Argentina has one of the most vibrant and bustling underground music scenes in the world, a maze of bands, venues and musicians that can be overwhelming for the uninitiated.
Las Visitas, a new project on crowd funding site Ideame, pairs 24 journalists with 24 bands to produce a survey of the independent music scene in Argentina and a guide for its exploration.
"Unpluged" (Image courtsey of Santi Pozzi)
The project commissions a renowned journalist to follow a group of musicians of their choice for an extended period of time and produce an in-depth portrait. Las Visitas will publish the collection of articles as a 400-page book with the intention of painting an extensive picture of the underground music scene in Argentina.
Las Visitas describes itself on its website as “the most ambitious and dense independent editorial project in the history of the Argentine underground scene.”.
The journalists involved are in agreement. “This is more than just an article. The length allows to go much more in depth and by following one band for a while you get to see and feel a lot more things than during an interview,” explains Nicolás Miranda, a music journalist and presenter at Radio Nacional FM who follows Morbo y Mambo for the project.
Live music (Photo courtsey of Pablo Occhiuzzi)
The idea is for the book to be written by those who understand the intricacies and subtlety of the Buenos Aires music scene the best, those who are able to reveal the complicity of small bars and parties far from the mainstream and share it with their readers.
These are journalists and writers who by profession turn what they see, feel and hear into words but who also by pure passion and curiosity are always on the look out for new sounds and experiences.
The idea for Las Visitas came from editor Juan Manuel Daza, who first experimented with poetry before becoming a successful rock journalist, and later helping to fund a publishing company and creating the Rocanpoetry Festival. He has also written for major publications Clarín and Rolling Stone and has two radio programs on Nacional Rock. Daza says he hopes Las Visitas will be the first in a series that would extend beyond Argentina’s borders and include artists from across Latin America.
Las Visitas aims to go to print in December. It offers various packages for pre-sale on the Latin American crowdfunding platform idea.me. These include one or several books, invitations to the launch party, and even having your name printed in the book as one of the contributors.
There are only a few days left to support this project – to donate or find more info click: http://idea.me/proyecto/285/lasvisitas
