THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
868) Los Saicos — “Fugitivo de Alcatraz”
Peru’s Los Saicos (see #746) — the Psychos in English, and, yes, pronounced “psychos” — very well may have been the world’s first punk band. The band was “[p]rimitive to the point of primordial” (Lindsay Hutton, https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/LOS.SAICOS.html) and “Alcatraz” is filled with “terrifying howls”. (Vladimir Garay, Chilean critic (courtesy of Google translate, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV82DU_kj94) “A huge part of the Los Saicos . . . aesthetic derives from the balls-to-the-wall shouting of frontman Erwin Flores.” (Martin Schneider, https://dangerousminds.net/comments/if_perus_los_saicos_arent_the_first_punk_band_theyre_pretty_close) Check! The band’s “snarling maelstrom of nihilism was cut in Lima when the rest of the world was wetting itself over The Beatles.” (Lindsay Hutton, https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/LOS.SAICOS.html)
As Jonathan Watts and Dan Collins tell us:
It’s a question that has long been the subject of intense and often bitter debate: where exactly did punk rock begin? . . . Few would imagine the genre that revolutionised music was actually born at a cinema matinee in the Peruvian capital of Lima. . . . Los Saicos . . . were screaming, speeding and drinking their way to local notoriety. . . . Their signature tune, Demolición (Demolition) has been revived as an anthem for political protesters and, reportedly, for drug barons. In the Lima district of Lince, a marble plaque has been erected with the provocative claim etched in marble: “The global punk movement was born here. Demolish!!!”
Los Saicos burned brightly and briefly in the mid-60s, performing together for a few years and recording no more than a dozen songs. They were inspired by Elvis and the Beatles to play rock’n’roll but thanks to a frenetic effort to make up for a lack of training and equipment . . . with energy and attitude they ended up with a sound that was 10 years ahead of its time. . . . “There was no name for that at the time, but the riffs are definitely punk,” said José Beramendi, the producer of . . . a documentary about the band. “You expect this sound from North America or Europe, but it’s not something you expect to hear in the 1960s in Latin America.” . . .
Los Saicos were raised on a musical diet of Harry Belafonte, Peruvian criolla and classical waltzes in the conservative and hierarchical society . . . . Elvis and the Beatles changed their lives. Their early shows were at cinema matinees, where bands were hired as an extra draw for the screenings. Most groups performed covers of syrupy pop songs, but Los Saicos revved up the energy by mixing original love ballads with hoarse, souped-up tracks about prison breaks, funerals and destruction. “Compared to other bands of the time, we had a bad-boy image. They turned up with their aunts, we had girls on each arm,” recalls the drummer Pancho Guevara. They were detained several times by the police, mostly for speeding but also for taking a sledgehammer, axe and fake TNT to the railway station for a record cover photo shoot.
Guevara said the label was unimportant. “I don’t know what ‘punk’ is,” he said. “We wanted to play rock’n’roll but this is the sound that came out. I don’t know where it came from. It was just something that emerged when we started playing.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/sep/14/where-punk-begin-cinema-peru
Martin Schneider adds:
They were together only from 1964 to 1966 in their initial run—they released only six singles and never put out an album, but their “Demolición” was the biggest hit in Peru in 1965, and they had their own national TV show while they were still active. They had a raw, garage-y sound, apparently achieved without ever hearing any authentic garage rock from America—they did, however, know about all the big British Invasion bands. Plenty of people have claimed that they really invented punk—I’m not so sure about that . . . . According to Flores, their first show in front of a posh audience was initially met with stunned silence—and then, after a pause, rapturous applause.
In 1966 they broke up. . . . After two years or so of close proximity, the four members had gotten sick of each other, and after breaking up they weren’t in contact with each other for decades. (It appears that there was no great conflict, in truth—just fatigue and a desire to move on to other matters.) Their great shouter Erwin Flores ended up moving to the Washington, DC, area, where he got a job at NASA . . . .
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/if_perus_los_saicos_arent_the_first_punk_band_theyre_pretty_close
Chilean critic Vladimir Garay opines (courtesy of Google translate) that:
Los Saicos, the first cult band made in Peru. It was 1964 when the brothers Roberto and Rolando Carpio, Edwin Flores, Pancho Guevara and Cesar Castrillon gave life to the group that would forever change the history of Peruvian rock and why not, Latin American (and perhaps even worldwide). Los Saicos were not the first to appear, but they were the first to develop a primitive and noisy sound in these latitudes, which was accompanied by aggressive and anarchist lyrics that were shouted with adolescent violence. Without a doubt they left an indelible mark both for their contemporaries (groups no longer imitated foreign bands, they imitated Los Saicos) and for future generations. Comparable perhaps to their contemporaries The Sonics [see #230, 231], Los Saicos is one of those unique bands, which they seem ahead of their time . . . . Their songs were made forty years ago and they still sound fresh, you still feel all that dangerous energy when listening to any of their compositions and that’s something only great bands can do, those that go on to immortality. Los Saicos is one of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV82DU_kj94
Lindsay Hutton:
[Flores explained that] “[t]he primitive nature of our songs is something that came spontaneously out of my head. The band had no problem with assimilating and arranging it. We thought of ourselves as bad boys and that must have been a driving force.” . . . Who ever thought there could be a combo out there in Peru that would make The Sonics sound like Simon and bloody Garfunkel? There is quite possibly some other music out there, someplace, that could well make us re-address this consideration, but until then, cherish this short course of Saicotherapy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV82DU_kj94
Finally, Gaspar Vieira Neto (courtesy of Google translate): “We can be proud of having such a band here in South America, before punk emerged in England or in the United States. Long live Los Saicos, a hug here in Brazil because we love Los Saicos.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV82DU_kj94)
Here is a documentary on the band:
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