Arranca
breaks many barriers, both cultural & musical. Very few bands put out a concept album as their first release. Even fewer rock bands cover Cuban standards that were written and recorded almost fifty years ago ("Oye el Cha Cha") . You could probably count on one hand the number of rock groups that use a tres, the traditional Cuban guitar with 3 pairs of strings, on their recordings. And while some artists have combined English & Spanish lyrics within the songs on the same record, how many have combined English & Spanish within the same song? Arranca does all this and more. Their uniqueness, combined with tunes brimming with energy & melody, distinguish them from the rest of the pack. Arranca's compositions from their debut release deal with Songwriter Victor Garcia-Rivera's family's experiences as Cuban exiles. Their exile is from one's country, customs, language, and way of life. But you don't have to be part of the Cuban diaspora to have experienced the anguish of exile. In today's society, anyone who has been affected by a divorce, an estrangement, a death or a relocation experiences it to some degree. Filtered through the playing and singing of Victor & compatriots Jim Burke and Dave Dunkum,
the songs on
Exile On Pain Street
(Exilio Doloroso)
are destined to add to
the legion of Arrancaficionados.
Arranca has arrived!

Cuban-style
rockers debut
first album
in Cincinnati

BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

With its tiny Hispanic population, Cincinnati isn't a hotbed of Latin music, but a familiar face from the city's underground rock scene
is out to change that.
In the early 80's, Victor Garcia-Rivera's band The Edge was part of a punk scene based at Newport's now-defunct Jockey Club that included the Libertines, SS-20 and the
Black Republicans
(precursor Afghan Wigs).
Today, the singer-guitarist has a new band blending the sounds of his native Cuba with modern rock-n-roll.
He formed Arranca
(which means "to uproot")
in May with bassist Dave Dunkum and
drummer Jim Burke.
The band will make its debut appearance Saturday at the
Southgate House.
The occasion is a CD release party
for its first album,
Exile on Pain Street
(Exilio Doloroso),
on Roquero Records label.
For Mr. Garcia-Rivera, whose parents emigrated to the States when he was 2, fusing Cuban music with rock is the most natural thing in the world.

"It's what I do in everyday life," he says. "I speak two languages, and when I grew up, I had my father playing Cuban music and my older brothers and sisters playing the Beatles
and Rolling Stones."

Hosts Cuban broadcast

He also hosts Radio Roquero, a show broadcast to Cuba at 6pm Sundays on shortwave radio by Radio Miami International. Along with tapes from the Cuban underground (which sound more like Seattle than Havana, he says with a chuckle), a regular feature is
Mr. Garcia-Rivera's anti-Castro parody of the Cuban national anthem. Set to a hard-rock beat and retitled "The Rational Anthem," it makes his program the target of
jamming efforts by the Cuban government.

Like Cuban exiles, Mr. Garcia-Rivera actively works against the Castro regime. Proceeds from Arranca's Southgate show will be donated to Brothers to the Rescue, the organization whose planes were shot down by Cuban jets earlier this month.
He has visited Cuba but looks forward to the day he and the other 2 million exiles can return permanently.

One irony of the situation is that Cuban food is better, and Cuban culture more alive in Miami than in Havana, he says. After unsuccessfully searching Havana music stores for a "tres," a traditional Cuban instrument with three pairs of strings,
Mr. Garcia-Rivera found one in a Miami pawn shop.

Miami is tempting

The Miami singer-songwriter Nil Lara (who plays Bogart's April 6 with Leftover Salmon and Why Store), also plays "tres" but avoids the more distinctly Latin stylings of Arranca.
For example, Exile on Pain Street opens with
"Oye EL CHA CHA " first recorded more than 50 years ago by Cuba's Trio Matamoros.

Mr. Garcia-Rivera knows that the lack of a local Hispanic community limits Arranca's chances in Cincinnati. His band the Edge moved to Boston in 1984 for better opportunities, and he says Arranca might move to Miami, or at least split time between the two cities.

"Nobody in Miami has done this," he says, which still surprises him. "I used to think that somebody eventually is going to do this, but nobody ever did."

Exile on Pain Street (Exilio Doloroso) will be available at the performance and at various independent record stores.