Lots of Gen-X Latinos have been on edge the last few weeks as one of our music icons remains hospitalized. 50-year old Argentine rocker Gustavo Cerati suffered a stroke after a concert in Venezuela on May 15th. He'd performed at the Nokia in downtown L.A. just a few weeks before. His prospects for recovery were unknown as doctors performed brain surgery to reduce swelling. His condition left fans pondering how his music had been the soundtrack to our late 1980s, 1990s lives. Cerati's solo work and that of his Police-like trio Soda Stereo reached the top of the charts. Here's an email exchange I had with my Chilean-American friend Adrian Arancibia about Cerati. From: Adrian Arancibia Sent: Thu 5/20/2010 8:27 PMTo: Guzman Lopez, AdolfoSubject: cerati in a coma, i know i know it's serious
After my mother (of all people) told me the news her students had relayed, I was in shock. I was driving home with my father-in-law, a stone Chicano, and I tried to put into perspective what Gustavo Cerati's death might mean.
For us, in Southern California, Cerati's music, electronic, melodic and melancholic was the future. For those of us that had grown in the period of time where roc-en-español blossomed, he offered the third way. Meaning, that we didn't have to settle into the folclor of our parents music of nueva canción nor salsa. Meaning we didn't have to just settle for R&B classics of slow jams. Instead, musically, we had a compass navigating us into the unknown, into the future.
Albums such as the many Soda Stereo albums, in particular Sueño Stereo, and later solo projects such as the untitled Cerati/Melero album, Amor Amarilloand Bocanada have assured Cerati's legacy as one of Latin America's finest musicians
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Subject: RE: cerati in a coma, i know i know it's seriousDate: Wed, 26 May 2010 09:21:28 -0700From: Guzman Lopez, AdolfoTo: Adrian Arancibia
For me it was seeing Cerati with Soda Stereo playing to a packed Auditorio in Tijuana in 1988. It was a big deal. Botellita de Jerez and other Mexico City bands were coming up as an alternative to the crop of Televisa pop that was thrown at us throught TV on Siempre en Domingo, the Ed Sullivan show of Mexican TV. Soda was classy, was New Wave, sang is Spanish. This was the first time in recent memory that a rock act played such a big venue (the US Festival at the Tijuana race track may have been bigger years before but those were all American acts, if I'm not mistaken). Soda busted the doors wide open. Even bigger pop band Mecano played the auditorio the following year.
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From: Adrian ArancibiaSent: Fri 5/28/2010 8:21 PMTo: Guzman Lopez, AdolfoSubject: RE: cerati in a coma, i know i know it's serious
It was 96 when I first went back to Chile for the first time in fifteen years. I had been teaching for a year and decided to take a three week break in my hometown. What I left in the United States was the burgeoning Chicano Arts Renaissance. Ozo, Quetzal, Los Delicados, Grito Serpentino, los Taco Shop Poets.
I spent most of my afternoons in Iquique seeking out small disquerias like the Ritmo Latino shop on Broadway in Chula Vista. In one of those stores, groups like Ilya Kuraki and the Valderramas, Los Rodriguez and yes, Soda Stereo's "Sueño Stereo" were prominently featured in the glass cases I pored over. After coming back stateside, "Sueño Stereo" became our end of the night cd. We used to listen to it as we finished our last drinks and talks about poetry.
I was 98 and the World Cup in France. It was barbecues at my folks place. And the final Soda Stereo concert broadcasted online (a first ever). It was tracks like "Signos" and "Musica Ligera" which were versions with more body and moodiness. It was 2000. My friend Angel Nevarez was a sucker for Cerati's "Amor Amarillo" and "Lisa". 2002 a year on the brink of divorce. "Bocanada" became my friend with songs like "Raíz" and "Puente".
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Subject: RE: cerati in a coma, i know i know it's seriousDate: Wed, 2 Jun 2010 09:17:04 -0700From: Guzman Lopez, AdolfoTo: Adrian Arancibia
Cerati isn't really an Eric Clapton or a Jeff Beck, right? I'm trying to think of a comparable guitarist/musician in English-language music. He has a South American soulfullness, so maybe the closest comparison is to John Mayer, no? Remember that time about ten years ago you and I saw Cerati at that club in Chula Vista after Soda Stereo broke up? Everyone was expecting him to walk out with his guitar and play "Cuando pase el temblor" or any of the band's classics. Cerati breaks out a laptop and plays the entire concert off the computer. What a letdown, I was totally turned off. In hindsight I should have paid attention.
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From: Adrian Arancibia Sent: Wed 6/2/2010 10:07 AMTo: Guzman Lopez, AdolfoSubject: RE: cerati in a coma, i know i know it's serious
no. you would do a disservice calling him a jon mayer. dude's more like sting. see the track he did with andy summer "traeme la noche" a remake of the police's "bring on the night". that's some sick shit. youtube it. but he is a latin american sting (that instead of stepping into jazz and r&b), moved into the realm of electronica. peep out his production work on shakira's "no" and lesser remembered songs like nicole's "despiertame". in terms of electronica in the u.s., cerati could well be considered a moby or perhaps, a one man coldplay. in either case he was pushing the envelope. and don't say that the crowd was expecting him to play "cuando pase el temblor" at chula vista's over the border. that was you being a smart-ass, yelling it out along with "entre canibales". but what you yelled was what we felt. where were the classics? and cerati was on to the next shit.
chicano/mexicano moz heads (morissey fans) from l.a. who have not heard of him, would probably flip out on this brother.
let me say that the tight pant wearing high school kids in the south bay of san diego are lamenting him. and though he's getting better, you got to wonder how far he will come back.
