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"The Cars" in Rocha??

rocha 80s music small restaurant la esmeralda
I am not sure why, but it is very clear that Uruguay (at least Montevideo) is in love with music of from the eighties. I don't mean only Spanish music either. Groups like Blondie, Queen, Climie Fisher (who?), Marillion (again, who?), etc. These past few days I spent time in a small, very small, beach town in the county of Rocha.

There was only one little restuarant to spend time in (well, that was on the main road), and above was the view from my little table while I listened to some great, horrible, and unknown 80s tunes. My Uruguayan friend was singing almost all of the words to songs I have never even heard before (and thankfully, because their sounds were painful for me).

It was really a bit surreal hearing some of the songs here (including Stone Temple Pilots...something I haven't heard forever but hold very dearly to my high school years in California).

Again, not kidding about their love for the 80s. On August 24th, each year, young, old and all people from Montevideo come out to celebrate the music of the 80s. Fascinating.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another reason to love Uruguay! The 80s RULE!!!

Anonymous said...

Two keys to understand some things here: we believe that in the past everything was better than today...the music was better, the gov was better, the weather was better, people left their houses unlocked, etc. LIES. And we strongly believe that things are better outisde this tiny country. We believe that people in the States and Europe live happily consuming all kind of things, earning lots of money in beatiful lanscapes. Because almost everybody here has a grandfather who came here from the old Europe running away from hunger, poverty and war...and they were homesick here. So generation after generation our seniors lived missing the old things and the good old days in the little farm in Italy or Spain,and we learnt to live missing things...you see, the tango is a sad music, always rememberin old times. Also the candombe is nostalgic, do you know? When they play the drums they are calling another drummers, like a tam tam telegraph...the candombe drummers are calling Africa, their music is the only thing they bring along with them in the slave ships 300 yrs ago.
And as we believe old things are better than the brand new ones, you will see many old cars doing everyday work in the streets, running flawlessly, many Ford T like new, many WWII jeeps in their original state and so on. If you didnt yet, take a look at the Tristán Narvaja flea market on sunday mornings and you will see how we love old stuff...and how much we pay for it
Best regards, keep posting!
Mau
Sorry for the long comment :)

Dom said...

Please, please don't apologize for the length of that comment. Fantastic, intriguing, made complete sense, and I want to read more of it! Are there any books, other reading material, your blog, etc. that I can get my eyes on?

You rule Mau.

Dominic