Authenticity is a deeply problematic term in any field, but when the term is used as something of a bridge between musical practise and identity construction, it is even more fraught with uncertainly and intangibility. Precisely what has been claimed as ‘authentically Cuban’ in musical terms, and what precisely Porno Para Ricardo are suggesting should be considered as authentically Cuban seems always to be lurking just over the horizon; never stated outright, yet never quite leaving. In pinning down the term, Richard Elliott notes one important distinction between two different approaches to ‘being authentic’ that exist in popular music, suggesting that “authenticity can be further problematized by considering whether one is speaking of being true to a template or to an original version” (Elliott, 2010:202)
It is a dialectic that Deena Weinstein both concurs with, and suggests has a ‘winner’:
The modern romantic notion of authenticity –creating out of one’s own resources – became dominant over the idea that authenticity constituted a relationship, through creative repetition, to an authentic source (1998:142)
This duality of authenticities is played out in two archetypes in a number of popular music settings. On the one hand, there is the romantic notion of the creative artist being true to his or her own creative talents; having a ‘vision’ and of maintaining a fidelity to completing that vision irrespective of exterior forces. On the other hand, there is the student of a tradition; someone who gains an understanding of the authentic hallmarks of a style; who ‘lives’ that music and is seen as both a champion and custodian of some innately authentic tradition. Of course, as Elliott notes, these two positions are the extreme ends of a spectrum, and the real-world authenticity work of popular musicians allows for a negotiation between these two positions. So to map them directly on to the two dominant and contrasting positions one may find in post-special period Cuban music – the friki and the traditional musician – is to oversimplify both. As Deena Weinstein notes, “rock proclaims... the new beginning, the absolute origin. But like all cultural forms, it is intertextual, always already immersed in a past” (1998:137), and as will be addressed below, work with traditional musics in Cuba demands a certain type of ‘individual creativity’; a certain brand of being ‘true to oneself’. Yet perhaps these two extreme end points on the spectrum of authenticity work are worth keeping in mind when considering the often incongruous, yet common, practise of the cover version.
As a glib definition, a ‘cover song’ involves a musician performing a song that has already been performed by somebody else. Yet held under this broad rubric is a multitude of differentiating authenticity works. Weinstein notes, that:
A cover song iterates (with more of fewer differences) a prior recorded performance of a song by a particular artist, rather than simply the song itself as an entity separate from any performer or performance (1998:137)
Though this definition may be problematised below, it is worth noting here that a cover version does not simply cover the song, but can also – again, to a greater or lesser extent, depending upon the type of authenticity work being done – cover the original performer; perhaps even the historical period of the original, or certain associated identity markers. What is crucial in each cover version is that an authenticity is being sought for the coverer. Again, though different avenues of authenticity work may be utilised, this eventual goal – of authenticating oneself – is usually the same in the practice of covering a song. It is worth defining broadly several of the these types of cover version, and the ways in which they seek to obtain an authenticity for the coverer, once again bearing in mind that these definitions constitute something of end points in a spectrum of possibility, and not finite, delineated spaces.
Affinity: In this ‘type’ of cover version, the performer selects a song with which he/she feels (or wishes to assert) some sort of affinity. There is a sense in which the song ‘speaks to’ (and thus can be made to speak for) them. It is as though the identity space that the coverer wishes to position themselves within has already been delineated, and thus can be appropriated. This style of cover version will most often contain iterations of original performer, perhaps even of historical epoch, fashion, recording techniques etc. The authenticity of these identity markers is reaffirmed by the repetition of the cover version, and in so doing is claimed by the coverer. The original is assured of its authentic status by having that authenticity ‘updated’ by being shown to have contemporary importance. As such the contemporary performer buys into the authenticity of the original, claiming it for him/herself. The person covering the song is authenticated by sharing and empathising with certain ostensibly self-evidently authentic sentiments. Examples could include U2’s cover of BruceSpringsteen’s ‘My Hometown’, John Lennon's album of rock n roll ‘classics’.
Obscure: the selection of an ‘obscure’ song to cover leans more towards the ‘true to oneself’ end of the spectrum. The cover does not require that the listener has heard the original for its impact and its authenticity work to be effective, indeed often the opposite is true. Often the stylistic traits of the original are modified, and certainly there is less demand to remain ‘faithful’ to the mis en scene of the original. A ‘personal interpretation’ is made of the song, and though it is not presented as being an original composition, the performer garners a certain authenticity by both demonstrating a vast knowledge of music, and by affiliating him/herself with music ‘outside’ of a mainstream repertoire and the ability to mould musical material to fit their own identity. The person covering is shown as an aficionado, in command of a diverse palette of musical, capable of selecting precisely that music which defines his/her specific identity. Examples could include Tortoise and Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy’s album of cover versions ‘The Braveand the Bold’
Parodic: the parodic cover version often radically reinterprets the original, changing the genre, or conventions of the original. However, as Steve Bailey notes, the parodic cover version “often exaggerat[es] particularly dated or embarrassing aspects of a given song” (2003:142). Deena Weinstein notes that the parodic cover “attacked the conventions of authenticity in rock as pompous, pretentious and (laughably) lame” (1998:144), and thus is dependent on the listener having knowledge of the original for its full impact. The established authenticity of the original is called into question by the parodic cover; the markers of authenticity are augmented, exaggerated and thus deauthenticated. This process can extend beyond the specific song being covered to make comment on any of the para-musical identity markers dicussed in the ‘affinity’ cover version. Thus the artists covering the song is engaging in what may be called ‘negative authenticating work’; being seen as authentic in relief; highlighting the inauthenticity of some established cultural traits. Examples could include SidVicious’ cover of ‘My Way’, or the entire oeuvre of punk band ‘Me First and theGimmie Gimmies’.
‘Owning the Classics’: Musical Custodianship in Cuba
Yet alongside these broadly defined types of cover version, there is perhaps another practice of
performing musical material written by others and indicative of a particular past which, though equally concerned with authenticity work, does not constitute a ‘cover version’ as delineated above. If, as Weinstein asserts, a cover version iterates performative elements associated with the original performer as well as the song itself, then the practice of iterating performative styles of genre and tradition, whilst not necessarily relating them to specific performers, yet establishing something of a ‘natural’ pantheon of ‘greats’, occupies something of a grey area. For many Cuban musicians working with ‘traditional genres’, though the work of individual musicians is performed, such performances do not constitute ‘cover versions’ in the same way; rather they represent an attempt stake a claim of ‘ownership’ over a body of ‘authentically Cuban’ musical material. Though the practice of performing musical material written by others, and the goal of establishing some form of musical authenticity, is the same as in the cover versions described above, the way in which this authenticity is achieved, and what it is made to stand for, is significantly different, providing insight into the role traditional music plays within Cuban culture. As Antoni Kapcia, notes:
The post-1959 drive for professionalism and education meant that recognised performers, artists and musicians were expected to have graduated from the ISA or other specialist schools, today’s emphasis on traditional music... has created a generation aware of those traditions and willing to develop idiosyncratic and improvised versions of them (2005:198)
Certainly the professionalism of musicians – the high level of institutional training, rhythmic and technical proficiency and a knowledge of ‘the classics’[1] – has permeated even the most populist of genres. As Vincenzo Perna notes in his work on Timba “something that sets it [the genre of Timba] aside from most other popular styles is the fact that its fusion has been brought about by musicians with a first-class conservatoire training” (2005:3). Whilst this is certainly a distinctive aspect for popular music globally, within Cuba, where the role of popular musician is professionalised, it is commonplace; musicians in all genres of popular music – even many frikis – have attended such music schools, often from a young age, and have a high level of musical education.
Returning to Kapcia’s summation, the professionalization of popular musicians has indeed left generations of musicians with a deep understanding and knowledge of traditional music. For those ‘within’ this system, there is a vast wealth of musical material available for influence, available to define oneself. Yet though seminal individuals are extolled, as discussed in chapter 2, their individual endeavour is somehow collectivised, made natural to the authenticity of the place in which they were born and raised; a product not exclusively of individual talent as geographical authenticity. As a result, their artistic idiosyncrasies are, by virtue of conservatoire study, converted into generic traits; styles that are paragons of authenticity. In this sense, the continued performance of work by these musicians becomes incompatible with Weinstein’s definition of the ‘cover version’ that iterates specific traits of the performer, as these are subsumed into convention.
However, Kapcia’s description of the idiosyncratic and renovative “versions” of this stable of tradition not only removes the idiosyncratic and individual presences that forged it in the first place, but also tells only part of the story in relation to contemporary renditions of ‘the classics’ among Cuban musicians. For there is still present the strive for individual authenticity within the work of these broadly ‘traditional’ reinterpretations, and however radical the reinterpretations are, they still rely upon the ‘covering’ of convention.
An interesting case study for examioning the liminal space inbetween the concomitant positions of tradition/ being truwe to a template and innovation/being true to oneself would be the album ‘X-Moré’ by X Alfonso. The album provides something of a homage to ‘el barbaro del ritmo’ Benny Moré, through vastly reinterpreted versions of Moré’s songs. Alfonso uses sampled snippets of Moré’s vocals and orchestra, alongside his own rapping and multi-instrumental talent to create a rich soundscape that is occasionally confusing, obviously creative and distinctly idiosyncratic. Yet despite the obvious homage to an individual musician, and the individuality of Alfonso’s soundscape, there is a confusing relationship with tradition at work here. Alfonso is using a source of incontestably ‘Cuban’ tradition – Moré – as something of an anchor for his own innovation; demonstrating (to whom? Himself, or to the often conservative Cuban music industry) that he, and his music, fit within the lineage of Cuban tradition. In a reversal of Kapcia’s assertion that a knowledge of tradition has allowed a generation of Cuban musicians to experiment and individualise traditional genres, in a sense Alfonso’s treatment of Moré’s work demonstrates that individuality and innovation are at least partially hampered by a necessity to relate to an established framework of authentically Cuban referents. In so doing, Alfonso’s work pulls Moré’s work both out of time and out of personality; allowing it to exist as a paradigm of tradition; a set of influences, a model of Cubanness, rather than the work of an individual. It becomes subsumed into the definition of Cuban music, and thus becomes part of the ‘training’ of how to represent oneself as an authentically Cuban musician.
So whilst recourse to tradition and the work of individual ‘greats’ is of paramount importance to the conservatoire trained Cuban musicians woking with both popular and traditional musics, the concept of ‘covering’ is lost in the subjugation of individual creation of traditional styles. Tradition may not be covered as much as studies and applied; and thus becomes integral in the individual claim for the authenticity to represent oneself as a ‘Cuban musician’. Yet Porno Para Ricardo, in insisting upon the individual interpretation of a Cuban identity find the process of covering an apposite, if seldom used, tool in contesting both the space of Cubanness and commenting upon relationships with tradition, history and culture.
Outlining an Identity
For a band who pride themselves on innovation, who seek to provide a portrait of a contemporary, and personally felt, Cuban identity, to dedicate a chapter to the three examples of cover versions in the band’s oeuvre may seem strange. However the three songs provide a succinct mapping of three quite disparate boundary points in the band’s identity space, demonstrating the uses of contrasting elements of their soundworld, and thus identity construction. They also help point to a musical and cultural history of both the band members as individuals and Cuba as a nation culturally integrated with other parts of the world.
The three covered songs stem from very different places, and reflect diverse fragments of a bricolage identity. The first, from the band’s debut album, is a cover version of a Soviet cartoon theme song. The second, from the band’s diptych albums, is a cover of the ‘Guns n Roses’ classic rock ballad ‘Don’t Cry’, and the third, from their most recent album, is a ‘cover[2]’ of Cuban bolero standard ‘Mucho Corazón’, demonstrating the broad spectrum of influences to which the band have recourse; belying the notion of a self-contained cultural sphere within Cuba, one where adherence to traditional forms is necessary. This eclectic palette of influences – each ‘understood’, and, crucially, appropriated – further serves to position the band as musical savants; possessing a vast musical knowledge, able to obtain, and make sense of, vastly different styles of music, and weave them together into a sensible whole. It also demonstrates that they are in possession of the authenticity (and often quite different types of authenticity, as will be discussed) to ‘use’ these disparate materials.
This process of appropriating songs that would appear incongruous is a feature familiar to punk music globally. The ‘punk cover version’ is a common phenomenon among punk bands, and speaks of a contorted and complex relationship with the past (Weinstein, 1998). Though Porno Para Ricardo’s cover versions endeavour to “deconstruct their originals” (ibid.:144) and thus in some way relates to this broad ‘punk’ sentiment, sonically the three songs are vastly different, running a gamut of generic soundworlds from orthodox punk to authentic bolero. So whilst the band are establishing themselves within the global punk discourses by referring to global punk styles, they are simultaneously expressing a local identity; making cultural connections, and problematising revered authenticities that ‘make sense’ only from a uniquely Cuban perspective.
This process of deconstructing the past through often irreverent appropriations and cover versions would tend to lend itself to the oft-cited Deleuzian concept of ‘deterritorialization’, in which the barriers of an established space are dismantled, the links between place and culture are problematised, and new meanings are given to culture; the space is ‘reterritorialized’. In Porno Para Ricardo’s punk cover versions, perhaps shades of all of these practices can be seen. The parodic appropriation of musical material seeks to demonstrate the inauthenticity of the ostensibly authentic – as Weinstein puts it “through parody, the punk cover attacked the conventions of authenticity in rock as pompous, pretentious and (laughably) lame” (1998:144). In their global sources – Soviet, US, and Cuban - the band question both the link between place and culture, demonstrating the significance these diverse musics have had upon their identity. There is an attempt to deterritorialise the space of Cuban culture by dismantling notions of an autochthonous Cuban tradition and heritage which has the power to define completely the identity of Cubans. The space is then re-territorialised to include both these disparate cultural sources, and the band’s own punk sound. The space of a Cuban identity is broadened and engorged it with more and more contemporary sources, expanding the parameters of ‘the past’ and widening the definitions of the present.
Yet the process Deleuze and Guattari define as ‘deterritorialization’ does not perhaps allow for the denied sense of ownership that an identity such as Porno Para Ricardo’s reveals. These ‘newly established’ cultural links – these attempts at reterritorialization - are presented by the band as always already present; always already established. That they have been obfuscated and rebuked by officialdom is where the band’s consternation lies. I don’t think that in this short series of cover versions Porno Para Ricardo are entirely attempting to inauthenticate (as discourse on punk parody might tend to suggest), nor are they attempting to deterritorialize the ‘traditional’ Cuban identity constructed through music, nor even to reterritorialize that identity space through the enforced addition of a punk soundworld. Perhaps, without wishing to neologise, we could speak of an attempt at ‘co-territorialisation’; where a Cuban tradition is recognised, revered and respected, but is also reclaimed (or more precisely, the ownership of the music is show as already theirs), and where this tradition is made a constituent part of an identity that permits addition, selection and personalised meaning in each new fragment collected. The statue of ‘authentic Cuba’ is not demolished to place new heroes on the plinth (the very kernel at the centre of the parody in ‘Don Cri’). Rather it is made to stand alongside other interpretations and definitions; made one of a multitude of Cuban identities.
“Los Musicos De Bremen”: Covering the Past
As noted in the introduction (p.20), the tumult of the Special Period led to a severe reduction in the standing of Soviet culture as a legitimate constituent element in the space of Cuban cultural identity. However references to the erstwhile ally appear to have become something of an idée fixe for Porno Para Ricardo. From their band (banned) logo – the hammer-and-sickle-made-phallic - to their faux-Cyrillic rendering of the band name[3], and the use of Russian guitars as props for destruction in live shows at the beginning of their career, Porno Para Ricardo seem fixated with the destruction, use, and re-use of the Soviet Union. Extending Weinstein’s assertion that the cover version iterates more than just musical elements, it is almost as if Porno Para Ricardo are engaged in creating a ‘cover version’ of this period of Cuba’s Soviet-inflected history (a period in which the band members grew up); evoking cultural elements present and significant in the past, but now deliberately removed from the palette of national identity.
The most overt musical expression of the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union can be found on Porno Para Ricardo’s first album ‘Rock Para las Masas... Cárnicas’, in their cover version of the opening song from a Soviet Cartoon called ‘Bremenskie Muzykanty’ (translated into Spanish as ‘Los Musicos de Bremen’). Though Porno Para Ricardo have treated this catchy song to their usual anarchicand haphazard style – fluid rhythm, bellowed choruses and deliberately ‘messy’ aesthetic – their cover version is strangely tender, helped in no small part by Ciro Diaz’s faux-sincerity and falsetto register when singing the Russian lyrics. The cartoon – a twenty minute retelling of the Brothers Grimm tale – was made in 1969 and, along with a plethora of Soviet cartoons imported to Cuba, became immensely popular with Cuban children throughout the 1970s. It is no exaggeration to suggest that such cartoons became as recognisable and as integral to the map of cultural references for this generation of Cubans as they did for the same generation in the Soviet Bloc.
The original is an upbeat song sung by the five musicians of Bremen as they travel in their caravan, maintaining a galloping beat throughout. Porno Para Ricardo’s version has a much more mellow beginning. Two clean electric guitars, one picking chords, the other providing the melody, begin confidently, then seem to grind to a halt, buckling instantly under their own sincerity, or their own conventionality perhaps? The singing comes in, accompanied by a strummed electric guitar. Only then does it become clear what the song is; the joke becomes apparent. However, where the original is confident and blithe, the cover, in this tentative opening stanza, seems fragile; the voice, though pure in tone, seems uncertain, as though feeling for something – remembering something maybe? Gradually the rest of the band join in, so by the end of the first verse, the solo voice is joined by a chorus. Buoyed and steadied, the song is abruptly punctuated. Serenity and timorousness are instantly replaced with boisterousness and tumult. Guitars have a white-noise buzz to their distortion, the frantic hi-hat plays insistently, yet never totally accurately, the voice is transformed from feeling for some unknown to grasping it tightly. This particular cover version provides an interesting hybrid form of the three basic ‘types’ of cover version described above. It is a song that, whilst obscure, demands some recognition and familiarity of the original for its full impact. Though it revels in the classic punk parodic soundworld, there is a tenderness and affiliation with the original; the intention is clearly not only to deauthenticate the original (what would be the point in deauthenticating a cartoon?) but to remember it (fondly?) to reclaim it and to offer it up as representative in some way of the band’s contemporary identity. Through the ironic fondness of the original source, there is still a desire to self-authenticate, and also a sense in which an ostensibly self-evidently authentic musical convention is deauthenticated. However this deauthenticated other is not exclusively the Soviet cultural symbols enforced upon the island – these sources have been deauthenticated by the Revolutionary government themselves through the Special Period policy of ‘Zero Option’[4] – but the authenticity of the ‘serious’, professionalised Cuban musician and the roster of permissible ‘authentic’ songs to ‘cover’/ claim.
Laura Garcia Freyre has suggested that Porno Para Ricardo are attempting to “reject the imposition of Soviet culture that existed in Cuba” (2008:550) through their ironic and subversive references to it. However, the cover version of ‘Musicos de Bremen’ does not contain nearly as much contempt for the subject matter as do other examples of the parodic punk cover version (for example Sid Vicious’ ‘My Way’). Porno Para Ricardo’s ‘Musicos de Bremen’ does not seek to present the original as “laughably lame” (Weinstein, 1988:144).There is a more complex identity construction is at work this cover version, one that seeks to remember as much as reject the Soviet legacy in Cuba. In the act of remembering a Soviet cultural product, the band are engaged in a complex negotiation with the transplanted, then excised, cultural markers taken from the Soviet Union; symbols that were absorbed into the patchwork of personal (and national) identities throughout the band’s childhood, whilst other, perhaps more readily intelligible, cultures were denied to them through censorship. These cultural markers were then removed and made illegitimate in their adulthood; ‘written out’ of official Cuban cultural discourse – denied a place in authentic Cuban identity. This is a song that attempts to ‘cover’ and reclaim aspects of a childhood identity, and critique the government’s duplicitous imposition of identity upon Cuban people.
The song, and the accompanying music video, are both peppered with signifiers of the band’s childhood. In the video, the band, dressed in primary school uniforms[5], can be seen playing their instruments in a classroom. A television plays cartoons. A school map shows, in resplendent red, the U.S.S.R. At the end of the song. Ciro Diaz shouts a series of Russian words enthusiastically (translated phonetically into Spanish and flashed onto the screen), invoking Russian lessons at school. All these nostalgic images are juxtaposed against the main character, a young woman, who is seen battling against the inconveniences of everyday life in Cuba. The phone doesn’t work, hitch-hiking to her destination, eventually getting a lift on a bicycle (which she has to help carry in return). Also prevalent in the video are a number of shots of people just waiting for ‘something’ to happen - playing cards, sunbathing. All this plays out against the inescapable degradation of Cuba’s buildings and infrastructure.
The resultant message is striking. Porno Para Ricardo link the nostalgic images of the past (Russia) with the inescapable struggle of the present. They are making a pointed criticism of the over-reliance on the Soviet Union politically, economically and culturally, in Cuba’s past. Yet in the act of remembering, they are recognising the impact it has had upon their cultural ‘map’ of influences, and thus upon their contemporary identity. Whereas the Soviet Union may have been wiped off the map – literally and metaphorically - in relation to the set of legitimate cultural influences which are seen as constituting the parameters of ‘Cubanness’ for many, Porno Para Ricardo are attempting to ‘reach back’ to reconnect with an element of their childhood that was, at one point, a permissible cultural landmark, but which has since, for distinctly political reasons, been denied a place within the space of Cuban identity. They are contesting the notion that the past can be denied a place in the present because it is deemed unwelcome. By recognising the integral part Soviet culture has played in the shaping of their identity, however unwelcome it may have been in the first instance, ‘Russianness’ is made an important part of the band’s identity, and part of what may be termed a ‘generational Cuban identity’.
Despite the fondness inherent in this cover version, there is no escaping the classic punk hallmarks of parody and ridicule. Nor is there a lack of an attempt to self-authenticate in this cover version. To this end, I would like to posit the notion that this cover version seeks as much to deauthenticate and critique convention Cuban musical practise, and the musical material selected as ‘authentic’ in representing Cuban culture by these professional musicians. As stated above, the professionalization of popular music in Cuba has left a conservativism among many musicians wishing to make a career from their talent. As both Vincenzo Perna (2005) and Catherine Moses (2000) note, self-censorship is common among musicians who fear falling out of favour with the state-run music industry (a position Porno Para Ricardo find themselves in) and the distinct impact such a state can have upon one’s ability to perform and make money.
This conservativism has made for a quite rigidly defined body of work deemed ‘acceptable’ for serious performance, and thus to a definite style of Cubanness which is augmented only through recourse to this established cultural hegemony. In their anarchic and amateurish aesthetic, in their choice of a ‘childish’ and distinctly ‘non-Cuban’ source material, Porno Para Ricardo are deauthenticating this established definition of the ‘Cuban musician’; highlighting, as Weinstien’s definition of the ironic cover version suggests, the constructions and agendas of this self-evidently authentic persona of the ‘professional popular musician’. It is not only the original source material that is being deconstructed, though the duplicity of the political introduction (and removal) of foreign cultural products into a national identity is a crucial facet in understanding this cover version, but the construction of what constitutes ‘Cuban music’, what may be accepted into this body of cultural influences, and who is deemed worthy of claiming themselves to be ‘authentically Cuban’. This is where Porno Para Ricardo seek to self-authenticate; through their reconstruction of the parameters of ‘real’ Cuban culture; a redefinition that includes the forgotten, the truly popular, and the everyday into a musical aesthetic that is ‘felt’ rather than ‘studied’ and is drawn from personal experience and memory rather than from an established, and conservative, pantheon.
“Don Cri”: Covering the Other
Alongside the ‘expected’ castigation of an overly conservative and restrictive music industry (and specifically for Porno Para Ricardo, it’s domineering government), there is a more surprising portrayal of aspects of the very musical subcultures to which Porno Para Ricardo ostensibly ‘belong’ as a part of that antithetical, inauthentic ‘Other’. As well as critiquing cultural hegemony for defining Cuban identity too narrowly, it would appear that Porno Para Ricardo, in amny of their track – but particularly in their cover version of a Guns n Roses track – are similarly critiquing friki subcultures for defining Cuban musical identity too broadly. The band’s consternations over the authenticity of friki subculture have already been discussed in the previous chapter. But in this cover version, one may detect a clear example of the band positioning themselves ‘between’ these two defined musical/ identity spaces; rejecting the conservativism of ‘professional’ musicians (that is, those musicians operating, however begrudgingly, ‘within the Revolution’), yet similarly rejecting the recourse to exclusively foreign musicis present in friki culture. But their relationship to these two spaces is more complex that simply ‘rejecting’ either (or both) as inauthentic outright. Perhaps Porno Para Ricardo are attempting to forge a ‘thirdspace’ (Bhabha, 1994, Soja, 1996) between the two through their appropriation and recontextualisation of symbols from both spaces. It is a process Gavin Carfoot, using the work of Deleuze and Guattari, labels “reterritorialization”; defining the process thus:
[Reterritorialization] begins with the use of noise to destroy pre-existing musical territories; noise is then able to de-territorialize the culturally constructed notion of musical sound, and this noise is in turn re-territorialized into a new definition of what constitutes musical sound. (Carfoot, 2006:37)
What Porno Para Ricardo are seeking is to re-authenticate both genre spaces which they feel as constituent parts of their own identity by ‘reterritorializing’ them. In the process they are refuting the notion that in making moribund the notion of a holistic and rigid definition of Cuban identity, one cannot rely on the predetermined meaning. What Porno Para Ricardo insist is that speaking in Cuban – that is using linguistic and cultural signifiers with established significance in Cuba - is essential for the production of any identity within Cuba. Though Porno Para Ricardo may subvert, lambast or parody many of these cultural identifiers, they rely on the assumed identification of these markers by their audience to make sense of the reterritorialization; to understand what has been reterritorialized.
In their cover of one of rock’s classic songs: ‘Don’t Cry’ by ‘Guns n Roses’, lead guitarist Ciro Díaz again takes on the mantle of ‘front man’, and again a complex hybrid of the basic ‘types’ of cover version is created. From the moment the distorted bass plays its descending pattern, heralding a howl of guitar feedback (albeit much less restrained and ‘controlled’ than in the original) it is obvious what song is being performed, and the implied intention of a ‘faithful’ rock cover version is clear: one of the gods of the pantheon of rock is being invoked, being claimed and adulated. But as Ciro begins to sing, something sounds wrong. He apparently attempts a studied imitation of Axl Rose’s intimate, confessional style, but it is embellished by an almost child-like eagerness and barely contained excitement, revelling in the task (the duty? The responsibility?) of recreation. The words are hyper-pronounced to the point of unintelligibility; Ciro seemingly emphasising each and every letter, such is the importance of the text. Either that or he has learnt the lyrics phonetically and, oblivious of the actual meaning, repeats them in this Cubanised form without concerning himself with the actual words or their meaning. The song descends into a parodic deconstruction of the sincerity and authenticity claimed by Guns n Roses.
Of course this isn’t the ‘real’ Ciro singing. It is a characterisation; a manifestation, as Porno Para Ricardo see it, of the archetypal friki. But it is a multi-layered performance; Ciro performing an archetype of a ‘sincere’ (yet necessarily inauthentic) friki who is also performing the identity of an American rocker – indeed pretending to be Axl Rose. The artificiality of the performed identity is given away in the very last utterance of the song. After a histrionic and increasingly ludicrous outro in which Ciro (as the friki) howls in melismatic fashion, the song ends, and Ciro clears his throat in a manner that either shows the friki calming himself down and regaining restrain at the end of the (artificial) performance; or else it is the ‘real’ Ciro giving a sotto voce commentary on the same ludicrousness of the ‘authentic’ virtuosic rock wail. This same characterisation can be found in the equally comical (though equally pointed social commentary) ‘Black Metal[6]’ in which a friki parades around Parque G in central Havana – the epicentre of authentic friki culture[7] – trying to find the latest black metal band, and espousing his own coolness. In ‘Don Cri’ the same character, having proved himself a member of the frikis at Parque G, has now formed a band and is further proving his authenticity by paying homage to a innately authentic musical source.
The critique is overt. That in the appropriation of a distinctly US music, this Cuban friki has identified himself through a music without making the necessary mediation and contextualisation; assuming that the music, because of its perceived authenticity in the US, is able to be imported and adopted wholesale. It is a telling characterisation, one that invokes D.C. Muecke’s sense of “self disparaging irony”:
The ironist is presented not simply as an impersonal voice, but, in disguise, as a person with certain characteristics. And the sort of person the ironist presents himself as being is our guide to his real opinion... But his disguise is meant to be penetrated, and our judgement is directed not against the ignorance of the speaker but against the object of the irony. (Muecke, 1969:87, in Steve Bailey, 2003:144)
The object of irony in ‘Don Cri’ is more than just this characterised friki – it is the entire friki culture and their appropriation of American rock music as always already authentic and able to define a Cuban identity without any mediation whatsoever, despite the incomprehensibility of the lyrics. In searching for an authentic rock identity, they have rendered themselves inauthentic by negating their Cubanness. Perhaps Gorki’s assertion that there is “no such thing as a Cuban rock scene” (Gorki, 2010) needs emphasis on the nationality being evoked. There may be rock music performed by Cuban musicians, but there is no such thing as Cuban rock. Certainly language is central to this localising of music and its ability to become a constituent part of one’s identity – either group or individual. Gorki recounts the nascent days of his own band, saying:
… at the time I started the group, I saw that a lot of bands would play the song on stage and then the next song, and there was no contact, and on top of that they would sing in English – allegedly – and also guttural [impersonation of heavy metal voice] and so I saw that there was no communication with that music. So I said ‘if I want to listen to the music I like, I will have to create my own band’ (Gorki, 2010)
Presenting an ironic cover of an American rock ‘classic’ firstly attempts to burst this bubble of pre-ordained authenticity; attempting, to “deconstruct the original... removing and/or exaggerating the pretty, the pompous, and the pop” (Deena Weinstein 1998:144). It also provides, through this ironic voice, a commentary on the friki culture to assert, as does John Shepherd, that music “does not ‘carry’ its meaning and ‘give it’ to participants and listeners. Affect and meaning have to be created anew in the specific social and historical circumstances of music’s creation and use” (1993:138). But it also asserts the necessity for reference to the very factors found in example one – the local, quotidian, memories and place – in defining an authentic identity. Rock music is, for Porno Para Ricardo, incapable of ‘carrying with it’ a sense of rebellion, even in the often draconian cultural context of a repressive regime intent on presenting Cuban music as exclusively autochthonous[8].
Porno Para Ricardo suggest that by taking English-language rock music at ‘face value’ and using it unmediated in collective identity construction, the friki movement are failing to construct an identity that ‘speaks’ to their surroundings; that fails to communicate their ‘true’ identity. Both Gorki and Ciro assert the necessity of local linguistic communication (that is speaking of Cuba by speaking in ‘Cuban’):
The band wouldn’t work in another country as it could work here it’s made for the people that live in this country. Not by intention, but by disgrace fatalism – because it was given to us, and so we talk about what happens to us and around us. (Gorki, 2010)
I think that singing in Spanish about issues surrounding you makes you a part of that environment. You can call it ‘Cubanness’, you can call it a Cuban environment, or anything you like. I think creative people create from their experience. Individual experience comes from the environment the person is raised in. The environment that surrounds us is this one, so we create and take on elements from this environment. (Ciro, 2010)
Such stances again reflect the desire – indeed the duty - to speak directly to the contemporary sociocultural surrounding in lyrics as means of constructing an ‘authentic’ identity. The band assert that the way to do this is to speak in both a forthright manner, but also using the language of Cuba – both culturally and linguistically. The band’s lyrics are rife with such examples of distinctly Cuban cultural and linguistic language, and the attempt to ‘Cubanise’ the lyrics of ‘Don’t Cry’ – to give them a Cuban pronunciation – renders them incomprehensible (the meaningless ‘Don Cri’). They make no sense in their new cultural context, and as such, they cannot speak of a Cuban identity.
That is not to say that Porno Para Ricardo dismiss the potential to create Cuban rock wholesale. Indeed, they themselves are makers of Cuban rock. Their consternation lies with the ‘carrying’, to refer to Shepherd’s phrase, of predetermined meaning in rock music to be used to define an identity – one setting itself in opposition to the notion of ‘traditional’ constructions of Cubanness. For such a use of foreign rock music not only falls into the same trap of presenting rigidly defined spaces of identity that one must adhere to without recontextualisation, but it also serves to leave the space of Cuban identity uncontested. The adoption and utilisation of US rock music, for Porno Para Ricardo, further serves to confirm the revolutionary schisms and binaries that disallow many Cubans from entering into the space of Cubanness. By adopting foreign music exclusively to identify themselves, the friki subculture places itself outside of Cuban identity; they rescind their own ownership over Cuba’s cultural history.
Porno Para Ricardo’s work – reterritorializing the rigid spaces of both rock music and Cuban tradition - seeks to break some of the binaristic discourse that pits these two always already authentic and always already defined spaces of identity against one another, and demonstrate that one may construct one’s own identity from fragments of both spaces; that one may be both Cuban and rock, and thus forge a space that may be truly Cuban rock. Such an identity construction brings to mind Andy Bennett’s assertion that:
Music… plays a significant part in the way that individuals author space, musical texts being creatively combined with local knowledge and sensibilities in ways that tell particular stories about the local, and impose collectively defined meanings and significances on space. At the same time, however, it is important to note that such authorings of space produce not one, but a series of competing local narratives (Bennett, 2000). (in Whiteley et al. 2004:3)
In the final example, I demonstrate one way in which Porno Para Ricardo attempt to forge a thirdspace, and with it a more adaptable and multifaceted space of Cuban identity, from these disparate fragments of identity.
“Mucho Corazon”: Covering the Authentic
As with so much of Porno Para Ricardo’s oeuvre, contradiction is never far away, and this authenticity template of singing in one’s ‘own voice’ is somewhat confused on the opening track on ‘El Disco Rojo’; a ‘straight’ cover version[9] of a bolero standard ‘Mucho Corazón’. As noted in second part of this chapter (‘owning the classics’), the definition of the reproduction of a bolero in this manner often tends not to be positioned within the realm of the ‘cover version’. It is seen, as mentioned above, as a generic ‘tradition’, one that is accessed and interpreted; revived and preserved, and thus the individuality of its originators subjugated in the creation of a ‘national’ style. However, access to tacitly assume the right to perform that style relies on the authenticity of the performer to conform to a standard. One must demonstrate (through performance of the material) that one is an ‘authentic Cuban musician’, conforming to the prerequisite identifiers outlined above. However, when a band so vehemently ‘outside’ this purview claim ownership of such material , when they endeavour to perform, the concept of a cover version becomes a much more apt description of the act. They are performing – and deconstructing - the identity of the musician ‘able’ to perform this material. They are performing the role of the ‘authentic’ Cuban musician. Gorki explains the location of bolero:
I love bolero and Cuban music in general just as much as I like rock and roll – well I like rock and roll a bit more, but I like Cuban music just as much... In fact, in the latest album, we’ve recorded a bolero. We start the album with a bolero, to give people what they’re not expecting… Of course this is a bolero that somehow sets up the band’s position… contextualising that bolero within a rock album, and even more so with the characteristics of our band, has a special meaning. (Gorki, 2010)
This interpolating bolero voice is far from the ironic mask of ‘Don Cri’; it is sincere and faithful, and the cover – in terms of its iteration of performative and musical cues - falls squarely under the definition of the ‘affinity’ cover version. The song is well-know, and the band make little interpretive change to the soundworld; it is faithfully rendered and made to ‘speak’ to (and for) a facet of their collective identity. Two acoustic guitars, perfectly tuned, intertwine and complement each other, paying close attention to the implied bolero rhythm. There is a slight fluidity, a tentative uncertainness in the rhythm; a struggle and deep concentration with the material perhaps. Most surprising is Gorki’s voice. Usually strained, gravelly in its acerbity, and wilfully distorted and imprecise, here it is presented as that of an alarmingly good ‘bolerista’. The powerful and rich mid-range tenor, the measured tremolo accents at the end of each line, the never-ostentatious-but-patently-‘felt’ emotional connection to the words being sung. However, it is precisely this fidelity to the original that provides the shock, and the deconstruction of ‘the original’. The tension created by this interpolating bolero voice is never ruptured; the ‘noisy’ reterritorialization of the space of stereotypical Cubanness (Mario Masvidal, 2007) – the descent in to punk - one expects never takes place. The bolero remains faithfully rendered. It is, as Gorki intends it to be, something unexpected at the beginning of a rock album. Thus the deconstruction, the parody of established preconceptions, is left to the listener. The identity of the bolerista – the identity of bolero, and thus, vicariously, the identity of Cuban culture – is problematised by the faithful rendition performed by such an incongruous source. We are left to question who has the right to stake a claim to the term ‘Cuban musician’.
Certainly there is a social commentary in the song selection; it is a bolero that “sets up the band’s position” and gives a personal nuance to the opening line
Dicen que no es vida, esta que yo vivo They say it is not life that I live
The ‘they’ is this case could be any of the band’s detractors; the AHS who deny them legitimacy as musicians, the government who deny their legitimacy as Cubans, the professionalised rock music fraternity who acquiesce to self-censorship (Perna, 2005, Moses, 2000). The ‘life’ being denied is the identity as Cuban and as musicians; the defining boundary of this identity space excising the band. So there is a sense in which the meaning of the song is being subverted, reclaimed and recontextualised by the band to assert something anti-hegemonic. The message is that just because they criticise the Revolution, just because they operate within an augmented musical paradigm of what constitutes legitimately Cuban cultural influence, and even thogu hthey exist ‘outside the Revolution’, they do not necessarily have to rescind upon their identification with traditional Cuban musical modes. By placing bolero alongside punk in their multifaceted soundworld, Porno Para Ricardo are asserting that both these musics constitute fragments of their personal identities, and that they can both be included in a composite and contemporary Cuban identity; that a Cuban may find aspects of themselves in both soundworlds; that the two are not mutually exclusive spaces of identity that define the individual totally. Rather than creating a ‘Thirdspace’ musically, a hybrid of rock and Cuban tradition, they are demonstrating that Cuban identity already contains within it the ‘Thirdspace’ definition of Edward Soja (1996); one that contains within it multiple definitions; an Aleph with multiple viewpoints and visions.
In their adoption of bolero, Porno Para Ricardo are claiming ownership of Cuba’s celebrated catalogue of music, presenting themselves as custodians and thus as authentic Cuban musicians. They are attempting to expand this pantheon of ‘Cuban Greats’ if not to include themselves specifically, then to at least allow the potential to include new definitions of Cuban music. Bolero is not being reterritorialized in the same way that rock music is; but by faithfully recreating bolero, the band are reterritorializing the space of who is deemed able to adopt bolero as a signifier of their individual identity construction. They claim the space of bolero (seen as a synecdoche for Cubanness by many) not as sacrosanct, holistic and ‘finished’, but as partial, malleable and available.
[1] Though a differing pantheon from European or American conservatoires, the Cuban music schools do place significant emphasis on Western Classical music, alongside traditional Cuban genres.
[2] The term ‘cover version’, as will be discussed later, becomes slight more spurious when discussing this final example.
[3] Both the hammer and sickle logo and the ‘Russian’ written band name are used throughout the band’s artwork. See appendix.
[4] Zero option (Betancourt, 1991)
[5] All primary school children wear the same uniform throughout Cuba, thus the image is a potent one, and instantly recognisable to all Cubans.
[6] On the same album, ‘Soy Porno, Soy Popular’. This track is discussed in detail in chapter 3.
[7] Laura Garcia Freyre describes the significance of this Park in Central Havana thus: “G as a public space was first conquered by the frikis, but now, as a reflection of the very few options available to young people for fun, it has been taken over by young people regardless of their musical identity (2008:555).
[8] The introduction, and fractious history, of rock music in Cuba is a subject addressed in depth by Deborah Pacini Hernandez and Reebee Garofalo (2000, 2004). They suggest that many of the early generation of rockers in Cuba were persecuted by the state simply for adopting cultural symbols associated with rock music.
