; it holds one of the world's largest reservoirs of this prime liquid. One of Quinto Aguacte's main actions during its public performances are based on a social compromise towards their fans, calling the attention upon one of Venezuelan’s society most unattended problem: the environmental contamination near the river’s basins; product of public carelessness, as well as industries and the unaware actions on the use and care of fresh water among the dwellers cohabiting near the river..s banks. Therefore, Quinto Aguacate had set during their concerts and social- cultural interchanges a graphic and ideological campaign based on public posters, containing information about this critical problem by using phrases based on local traditional songs as slogans, and documentary photography dealing with cultural facts of the villages and towns where the band does its performances, changing the commercial and yet traditional values of public and commercial adds and posters by an affective-social campaign that reflects the closest reality of the local dwellers, leaving an educative message and sowing consciousness about the consequences of environmental contamination and a graphic memoire of the happy and enliven moments cheered between the public and the full throttle band, Quinto Aguacate.

Quinto Aguacate

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