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La Última
Ultra Rare Van Van!
Check this track out! This is apparently from a 45 from the very early 1970s. The earliest recording I'd ever heard of this was on the 1989 LP Crónicas, and of course LVV still uses it to close every set, but this may in fact be the missing link in the many conflicting stories about Van Van's name originally coming from a political slogan. If you have any information or insights about this track, please add them to the comments section and/or email me at kevin [at] timba [dot] com.
Pupy Pedroso Books
Meanwhile, I've been working around the clock on the Pupy Pedroso volumes of Beyond Salsa Piano. I'm going through the songs chronologically and finding myself amazed at how many classic tracks LVV pumped out in the 80s. They did an album a year for the entire decade. The CD compilations tend to have the same hits over and over: Sandunguera, La Titimanía, Qué palo, etc. These are great, but there are dozens of classics that are just as good that few people are familiar with.
Welcome to Bill Tilford and the Chicago Report
We have a new addition to our Reports Section, covering Chicago and its surrounding areas. It will be hosted by Bill Tilford, a fascinating and extremely knowledgeable Cuban music expert who has been researching for many years. While the section is about the Chicago scene, Bill's blogging will no doubt cover many subjects, past and present, which will be equally interesting to those of us who can't make it to the Windy City on a regular basis.
Solo Soy Un Van Van....
Great points, Michelle.
"Eso Que Anda" is another recent doc worth seeing and also has Pupy telling the Bang Bang version, and since you mentioned Isaac's coro, we should probably also mention the song "Solo Soy Un Van Van" from LVV's third album (the LVV album I would most likely keep if forced at gunpoint to surrender all of the rest of them save one even though it came before they added trombones).
Empezó la fiesta documentary
Great comment Bill.
The bang bang story comes from the Van Van documentary "Empezó la fiesta" which I assume you've seen. Pupy gives the Bang Bang version of the origins of the name. He says that it was during the 10 milliones van campaign that the members of los van van (or what was to be) were taking a break from cutting cane and the singer of Marilú José Luis Matinez said "we should call the band Los de usted" and Formell said "No, it needs to be something that sounds phonetically powerful like bam bam" so Pupy said "call it La Orquesta bam bam" and Formell said "No we're going to call it Los Van Van".
So assuming Pupy remembers it all correctly, the Van Van idea probably came to Formell during this conversation because of the 10 milliones campaign but not directly rather via the whole idea of having a phonetically strong sound to the name (and happily one that had a particular cultural connotation at the time). Also Pupy mentions that at the time the phrase "de van van" was popular and in use a lot so really it seems pretty easy to understand how they went from the bang bang phonetics to van van, especially since bam bam and van van sound almost the same when pronounced in Spanish.
Issac uses that in "Tú que has amado tanto" in the coro where it says "Tú que has amado tanto/no te la des de caliente/no te la des de van van". Formell says in that same documentary that to him being a van van means that you try to do things better, that you try to be the best. I was given a rough translation of the issac coro as being "don't try to make yourself out to be 'all that'".
I highly recommend the documentary to anyone who hasn't seen it.
Los 10 Millones Van..........
Great find!
LVV's most commonly accepted birthday is December 4, 1969. Coincidentally or not, December 1969 was also the inauguration of La Gran Zafra in Cuba, a new intensified sugar harvest effort with a goal of 10 million tons per year. The official government slogan for La Gran Zafra was "Los Diez Millones Van". Much of the country was mobilized for the effort - schools were closed, many urban dwellers were temporarily relocated to the cane fields etc. (Sugar has to be harvested, refined and processed rather quickly). American leftists from groups such as the Venceremos Brigades also went down to help. LVV did help entertain the agricultural workers (macheteros) during this time.
So what does this have to do with LVV's naming? Interesting question. A "modern" version of the story making the rounds is that "Van Van" sounded a lot like "Bang Bang", and that inspired the name. The older story, of course, is that "Los Diez Millones Van" and its offshoots (exhortations, "van van", "van van van" etc). inspired the name.
Whether or not the slogan really inspired the band name, the naming and timing were fortuitious, because the band name was associated with the slogan (a fact not lost on the Ministry of Culture), and this helped make some of the band's aspects, such as the presence of an electric guitar at the time, more palatable to hard-liners.
In 1974, Ritmo Oriental also recorded a song, Tema R.D.A., dedicated to the macheteros.
Wow! What a find!
another one coming
I found another which seems to have a figure which was also incorporated in the modern, set-ending version. Will post tomorrow
Eso que anda
I haven't seen that one yet. I need to get it.