Independent production is always under the imminence of falling in the common place and the easy exit. When we’re talking about aggressive, extreme and brutal music it seems almost impossible to escape from it. Disorder and regress. These simple antonyms from the motto in the Brazilian flag sound like a cliché for a punk band. But when you analyze “who”, “when” and specially “where” and “why” (or “because”) we see something else, different and filled with meaning.

D.E.R., or simply Thiago, Henrique, Barata and Renato. Four guys coming from the ESS (Extreme South Side) as they and their friends refer to the faraway suburbs in São Paulo. The cradle, the pre-bridge universe were you can see in the morning fog the steel and glass towers of Brooklin, and the grey skyline of Avenida Paulista. Which seems impossible to traverse, a dorm-city for doormen and maids who serve the post-bridge world. Isolated by the Pinheiros River, as if this was a medieval moat from another world. They could write only about the themes that are common to hardcore in general, and they sometimes do. Like any other band from England, the USA or any other country with a balanced economy has done. Or like many Brazilian bands regarded as classic have done. But here their living, their experience and most of all their survival have a strong meaning when related to the music they make, and how they make it. Here, the real abyss between praxis and theory exists. Between branding and the real scar, the one that wasn’t chosen to adorn the skin.

When the eyes behind Thiago’s glasses squeeze and his mouth opens wide and roars, not only a bellow comes out, but also the fear and the testified account as seen by his eyes. In the same way the strings, beaten by Henrique and Renato have learned to transform the distortion from crappy amps and cheap equipment into the chaos mass. The same goes for Barata, who employs the unruly and stopless speed on the drums, with drumsticks that can’t be followed by the naked eye, like a living metaphor of social DISORDER.

Because this is Brazil. Like a classic LP. Full of ugly cutouts, made from a world you don’t see on tv during prime time. One not presented by William Bonner or attended by victims of assistive programs. It’s a Brazil that’s told and seen in a chaotic, unfiltered, violent way. That has shell casings and smells like the Pinheiros river. That talks about setbacks, REGRESS, that walks backwards. Coming against the positive view of the Republic in the past and the neoliberalism of nowadays. Against the flow of what's expected from public politics and games of power. Which personifies, in the form of a band, four “brown” boys from the suburbs who, against all odds, and using their own, got together to play in the late nineties. A living tribute to the true punk that arose in this same sick metropolis after the military regime. Which shows that even the most evident of the clichés can be used, recreated and placed in a new creative way, and even better. Realistic, serving anger, frustration and excellent music.

By Marcelo F.
March/2008

Contacts:
www.myspace.com/derpunk
www.cospefogo.com

click here to see pictures of D.E.R. and here to read reviews.