Porno Para Ricardo- El Album Rojo Desteñido (2011)

Porno Para Ricardo- El Album Rojo Desteñido (2011)

Communism has turned from an utopic dream into a living nightmare in the countries who hasn’t reformed its systems, the USSR suffered as much as the other eastern block countries in order to open their economies, China is becoming a superpower thanks to their reforms and to the openness of their new economic views, although there’s still a lot to do in other matters, here in America we have Cuba as one of the still fiery bastions of Communism, although we know that Castro`s version of communism is more akin to a family monarchy than to the utopic dreams of Engels and Marx. 

I had the pleasure of listening to old Egor Letov and other punk exponents music and it more or less tell the tales of humans living under repressive governments, but Letov recordings are a thing of the past and we see them under the spell of nostalgia, but there’s is a chance to see the dissident artists really fighting with their art, in this case we have Porno Para Ricardo a Cuban band literally exposing their lives for their art and exposing thru their music the situation of Cuba today.

It was a big joke that Cuba was accepted as a member of the World Committee of Human Rights given the fact that human rights are rarely respected in Cuba, just ask the members of this punk rock band constantly harassed by authorities trying to impose silence to young rock bands.

Porno Para Ricardo is a punk rock band led by singer Gorki Aguila, an amazing front man who led this fearsome band and their political consigns against the oppressive regime, using Latino’s powerful sense of humor and dynamic punk rock to erode the strength of a totalitarian state and denouncing the violation of the most basic human right as well as the bad conditions of economy under failed communism.

It’s great for this fugitive recording by this great Cuban band to honor the bolero and trova tradition with the first theme in the recording dedicated to this style, as Mucho Corazòn is basically a kind of bolero, greatly sung by Gorki and definitely causing a great impression and showing the musical prowess of this amazing unstoppable and ambitious band.

La Agencia Del Rock is second in order in the record and we are immediately welcomed by powerful guitars and Gorki political consigns, implicating that rock n roll can be useful in Cuba to bring a so much needed revolution to throw down Castro`s monarchy, and then Los Pioneros Disidentes denounce the teaching of communist doctrines in school, the food shortages in the island and desperate conditions of people who leave furtively the island on boats, Los Dinosaurios has a more post punk edge, with a far more versatile use of melody and again powerful metaphors about the people in government controlling it for decades.

Porno Para Ricardo boasts a powerful attack on Cuban authority’s censorship on dissident artists, like on El Policia de la Cultura, and then comes the crowning moment on the record, El General, a vicious attack on the cession of power from Fidel to his brother Raul, confirming the infamous notion of a monarchy established on the island, shame on Fidel and to the memory of the Che Guevara, a dream revolution against a dictator, which ended with Castro becoming a dictator on his own.

El Album Rojo Desteñido is a cruel depiction of the actual day life in Cuba, the repression, the lack of opportunities, the lack of resources, the control of the media, and a life of paranoia because of the constant harassment of authorities and civil informants, the reality check of a dream that never became true, a faded illusion of equality and freedom that ended in the wrong hands and that ended up becoming exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to be, but if the USSR awoke form that nightmare, why can’t Cuba? Just as long as Porno Para Ricardo keep rocking hard and telling us about the real conditions of the brothers in the island.