Accustomed to making his way like a tributary throughout his career, Sergio Arau is preparing a new creative adventure, and it has to do with cinema. The director, plastic artist, composer and musician prepares a documentary about the legendary Rockotitlán, a place that saw the birth of one of the most fruitful periods of rock made in our country.
In interview with the daythe former member of Botellita de Jerez, reveals that he already has the action plan and the precise idea of what he wants to say.
He points out that it is a project that will gather material “from the first five years in which the members of Botellita de Jerez –Francisco Barrios the cress, Armando Vega Gil and himself–, we were the owners; my brother Fernando and the sound engineer Thierry Goethals, too.
“Since the beginning of Botellita de Jerez, in 1983, a natural movement was generated that included Real de Catorce, Rockdrigo González, Jaime López, Ritmo Peligroso and Kenny and The Electrics. It was a change of energy”, assures Arau.
“I feel that the identity of Mexican rock was defined there. If you listen to Soda Stéreo, you know it’s Argentine rock; or a Spanish group like Radio Futura. Although groups like Caifanes, Botellita de Jerez, Fobia and Maldita Vecindad are different, whoever listens to them from the outside knows that it is Mexican rock. And in Rockotitlán that was forged.”
When the bottles They were in that forum, he said, “we demanded that whoever played do so in Spanish, with original music, it was a requirement.”
He recalled that “on March 18, 1986 we held a ceremony to expropriate Mexican rock. We read a decree, there are photos there”.
Sergio Arau explains that the idea for the documentary arose when the project was underway Rock in your symphonic language, before the pandemic, “and look, in the dressing rooms the number of anecdotes that everyone told about Rockotitlán was impressive. I have a lot of data, anecdotes and I am putting them together”.
For that, he acknowledged, “I am looking for a good distribution, because doing the interviews is very easy, I can even do them by phone, but after having left Break everything –documentary miniseries that demonstrates part of the history of rock in Latin America–, you realize that when you have good distribution, it is impressive”.
In the same vein, he asserts that he already has planned talks with those who played at some point on that stage that marked an entire era in the Mexican sound scene. “There will be those who participated in Rock in your symphonic language: Neón, Sabo Romo, Pyro, Phobia, Cove of Hidden Faces, Bon from The Enemies of Silence and my anecdotes and the Cress”.
For that, he is refining the idea because “I don’t want it to be the classic interview documentary, but rather that the anecdotes themselves tell you everything. And in the end, there would have to be a concert, ”he said.
Regarding his next performance on stage, Sergio Arau talks about his recital hit and runtheatrical music show, which he presents today at the El Vicio bar, in the company of his accomplices Yareli Arizmendi, Jorge Velazco, Olinka, Ruy Velazco, Emir Bucio and Alex Altamirano, with whom he takes what he calls the hit parade of classical music and transmutes them into cumbiones, rap, reggaeton or grunge, or cabaret themes.
In this regard, Arau explains: “it’s a project that I’ve been working on since 2000, when I started making demos, and with a multigenerational group.
“It’s not pure rock, it has a lot of baroque music and arrangements. It’s very theatrical, somewhere between Les Luthiers, Monty Python and Botellita de Jerez. It is between rock, cabaret, tent in which “there is a lot of humor, improvisation, as with the bottles”.
Also used to changing his creative skin, Sergio Arau agrees that he can fall out of love with his own works, always for the sake of exploring new creative avenues. “I always try to look for it, that there is something that is not said or that is unusual. It is something that excites me, that is a constant in everything I do”. Your movie A day without mexicans is the sample button.
The cartoonist also indicates that although at the beginning of his path in the arts he had influences and honored other creators, he also separated from the herd very early on. “I feel that trying to do something different, I have always brought it, although I was not aware; In the caricature I do it very consciously: even if they were the same themes, political, of the day, I tried to make them different, more poetic than that of the other colleagues”.
Sergio Arau pauses in the talk and recalls: “My father –the filmmaker Alfonso Arau– made a Show cabaret and for that he formed a group called Los Tepetatles; the lyrics were from my father and Carlos Monsiváis; the musicians were Los Rebeldes del Rock; the set design by José Luis Cuevas; the cover design by Vicente Rojo; it was a very sophisticated thing.
“It was a parody. Sometimes they tell me, your dad influenced you in rock, and you won’t believe it but he made fun of rock; he hated it and the mockery of him was that record, and we in Botellita de Jerez played tlalocmanwhich was one of the songs”, he concludes.
In Rockotitlán a movement was generated that forged Mexican rock: Sergio Arau