Pescado Rabioso existed in name only by the time this laid back groove was produced and released in 1973. Luis Alberto Spinetta had a musical vision that the other guys in the band just couldn't see. They split and he went on without them to create the band's best, fourth, and final record: Artaud.

"Cementerio Club" is a dead man's blues. A man cut down by by his lover's contempt, left for dead from the heat of too many moments. And when our dead man sings of how sad and lonely he'll be there in that cemetery, you can hear in his words and his guitar a relief more soothing and far greater than another hot summer with his nena.

LISTEN:   Pescado Rabioso "Cementerio Club"   ·   [1973, Argentina]   ·   [GET IT]

Babasónicos' "Deshoras" is like a stack of blank sheets of paper waiting for you to get past the thought of them piling up like wasted hours and opportunities. Instead, they're ready for you to think of and use them as a place to write down your most uncomfortable ideas and unique perspectives. Right on time, if you ask me.

LISTEN:   Babasónicos "Deshoras"   ·   [2011, Argentina]   ·   [GET IT]

LISTEN:   Andrés Calamaro "Flaca"    [1997]   ·   [BUY IT]   ·   [WEBSITE]

This tune is one of those good goodbyes.

Good in the sense that everything about the split, from the knives in the back to the recollection of better times to the pseudo-confessions of stray moments, concedes a sense of relief and the reward of better days to come. The music imparts those sentiments as much (if not more) than the words themselves: the laid back but steady beat, the teasing licks from the guitar, and that hook of a melody. The music carries the tune and our hero past the golden times, the lies, the hurtful truths, the silence, the arguments, the forgiveness, the concessions, confessions, and all those daggers.

It doesn't hurt anymore. It won't do any harm.

LISTEN  Babasónicos "Desfachatados"  [1999]  ·  [BUY IT]

This song is a spaghetti western on speed. Or a violent desert drug flick. Or the story of a band of rockers from Argentina invading North America in a cloud of dust -- one bar, motel, mini-mart, cantina, and groupie at a time.

"Desfachatados" is a wild ride of a tune, straddling the Mexico/US border in a borrowed old car kicking up dust, envy, and rancor. It's basically the tale of a band of shameless men on a hedonistic adventure, dirt in their hair and under their fingernails, perpetual inebriation, and wildfire in their eyes. Perhaps bandits, smugglers, or a rock band.

Babasónicos take you on a four minute getaway from the law, paved roads, and the confines of the world around you. Close your eyes and you're spittin' in the dirt, drunk on life, and without a care in the world. Take or get taken. Live or die watching. The guitar twangs are echos of your memories, traces of untamed but not quite ferocious days. The rolling drums are your speed, your push to step on the gas, kick up the dust, and brazenly go forward.

You have everything you need now and nothing at all. Let's go!

LISTEN  Gustavo Cerati "Magia"  [2009]  ·  [BUY IT]

I've always loved the power that music has to push you when you need that bump or console you when you're dragging the floor. There's a rare form of song that can do both. No matter the high or low you're in it can inspire you to move, energize your senses, and fill you with hope as you move forward with everything you have. "Magia" is one of those tunes.

The forward push of the song's steady beat and the thunderous rave ups as Gustavo Cerati sings "Es tan mágico" or "Todo conspira a mi favor" are enough to make me want to jump up, dance around, and sing the tune at the top of my lungs. The kicker for me is in a simple but powerful statement Cerati repeats a few times in the tune: "Voy a seguir haciéndolo." I'm going to keep on doing it. In the context of this tune and whatever obstacles life throws your way, it's the perfect mantra to keep pushing forward.

There's "magic" inside each and every one of us that drives us to do the things we want, to do that thing that we'd do with or without a paycheck, love, or the acceptance of others. If it is good and filled with every ounce of passion you can muster up, then keep on doing it. El viento sopla a tu favor.

Thanks, Gus. I will. You, too, please.

[Note: At the time of this writing Gustavo Cerati is ten months into a coma after suffering a stroke in 2010. Each day my heart goes out to this man and his family. Can you dedicate someone's own song to them? Yes, you can. This one's for you, G. ¡Fuerza Cerati!]

[video, 1996]  ·  [BUY IT]

I didn't live in Miami anymore when Soda Stereo visited the MTV studios there to record their now legendary MTV Unplugged session in 1996, ultimately titled Comfort Y Música Para Volar. If I had I would have pulled every string and cashed in every favor to be there for that mystical performance. Alas!

This version of Soda's "En la ciudad de la furia" -- their classic ode to Buenos Aires, their hometown -- is like honey laced with LSD sliding down the neck of a guitar. Sweet, slow, deliberate, psychedelic. Add Aterciopelados singer Andrea Echeverri to the vocal mix and it becomes as all consuming, seductive, and tough as Echeverri and Soda lead singer Gustavo Cerati were back then, two voices at the very top of mid-1990s Latin American rock hierarchy.

This is a drastically different version from the original version of this tune. I like them both, but this one knocks me on my ass every time. I fondly remember having the whole unplugged record on repeat years later while working long hours, late into the night, in my basement darkroom preparing prints for a small exhibition of black and white photos. Comfort Y Música Para Volar played over and over again for weeks in the darkness, its mark now more treasured and immutable than any of the prints I made during that time.

Un hombre alado prefiere la noche...

I really dig this live version of "El Rogadero" by Banda de Turistas. What starts as a simple tune with a killer group vocal flourishes into a psychedelic-era laced groove. The layers reveal themselves with each pass: the ghosts of forty-year-old harmonies, a fuzzy rhythm gliding over the drumbeats, crisp strums from one guitar, succinct embellishments from the other. Their influences are their foundation but who they are and what they sound like is of the here and now.

Hay pero claro, todo esta bien
todo esta bien, si tu cuento es moderno
proximamente, otra canción
que nunca van a ser respondiéndole a todo

They won't concern themselves with things they can't control, be it detractors or blind faith. Banda de Turistas do their thing and do it well. This live run-through of "El Rogadero" proves it.