Brazil 2

Brazil 1



I'm from Brazil, actually I live in the countryside of the state of São Paulo (southeast region), but I have had some trips around here and the south region so I guess I can tell you a little of the hardcore scene here.

The biggest scene here in Brazil is the São Paulo city scene, counting the ABC (an agglomerate of cities around São Paulo).The city is almost twice the size of New York, so it’s pretty big and can support a big scene. I have been in other big cities like Curitiba and Porto Alegre but none can be compared to SP. I have heard that Rio de Janeiro has a big scene too.

The first punk bands started here at late 70’s, but we only had a punk scene here in the early 80’s. It was pretty strong and led by bands like

Cólera

Olho Seco

Lixomania

Ratos de Porão

In the late 80’s and early 90’s the bands got more political, and a straight edge scene was growing fast, along with a strong politicised anarchopunk scene. It was marked by bands like these:

No Violence

Abuso Sonoro

Personal Choice

Point of No Return

One of the problems we face here are the “Carecas”. It’s a kind of Brazilian skinhead who is extremely nationalist. They call themselves “Integralists” (integralism was the Portuguese fascism), our Oi! scene is almost all ruled by them, almost all trads and sharps are conservative right-wing too. Some hardcore bands here that like to play NY and Boston HC and are into “hardcore pride” and stuff have got into that too, so there is a strong anti-Oi! feeling among the punk and hardcore scene. It’s sad because we have good old school working class Oi! bands here too.

I trade zines and demos with people from all around the country. Maybe we don’t have such a big scene like U.S.A. or Europe, but I can tell you that at least the “DIY people” are pretty united.

One of the things that makes it very hard for our scene to grow is the continental size of our country. It’s not like in Europe that you can simply take a train and cross the whole the country. We don’t even have passengers trains here hehehe, it’s all by bus and our roads suck a lot and the tickets are too expensive… you know, third world country, a lot of corruption, all that stuff… But the saddiest thing is the prejudice of people; I have a punk hardcore band too and I organize a lot of gigs in my city. One of the events I do is the “Rock Beneficente” where I call some bands to play and collect food for charity. We used to do it at a Community Center, but we got expelled from there because of the “kind of people” that show up at those events. But the prejudice never stopped us before and won’t stop us now...on January 24 we are going to do another Rock Beneficente in another place, and a band from London is coming to play here :)

I have been to the capital and the coastland, I have a lot of friends there, but things there are different... at gigs people barely know each other and there is not such enthusiasm cause there are always gigs happening... at the countryside the gig, doesn't matter how small it is, is a big event and everyone does whatever they can to show up :P
hehehe

Thanks everyone.
Support the scene!
Do it yourself!

Bye!
Pira