LOS YOUNG BEATS

 

 

THE TIMES THEY ARE A - CHANGING

The History of Colombian beat band LOS YOUNG BEATS

 

In the sixties, thousands of beat bands sprang up in all parts of the world in a bid for fame and fortune in the wake of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The countries of South America were affected just as much as their northern neighbours. Amazing recordings have gradually emerged from the southerncontinent in recent decades, and we are now aware of many of the obscure names and sounds of the South American sixties scene. But the stories of most of these bands remain untold.

Italian-born Roberto Fiorilli lived in Bogotà, Colombia during the swinging sixties and was the drummer in Los Young Beats. The band recorded their sole LP in 1967, a highly coveted collectors’ item today. With another band, the Time Machine, Fiorilli recorded a largely unknown 7-inch EP as well.
  
Still a musician today, he fondly remembers the musical scene of Colombia in the sixties...

I was born in Garrovano, Italy in 1944. My dad worked in the electronics industry and went to Argentina in 1948. Me and the rest of my family followed him one year later. In 1955 my father found a new job in the Colombian branch of Olivetti and our family moved to the country’s capital city, Bogotà. The only musical experiences of my early adolescence were some piano lessons during high school. After school I started studying electronics. My dad’s interest in electronics and music led him to construct hi-fi equipment and components for amplifiers. My musical career started when I went with my dad to take a woofer to a band that I had seen on TV – Los Flippers. I was already familiar with the beat phenomenon, named “Yeh Yeh” or “Go-Go Music” in Latin America, but on that particular day, I became conquered by it. At that opportunity I met Alvaro Diaz, a singer without a group. We decided to start a beat band together. I didn’t have a drum set at that time and learned to play with fork and knife on plates and glass at home. Of course, all my family hated me for these “practice sessions”. So I finally decided to buy a drum set. An original Ludwig was very hard to find and too expensive for my empty pockets. So I went to a craftsman who did a home-made imitation of a Ludwig drum set for me. Miguel and Ernesto Suarez soon joined on bass & guitar, and Alvaro came up with the name for our band: LOS YOUNG BEATS.
In our early days our equipment was more than modest. Miguel had a bass built out of parts of a telephone box and Ernesto’s guitar was an imitation of a Fender Strat. Our musical experience was practically none. On the radio you could hear bands from Mexico and Argentina doing Spanish-sung covers of UK and US rock‘n’roll stuff. Our favourite bands instead were the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Them and the Small Faces, and we wanted to play THEIR songs.

The first important live appearance we had was at Radio 1020 in Bogotà. This was followed by a lot of calls from people who wanted to know “who is this new band?” Even Alfonso Lizaroso, the mind behind “Juventud Moderna”, a program on national TV, showed interest. From that day on our popularity grew and we were mentioned in the company of already-famous Colombian sixties bands such as Los Speakers, Los Flippers, Los Ampex and Los Yetis.

With this recognition, we started to play in discotheques and nightclubs and became regulars at the parties in the social clubs. One day, our manager Pedro Schambon was contacted by Eduardo Calle of Disco Bambuco, a local record company. They had already had success releasing two LPs by another “Go-Go” band, Los Speakers and were interested in recording an album with us as well. The label’s producer, Santander Diaz, wanted us to record the usual hits of the day, but we had our own ideas. After long discussions we came to a good compromise: we could choose 10 songs and Diaz only the remaining three. A big victory for us that made us very proud! At that stage Alvaro had already left the band. Our new singer was Fernando Cordoba, who also played guitar. I accidentally had met him in a pullman while he was singing Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”. People looked at him as if he was crazy! Also, Ferdy Fernandez joined on second guitar and made our band a five piece.

Our recording sessions started in November 1966 in the studios of Suramericana de Grabaciones in Bogotà. Sr. Benavides was our sound engineer; the tape recorders and the mixer were Telefunken, while the mikes were Newman and RCA. The recording studio was an echo room with acoustic labyrinth. Ferdy had a semi-acoustic Giannini guitar, Fernando a Framus guitar, Ernesto a Teisco guitar from Japan, Miguel an Eko bass and I had an American Hollywood drum set, black with little stars. The recordings took three weeks and then they sent the master tape to Miami to have it cut. But it was returned as it was out of phase and unusable. So we had to go back to the studio to record the LP all over again!

Meanwhile, Ernesto Suarez suddenly had to quit for family reasons. Since the photo session for the album was already done, Ernesto is pictured on the cover, even though on the second recording of the LP Ferdy played lead guitar and Fernando took over on second guitar. This time things worked well and the LP finally came out in March 1967, titled “Tiempos, ellos estan cambiando” (Bambuco 4019). The title is a Spanish translation of Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changing”. It seemed to us that it perfectly reflects what was going on during this period.

Bambuco Records neglected to release a 45 to help promote the album. An EP with 4 LP tracks came out, but not until several months later. But the album sold very well anyway. Due to the contract we had signed, we didn’t earn much money from it. Not long after the release of the LP, Ferdy left the band without saying a word. For a short while Fred Samson of the Walflower Complextion joined us as a guitar player.

But soon after, Los Young Beats broke up.
Around that time I started to see that music was changing. New influences caught my ear through Jimi Hendrix, Cream and the Butterfield Blues Band. Another famous local band that I liked a lot, and that had already changed their musical direction, was Los Ampex. I greatly admired the style of their lead guitar player, Oscar Lasprilla and their bassist, Yamel Uribe. After Los Ampex split, Oscar (lead guitar), Yamel (second guitar), Miguel Suarez (bass) Fernando Cordoba (vocals) and me (drums) formed the TIME MACHINE. Our start was very promising. Carlos Pinzon, announcer of the TV program “Telestrella” on Channel 7, featured us on his show and arranged for a night job at the Bomba, a discotheque devoted to the new musical style of the time. People wanted to dance, so we played dance songs at the beginning of our set.
 

Then we started to play more heavy stuff. During the night, musicians from other bands came to see us after they finished their own shows. Rather quickly, the Time Machine became a band to please fellow musicians rather than people who wanted to dance!

Our recognition among other bands brought us again to the attention of Alfonso Lizaraso. Besides his TV show, Alfonso also did a radio show titled “Radio 15” on the Caracol Channel and with Alberto Meija, he ran a discotheque called El Inferno. Meija was a famous advertising man who also worked for one of the candidates in the presidential campaign. Alfonso had us playing at El Inferno and our show was filmed live for TV. The line-up now was me, Oscar Lasprilla, Fernando Cordoba and Yamel Uribe. Miguel had left the band by this time. The show was a big success and Lizaroso asked us to record 4 songs for the Disco 15 label in the Daro International studios. It was a very small place located right in the centre of Bogotà. They had an RCA mixer, Ampex 4-track recorder, Newman mikes and some new AKG mikes for the drums. I recorded the EP with a pearl Ludwig classic; Oscar played my Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar, Yamel a Fender Jazz bass, Fernando a Fender Telecaster. The session was very short as we had often played all 4 songs live and knew them very well. It took us only 2-3 takes for each song. We used Vox amps that we had from the last line-up of Los Young Beats, as well as a Westminster and an Essex bass amp, plus a Buckingham amp we had bought from the Walflower Complextion.
The EP was titled “Blow Up” (Disco 15 EP 124-002) and came out in December 1967. At that stage, The Time Machine had already begun to fade away. Since we didn’t want to be a dance band anymore, we didn’t have enough appearances to make a real living out of our music. So Yamel quit and went to Spain, with the intention to play with Los Pekenikes. Then Los Speakers were looking for a new drummer and a new guitar player. Oscar and me joined them for a South American tour. This marks the end of the Time Machine. Everyone who saw us play said that we were the best band around, but way back then, it was hard to get jobs for the kind of music we played!

After touring with Los Speakers, I recorded two psychedelic albums with them: “Same” (Bambuco DB 4026) and “En El Maravilloso Mundo De Ingeson” (Kryss Records KS 430336 1/5 HP). The latter was also released in Mexico on Polydor. Upon leaving Los Speakers, I started to produce other artists, which along with playing on tours with the “in-fashion” bands of the moment, became my main source of income until 1973. In those days I understood that if you want to play music professionally, you must learn to sell yourself, even if you aren’t the best. And I understood that I never was really able to do that well. My love and feeling for MY music was simply stronger.

With Ferdy, I played again years later in early line-ups of Siglo Cero and Columna de Fuego. Fernando helped us with Los Speakers especially when we played live. Later he moved to Mexico to study cinema. He died in the ‘90s. Alvaro still lives in Bogotà and works as a phonetics teacher. Miguel lives in Barraquilla. I never saw or heard from Ernesto again. In 1973 I left Colombia to tour Europe with Columna De Fuego. After the tour I returned to Italy and founded Suite Collectiva, a jazz-rock band. Additionally I worked as a session man. In 1982 I started Macondo, a band devoted to traditional Latin American music. I also played with other bands like Odissea 2001, Etnopolis, Parafunky, Duro, Jingo Band, Soul Track-Alex Marquetti Straight Band and Alex Marquetti Jazz Quintet. Macondo survived. We’ve had 45 different musicians in the band over the decades, and we’re still active today.

Roberto Fiorilli
Bagno Di Gavorrano, Italy,
August 1, 2004

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