2024-05-01 11:49:06
This Wednesday the Club Atlético Fernández Fierro celebrates its first 20 years of existence in the Abasto neighborhood. The CAFF (Sánchez de Bustamante 772) is the physical manifestation of the spirit of the Fernández Fierro orchestra, one of the emblems of the tango renewal of this century. Not only a large part of the current tango scene but also important artists from other genres linked to the song, both from Argentina and Uruguay, passed through the Club – or CAFF, simply. This Wednesday’s celebration will begin at 7 p.m. and will last until after midnight with a show by the host orchestra and interventions by a large number of guests, including Sophia Viola, Ariel Pratt, Ezekiel Jusid (of Tree), Juan Paul Fernandez, Hernan “Cucuza” Castiello, Natalia Lagos, Juan Paul Fernandez, Dema and many more.
The CAFF was founded on May 1, 2004 and to this day It continues to be managed by a cooperative made up of musicians from the orchestra and the historic illuminator of the space, Walter “el Tano” Coccaro. (who also became the Club’s programmer), in an organization that supports about 25 families. And it was the musicians themselves – of yesterday and today – who built the club. “I know what wall I painted, what bricks I put on that step,” one of those musicians once confided to this chronicler. That was always the degree of commitment that the artists managed with the space that celebrates its anniversary.
According to what the orchestra itself says, the CAFF was born out of a necessity. Originally the orchestra played in the street – testimonies abound from followers and residents of the neighborhood who saw them carrying the piano through the cobblestone streets of San Telmo – and they frequently had to fight with the police who forbade them to play on public roads. Eventually they rented an old mechanical workshop that they renovated and became a kind of temple of 21st century tango that has its own spirit that encompasses, but also exceeds, that of the orchestra itself.
“It is a joy to turn 20, it is no small thing for us,” celebrates Coccaro. “There were 20 years of a lot of work, a lot of perseverance, a lot of strength, community and cooperative effort, and most of all, resistance,” he says. The history of the CAFF is, in a way, the history of the underground culture of Buenos Aires. A few months after its opening, the Cromagnon tragedy occurred, which turned the sector upside down. They spent months with the doors closed while they adapted the facilities to the security measures that the new authorities demanded. “We never let ourselves be, we always wanted to participate in culture through CAFF,” recalls Coccaro. The site also weathered the pandemic, the brutal tariffs of Macri’s administration and now, they point out, the new blows to the pocketbook caused by Javier Milei’s government.
“It’s a job, but it’s also a factory of culture,” defines the illuminator and programmer. “The CAFF has always opened its doors to groups of different genres, both musical and human, it is a place for different voices to express themselves, that is what we have done for these 20 years and we are very proud to participate with culture, give it a hand, it is a way of life, a lifestyle,” he says.
El Tano recognizes that the path is not without difficulties. “This costs us a lot of work, we do not have subsidies, we are facing a government that declares war on us with taxes, with rents, and we are resisting, as always. And it is a joy and we hope that this Wednesday we will meet great guests who spent these 20 years at the CAFF and will delight us with some topics. The evening will be closed by Fernández Fierro with her show every Wednesday, and it will be a great party, we will be with all our friends, everyone is invited, and we hope it will be a celebration where resistance will always be our flag ”.
Marta del Pino is the historical press agent of the orchestra. He remembers the origins of Fierro, still students at EMPA (School of Popular Music of Avellaneda), whom he met precisely at one of those street performances. “Then the police chased them away, more and more people began to gather around them, and there María Pantuso invited them to a tango series that they put on in the Trastienda, at Zapatos Rojos Tango,” he recalls. Those years of the original formation of Fierro, with Yuri Venturin, the Minister, Julius Coviello, Julian Peralta, Walter “Chinese” Laborde, Paul Gignoli, Federico Newfoundland, Bruno Giuntini and others. It is no small thing: from the group’s later diasporas, several of the main lines of current tango can be traced. “I saw them in the Back Room and it was the first and only time I offered a band to work on their communication, that’s how we started together, there at Pantuso’s, who I call the godmother.”
“In these 20 years, a lot of contemporary popular music from Argentina, Chile and Uruguay passed through the CAFF, and visitors of all kinds: Skay, Poli, Café Tacuba, Attaque, I don’t know, everything, and we also spent the pandemic, macrism, now mileism: We were born with leathery skin, I don’t know how long we can survive, but we are used to the attacks, we are used to the attacks. We have a stubbornness that drives us. We are a reference for an unavoidable stronghold of the River Plate independent music scene,” he concludes.