Friday, August 22, 2008

Santino's Two Sides, Revisited

More on the lineup for La Fiesta del Pueblo...

This is my favorite pull quote from the Indyweek interview I did with Santino in August, 2006:

"I'm not going to deny that it was a very crazy rock 'n' roll life. The chicks and all that stuff, I really don't focus on all of that. I'm not a sexual object. I'm a Gemini."

--Santino in Indy Weekly, 8/2/06

If there are two sides to Santino, the Peruvian heavy metal rocker vs. craftsman of a more cosmopolitan Latin pop, I'm going to have a hard time choosing. The latest from the Santino camp is that his album, Indiocumentado, has been released by Milan/Time Warner, and they are pushing a new video single, "Nadie Es Como Tu" (his Sting cover of "Every Breath You Take").

Personally, I'm more entranced by the videos of Santino singing with Fragil, the band that catapulted him to fame in Peru as a teenager. I can't tell if this is recent reunion footage (?) or vintage '90s TV--and maybe that's a good thing:



Living in L.A., Santino's solo stuff now incorporates gypsy violins, reggaeton, rap, ska, dance, salsa/tropical and of course Andean sounds. His recent incarnation, and likely about what you will experience at La Fiesta, looks more like this:



He really is a Gemini.

1 comment:

Sylvia P. said...

Santino's brother Pepe tells me that the video "La Noche," linked to "recent reunion footage?" is in fact a Fragil reunion in Lima, Peru in 2/07.