Lianet Hernández features Cuban rock musician Roberto Perdomo. Hernández says that, like any other “made-in-Cuba” rock musician, Perdomo speaks about misunderstandings, meager resources, and little promotion. His story is the story of Tesis de Menta, a band situated in the area of alternative rock, “with influences from progressive rock, singer-songwriter styles, and jazz and blues, but always with the intention of defending original creations.” The group has celebrated 12 years since its founding, as well as five albums, including Río arriba, which was presented at Casa de las Americas in early December. Here are excerpts (with a link to the full article below):

“Rock,” says Perdomo, “is like a vampire that sucks blood from anywhere. Brazil has its movement, Argentina theirs, so why can’t we have Cuban rock; why let a movement die? One that has worked only for the love of music?” While answers to these and other questions arise, the best path for artists like him is to defend their creations: “I prefer to represent my country and the rock that is made in it.”’

Now he is sitting in the room where, at another time, Silvio [Rodríguez], Pablo [Milanés], and Noel [Nicola] also sat. The analogies are inevitable. Cuban rock, unfortunately, did not have the luck of the Nueva Trova movement, which found a vote of confidence in Casa de las Américas and Haydée [Santamaría]. He gets goose bumps speaking about it because his music also found a major grounding and inspiration in that other movement and in [the music of] Santi Feliú, Gerardo Alfonso, Carlos Varela [. . .].

“It’s a real honor that the new Tesis de Menta album is being presented here [at Casa de las Américas]. I’ve always wanted to play at Casa because it is a historical place and it means a lot to me, especially because of all the concerts I have attended here. It gives me great pleasure to be on that stage, and this is why I did not want it to be an official album release, but rather a much more intimate acoustic presentation so that everyone can hear the lyrics better,” says Perdomo. [. . .]

For full article (in Spanish), see http://laventana.casa.cult.cu/noticias/2015/12/09/roberto-perdomo-el-rock-cubano-si-existe/