Book compiles stories of Brazilian rock as a manual for beginners in the genre
Cover of the book 'This guy from rock'n'roll - 50 essential stories of Brazilian rock'
Art by Bruno Drummond / Bloco Narrativo
♫ BOOK REVIEW
Title: This guy from rock'n'roll - 50 essential stories from Brazilian rock
Author: Fabricio Mazocco
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♬ Next time Friday, June 12th, the group Kid Abelha returns to the scene with the tour "I had a dream". This is not a reunion between the band from Rio and the original lineup because Paula Toller's rapprochement with Leoni - founding member of Kid and co-author of the hits on the group's first two albums - is unfeasible in the face of dissonances that intensified 40 years ago when, on February 23, 1986, Paula injured Leoni's face with a tambourine in a heated discussion in a dressing room, after the group's show, in a fight that included Leo Jaime (the target of Leoni's initial fury) and Herbert Vianna (Paula's then boyfriend).
Not even time would alleviate the dissonances, as Leoni and Paula often face each other in court over copyright issues relating to the use of songs they composed together.
This story is recounted in a casual manner by journalist Fabricio Mazocco in "A pandeirada", chapter 31 of the book "Esse tal de rock'n'roll - 50 essential stories of Brazilian rock", released this June by the Rio de Janeiro publisher Máquina de Livros.
Strictly speaking, Mazocco offers a fluent manual for those who want to get started in Brazilian rock by compiling 50 events of the genre in a chronological timeline that goes from 1955 - the year in which the Rio de Janeiro samba-song singer Nora Ney (1922 - 2003) recorded in English "Rock around the clock" (Max Freedman and James Myers, 1954), a seminal rock'n'roll released the previous year by the singer American Bill Haley (1925 - 1981) - until the current 2026, a year of tours that reunite bands such as Barão Vermelho and the aforementioned Kid Abelha, including Jovem Guarda, Secos & Molhados and Rita Lee (1947 - 2023), whose arrest in 1976 deserves a separate chapter.
The book's greatest asset is the lightness of the text. The chapters are short and never delve into the intricacies of each story. However, within the intentional superficiality of the texts, there is a chronology that, if the chapters are read in sequence in the book (and not randomly, as is also possible), the beginning reader will have a reasonable idea of the paths of Brazilian rock from the underground of the 1970s to the more diffuse rock of the 1990s, mixed with other genres by groups such as Charlie Brown Jr. and O Rappa.
Following this path, Mazocco contextualizes the formation and appearance of bands such as Aborto Elétrico, Blitz - whose chapter ends with the riot promoted by the dissident Lobão in the executive room of the record label RCA - and Barão Vermelho, among others.
In tune with the lack of concentration (and time for reading) of generation Z, immersed in the fleeting nature of social networks, the book "Esse tal de rock'n'roll - 50 essential stories of Brazilian rock" aims to tell quick stories, in an unpretentious way. It's as if each chapter was a pill. Perhaps this is why it will even find a readership refractory to more in-depth narratives.
Source: G1