Rock n' Roll Fanzine Fights Prejudice
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA, Dec 8 (IPS) - For eight years, Michel and Alexander Sánchez have
been publishing Scriptorium, a fanzine (fan magazine) dedicated to rock
music produced within Cuba and abroad, in a society that resists
accepting this genre and its fans as part of the national culture.
Although the worst hostility against the rock n' roll community is in
the past, fans of rock music still lack enough venues for their concerts
and gatherings, and support from the cultural authorities continues to
be minimal and sporadic.
"We began in 1999, when local fanzines were produced on typewriters,
then mounted on pages, photocopied and stapled by hand. Nevertheless
they were conceptually rich and showed the enthusiasm of their authors,"
Michel Sánchez told IPS.
"We planned then for Scriptorium to come out regularly, with a different
look, and to have a staff of writers, designers and people on the
technical side," the university student said.
"We had to charge for the magazine to pay for all this, because we
couldn't depend forever on favours. That set us apart from the other
fanzines," he said. Thanks to its self-financing, Scriptorium has
survived the passage of years, while the number of similar magazines has
fallen from 15 in the 1990s to only three today.
With the help of friends, every three or four months they print their
fanzine and distribute it at rock concerts or festivals. Their print run
varies from 100 copies to the "heroic" number of 750, according to "los
jimaguas" (the twins), as the Sánchez brothers are known.
"The aim is to promote Cuban rock and offer constructive criticism of
the bands' material," said Alexander Sánchez. Interviews with foreign
groups, with whom the young men have kept in touch by correspondence
over the last decade, also appear frequently in the pages of Scriptorium.
"At first we focused mostly on heavy metal because the groups playing it
had more difficulty getting promoted in the media. But then we realised
that they were all facing the same kind of obstacles to publicity, the
same privations and prejudice," said Alexander, an English teacher.
In the 1960s the Cuban media, which is controlled by the state,
virtually eliminated broadcasts of rock or any other music in English,
because it was considered "the language of the enemy," according to
Cuban journalist Ernesto Juan Castellanos in his paper titled "El
diversionismo ideológico del rock, la moda y los enfermitos" (The
ideological diversionism of rock, fashion and weirdos).
Four decades on, appearances by rock groups on television are still
quite restricted, while radio stations implement policies that limit
broadcasting of songs in English.
"I think Cuban society has changed, but not that much," said Alexander,
while recognising that his long hair and his musical tastes have not
caused him any trouble at his job in the National School of Art,
although on the streets he may be called "friki" (freak), "a disparaging
term to denigrate 'low-lifes'.
"Society does not give us enough room to be seen as human beings instead
of judging us according to the music we listen to. They should mount
campaigns to promote respect for differences, acceptance of people for
who they are, and not for what they wear, their sexual orientation or
their musical preferences," he said.
"Rock music has become associated with drugs and with alienation of the
individual. If you are not tattooed, nor a criminal, they think you are
not a rock fan," said 31-year-old Michel.
"To be a rock fan is to love the music above all else, beyond the
aesthetics, the behaviour and the detrimental associations that go
against its essence, which is the freedom to be non-conformist," he
stressed.
Intolerance against members of the rock community reached its peak in
the late 1960s, when "many self-identified 'Fatherland or Death
revolutionaries'" organised in groups that attacked young people whose
appearance they resented, forcibly shaving their heads, slashing their
tight trousers and beating them with impunity, Castellanos says in his
paper.
Decades later, a bronze statue of John Lennon sits in a Havana park, and
every weekend there are rock concerts in the Maxim Rock theatre. But
police are still suspicious of the crowds of dark-clothed young people
with long hair who gather in the city centre, and the legendary
meeting-place of "rockeros" on this Caribbean island, María's Patio,
remains closed.
The place was open for more than a decade in a community cultural centre
at the initiative of María Gattorno, a cultural organiser. It closed its
doors in 2003, on the pretext of undergoing repairs, and with no further
explanation it disappeared as a cultural venue.
Michel and Alexander view the present state of Cuban rock with some
pessimism. Inaction in the face of the closure of María's Patio, and of
censorship of groups like Porno para Ricardo because of their
anti-establishment lyrics, have raised the question of whether a
national rock movement united around a common goal exists, they said.
Meanwhile, they say that Scriptorium will continue to come out, and they
devote most of their free time to the magazine, because of their
commitment to the Cuban rock scene and especially to their readers.
"We will carry on with the magazine, in spite of all the blows that life
has dealt us, with or without blows, digitally or in print," said
Michel. "It's something we discovered through rock music, and one of the
most beautiful things that has happened to us." (END/2008)
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