{"id":12351,"date":"2022-10-24T00:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T04:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/?p=12351"},"modified":"2022-10-22T18:22:43","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T22:22:43","slug":"punkis-karboneros-albatross-banda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazineampm.com\/en\/punkis-karboneros-albatross-banda\/","title":{"rendered":"Punkis karboneros"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 200 kilometers from Havana, in the westernmost municipality of Cuba, survives a band of geeks born at the climax of the Special Period. They broke ground in September 1995 in Sandino, Pinar del Rio. A group of young lovers of heavy sounds and protest lyrics, denouncing the injustices and problems of the world.<\/p>\n

The band was founded by four friends with very little musical experience. They wanted to sound and express themselves. A black bird stamped on the drum box. Wings open. The shadow behind.<\/p>\n

Alexander Serradet is the only one still active as a musician of those four members. He is the narrating body of the story of Albatross, a group that is still flying 27 years later.<\/p>\n

\"With no formal training in music, we went out to give cane. Thanks to our insistence, to the people and bands we met on the road, we were polishing ourselves, sometimes starting from scratch when for one reason or another, we were held up waiting for a new partner in the lineup due to the departure of some of the members. We have never been a professional band. We all work on something else and have families to attend to and when these points began to distance us from the music some had to choose only one side: the more personal obligations.<\/p>\n

\"In the music of Albatross you will hear our point of view on the social, political and environmental problems that affect humanity, because although we are Cubans we prefer to see beyond borders. We are part of this world; we have the same air, the same soil and even the same needs\".<\/p>\n

\"Foto:

Photo: Maria Lucia Exposito.<\/p><\/div>\n

A small presentation in the city of Pinar del R\u00edo, on December 4, 1995, with a sound related to traditional heavy metal, was the beginning. By 1996, the band decided to venture into other musical paths and joined the ranks of the death metal<\/em>\u00a0with nuances thrash<\/em>. With this new sonority, they are once again performing in the head of the province.<\/p>\n

\"We were invited to participate in the first Death\/Thrash festival, held there in March 1996, we shared the stage with bands like Zeus and Necrophagus.\"<\/p>\n

After this stage of death metal<\/em>Albatross decided to reconsider their musical stance. The rehearsal room of the group had its period of silence, while they searched and found the style and the songs that had more to do with the way of thinking and expressing themselves of its members. Then came 10 songs of a rabid hardcore <\/em>with which they presented themselves for the next two years. In this new version, Alexander Serradet and Herodes Conesa switched roles on the instruments.<\/p>\n

\"Around 1998 Ernesto Gun<\/em> Rivera and bassist Herodes Conesa left the band. Pistola joined Trauma (later M\u00e9dula), a band from the city of Pinar del R\u00edo. Herodes left the music scene completely\".<\/p>\n

The band fell into a lethargy with no replacements for these musicians, but Alexander and Luzmany decided they couldn't stop at that point, and taught a friend named Joe Luis Gonzalez to play drums. Luzmany dropped the drumsticks and took over bass and vocals. They returned to the concerts with more strength, as a trio. And so, as Alex himself tells it, they played all over the country.<\/p>\n

\"A punk core<\/em> Rabid, contentious, irreverent and transgressive was what you could feel in the Albatross concerts of those times. Unfortunately, for us and the fans, the band had a new and very sensitive casualty. Luzmany Vivas, director and soul of the band, left for the United States. There were many who thought that this would be the end of the band, but encouraged by many friends, especially by Luzmany himself, I looked for new members, who appeared from among people without any musical experience, but also with a great desire to express themselves through music\".<\/p>\n

The new wave arrived at the end of 2004 with Freddy Cornelio on bass and Geandy Arango on vocals. With this new line up<\/em>Now back as a quartet, they decided to make up for lost time and return to touring and national festivals.<\/p>\n

\"Once again the theme of emigration, so strong in the life of the Cuban, hit the Albatross ranks again when Freddy emigrated to the United States in August 2009.\"<\/p>\n

The danger of extinction stalks them again. However, Alexander faces the death of the picket line and continues to think of local musicians.<\/p>\n

\"Foto:

Misael Hidalgo and Alexander Serradet at Maxim Rock. Photo: Mar\u00eda Luc\u00eda Exp\u00f3sito.<\/p><\/div>\n

January 2014 saw the reappearance of a renewed Albatross led by Alexander on guitar and backing vocals, accompanied by Misael Hidalgo - only 19 years old - on bass, Raidel Exp\u00f3sito on drums and Carlos Manuel Rond\u00f3n as vocalist, both 21.<\/p>\n

\"A year and a half later Carlitos leaves and Albatross returns to the trio format, and this time Misael is the one who assumes the vocals. In March 2018, 26-year-old Orelvis Dom\u00ednguez joins the band as accompanying guitarist. Already back to the format of four, lucky number for the band, the style was redefined and we evolved until the hardcore punk<\/em>although this is a subject of debate among all those who have been able to see and listen to what we offer musically, because in the same single you can find passages of thrash<\/em>, punk<\/em>, hardcore <\/em>and heavy<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"You can still hear some of the old-time songs with good arrangements, some of them covers<\/em> and recent songs that have been born mainly from Misael's work in terms of lyrics, but we are working to bring to light new songs that friends and close friends have composed for us\".<\/p>\n

The journey of these geeks, as referred to by musician and bandleader Alexander Serradet, spans mainly two demos in the 2000s: Punkis karboneros<\/em>(live at the Madriguera, 2004) and Shouting in 2005<\/em>. The fact of being coal makers touches them from the roots, it comes from the same roots of the local genesis of a town. To make charcoal, as well as to persist in making music in these parts, is one of the rituals of survival.<\/p>\n

\"Foto:

Misael Hidalgo and Alexander Serradet in Moldova. Photo: Mar\u00eda Luc\u00eda Exp\u00f3sito.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"We work on amateur and independent recording and production of new songs and videos. We also rescue the first songs that have had a general impact on our audience, with a generational diversity. There are young guys in the band who push me. We make things flow and it is giving us results, no one better than the public to judge\", says Alexander.<\/p>\n

During all these years, Albatross has performed in different arenas such as Pinar Rock. In the 2017 edition, they managed to extend the event for the first time some 60 kilometers west to Sandino municipality, the group's native lair. Festivals saw them come and go along the highway: La Madriguera in Havana, Atenas Rock in Matanzas, Rockasol in Cienfuegos, Romer\u00edas de Mayo in Holgu\u00edn, the pe\u00f1as of Tendencia, M\u00e9dula, Chispa e' Tren, La Guerrilla, presentations in villages, schools... even discotheques were stages conquered by this band that in 2018 premiered Roncali Rock, a festival organized for the first time from their local temple in Sandino with the name of the lighthouse that marks the end of Cuba.<\/p>\n

Alex stops the time sequence to relive one of the moments that surprised him during Albatross' tour of the provinces: \"When we returned to Ciudad Metal, in Santa Clara, after a few years without playing there, we surprised a new audience that only knew about us through the comments of the older geeks\".<\/p>\n

The band is currently formed by Alexander Serradet Hern\u00e1ndez, as lead guitarist and vocals, Raidel Exp\u00f3sito Garc\u00eda on drums, Misael Hidalgo Cala on bass and vocals, and Orelvis Dom\u00ednguez Mart\u00ednez on second guitar. Almost every afternoon they rehearse in the abandoned movie theater in Sandino, in front of the roof tiles of the Casa de Cultura. The Moldavia is a dark place with old and rusty projectors. There, with the loose cables, they invented the extensions, and with the accumulated wood and material they built horns. At the end, already at night, a ponina to drink when the throats are empty.<\/p>\n

\"Foto:

Raidel Exp\u00f3sito and Misael Hidalgo at the Moldavia. Photo: Mar\u00eda Luc\u00eda Exp\u00f3sito.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the magma of bureaucracy and little institutional support, the \"punkis karboneros\" have had to turn to companies like Turarte to have at least contracts and presentation permits, some sign of income. They play for free at Maxim Rock and provincial festivals in exchange for lodging or transportation. Most of the time they pay for everything.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

They get up early. They start the route squeezed into the train that leaves Sandino for the only time that day, at 4 a.m. Sixty kilometers later, they board a truck at the provincial terminal to 100th Avenue and Rancho Boyeros. They wait for P 12 or P 16. A cycle they know well, fortunately. They arrive at the Maxim at 2 pm. They bring a lot of alcohol from a bodega they call Abdala in their hometown. They are the first to arrive of three bands that will share as guests of the Switch. Alexander is anxious. He tells the stories of the neighborhood and of that distant past of his military service, in the dogtooth on the shores of Cape San Antonio.<\/p>\n

Ten o'clock at night. It's their turn to go out. They play by surprise Repression<\/em>a song by the Switch, hosts of this meeting. They have another lyric about policemen. Close to the stage, shouting and raising their arms, the picket of fans who sneaked into the musicians' transport from Pinar del R\u00edo. They have been shaking their bodies for a while now. Someone tells Alex to let his boys be freer, to be more free. Another of his lyrics is especially dedicated to the exile and political prisoners. The vocalist, with his hand on his chest and a t-shirt<\/em> blue of the Cuba team.<\/p>\n

\"He who is afraid to die should not be born\", a famous sentence invoked by Misael Hidalgo before the last song.<\/p>\n

For some time now, the Albatrosses have been closing with a cover<\/em> by They say shit<\/em>by La Polla Records. They have taken the lyrics as their anthem. They chant them loudly from below.<\/p>\n

A lot of people live sadly and are going to die democratically.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I can't keep quiet.<\/em><\/p>\n

Morality forbids anyone to answer, they say shit, we say amen. <\/em><\/p>\n

Amen, it often rains.<\/em><\/p>\n

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