Since the beginning of the millennium Martin Martines has been kicking clubs, clubs, stadiums and festivals in front of Crazy eyes, one of the most persistent bands in the universe of the rawest rock and roll made in Argentina. But since 2018 the tango bug began to bite him and, in parallel to the activity of the band in which he sings, he developed a project in which he unites his two musical passions and puts his last name at the forefront.
“Sometimes one says: ‘I want to do such and such a thing’ and the idea is before the project. With a rock band, when putting it together, there is a certain projection before getting together for the first time in a room. And with this project it was the opposite of that. Because as the race with Ojos Locos progressed, I came across musicians with whom we were jamming and suddenly a tango came out. Or we started stopping at a milonga that was a departure from the kids who were in the area. Club Atlético Fernández Fierro. And well, it happened,” Martín tells Teleshownow as a singer of Martines Tango & Rollwith which he has just released his second album that has the subtitle “Viaje 2″.
“Tango accompanied me since I was a child, in my house, because of my old man. And I was always seduced by the poetic part and the stories of the characters of the generation of 40, all those poets with a social vision. But musically I was far away, because I was developing other music, with other tools, other instruments, and I was very used to that. And with tango you move to a more acoustic format, another sound, other spaces, another way… Well, tango does not have any percussive instrument. And everything happened singing. During some after-dinner hours he would paint the guitar and the various repertoires would begin, beginning to sing a little national rock, then a little tango. And there I think I began to feel that I was comfortable with the interpretation: in tango interpretation is fundamental.”says.
This mix of repertoires is evident in the volumes “Voyage 1” (published in 2020) and the brand new 2: the “Melodías de arrabal” (Carlos Gardel and Alfredo Le Pera), the “Riachuelo Fog” (Juan Carlos Cobian and Enrique Cadícamo) and “Like two strangers” (Contursi) are mixed with themes of Patricio Rey and his Ricotta Rounds (“A Pacman at the Savoy”, “Psycho Engine”, with Patricio Santos Fontanet guest), Skay Beilinson (“Ode to the Nameless One”) or Strays (“Fantasy and Reality”, “July 9”), but also with his own compositions. Everything recorded live, in a few takes and just a handful of overdubs.
“Argentine rock has a direct influence from tango that manages to put high poetry into the music. The tango is talking all the time, it is telling you, it is telling you. And I realized that I was beginning to feel comfortable, that I was reaching another sentimental chord, too, when interpreting those songs,” Martín analyzes.
As he said, the project “found him” and did not form him; In addition, it runs parallel to Ojos Locos, who is working on an album that they will release in 2025. “One day a friend who was at the Tango World Cup in Ushuaia called me, and told me that they were with a kid who played the violin, the best tango and roll violinist, they called him, half that they were charging him because he had a tattoo of Crazy Eyes. He is Manuel Quiroga, an eminence in tango, plays classical music at the Colón. They pass me the phone and he tells me: ‘I’ve been seeing you since I was a kid,’” she remembers. Musicians began to appear here and there and, in addition to Quiroga, he consolidated the formation with Gabriel Gerez (on acoustic piano and keyboards), Marcos Fernandez (bandoneon) and Tincho Morales (acoustic guitar, acoustic bass and percussion).
“There is music that you can spend six months in a room, or a year making an album, playing. But tango has an urgency of the stage. So it wasn’t that we spent months preparing the repertoire. We immediately said what we wanted to play. And before I realized it, the wave had taken me away,” she says.
Martín says that he sees this transition to tango from rock as a “natural continuation.” And he tries a logical explanation by saying that “national rock is an evolution of tango in the sense that we must talk about music from the city of Buenos Aires, which was translated as its social and cultural context changed.” , was adapting to different instrumentations, to ways of making that music. But that music is the feeling of the spirit of the city. There is a certain poetics that is linked to the vision of the urban and social landscape that, at some point, does not age.”
At the same time, he believes that the music that is fashionable today also has to do with that lineage, that heritage. “At one time, all this trap or urban invasion that we know in Argentina, I imagine that you will also find your greatest identity with respect to the city and the country. It’s not going to seem like something they send us from outside. We process it and see what comes out. You have to give things time. There are a lot of problems that tango repeats, rock repeats, trap repeats, hip-hop repeats… All things that have to do with what happens to us as a society. There is a thread that, if you can see it a little further, you realize that it unites many artists,” he analyzes.
“It’s good to take ownership of the city, of all that baggage of tango and rock behind it. Traditions must be revisited, because they have to do with a kind of ritual that history has. That doesn’t mean you have to do what tradition dictates.“, says Martín and reflects: “Society does not need to be reinvented forward, we have to try to reinvent ourselves backwards, because if not it is a collective suicide of the planet. Everything is fine with artificial intelligence, I hope it helps us, gives us tools, But it seems to me that we have to stop running behind the novelty all the time and not lose sight of the fact that art is there to make something beautiful and something moving.above all things”.
“We have to slow down a little this race forward, which corresponds more to a market logic to sell us new things all the time, but it does not respond to what human logic would be. If not, you fall into the logic of the algorithm: soon they will ask us to make one single per day. Or that the songs last 50 seconds. Sometimes it seems that the artist ends up becoming a reel or in a tiktok”, he ironizes.
In that fight against the algorithm, Martines rescued two ricotera gems for this new album. On the one hand, “Psycho Motor”, a classic by October (1986), which he covered with Patricio Santos Fontanetvocalist of Don Osvaldoex Strays. “We share a generation, a few years apart. And we come from the same cultural, social and musical imagination, which has to do with the fact that the basal stone is the Redondos. We met when we started with Ojos Locos. He was with Callejeros and we saw each other at the recitals, flying. At that time there was a lot of camaraderie among the rest of the bands that at that time were already big, conveners. He is a fan of tango and every time we saw each other, we started singing tangos with a guitar. When I started the Tango & Roll project he supported me a lot, he told me that what we were doing was great. So I told him: ‘Well, you have to come sing a song’ and he suggested doing ‘Psycho Motor’.
—Did you have any decision about the version they made?
-Yeah. We did a version with the band and I sent it to him to see what he said. She told me that she liked her but he proposed something to me: “Why don’t we do something as a duo like Gardel and Razzano did? Because otherwise we do the same thing as always, that I sing one verse, you another… It’s the same as when we go as guests with a rock group.” Then he proposed another voice to me, we tried it and the truth is that it’s good. They are two well-crafted, accomplished voices, placed on the right plane and they give it another flight, another harmony.
—What did he tell you about the versions they made of “Fantasía y Verdad” and “9 de Julio”, CJS songs?
—We didn’t cover “Fantasia y Verdad” much because it was already a tango. For me it is a great song that seems from the 40’s. What yes, it is played more with tango instruments because they, at the time they made it, recorded it with the instruments they had as a rock band. We did put more effort into “9 de Julio”: we changed the ending, with other instrumentation, other chords and it was more dramatic, without the common ending of a rock song, as the original has. He was very excited and happy because it is a song that has more than one reading and it is one of those songs where the music and lyrics work perfectly. That music was what had to be written. We wanted to get away from the cliché of saying: “We’re going to do ‘9 de Julio’, come sing it yourself.” Everyone already heard that song sung by him, so he proposed to me to find something that identifies both of us. And that’s where the topic of the Redondos came up.
—Did you receive any feedback on the Redondos versions or “Ode to the Nameless One,” Skay’s song?
-I have a relationship with Sky and the Black Poly of many years. They came to see us once, before the pandemic, and we were already doing “A Pacman at the Savoy.” We greeted each other before the show and I didn’t say anything to them. After the show, he came to greet us again, we stayed chatting and suddenly he told me: “What a good version of ‘Pacman’.” And he told me that this was a matter of Bang! Bang! You are liquidated (1989) for which he was very fond. And now I’m going to go to his house soon with this record, because he has a ritual of saying: “Gather monkeys to listen to a record.” There is no such thing as “send me on WhatsApp”, they only have a telephone with an answering machine. So I’m going to make you listen to it. And for me it is special because it is a very emblematic topic in his career and I know that it is also very significant in their lives. I really want to see him because when he and La Negra open their hearts to you, you feel that everything can flow. At no time do you feel like they have to open four armored doors for you because you are coming to see the Pope.
—Of course, it’s like you get together with your uncles.
—Exactly, as if you hung out with your older uncle who has the same language as you. They have never had a word where they have made us feel a difference. They always listen to you, they are always eager. Several months go by when you don’t see him and they tell you: “Well, you speak first, tell me”… And they always give you that space that makes it very easy for you, because he is never in the position “I am Skay Beilinson” . He is some kind of Jedi. It’s a pleasure because he often invites me to listen to his new album before he comes out and suddenly asks: “And what did you think of that?” (laughs). Even when he came to record an album Crazy eyes, he asked us if we liked the solo he had played. “Hey, stop, let’s do another take, so we leave a couple of takes and then we choose. “Do you think it’s going that way?” he told us. And I was sitting next to him thinking, “Is this real?” And humility doesn’t stop you.
—After “Journey 1” and “Journey 2,” is there a third volume coming?
—This album is like a closing of Tango & Roll, because it was the search. I think that this entire first stage, from 2018 until now, was about seeking consolidation between the musicians that make it up and the repertoire. Because I think that the best way to present yourself as an artist is live. I think that was reflected in these albums. The idea going forward is to start preparing a new album that has more of my own compositions. Surely you will continue to have those choices within the folklore of tango and national rock because we love it. But I feel that we reached a point where we find the function of each one. And for me it is not minor because it is what gives genuineness to the band. And it gives it, in some way, an originality, within something that is not original, so to speak.
