founded the Chilean rock, disappeared for 40 years and now returning with new material. Instead of opting for the easy way of revival, The Mac's turn to bet on the riskiest, with the assurance that time has always proved right.
"Turn around, turn around, turn around / You May Be come full circle and new here again" , says the American singer-songwriter Bill Callahan in "I'm new here ', a topic signed under the pseudonym Smog and then was covered by veteran Gil Scott-Heron in his return to music after sinking into anonymity. Willy Morales, principal songwriter for the group The Mac's, now might make it yours. "I'm super rookie now, I know nothing, I'm just starting" says smiling. 42 years after releasing his last album (self-titled album that the band does not remember fondly), the group is presenting a new work, appropriately titled "Time is not important."
The CD cover, self-released in late 2010, shows an illustration of the story of Rip Van Winkle, the classic story of a villager who takes a nap for two decades in the forest and takes her life after waking. Although the lethargy of the assembly lasted twice that of the fictional character, the band felt identified with this fantasy dormouse, which opened his eyes and was startled to notice changes in the environment, just like them. "The first was the realization that there is no record labels here, the only thing that sells is America. Besides, when the band split, Chile was the third world and is now a sort of second world ".
In late 1968, The Mac's traveled to Italy to settle, and his tour the boot finished with four members of the group taking separate ways and gradually losing contact with each other, except for Mac-Iver brothers (Carlos and David), the group's founders. The pre-reformation reunions were few and far between. Willy Morales account: "In 1978 I came to visit Chile and I saw our former manager, Andres Morales, who told me that the Mac-Iver were in Valparaiso, posing as The Mac's, in a place called the broody hen. The went to see and felt bad, went with other musicians and doing covers of the 60s. Topics Elvis, nothing to see. And there was almost no audience. "
That night, while not discussed in detail, Morales took the stage to improvise with his former fellow soldiers, although considered an error to use the name of a band that was already part of the past and who he only belonged to the original dissolved after failing in Europe. In an interview with Gonzalo Planet, published in the book "You hear the footsteps," the composer says "if I had to hang out with Carlos, David and Eric (Franklin, the only one not on this trip) I would not make The Mac's, absolutely. Change the name of the group and do other kinds of music ". Today explained that his words were not understood at all. "What happens is that when I said that, the New Wave revival were coming together to do and my point is that I did not think back to anyone just to play old songs" he says.
"So it is not so rare that Mac's have returned with a new disc. To make versions of The Dave Clark Five and The Beatles, I prefer my house with my friends. Nor do we care about taxes. And we have material for another album, songs better than those in "Time is not important" , forward eagerly. However, before forging this incarnation, Willy Morales admits having gone through a creative drought as an author. A blockade that took about five years without being allowed to produce some quality work, or at least reported quarterly revenue. A dilemma for someone who based his stay in Europe to live in the copyright by selling songs to performers on the continent. "There is a famous theme Serrat, very autobiographical, called 'Do not do anything but think of you' and says " nothing I like better than writing songs / But now the muse has gone from me / walk Vacation. " That's what was happening to me. "
Until one day in 2008, at his home in Milan, Morales received a handwritten letter from David Mac-Iver. It contained a poem and a suggestion: "If you back the madness, put music" . The text was in English and was an invitation for the troubled Willy was installed in the piano. " was great because I left for several days, was still locked and nothing I did not come to mind ... I am the worst critic of myself, when I write bad things, I leave and I delete because I do not care. But suddenly, the songs started coming out one after another " He says. Finally, the letter was translated into English and became "The Call", the opening track "Time is not important."
"My original idea was to make a rock opera about us, but David found it very pretentious and was quite right, because we left without telling anyone and now we came back well. We need to find the subject to make the work as "Evita," "Jesus Christ Superstar" or "Tommy" by The Who. We can not do something known locally, has to be universal. remained some issues of this project, in any case as "The Call", which is our reunion, 'Fabula', the idea of \u200b\u200bheading into an unknown world, Europe, and 'The Journey' ( sings the lyrics, "the trip was suddenly without explanation") , that is when we had gone to Italy " details the album's lead author.
"Time is not important" is the result of a year and a half of work, interrupted only by the earthquake of February 27, 2010, between letters and weekly visits by David Mac-Iver to Willy Morales home. Carlos, bassist, joined when the work moved to the study The Brick House in Villa Alemana, where the band recorded the full largaduración. On the album, live some of the influences that Mac's were processed in their time apart, as Chet Baker (see box) in 'Almost all the time', the romantic Italian 'Other poetry' or the blues of New Orleans' Lazy Man Blues', inspired largely by Rip Van Winkle.
Aware of his own legacy, which have inherited from Santos Dumont to Los Bunkers, Los Mac's not forget "Kaleidoscope Men" (1967), his masterpiece. Today considered the "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band "Nationally, the most famous band's LP-deliberately-shares two characteristics with the fifth installment in the brand new band. One is the inclusion of an instrumental piece, as well as 41 years ago released the classic "The Gospel of the lonely people ', now throw' Passage to Rigel ', the other is a theme (' Lazy Man Blues") shared authoring Juan Mateo O'Brien broken glass, other seminal rock chileno, authors of the album "Fictions", which, in the logic of comparison, would be a sort of "Pet Sounds" to "Kaleidoscope Men" because to its previous appearance and subsequent influence on the quartet of Valparaiso.
"Currently, there are songs from that album at our shows, because they never played live at the time. We are just making promotion now, with more than 40 years overdue. We had to relearn the chords " Willy says Morales. The group show in the latest edition of Rockódromo was a success and an opportunity to catch up with the contemporary pulse, seeing young people on stage. "The Lilits are sensational. I want them to be our opening act, says the composer. For the reformed assembly, live feedback is an important issue, because the future of Los Mac's has once again become an open book and groups, their ink. They, at least, they long continue. "I do not know how long I stay in Chile, that is conditioned to how we go. May 31 birth one month to Italy to take the disc and submit it there. But I have roundtrip tickets, I'm still with the idea of \u200b\u200bdoing a rock opera. "
RUMORS ARE
Many stories about Willy Morales and Los Mac's have been reproduced again and again by researchers from the Chilean rock. However, the musician explained that most are not true. Legend has it that La Sangria, a project he formed with David Mac-Iver after the dissolution of the group, opened for the Bee Gees in Italy. "We were ready, but we had to go on tour with (Italian singer) Gino Paoli, because we were his backing band, so they never reach to play with them," , denies.
"Another story is that I am related to Richard Wagner (composer famous German scholar) by side my mother, but that name is so common in Germany that the safest thing is that we are not related. It's a familiar story. Then I discovered that if we were relatives of the Doggenweiler. The Karen have no idea, "explains smiling.
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