"¡Represión!": Punk Resistance and the Culture of Silence in the Southern Cone, 1978-1990

Represin!: Punk Resistance and the Culture of Silence in the Southern Cone, 1978-1990

Hay Un Chanco En El Ala, p. 10

Emily Simpson

Honors Thesis Seminar

Professor David Farber

27 March 2013

Simpson 2 I. Introduction

On the night that Los Violadores played the show that many would thereafter refer to as

the birth of punk in Argentina, another band was scheduled to headline.1 Eduardo Camilli, a

relatively famous figure in Argentine national rock, had secured the auditorium at the

Universidad de Belgrano for his La Rosanroll Band, and then invited the punks to play after the

fact. Few expected that the event would prove anything more significant than an enjoyable

evening of music. In the weeks leading up to the show, Los Violadores played along with the

rules of the conservative, upper-class university community helped in part by the groups

founder, Hari B, who was then studying business administration at the university, even agreeing

to change their name from the subversive Los Violadores (The Violators) to the more

acceptable Los Voladores (The Flyers) on all signs and posters advertising the event. When the

evening of 17 July 1981 arrived and the auditorium began to fill with people, only about thirty of

those in attendance could be considered punks. The remaining hundred or so identified either as

hippies or merely as concertgoers out to have a good time.2

The first group, Trixy y Los Maniticos, performed without incident while the punks

moved to occupy the first few rows. The hippies, content to wait out the concert until La

Rosanroll Band took the stage, remained near the back of the auditorium. Then Los Violadores

exploded onto the stage, and the crowd of punks exploded along with them. Singer Enrique

Chalar, better known as Pil Trafa, pointed his microphone accusingly at the hippies in the back

throughout the set. Shouting revised lyrics of the groups most popular track, Represin, he

charged them with assisting the repressive dictatorship through their apathy and laziness.

Repression in the UB! / The rockers of Belgrano are lying in the street / without a fucking thing

to do. / Fucking hippies, dirty rockers.3 Members of La Rosanroll Band tried to convince Los

Simpson 3 Violadores to leave the stage and begged the audience to remain calm, but it was too late. The

punks began ripping chairs from the ground and throwing them at the hippies, inciting a riot that

forced university employees to call for help.4

Within minutes, police stormed the auditorium. Venue personnel quickly pointed out Pil

Trafa and the other members of Los Violadores as those who provoked the incident. Police

officials did not settle for charging the punks with a minor offense and letting them go. Instead,

they took them to jail, where they interrogated and beat them throughout the night.5 Despite the

brutal ordeal, the members of Los Violadores emerged determined to denounce the system they

despised the system controlled by a military regime that aimed to eradicate any measure of

subversion or dissent.

A similar system existed in Chile as well. Punk subcultures in the Southern Cone formed

at the height of similarly repressive dictatorships that relied on a culture of silence fostered by

state terrorism to subdue their respective populations and perpetuate unquestionable authority.

Many citizens, fearing that the state would treat any voiced discontent as subversion, remained

silent including many of the popular rock musicians of the time, who cowed to government

censorship in an effort to maintain their lifestyles. Our resistance was that we wanted to do

away with all that bullshit that Argentinian rock represented back then, the apathy and

compliance with the government, Pil Trafa later affirmed.6 Thus, the night of 17 July 1981

spawned a movement of punks that rejected the barrier of silence and refused to be anything but

loud in their opposition to the military regimes.

Like Los Violadores, punks created a unique form of resistance to dictatorial power that

extended far beyond rioting in university auditoriums by making noise amidst the rampant

silence. Punks in the Southern Cone frequently organized youth protests against widespread

Simpson 4 social injustice, addressing issues from police oppression to animal abuse. They documented the

process in personal fanzines, which they would then distribute to other punks and activists.7

Interested individuals could obtain information about protest opportunities from flyers

distributed at shows. In order to somewhat protect the identities of those involved against state

retaliation, written materials included the date, time, and location without revealing any personal

information about the organizers. Visible defiance in addition to explicitly political lyrics and

band names reveal an overt social consciousness that pervaded the punk subcultures in Chile and

Argentina even more so than in their far-removed predecessors in Great Britain and the United

States.

Though Southern Cone punk communities remained relatively small, their actions

aligned with other leftist tides of resistance against the Pinochet dictatorship and military junta.

Examining the origin and development of punk subcultures in Chile and Argentina throughout

the 1970s and 1980s challenges the current historical understanding of the parameters of

resistance within these countries. Southern Cone punks built on a subculture of protest developed

in white, working class communities abroad to craft their own, nationally specific opposition to

repressive dictatorial regimes and reclaim free spaces within a culture of silence.

As such, my research contributes to two major scholarly conversations: the political

nature of punk subcultures, particularly as they relate to resistance efforts, and patterns of dissent

against both the Pinochet and military junta governments. Many scholars have addressed each

topic thoroughly but separately, failing to realize the historical possibilities of connecting the

two.

Punk scholarship in particular bears a historically Anglo-centric focus, a move that stems

from the subcultures origins in Great Britain and bestows the English scene and its particular

Simpson 5 iteration with primacy in much of the subsequent scholarly discourse. The key introduction to

this subculture of rebellion can be found in sociologist Dick Hebdiges groundbreaking work

Subculture: the Meaning of Style.8 He roots the development of punk subcultures in the

breakdown of consensus in post-war Britain, suggesting that the movement provided a tangible

outlet for the extreme alienation felt by the predominantly white working-class youth in a period

when both the economy and faith in the government declined.9 Later scholars consistently fail to

move beyond that conception of punk as rooted in the white working-class, even as they broach

topics relatively far removed from the initial class of 77.10

An Anglo-centric analysis of punk fails to address the origins of similarly minded

subcultures elsewhere, the variant trajectories that may arise as a result of different historical

circumstances, or the initial method of transfusion across national boundaries. Despite the

habitual focus on punk subcultures as predominantly Anglo or Anglo-U.S. constructs, much of

that scholarship has been useful in identifying basic unifying philosophies and models of

resistance particularly anarchism and the do-it-yourself aesthetic.11 Both philosophies

emphasize individual agency and the importance of genuine community over hierarchical

institutions of the state.12 As punk began to develop in Argentina and Chile, extreme government

oppression imbued those same ideals with overt political meanings and transformed them from

mere elements of philosophy into tactics of survival a discussion never considered by most of

the canonical analyses of punk.

Some existing scholarship, such as the Rockin Las Amricas compilation, addresses the

connection between musical subcultures and political activity in Latin America yet punk is

notoriously absent in discussions about Chile and Argentina. The literature for those countries

instead focuses on post-authoritarian memory rock in the former and rock chabn in the latter,

Simpson 6 both heirs of the dictatorial rule and social oppression of the 1970s and 1980s instead of their

contemporary forms.13 The texts main editors, as well as scholars associated with each

movement, argue the importance of widespread popularity in determining musics relevance to

Latin American politics, although they offer an alternative understanding to the term popular.

As the editors argue in the introduction, authentic popular music had an intrinsic didactic

intent: to raise social and political awareness, in contrast to the contrived notion of

commercialized popularity.14 However, Southern Cone punks criticized popular music

movements for their apathy during the years of authoritarian government and accused them of

compliance as a means to remain uncensored.15 Punks didactic intent, on the other hand, did not

fall victim to the terrorized silence.

Many scholars have analyzed resistance to state terrorism in the Southern Cone in this

period through the acts of students, religious institutions, journalists, political prisoners, and

guerrillas.16 Patricia Marchak, an anthropologist and sociologist, frames individual resistance

through a series of interviews conducted fifteen to twenty years after the beginnings of state

terrorism in 1974. Though she does not address elements of subcultural resistance, her model

aligns closely with the one I aim to create in my research.17 As self-proclaimed punkademic

and cultural critic Zack Furness insists, punk is neither a homogenous thing nor is it reducible

to a specific time, location, [or] sound18 Resistance and dissent practices adopt a similar state

of ambiguity. Punks in the Southern Cone documented their existence for themselves, in a

community as varied as it was unified by the common goal of resistance; to access that narrative

is to compile a series of individual efforts without reducing them to a composite whole.

By creating and distributing subversive music, fostering a sense of community in

opposition to state terrorism, and documenting abuses against the public, punks contributed to

Simpson 7 the struggle against the authoritarian regimes of the Southern Cone in the 1970s and 1980s.

Neither punk chroniclers nor South American historians have given these efforts their due. This

alternative narrative of dissent highlights both the danger and importance of challenging state

oppression. Punks spoke out when the authoritarian state dictated otherwise not to make noise,

but to confront the silence.

II. Mapping Dissent: Why Argentina and Chile?

The use of punk as a vehicle to craft opposition to similarly repressive military

dictatorships justifies the dual analysis of scenes in both Argentina and Chile. Because the

regimes relied heavily on mechanisms of terror to discourage any attempts at subversion and

cultivate a culture of silence that alienated their citizens from one another and from the

international community, the punk subcultures that developed in the Southern Cone did so

almost completely in isolation from those that existed in Europe and the United States.

Therefore, the punk subculture that would arise first in Argentina under the military junta

provided a model for development that most closely matched the political and social situation in

Chile under Pinochet. The Chilean scene had its first tentative beginnings around the same time

that Argentina returned to democracy, allowing for increased channels of communication

between the two subcultures. Argentine zines began to feature Chilean correspondents and

Chilean venues played host to Argentine bands embarking on transnational tours for the first

time, even though the Pinochet dictatorship still reigned supreme.

However, the disparity in the timelines of dictatorships and punk subculture development

between Argentina and Chile warrants an individual analysis of each country for the sake of

clarity. I will introduce each country through a brief, tightly crafted history of its respective

military regime in order to set the scene for the development of punk subculture in opposition

Simpson 8 before moving into an in-depth analysis of the ways in which punks fought for the reclamation of

autonomous space in their repressive societies. Adhering to the timeline of punk rather than that

of dictatorship, I will begin with a discussion of Argentina and end with an investigation of Chile

in comparison.

III. State Terrorism and the Military Junta in Argentina, 1976-1983

Punk in Argentina evolved as a subculture of opposition to repression, to silence, to

uncertainty. The environment of terror and uncertainty created by the military junta, as well as

the culture of silence it fostered, guided the subcultures development along a uniquely national

path despite its origins in Great Britain.

The death of longtime Argentine reformer Juan Domingo Pern and the ill-equipped

government of his wife and successor, Isabel, provided a perfect opportunity for the military

coup that assumed power on 24 March 1976.19 A U.S. State Department report prepared six

months after the fact notes that the coup, led by General Jorge Rafael Videla, was initially

welcomed by many and accepted by nearly all Argentines as a necessary step to restore order

and prosperity.20 Other early reports suggest a similar trend of acceptance among the population

that the newly established military junta would rule temporarily, reinstating limited political

activity once the country had stabilized.21

Argentines view of the junta as one of moderate inclinations quickly vanished in the

wake of intensified state actions against any perceived subversion, collectively known as el

Proceso (Process for National Reorganization). General Videla and his cohorts failed to

distinguish between terrorism and dissent, blurring the lines between those committing acts of

violence against the state and nearly anyone opposing government policy a group that included

a wide range of civilian opinion, including those who would identify themselves as punk. Videla

Simpson 9 followed the doctrine developed during Argentinas dirty war, countering dissent with

kidnapping, torture, and murder carried out by decentralized units, allowing the government to

maintain some degree of deniable plausibility in the eyes of the international community.22

Much like el Proceso itself, terror in Argentina occurred not as a single event, but as a

process. The unpredictability of kidnappings and arrests engendered an overwhelming sense of

fear in the population intended to encourage obedience to the state and eradicate even the

slightest hints of dissent, cultivating a dominant culture of silence.23 Members of labor unions,

journalists who worked around censorship laws, university students, leftist political party

members, and outspoken members of the Church remained particularly at risk throughout the

juntas reign. Apart from vocal opposition, youth was the most dangerous characteristic an

individual could possess in this environment most punks boasted both. One man who fled

Argentina in 1977 at the age of nineteen laments, How can I tell you? I felt afraid all the time.

Afraid of being youngIf you were young and different, that was dangerous.24

The junta rooted much of the terror in the unknown embodied particularly in los

desaparecidos, those individuals who simply vanished without a trace. At the direction of the

government, military groups kidnapped subversives and held them at secret prisons and

concentration camps without any hope of due process. Officially, they were known as DAMs

(personas bajo dispicion autoridad militar) what a U.S. analyst referred to as disappeared but

alive non-recognized prisoners.25 Most of the disappeared never returned, resulting in a

staggering thirty thousand uncertain fates between the coup in March 1976 and the restoration of

democratic rule on 30 October 1983.26 The junta refused to acknowledge them, and their families

feared for their own safety if they did thus the culture of silence solidified.

Simpson 10 IV. Punk in Argentina, 1978-1983

That punk arose in Argentina during a period of considerable censorship and isolation

from the international community begs the question of how and why elements of the subculture

permeated the country in the first place. The answer, as is the case with many transnational

innovations, lies in economics. From roughly December 1978 to February 1981, the upper and

upper-middle classes in Argentina experienced a period of economic growth combined with a

strengthening of the Argentine dollar that allowed for families to travel abroad on vacation.27 For

many, these trips merely offered a bit of sightseeing, but for some young people foreign travel

offered access to forbidden cultural materials. The junta forbade the importing, sale, or transfer

of music in English particularly anything that encouraged rebellion against the state.28 Many of

the British records that caught the attention of Argentine youth the screeching discontent of the

Sex Pistols or the unrelenting criticism of The Clash fit both categories.

A few of the young men who would later become pioneers of punk in Argentina, such as

Hari-B of Los Violadores, used their foreign travels as opportunities to purchase and smuggle

British punk records back to their homes. At this point, according to singer Pil Trafa, punk rock

couldnt be banned, because basically people did not know it existed.29 This would change

quickly once it breached the countrys borders. The initial arrival of punk as music in Argentina

between 1978 and 1979 coincided with some media outlets beginning to represent punk as style,

albeit one to be satirized. One rock magazine in particular, Expreso Imaginario, portrayed punks

as stupid, unmotivated individuals who merely chain-smoked and drank to excess.30 Even so,

many Argentine youth, dissatisfied with the big shows and plastic idols of early bourgeois anti-

establishment rock, found themselves drawn to the contentious combination of sound and style.31

This would spawn the first wave of Argentine punk, from 1978 to 1980, which embraced the

Simpson 11 music, fashion, and general sense of rebellion of its British counterpart before it began to

develop its own distinct ideology.

The first wave of Argentine punks violently separated themselves from what they viewed

as the apathetic or compliant segments of society, those who willingly looked the other way

while the junta inflicted terror on anyone deemed subversive. As Gerardo, a punk who collected

his memories of the early subculture, wrote, We started not knowing anything but criticizing

everything.32 Beyond the dictatorship itself, punks attacked those who appeared apathetic or

compliant with the current political situation. Hippies in particular drew criticism for their

tendency to go along with the changes in society so long as their lifestyle remained unthreatened.

In his zine Argentina: Punk de los 80, Gerardo printed a picture of a police officer and a hippie

embracing, both smiling and raising a peace sign, and noted, this generation wasnt ours.33

Many punks echoed a similar sentiment with regard to national rock in Argentina at the time,

desiring more definitive action against the state and feeling that current popular musicians

supported the dictatorship by not challenging it.34

This first wave of Argentine punk broke almost entirely away from the sounds of the

popular rock music it so despised in a reflection of its anti-systemic nature.35 Driving bass lines,

screaming vocals, and loud distortion in the vein of the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen

replaced quieter melodic riffs and clear harmonies. However, finding like-minded musicians

initially posed a challenge to punks development. Hari-B, upon his return from London, placed

an ad in a music newspaper in the hopes of discovering fellow local punks who had also become

aware of and interested in this new, raw incarnation of rock.

By 1978 he had forged a few friendships and formed Los Testculos, who played their

first show by the end of the year. During the first tumultuous years of the bands existence, Los

Simpson 12 Testculos underwent what would come to define the typical experience of a punk band under

the military junta a series of raided gigs, a contested name change to Los Violadores, the

limitations of an interim singers semi-clandestine life due to his fathers political activities, and

the shocking loss of bassist Beto Villaverde, who abandoned music altogether to become a career

police officer. Punk, with its many difficulties and risks under a ruthlessly repressive

dictatorship, required both bravery and dedication from its adherents. Not everyone could tough

it out. Los Violadores found a few who could in early 1980, the line-up finally settling to

guitarist Hari-B, drummer Gramtica, bassist Stuka, and singer Pil Trafa.36

According to Trafa, the members of Los Violadores lacked a definable ideal in the

beginning, unsure of how to convey their feelings musically in an organized fashion. We were

youngWe were angry and we wanted people to take notice, he recalled in a 2010 interview.37

Punks during these years consistently expressed in their products and recollections the theme of

punk as a vehicle for releasing repressed frustration and anger under the dictatorship in

Argentina; it serves as the preceding step to the idea of punk as a lifestyle and ideology that

would develop over time. Esteban Cavanna, author of the definitive history of Los Violadores,

notes, In a society used to lies, the most revolutionary turns out to be neither wordplays nor the

usage of a forbidden term in a songs lyrics but communicating the desperation of what is seen

on the streets.38 Even without strictly defining an ideology of opposition, Los Violadores fused

punk with the brutal realities of the dictatorship the constantly visible military uniforms, the

disappearances, the torture and gave voice the anguish and anger that stemmed from it. As

Gerardo remembered,

Los Violadores in their beginnings were 100% punks, visual, attitude, sounds the way they played, their gigs were censored. The first time I saw them at the end of 82 I couldnt believe it. Raw and wild screaming against repression and the military civic dictatorship, imagine the fury they used to sing with.39

Simpson 13

Around that same time, the second, more political wave of punk in Argentina became

more pronounced largely due to la Guerra de las Malvinas, or the Falklands War, against

Great Britain.40 Most of the underground punk scene, Los Violadores included, actively opposed

the war from its beginning, viewing it as a bloody and poorly executed attempt by the junta to

regain popular support. Ironically, many popular musicians and aging hippies benefited from the

conflict, as it led the military regime to incorporate national rock music into its propaganda

campaign. English-speaking music remained banned from the airwaves, but the junta actually

forced radio and TV stations to start playing Argentine rock for the first time in years a

precursor to the large music festival they would later organize in support of the war. Most

musicians who participated claimed that they did so in solidarity with the soldiers, not with the

military regime, but punks called out the charade for what it was: the pursuit of fame.41 In a

surprising twist, Los Violadores received an invitation to play the festival; disgusted, they

rejected the opportunity for a career boost, and continued to openly criticize those bands that

chose to participate.42

If Los Violadores exemplified the rage and fury of the first wave of Argentine punk,

Alerta Roja transitioned to the self-awareness and social consciousness that would characterize

the second. At the age of seventeen, Sergio Spatavecchia adopted the nombre de batalla

Mongo and served as the front man for the band that would eventually be known as Alerta

Roja.43 Unlike many of his punk cohorts, Mongo came from a relatively low-class background.

Born on the island Maciel and raised in Geril, he garnered a reputation for himself as a poet from

the barrio. He accessed punk music through several of his upper-class friends from Belgrano,

though he fit the part perfectly on his own he dressed all in black and spoke out against

everything. The band underwent a series of name changes due to increasing state censorship, a

Simpson 14 trend that reflected the dictatorships awareness of punk as a vehicle for subversion. Urban

police officials the same who gathered intelligence on other suspected enemies of the state

began to take note of the more popular punk bands in an effort to target their gigs more

effectively. Mongo and his band attempted to circumvent this profiling, starting out as Los

Psicpatas (The Psychopaths) and briefly playing as Estado de Sitio (State of Emergency) before

finally settling on Alerta Roja (Red Alert, to reflect the state in which Argentina lived) during the

beginning stages of las Malvinas.44

Though punk would solidify its association with anarchism in the years directly following

the dictatorship, under the supposedly democratic government of Ral Alfonsn, Mongo and the

rest of Alerta Roja Pablo Strangler, Fernn, and Daniel Garcia inspired the subcultures first

evolution and paved the way for later anarcho-punk bands like Sentimiento Incontrolable, Todos

Tus Muertos, Tumbas NN, Mutantes del Kaos, and Los Corrosivos.45 When the band released its

first and only album in 1983, punk had existed long enough in Argentina to establish a small

sense of community among its members. This nascent community afforded punks the perfect

opportunity to move away from the initial rebellious outburst, to convey the message of here we

are, we are punk beyond merely adopting the style, sound, and anger of its early years. Argentine

punks could not easily build up from such a volatile base, as several people joined the scene to

experience the rush that came with such visible rebellion and fell away from it when more

rigorous ideology settled in. The people didnt understand punk, Mongo claimed in a 2010

interview, just like they dont understand it now. We werent drunks or Nazis. We simply sang

revolution, we wanted a change much more dangerous. We were apolitical, totally anarchist.46

Though Alerta Roja and Los Violadores were at the forefront of Argentine punk bands

during the years of the dictatorship, the two did not account for the entire subculture an

Simpson 15 important thing to note when considering the scope of punk as a vehicle for dictatorial

opposition. Los Baraja, the pioneers of punk in La Plata and the first to move beyond the Buenos

Aires bubble, remained a constant presence from 1981 to 1985, frequently playing their UK-style

music alongside the similar sounding Los Violadores. The groups founder, journalist Marcelo

Montolivo, eventually abandoned his career to participate in the punk scene wholeheartedly.47

Their singer, Marcelo Pocavida, would later join Cadveres de Nios one of the more popular

bands of the democratic period.

Punks Felix and Gamexane also played in multiple bands spanning the military junta and

its demise. As teenagers in 1979 they played in Los Laxantes, which disbanded in 1982 without

leaving many recordings behind. While active, the band and its members garnered a widespread

reputation for rowdiness at shows a common method of relieving frustration beyond the music

itself. Their first gig at Abba Caf Concert ended famously with the pubs owner, Esteban

Mellino, turning off the sound altogether. They would also share partial responsibility for the

incident with Los Violadores and the hippies at the Universidad de Belgrano.48 Both incidents

revealed the need for punk subculture to carve out its own space within the dictatorial culture of

silence, as those that already existed either did not or could not support such a loud and violent

negation of the status quo.

Many other bands such as Trixy y Los Maniticos, notable for featuring the first female

vocalist in Argentina quickly formed and dissolved throughout this period due to the variety of

difficulties involved in so loudly participating in a subversive group. Under the later democratic

regime of 1983, bands enjoyed the privileges of recording and touring without threat of

imprisonment, enabling them to survive longer and so reach a broader audience beyond their

small communities. The military junta ensured that no such privileges existed under its rule,

Simpson 16 forcing the punk community to create what punk theorist James C. Scott calls autonomous

sites spaces where young punks could gather to overcome their alienation and mobilize

themselves as a social and political force, however small.49 For punks in Argentina, this

reclamation of space adopted three forms: musical recordings, gigs, and revistas subte (zines).

The prohibitive cost of vinyl and the scarcity of record labels during this time period

severely limited the potential of musical recordings as shared autonomous zones, though bands

did record on cassette tapes and release them in small production when they could.50 Cassettes

were accessible, economical, and afforded bands plenty of space to fit an entire albums worth of

songs without sacrificing too much quality. Unfortunately they also degraded quickly, resulting

in the loss of many of the original recordings from the junta era.51 At the time of their

production, however, cassettes passed from punk to punk as a method of communication. The

transmission of recorded material between scenes in Buenos Aires, La Plata, and Mar del Plata

allowed the subculture to expand at a time when bands could not tour or occasionally even

appear publicly.

Most of the cassette tapes in circulation throughout the dictatorship period were roughly

recorded demos as opposed to polished releases, which did not appear until 1983. Alerta Roja

self-released the first official Argentine punk record that year, a tape of twenty-one tracks

entitled Derrumbando la Casa Rosada that ran for forty-five minutes.52 Los Violadores followed

shortly thereafter with their debut LP, a popular self-titled collection of twelve songs that they

had recorded immediately after Pil Trafa joined the band in 1981. With the support of

independent label Umbral, they successfully distributed the album throughout much of South

America in the early years of the democratic period.53 Los Baraja and Los Laxantes never

recorded their own albums, but songs from each appeared on Invasin 88, a compilation of

Simpson 17 Argentine punk that, despite its focus on the mid-to-late 1980s, included earlier material as

well.54

Due to the scattered nature of cassette recordings and album releases, Argentine punks

primarily constructed a shared experience of community and autonomy at live musical

performances, or gigs. Bands struggled to locate safe and tolerant venues, finding that many

existing bars, restaurants, and traditional auditoriums refused to cater to anyone involved with

the punk subculture out of either fear or distaste.55 Surprisingly, Le Chevalet, a French restaurant

in Barrio Norte, would be the first to open its doors to the Argentine punk subculture in 1981.

When owner Botto Jordn decided that he wanted to give his trasnoches (late-night events) an

air of rebellion, Juan Pablo Correa convinced him to reach out to the few performance-ready

bands at which time only Los Violadores, Trixy y Los Maniticos, and Los Laxantes would

qualify.56 During the months that followed, punks transformed Le Chevalet into a temporary

autonomous zone where they could begin to consolidate the ties of community face-to-face. The

lack of soundproofing and the rowdy nature of shows alerted police forces to their presence, and

the resulting wave of raids and mass arrests which often led to the prolonged imprisonment and

torture of participants forced punks to relocate after a mere six months. While it lasted,

however, the space proved instrumental in uniting the first wave of punk in Argentina.57

Caf Einstein, an old house located in the Balvanera district, served a similar purpose.

Owned and operated by Omar Chabn, Sergio Aisenstein, and a German named Helmut, the

small, brightly colored space housed countless punk gigs throughout the 1980s.58 People of all

stripes attended events at Caf Einstein in the hopes of discovering other like-minded individuals

in a safe space. On Tuesday evenings, everyone would gather for group meals and enjoy free

drinks. Compared to the isolative nature of the dictatorships culture of silence, which

Simpson 18 encouraged citizens to keep to themselves and break ties with anyone potentially under suspicion

of subversive activity, Caf Einstein was the epitome of community. Those bold enough to

declare their discontent began to rebuild what the dictatorship had demolished. According to

Chabn, Einstein is a place of the irreparable, a place where everything that was asleep woke

upWe have fun confidently. It isnt a place for good vibes. Here people can feel bad or good,

but mostly things happen.59

In addition to the spaces in which they occurred, gigs themselves became temporary

autonomous zones through which punks reclaimed the freedom to express their anger, their

frustration, and their pain. Adriana Franco recalled early shows at Le Chevalet: one could

whistle, participate, scream, throw something into the air60 While the bands played as loudly

as they could, shouting their lyrics rather than singing them, audience members would crash into

each other, pull one another up off the ground, and crush together in a constantly moving mob

an overtly physical reinforcement of their connection as much as it was an outlet through which

to vent the suffering they shared. Beyond the walls of the venue, the juntas culture of silence

continued its oppressive reign, but within them, punks relied on this cacophony of noise as a

vehicle for reclaiming a small degree of freedom. We bent the rules, claimed Los Violadores.

No chairs, no stillness. Jump, dance, spit on us, and bring the idol down.61 The threat of mass

arrests imbued the gigs with an additional sense of urgency and emotional charge. We didnt

know if we would come back, wrote Gerardo. More than once we left in tears.62

Gigs also provided the opportunity for punks to sell or give away the latest issues of their

zines. The production and distribution of zines, or revistas subte as they were known in

Argentina, provided another space in which members of the punk community could speak out

against the dictatorship and develop their own ideology in conversation with one another. Most

Simpson 19 zine writers shied away from journalistic language, preferring emotionally charged outbursts of

thought. Revistas subte bestowed upon them the agency to say what they felt and to share

information about their other projects without fear of retribution by the state. Hardly any authors

attached their real names to the publications; the only way to identify them would be to trace the

nombre de batalla back to its source, a sizeable feat for anyone outside of the punk community.63

Due to narrow distribution and the lack of a central archiving system, very few

publications from this period have survived. The early issues of Vaselina published by Los

Violadores drummer Gramtica in 1980 and 1981, for example, remain elusive.64 Many of the

more well-known and long-lasting punk zines in Argentina have fared better, but they did not

arise until the mid-1980s, in the early years of the democratic regime.65 Fortunately, Argentine

political magazine El Porteo frequently published articles either penned by punks or related to

punk subculture in its Cerdos y Peces supplement and archived issues far more thoroughly. One

such issue contains a manifesto collectively written by Los Violadores in 1983 about the

nature of being punk the first definitive ideological statement printed by punks in Argentina. It

reads, in part,

Being punk is an engaged and nonconformist way of life in a country like this, where there are many people choosing not to get involved with anything, people who prefer to be a mass in order to have a better time[B]eing Punk is a 24-hours-a-day commitment: from the clothes used up to the way of behaving, it is a form of shocking, of going to battlepunk is reactive because it assumes alienation and doesnt suggest any alternative solutionWe are not political, we are social. We talk about things that happen to people like us, working class without future, without prospects, ruined, dishonored, and humiliated by all the misery that ruined this country.66

While not universally agreed-upon, the manifesto opened the door for further discussions

on what punk in Argentina really meant beyond the sound and the fury. Punks began carving out

an ideological autonomous space for themselves in addition to the physical and emotional ones

they had already unearthed. The process would take years, stretching far into the new democratic

Simpson 20 government, but it retroactively shaped the understanding of how punk subculture interacted

with and developed alongside the military dictatorship. Most zines published between 1985 and

1988 included some discussion of what punk meant in Argentina beyond its music and its style.

Gallo, editor of Unica Salida, established in its first issue that punk aims to be an alternative

method of living and fighting.67 An article in Rebelin Rock later emphasized, the only thing

that matters is your way of thinking.68

As Argentinas borders opened up and government censorship eased, this ideology would

also take on an international character. Punks communicated more freely with like-minded

individuals abroad and imported ideas new outlooks on anarchism in particular as well as

music. Yet the legacy of the military junta, the near-impenetrable culture of silence, and the

unknown fate of the thirty thousand desaparecidos ensured that punk subculture in Argentina

remained uniquely rooted in national identity despite its international origins and inclinations.

An anonymous author captured this sentiment in a piece written for La Contracultura: Our

activity isnt a copy or a style even though the punk mentality is universalwe just want people

to realize that other ways of life exist.69

V. The Long Rule of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile, 1973-1990

Following the model provided by the subculture in Argentina, punk in Chile developed in

opposition to a culture of silence fostered by a brutally repressive military dictatorship. Though

Pinochet assumed power three years before the Argentine junta, the punk subculture that arose in

Chile did so nearly seven years after that of its neighbor. The delay hardly matters in light of the

scenes quick evolution from a scattering of bands to a veritable underground movement, intent

on reclaiming space and freedom from those who had stolen it.

Simpson 21 According to historian Peter Kornbluh, military bloodshed during and following the 11

September 1973 military coup against Chiles democratically elected socialist president Salvador

Allende was so widespread that even the CIAs own sources could not accurately tally the

casualties.70 Six weeks later, the junta prepared a classified summary of the violence: fifteen

hundred civilians massacred (of that, roughly three hundred either executed by firing squads or

shot in the street) and nearly fourteen thousand arrested and held at approximately twenty secret

detention camps. The military targeted those involved with Allendes Popular Unity government,

political activists, labor unions, factory works, and shantytown dwellers, but anyone suspected of

subversion or undesirable affiliation was at risk as well.71

General Augusto Pinochet, the commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, served nine

months as president of the junta before assuming the position Supreme Chief of the Nation.72

Though he initially pledged to significantly curtail human rights abuses particularly the mass

arrests without cause, the execution of subversives without trial, and the unacknowledged

disappearance of citizens he did no such thing, creating and fostering a constant sense of terror

throughout the country that resulted in a culture of silence designed to stifle dissent. Instrumental

in this effort was the Directorate of National Intelligence (DINA), the Chilean secret police

agency. Accountable only to Pinochet, DINA served to eliminate any perceived enemies of the

state, circumvent legal praxis, develop diverse methods of torture, and strike fear into the hearts

of the populace and any lesser military services that may have considered a coup of their own.73

Most notably, DINA operated Villa Grimaldi a secret detention and torture facility that ran

around the clock in the capital, Santiago. There, and at all other DINA facilities, agents would

employ the same commonly used interrogation techniques to extract information from

Simpson 22 prisoners. One military officer described the torture methods as straight out of the Spanish

Inquisition.74

Ultimately, slightly over one thousand Chileans vanished during the seventeen-year

Pinochet dictatorship contributing to the total thirty-five hundred cases of disappearance,

killing, torture, and kidnapping that occurred as a planned and coordinated strategy of the

government, as documented by the 1990 Truth Commission report.75

VI. Punk in Chile, 1985-1990

Unlike its more exclusive relative in Argentina, the Chilean punk scene developed within

the framework of a larger underground movement that included painters, photographers, writers,

dancers, and performance artists who worked closely with one another. Sonically, this counter-

culture demanded an alternative to the right-wing music that dominated the airwaves and the

widely popular folkie protest songs of and inspired by Victor Jara.76 Los Prisoneros responded to

this need with their formation in 1983, initially bearing an overt similarity to the screeching

sounds of 1970s British punk. However, the group quickly adopted a more polished, synthesizer-

based sound in the increasingly popular new-wave style, and signed with the international

megalith EMI music label in 1985.77

With the pioneers of the musical underground elevated far beyond its grasp, a few new

groups emerged to take their place and form the core of Chiles punk subculture. That same year,

Daniel Puente, Ivn Vanchi Conejeros, Miguel Conejeros, and Sebastin Tan Levine formed

the Pinochet Boys, Chiles first decisively punk band. The group positioned themselves directly

in opposition to the government of General Pinochet from its inception, refusing to abandon their

provocative name and explicitly confronting elements of repression and violence in their lyrics.

For anyone creating music in the 1980s, it was difficult not to be punk with repression

Simpson 23 everywhere, Conejeros noted.78 In that regard, the Pinochet Boys firmly established the model

of punk as a vehicle specifically for crafting resistance against the dictatorship.

In fact, many Chilean youth who had formerly pursued other methods of opposition

turned to punk as a more direct way to express their discontent and create autonomous spaces.

Sergio Cristin Sez Jara, commonly known by his stage name TV Star, gained recognition as

a notable underground painter before he performed as the vocalist of Dad.79 Rubn Roli

Urza joined Fiskales Ad-Hok as a bassist upon leaving a period of militant activity with los

Juventudes Comunistas. No one knew how to play anything, he recalled of the bands early

days. We didnt even have instruments. It was pure desire and a few attempts at constructing a

drum kit out of cardboard.80 This inevitable lack of prior musical training also lent itself to punk

expression content mattered more than skill, and the sound needed only to inspire a kind of

unified catharsis of shared trauma.81

Punks therefore used their experiences under General Pinochet and the repressive policies

of his government including media and cultural censorship, police raids, targeted

disappearances, executions, and curfews as a focal point for generating and shaping their

subculture. Our idea was to create musical extremism, explained Fiskales Ad-Hok singer

lvaro Espaa. Punk rock to castigate Pinochet.82 Nearly every other punk band that formed

under the rule of the dictatorship echoed a similar sentiment, evident in tracks such as Dads

Yo Odio a los Polticos (I Hate Politicians) and Ocho Bolas Corrupcin. (Corruption).83 Far

from obscuring their criticism in lyrical wordplay or subtlety, punks produced pieces of direct

political resistance that exposed the shared trauma of living under a bloody and oppressive

regime.

Simpson 24 As in Argentina, punk resistance efforts and the reclamation of space in Chile took the

form of musical recordings and zines, but gigs assumed a position of greater importance.

Santiago-based unions, also under attack by the Pinochet regime, played a central role in

procuring and solidifying venues for live punk performances. In June 1986, the Pinochet Boys

rented the shed of el Sindicato de Taxistas (union of taxi drivers) to house Chiles first punk

festival, which boasted a line-up that included Zapatilla Rota, Nios Mutantes, ndice de

Desempleo, Corruption Girls, and the debut of Dad.84 El Trolley, another union of trolleybus

and taxi drivers in the El Aguilucho sector, developed a reputation as a space for punk after

hosting the 1987 Bienel Underground a farewell to Dad vocalist and beloved punk personality

TV Star.85 Amidst the scattered, chaotic gigs typical of punks in both Chile and Argentina, these

two shows illustrated the possibilities of organized planning and subcultural unity.

Many punks still found comfort in the chaos. Gigs provided opportunities for community

organizing, but they also created spaces of acceptance for those who, as Fiskales Ad-Hok put it,

want to go to vent their rage, their hatred, their pain, their discontent and rebellion in a catharsis

of peers where nobody looks at you askance if you are different.86 The band gained a particular

reputation for inspiring an intense physical experience at their shows unlike any other Chilean

group, a tendency often reflected in their choice of unusual venues.87 In 1987, they played the

Galera Bucci but could not contain the performance within the building. Journalist Jordi

Berenguer recalled of the show: We wanted to dance in the streets and feel that we could have

free spaces in Santiago, the capital of the Pinochet dictatorship.88

That desire for uninhibited visibility and public freedom adopted another form in the

emphasis on bodily autonomy. Much like peers in Argentina and even internationally, Chilean

punks dressed in all black, dyed and styled their hair in unnatural colors and shapes, and

Simpson 25 employed the use of shocking or subversive symbols to distinguish themselves from the rest of

the population.89 By consciously privileging body politics over party politics, punks

reinforced their opposition to the system in its entirety. They resisted visibly and without the use

of institutions employed by a society that they viewed as completely diseased from top to

bottom. Any space punk created, its adherents adopted completely as their own.90

Those spaces, while providing shelter and acceptance for many subversive youth, also

attracted targeted violence by the state. The Pinochet Boys in particular suffered from consistent

police harassment throughout their short duration, eventually forcing them to leave Chile

altogether and attempt to tour through Argentina and Brazil. Their final performance at la Casa

Constitucin, which directly precipitated that flight, ended early when glass bottles started flying

to and from the stage. Keyboard player Miguel Conejeros recounted,

Everything degenerated when we started breaking bottles on the stage, and those that werent broken shot into the audience, from which they returned to the stage, and so onLater, the usual: blackout lights, the cops, screaming, fighting, blood, drunks, etc.91

Even prior to that gig, the Pinochet Boys experienced one of the biggest attacks against the punk

community when the police raided their rehearsal space in July 1986 during the birthday party of

friend Rafael Guez. Most punks in Santiago at that time attended the party, with eighteen later

going to jail under various suspicions.92 The raid left the house and all the equipment inside

completely destroyed, in effect demolishing the safe haven where the band and their friends lived

as a tribe of sorts. For months afterward, a van with tinted windows parked outside the space,

keeping watch until the punks abandoned it altogether.93

The event even garnered coverage by local newspaper La Cuarta, which described the

raid as such: In Chile, [punks] debuted creating a tremendous scandal in a quiet suburb of the

capital, which left eighteen detainees.94 While a distorted recollection of events, the piece hinted

Simpson 26 at a wider awareness of the punk community in media outlets throughout Chile. Where the punk

subculture remained rather insular in Argentina, here it breached the boundaries and

consciousness of everyday society. A radio program called Melodias Subterrneas

(Underground Melodies) embodied this shift in a more positive light. Created by University of

Chile student Rolando Ramos and a group of his friends in 1983, the program included punk

bands from Chile and beyond in nearly every one of its broadcasts. Throughout its existence,

Melodias Subterrneas served as a venue for young musicians to debut their tracks locally in a

cost-free manner and to promote one anothers work. Dad submitted a four-track cassette,

resulting in the debut of their song Yo Odio a los Polticos. The same happened with Fiskales

Ad-Hok and Apestan los Burgueses (The Bourgeoisie Stink). Authorities finally ordered the

university to cancel the program in 1987, citing their dislike of songs about torture and corrupt

bureaucrats.95

Chile showcased the potency of punk as a vehicle for unified opposition against the

Pinochet dictatorship, an important distinction when one considers the scenes slight unraveling

in the years directly following the return of democracy in 1990. Of the original Santiago

pioneers, only Fiskales Ad-Hok survived the transition. They began to associate more closely

with the trash circuit after the dissolution of the last similarly minded punk band, and still

perform occasionally to this day. The Pinochet Boys realized quickly after their decision to leave

Chile that they no longer had a reason to exist; without Pinochet, without the dictatorship, they

lost their purpose. No hay futuro, they announced after a concert in Brazil. There is no

future.96

Simpson 27 VII. Conclusion

Despite the international origins and influences of punk subcultures in the Southern

Cone, their role in crafting resistance to brutally oppressive military dictatorships made them

geographically distinct. Unlike punks in Britain, who were largely white working-class youth

railing against a severe economic downturn, those in Argentina and Chile boasted middle or

upper-middle class backgrounds. Relative economic security and the subcultures small size

ensured that, at least throughout the duration of the dictatorships, punk would behave mostly as a

subculture of opposition to particular forces namely, the repressive military regimes. The

collapse of that single enemy in both countries caused a slight fragmentation of the punk scenes,

which until that point remained unified by the shared experience of trauma and the desire to

carve out some degree of autonomous space for expression within a culture of silence.

The late 1980s in Argentina and the 1990s in Chile would represent a shift back towards

the international community, with the subcultures expanding to include global issues in the

context of Third World struggle and more typical U.S. and Anglo punk causes like animal rights

and anti-racism. Punks established communication with other similarly minded individuals

throughout the United States and Europe throughout this period as well, exchanging ideas

through zine and cassette mailing. Even so, they continued to develop and promote their own

unique interpretations of punk. Refusing to write songs in English, for example, reinforced the

ties to national identity, and consistently anti-systemic themes in lyrics recalled the shared

experience of living under military rule.

Punk in the Southern Cone served above all as a vehicle for the reclamation of space and

freedom within societies suffering from disappearances, torture, executions, and censorship in

the name of stability. These subcultures provided the opportunity for young people to build a

Simpson 28 community in opposition to a system that stripped them of their voice. By encouraging noise in

all aspects instruments turned up all the way, maximum distortion, lyrics shouted instead of

sung, brightly colored hair and offensive clothing and promoting an inclusive, hazlo tu mismo

philosophy, punk offered everyone the opportunity for expression. While not easy, safe, or even

fully remembered, punk created a space in Chile and Argentina for those who needed it for the

ones who refused to ever be quiet.

Simpson 29 Notes 1 Alfredo Sainz, Arde Belgrano: Los Violadores en La UB, 17 de Julio de 1981, in Derrumbando la Casa Rosada: Mitos y Leyendas de los Primeros Punks en Argentina, ed. Daniel Flores (Buenos Aires: Piloto de Tormenta, 2011), 40. 2 Ibid., 41-44. 3 Sainz, Arde Belgrano, 48. *All translations throughout the paper are mine, unless otherwise noted. Lyrics as written in the original Spanish: Represin en la UB / los rockeros de Belgrano estn tirados en la calle / sin un carajo que hacer / hippies de mierda, rockeras sucias. 4 Ibid., 50. 5 Ibid., 50. 6 Pil Trafa, interview with Lucho in Maximum Rocknroll #301 (June 2008): 64. 7 Dekadencia Humana, Argentina: Punk de Los 80 (2010): 8, accessed 23 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/mihistoriasobreelanarcopunkenargentina. 8 Hebdige, Subculture: the Meaning of Style, 9-16. For the purposes of this paper, I will adopt Hebdiges definition of subculture as what emerges when the consensus [is] fractured, challenged, overruled, and resistance to the groups in dominance cannot always be lightly dismissed or automatically incorporated. Though this model is based in sociology, it provides a solid foundation for understanding punk as a subcultural field of history instead of merely as a genre of music. 9 Ibid., 62-63. 10 Zack Furness, Punkademics: the Basement Show in the Ivory Tower (Brooklyn: Minor Compositions, 2012), 18. Furness provides possibly the best critique of the overemphasis of punks origins, heroes, and musical contributions in academia what he refers to as a certain kind of orthodoxy as well as the frequent misinterpretation of Hebdiges text as a punk-as-style paradigm. The class of 77 commonly refers to the first group of British and American punk bands: Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones, Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Undertones, and Siouxsie & the Banshees. 11 Craig OHara, The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! (Edinburgh: AK Press, 1999), 71. It is important to note here that anarchism within punk communities does not necessitate the complete collapse of government or require efforts to do so. These communities can and do exist within political systems that rely on institutional hierarchy. They may choose to interact with and acknowledge those systems or not, but very few violently oppose their existence. For more on anarchism, see discussions in Appendix A. 12 Daniel Sinker, ed., We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet, the Collected Interviews (New York: Akashic Books, 2001), 11. Sinker emphasizes the do-it-yourself, or DIY, ideology as the foundation that the entire [punk] culture is built upon. He and OHara identify zine-making, independent show promoting, band formation, and the self-recording and release of tapes and records as facets of the DIY phenomenon throughout the punk subcultures of Europe and the United States. 13 Walescka Pino-Ojeda, A Detour to the Past: Memory and Mourning in Chilean Post-Authoritarian Rock, in Rockin Las Amricas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America, ed. Deborah Pacini Hernandez et. al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 290-311. Pino-Ojedas argument centers upon the idea that Chilean rock in the post-authoritarian era imposes the private memory on re-created stigmatized musical forms, purging the pain and trauma in the form of tribute; Pablo Semn, Pablo Vila, and Cecilia Benedetti, Neoliberalism and Rock in the Popular Sectors of Contemporary Argentina, in Rockin Las Amricas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America, ed. Deborah Pacini Hernandez et. al. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 261-289. Rock chabn as defined in this essay returns to the broader roots of social discontent, focusing on issues of economic hardship and the general disdain of authority for the lower classes. 14 Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Hctor Fernndez LHoeste, and Eric Zolov, eds., Rockin Las Amricas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), 10. 15 Pil Trafa, interview with Lucho in Maximum Rocknroll, 64-65.

Simpson 30 16 I do not aim to challenge the existing scholarship on the nature and history of the Pinochet dictatorship and Argentina military junta, as it has been thoroughly documented and analyzed from a number of perspectives. I merely mean to add to it another narrative of resistance and provide further insight into the nature of political dissent in the Southern Cone throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. For further reading on authoritarianism and state terrorism in South America, see Patricia Marchaks Gods Assassins: State Terrorism in Argentina in the 1970s (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999) and Peter Kombluhs The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New York: New Press, 2003). 17 Patricia Marchak, Gods Assassins: State Terrorism in Argentina in the 1970s (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1999), 1. 18 Furness, Punkademics, 18. 19 Jennifer S. Holmes, Political Violence and Regime Change in Argentina: 1965-1976, Terrorism and Political Violence 13.1 (2001): 145-146, accessed 17 October 2012, doi: 10.1080/09546550109609673. Holmes notes that the coup has been called the most predicted coup in Argentine history. 20 U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Argentina: Six Months of Military Government, Report No. 603 (30 September 1976): 7. 21 U.S. Department of State, telegram from the American Embassy in Buenos Aires, Videlas Moderate Line Prevails, 30 March 1976, 3. The authors of the telegram refer to the Videla coup as moderate in character, meaning that initially the military did not officially direct their takeover at any particular group or sector. The official U.S. position iterated in the final pages of the document was that this was probably the best executed and most civilized coup in Argentine history. 22 Richard Feinberg, U.S. Department of State, briefing memorandum, President Videla: An Alternative View, 19 November 1977, 1; Harry W. Shlaudeman, U.S. Department of State, ARA Monthly Report (July), 3 August 1976, 3. Both documents stress the problematic nature of defining action against subversion, as the term lends itself to vagueness and broad interpretations. It is precisely this ambiguity that allowed the Argentine junta to attack civilians in their efforts against terrorism, even as only an estimated 15% of those affected were active terrorists. 23 Marchak, Gods Assassins, 5-7. Dissent, as mentioned previously, encompassed any disagreement with government policy but also extended to any actions that could be perceived as threatening Western civilization and Christianity. In the environment of the Cold War, that particularly addressed leftist movements that even slightly attacked capitalism. 24 Ibid., 21. Marchak redacted or changed the names of every subject she interviewed for publication. This subjects name is printed as Walter. 25 U.S. State Department, letter from Tex to Michelle and Jim dated 26 April 1978. 26 Marchak, Gods Assassins, 3; U.S. Department of State, memo from the American Embassy in Buenos Aires to Secretary of State, The Problem of Those Who Disappeared, 28 March 1978, 2. The memo notes that the conventional government explanation for the disappeared is that they (1) have gone underground (2) were terrorists who were killed by their companions (3) have fled the country (4) had been killed in battle and bodies were unrecognizable or (5) were the victims of counter-subversive excesses. 27 Daniel Flores, ed., Derrumbando la Casa Rosada: Mitos y Leyendas de los Primeros Punks en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Piloto de Tormenta, 2011), 17. 28 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine: A Personal Account (2010): 3, accessed 8 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/the_rise_of_punk_in_argentine. 29 Pil Trafa, interview with Ingacio Brown, DEAF SPARROW Zine, 2010, accessed 23 October 2012, http://www.deafsparrow.com/Los-Violadores-Retrointerview.htm. 30 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 1. That portrayal of punks would last for several years and frequently comes up in discussions of punk in Argentina. 31 Ibid. 32 Dekadencia Humana, Argentina: Punk de los 80, 3.

Simpson 31 33 Ibid. 34 Adriana Franco, La Larga Noche de Todos Estos Aos, in Derrumbando la Casa Rosada, ed. Daniel Flores (Buenos Aires: Piloto de Tormenta, 2011), 22-23. 35 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 2. 36 Federico Gmez Levitanas, When Punk Came out to Confront the Idiots in Power, Shit-Fi, accessed 16 March 2013, http://shit-fi.com/articles/LosVioladores. 37 Pil Trafa, interview with Ignacio Brown. 38 Esteban Cavanna, El Nacimiento del Punk en la Argentina y la Historia de Los Violadores (Buenos Aires: Interpress Ediciones, 2001), 13. 39 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 5. 40 Federico Gmez Levitanas, When Punk Came out to Confront the Idiots in Power. Argentina and Great Britain have long contested the sovereignty of las Malvinas islands that lie in the south Atlantic just east of Argentina. After a devastating economic crisis and civil unrest following the transfer of power within the military junta, acting president General Leopoldo Galitieri, along with fellow leaders Brigadier Basilio Lami Dozo and Admiral Jorge Anaya, hoped to mobilize the populations long-standing patriotism towards the islands in the hopes that it would help to re-legitimize their rule. Argentine forces invaded las Malvinas on 2 April 1982, taking the British by surprise, if only for a brief moment. During the ensuring seventy-four days of conflict, a total of 907 individuals died (nineteen of them civilians, three women killed by friendly fire) and another 1,965 suffered non-fatal injuries. Many on both sides of the conflict consider it needless and excessively bloody, especially given the heightened tensions of the Cold War. 41 Federico Gmez Levitanas, When Punk Came out to Confront the Idiots in Power. 42 Pil Trafa, interview with Ignacio Brown. 43 Nombre de batalla literally translates to battle name, but in this case it refers to the pseudonyms or stage names adopted by many punks in Argentina to either protect their true identities (and that of their families) or cultivate a certain type of punk identity separate from their lives beforehand. The latter practice is common among punk scenes throughout the United States and Great Britain, while the former remains relatively unique to Argentina, Chile, and other countries under severe government repression. 44 Mongo, interview with Dekadencia Humana in Argentina: Punk de los 80, 3. 45 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 2. I use the phrase supposedly democratic because, despite the junta lifting bans on political parties and allowing elections to occur in October 1983 after the disaster of las Malvinas, the same police squads that enforced dictatorial rule and inflicted years of terror upon the population remained in place. The military continued to wield great influence over government affairs even after its eviction from power, creating friction with the forces of democracy. Though Alfonsn made great progess in reducing corruption in public office and accounting for those who disappeared during the military junta through the creation of the National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), he was also forced in December 1986 to pass the Ley de Punto Final (the Full Stop Law), a measure which granted amnesty to all acts committed before 10 December 1983. The law would remain in effect until the Supreme Court ruled to overturn all amnesty measures and allow investigations to continue in June 2005. 46 Mongo, interview with Dekadencia Humana, 3. 47 Los Baraja in Gente Que No (Buenos Aires: Piloto de Tormenta, 2009), 212; Marcelo Montolivo, profile on LinkedIn, accessed 17 March 2013, http://www.linkedin.com/pub/marcelo-montolivo/10/475/84. Alerta Roja guitarist Pablo Strangler would also join Cadveres de Nios. 48 Sainz, Arde Belgrano, 50; Los Laxantes, Gente Que No, 224; Federico, Todos Tus Muertos, Kill From the Heart, accessed 15 October 2012, http://www.killfromtheheart.com/bands.php?id=43. Felix and Gamexane, after a brief period of backpacking through Latin America and completing compulsory military service, respectively, went on to form Todos Tus Muertos in 1985 with singer Fidel. Todos Tus Muertos is an interesting example of Argentine punk in that it blends typical punk influences (Bad Brains, The Clash, Dead Kennedys) with post-punk gloom, ska, and reggae. Fidels ancestors were slaves brought

Simpson 32 to Argentina in the 19th century a pretty unusual occurrence in the mostly white, middle and upper-middle class scene. 49 James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 120. Scott does not address punk communities in general, nor those in Argentina in particular, but his work covers similar subcultures of dissent throughout history and I therefore believe the term to be applicable to this research. For the purposes of this paper, autonomous site, autonomous zone, and autonomous space will be used interchangeably to identify the same concept. 50 Dekadenica Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 1, 5. 51 Martn Sorrondeguy, interview with Alan OConnor in Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy (Toronto: Lexington Books, 2008), 106. 52 Alerta Roja, Gente Que No, 210. 53Federico Gmez Levitanas, When Punk Came out to Confront the Idiots in Power. 54 Los Baraja, Gente Que No, 212; Los Laxantes, Gente Que No, 224. 55 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 2. 56 Franco, La Larga Noche de Todos Estos Aos, 19. 57 Ibid., 29-31. 58 Marcelo Dance, Caf Einstein, Verduro Kosida, 11 June 2009, accessed 20 February 2013, http://verdurokosida.blogspot.com/2009/06/cafe-einstein.html. Caf Einstein also hosted a wide variety of events, mostly experimental theater, and shows beyond the scope of punk. As such, I would hesitate to classify it as a punk venue a more appropriate term would be underground, or perhaps even DIY. It simply provided a new space for punk shows in the interim between the demise of Le Chevalet and the advent of el Parakultural in 1986, which would quickly become the hotspot of punk activity during the early years of democracy. 59 Anonymous, El Desopilante Caf Einstein, Cerdos y Peces 1.1 (August 1983): 13, accessed 8 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/cerdos_y_peces_n_1. 60 Franco, La Larga Noche de Todos Estos Aos, 27. 61 Los Violadores, Ser Punk, trans. Federico Gmez Levitanas, Cerdos y Peces #3 (October 1983): 16, accessed 17 March 2013, http://shit-fi.com/fromthearchive/LosVioladores. 62 Dekadencia Humana, The Rise of Punk in Argentine, 2. 63 Dekadencia Humana, Argentina: Punk de los 80, 10. 64 If any preserved copies do exist, they are likely in the possession of any number of anonymous punks that would be impossible to track down. After extensive research and exhausting all of my personal contacts, I have only been able to unearth zines from 1985 onward, which do frequently refer back to the punk subculture as it existed under the dictatorship but are not from that period. 65 These include Luis Alacrns Rebelin Rock (1985), La Furia (1986), La Contracultura (1986), Patricia Pietrafesas Resistencia (1986) and Quien Sirve a la Causa del Kaos?, Charys MOCO (1986), and Gallos Unica Salida (1987). I have been able to access at least one, if not multiple, issues of each. 66 Los Violadores, Ser Punk, 16. 67 Gallo, ed., Unica Salida #1 (July 1987): 4, accessed 23 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/unika_salida_uno_1987. 68 Luis Alacrn, ed., Rebelin Rock #6 (June 1988): 23, accessed 23 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/rebelion_rock_numero_6_1988. For more on the scenes later ideological interpretation of punk, see Appendix A. 69 Punx?, La Contracultura #2 (December 1986): 10, accessed 23 October 2012, http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/contracultura. 70 Peter Kornbluh, introduction to The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New York: The New Press, 2003), xiii; Ibid., 153. Allendes election made Chile the first Latin American country to select a socialist president, despite the fact that the country was once a designated showcase for the Alliance for Progress a U.S. effort to stave off revolutionary movements in Latin America by bolstering centrist, middle-class, Christian Democratic political parties in 1964.

Simpson 33 U.S. President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger opposed Allendes position in power as well as his peaceful plan for socialist reform, known as the Via Chilena, within the context of the communist/anti-communist dichotomy of the Cold War period, preferring to support an overthrow of legitimate government. 71 Kornbluh, The Pinochet File, 153. Many executions were carried out by a Chilean Army death squad known as the Caravan of Death, which would travel by helicopter throughout the country to systematically murder specific individuals held in detention centers. The NGO Memoria y Justicia estimates the total number of victims at ninety-seven. 72 CIA, Biographic Handbook: Chile, (November 1974): 1. The junta collectively created the position as a means of consolidating and improving the decision-making powers of the executive over the cumbersome, inter-service structure, and selected Pinochet in a nod to the militarys oldest institution. Originally the position was supposed to rotate among junta members in an effort to promote harmonious and unanimous decision-making, but Pinochet retained it until 1988. 73 Kornbluh, The Pinochet File, 157. DINA was active for roughly six months before its official institutionalization on June 14, 1974 by Junta decree no. 521. Pinochet consistently denied that the organization answered directly to him, claiming that it reported to the junta government as a specialized agency which can provide systematic processed informationin the areas of National Security and Development. Beyond systematically destroying the opposition of the Left, DINA also infiltrated upper levels of the government to ensure complete loyalty to Pinochet. 74 Ibid., 161-163. Practices included: tying prisoners to a metal bedspring and applying electrical current to sensitive body parts (the grill), suspending victims on a metal bar by wrists or wrists and knees for long periods of time while applying electric shocks and beatings (la parilla), forced immersion in a vat of urine, excrement, or frigid water (the submarine), and slamming open hands repeatedly against the ears of the victim, eventually leaving them deaf (the telephone), among others. Prisoners would often be forced to watch family members and loved ones receive the same treatment to encourage their cooperation. 75 Ibid., 163; United States Institute of Peace, Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, (February 1991): 160-161, accessed 4 December 2012, http://www.usip.org/publications/truth-commission-chile-90. 76 Martn Nuez, interview with Robert Beshara on 26 March 2012, accessed 15 November 2012, http://cimmfest.org/on-punk-and-politics-in-chile/. Jara, a politically active communist songwriter, established the Nueva Cancin Chilena movement under the Allende government. Shortly after the military coup, he was arrested, tortured, and eventually shot to death with forty-four bullets, his body later thrown into the street of a Santiago shantytown. His neo-folkloric style inspired a new kind of popular music that would provide the model for more moderate elements of protest songs. 77 Los Prisoneros, Archivo Punk, last modified October 2011, accessed 17 March 2013, http://archivopunk.cl/sitio/2011/10/los-prisioneros/. 78 Pinochet Boys, Archivo Punk, last modified October 2011, accessed 17 March 2013, http://archivopunk.cl/sitio/2011/10/pinochet-boys/. 79 Dad, Archivo Punk, last modified October 2011, accessed 17 March 2013, http://archivopunk.cl/sitio/2011/10/dada/. 80 Fiskales Ad-Hok, Archivo Punk, last modified October 2011, accessed 17 March 2013, http://archivopunk.cl/sitio/2011/10/fiskales-ad-hok/. 81 Bassist Rodrigo Hidalgo of Dad also amusingly pointed out that the alcohol-induced spirit of the time didnt allow either band or audience members to notice subtleties, which punk conveniently tends to avoid on the whole. 82 Malditos: La Historia de los Fiskales Ad-Hok, directed by Pablo Insunza (2004; Santiago, Chile: Puntociego Comunicaciones, 2004), DVD. Quote in the original Spanish: Nuestra idea era hacer extremismo musical. Punk rock para putear a Pinochet. The literal translation of putear is to bitch, but it fails to capture the strength of the verb in its original language.

Simpson 34 83 See Appendix B for the lyrics to each song, among others. 84 Dad, Archivo Punk; Pinochet Boys, Archivo Punk. 85 Dad, Archivo Punk. TV Star dealt with epilepsy throughout his entire life. On the afternoon of September 11, 1987, while walking alone after a fight with his partner, he suffered a seizure that caused him to hit his head on a concrete barrier and fall backwards onto the street, ten feet below. Theater director Vicente Ruiz, a good friend and patron of TV Star, organized the concert in his honor. 86 Malditos, directed by Pablo Insunza. 87 Fiskales Ad-Hok, Archivo Punk. 88 Jordi Berenguer, Punk en Chile: existe y resiste, El Ciudadano, 14 February 2009, accessed 10 March 2013, http://www.elciudadano.cl/2009/02/14/6010/punk-en-chile-existe-y-resiste/. 89 Dad, Archivo Punk. The late Dada vocalist TV Star supposedly debuted the more extreme elements of punk style with his brightly dyed hair and safety pin pierced ears. 90 Martn Nuez, interview with Robert Beshara. 91 Pinochet Boys, Archivo Punk. 92 Dad, Archivo Punk. 93 Pinochet Boys, Archivo Punk. 94 Dada, Archivo Punk. 95 Sickboy, 13 August 2010 (10:46pm), post on Melodias Subternneas, Foro Santiago Hardcore, http://santiagohc.fr.yuku.com/topic/13681; Dad, Archivo Punk; Fiskales Ad-Hok, Archivo Punk. 96 Pinochet Boys, Archivo Punk. Punk regained a bit of its momentum in the late 1990s in Chile, resulting in a small boom quite similar to the one the Argentine subculture experienced in the late 1980s under their own democratic regime.

Simpson 35 Appendix A: Punks Define Punk, a Selection of Manifestos and Musings

In the years following the dictatorship in Argentina, punks began to print more decisive statements of their ideology. Below are a few selections from different zines, which reveal some of the common understandings of what punk meant and uncover some of the differences of opinion. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. La Contracultura #2 (December 1986): 10.

Just as in other cities of the world, punx in Argentina developed as a reaction to a system of capitalism and injustice. The majority thinks of punks as violent drunks and drug addictsthe police unjustly bother us constantly. Our activity is not a copy or a style even though the punk mentality is universal. We dont follow a dogma, we arent divided, and we dont have leaders. We hate authoritarianism; we love natural freedom and we fight for it, for that reason, we are anarchists. We dont want everyone to be punx or to think the same way, we just want people to realize that other ways of life exist, like we have shown.

Universo Surbabano, Punk no es una moda, Unica Salida #1 (June 1987): 4.

For some, punk is synonymous with violence, dressing strangely, and spitting while doing drugs and drinking. For others, it is degenerate youth dependent on loud music with lyrics that preach violence, chaos, and destructionPunk aims to be an alternative method of living and fighting.

Rebelin Rock #6 (June 1988): 23.

The only thing that matters is your way of thinking, dress and style your hair as you sing. All rebellious styles have something in common: we are all young, but not our enemies, and we will not unite to fight against oppression when we are forty. We must act now. Think with your head, not with your ass!!

Patricia Pietrafesa, R.A. ASKO #1 (December 1988).

Here much has happened with punka lot has changed. And I believe that anyone that truly looks into [the scene] can realize that many of the things that are today emerged not from a movement, but from a people that move. I dont believe in movements [because] they are like political parties; someone says that a movement exists, and then one clings to guidelines or rules or whatever identifies the movement. Punk died when it turned into a movement, when people started to take fillers of what the idea is. Everything rotted when punk wanted to transform itself into a movement, [when] it started being an individualistic thing.

Simpson 36 Appendix B: Recommended Listening / Lyrical Transcripts

Click on the song title to be directed to an online audio version. All translations are mine.

Ests Muerto Los Violadores You have no choice or opportunity, Dont look for your future no, no! Youre dead, youre dead before birth. Your life is a program, you depend on it. You want the office, the bank, the shop. Youre dead, youre dead before birth. But we dont want anything, Only that it dies, only that it dies. Our own death will be your tomb. We will be your hell, your hell. Youre dead, youre dead before birth. You will be what it wants, not what you say, You will be what it says, not what you want. So it is, our great society. Derrumbando la Casa Rosada Alerta Roja How far they are coming with this process of inflation. How low they are falling With this junta of perversion. There is no exit, there is no salvation For your regime of repression. Dismantling la Casa Rosada, Dismantling la Casa Rosada today. Trenches in the street, urban barricades, Searching for the revolution. Whats happening? You are burning, And your guards are collapsing. There is no exit, there is no salvation For your regime of repression.

Que Vive Punk: A Playlist of Repression and Opposition

1. Yo Odio a los Polticos Dad 2. Corrupcin Ocho Bolas 3. Pinochet Boys Pinochet Boys 4. En la Radio Alerta Roja 5. Represin Los Violadores 6. Pnico Los KK 7. Absurda Realidad Ocho Bolas 8. En Mi Tiempo Libre Pinochet

Boys 9. Punks Los Baraja 10. Baila Esta Vez Trixy y los

Maniticos 11. Estado Decadente Los KK 12. Sucio Poder Los Violadores 13. Estamos Juntos Los Baraja 14. Botellas Contra el Pavimento

Pinochet Boys 15. Resistir Fiskales Ad-Hok

Appendix C: Visualizing Punk in Argentina and Chile

Chile, 1991 Argentina, 1986

Hay Un Chancho En El Ala, p.8 Basta! #1, back cover Argentina Argentina, 1988

Simpson 38

Rebelin Rock #6, p. 25 Argentina, 1988

Simpson 39

Argentina, 1980 Argentina, 1985

The Rise of Punk in Argentine, p.3 Argentina, 2010

Simpson 40

The Rise of Punk in Argentine, p.1 Los Baraja

Argentina: Punk de los 80, p.2 Los Laxantes

Simpson 41

Argentina: Punk de los 80, p.3 Alerta Roja

Simpson 42

Pinochet Boys: la historia desde dentro, El Ciudadano Pinochet Boys

Fiskales Ad-Hok, Last.fm Fiskales Ad-Hok

Simpson 43 Primary Source Bibliography

Periodicals: Alacrn, Luis, ed. Rebelin Rock #1 (September 1985). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/rebelionrock1 Alacrn, Luis, ed. Rebelin Rock #5 (September 1987). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/rebelion_rock_numero_5_1987_bs_as Alacrn, Luis, ed. Rebelin Rock #6 (June 1988). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/rebelion_rock_numero_6_1988 Anonymous. El Desopilante Caf Einstein. Cerdos y Peces #1 (August 1983): 13. Accessed 8 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/cerdos_y_peces_n_1 Anonymous. Punx?. La Contracultura #2 (December 1986): 10. Accessed 23 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/contracultura. Basta! #1 (April 1988). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/revistabasta Basta! #2 (198?). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/revistabasta2 Briggs, Justin and Cissie Scurlock, eds. Maximum Rocknroll #301 (June 2008). Cerdos y Peces #1 (August 1983). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/cerdos_y_peces_n_1 Charlo, ed. 74MTS #1 (198?). Accessed 13 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/74mts Chary, ed. MOCO Punkzine #2 (1987). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/punk Chary, ed. MOCO Punkzine #5 (1987). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://www.mediafire.com/?enowjnx2wzz Chary, ed. MOCO Punkzine #7 (January 1987). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/moco_numero_7_1987 Dance, Marcelo. Caf Einstein. Verduro Kosida, 11 June 2009. Accessed 20 February 2013. http://verdurokosida.blogspot.com/2009/06/cafe-einstein.html.

Simpson 44 Dekadencia Humana. Argentina: Punk de los 80 (2010). Accessed 23 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/mihistoriasobreelanarcopunkenargentina Dekadencia Humana. The Rise of Punk in Argentine: A Personal Account (2010). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://www.issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/the_rise_of_punk_in_argentine La Contracultura #2 (December 1986). Accessed 23 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/contracultura La Furia #3 (December 1986/February 1987). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/la_furia_punkzine Los Violadores. Ser Punk. Translated by Federico Gmez Levitanas. Cerdos y Peces #3 (October 1983): 16. Accessed 16 March 2013. http://shit-fi.com/fromthearchive/LosVioladores. Pietrafesa, Patricia, ed. Resistencia #1 (1984). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://www.issuu.com/dekadenciahumana/docs/resistencia_numero_uno_1984. Pietrafesa, Patricia, ed. Resistencia #8 (198?). Accessed 8 October 2012. http://www.issuu.com/dekadenciahum