Pateando piedras

Jorge Gonzalez composed "Pateando Piedras" on the highway when Los Prisioneros were covering concert demands all over Chile. According to Jorge Gonzalez: «When I think of Pateando Piedras , I evoke something provincial, clean, and I especially remember Concepción, because a large part of those songs were made while we were playing at the south.".

In 1985 Jorge Gonzalez joined the group keyboards. Jorge and Miguel Tapia, as the guitarist of the band Claudio Narea points out, had become followers of Depeche Mode and other groups that used the keyboard as the main instrument. Gonzalez bought a Casio CZ 101, with lowercase keys, and later bought a similar one. With this instrument he composed «¿Quién le tiene miedo a las máquinas?», «Pendiente fuerte de ti», «Ellos dicen no» y «Muevan las Industrias» which made their debut in August of that year in a presentation at the 1985 Teatro Cariola. The last two songs were the only ones that were included in the second album by group, while the song "They say no", which talked about the media that closed their doors, was completely modified and it became "Porfavor".

Los Prisioneros kicking stones for San Miguel.

Eduardo Ibeas, leader of the group Chancho en Piedra, said that it was very risky for Los Prisioneros "to have made their second album radically changing the sound of the band, going from guitars to the style The Clash, to the sound of the synthesizers, and even so they continued to sound like Los Prisioneros". Jorge González has stated that he likes to do more electronic music and also because it is more widely distributed, stating that Los Prisioneros were more of a techno pop group than of rock. The musicologist Juan Pablo González considers the essential album and a turning point in the band's career. «It marked a sonorous bridge in the 80s, from an artisanal sound, where the wool of the Chiloé vests and arpeggiated guitars prevailed, towards this world new wave, of technological sounds and very clear texts, where there was no room for metaphors and the political agenda of the time, he also said that simple things like the barking of a dog, or the sound of a gas balloon genuinely portrayed Chilean society at the time. Eduardo Ibeas, leader of the group Chancho en Piedra, said that it was very risky for Los Prisioneros "to have made their second album radically changing the sound of the band, going from guitars to the style The Clash, to the sound of the synthesizers, and even so they continued to sound like Los Prisioneros". Jorge González has stated that he likes to do more electronic music and also because it is more widely distributed, stating that Los Prisioneros were more of a techno pop group than of rock. The musicologist Juan Pablo González considers the essential album and a turning point in the band's career. «It marked a sonorous bridge in the 80s, from an artisanal sound, where the wool of the Chiloé vests and arpeggiated guitars prevailed, towards this world new wave, of technological sounds and very clear texts, where there was no room for metaphors and the political agenda of the time, he also said that simple things like the barking of a dog, or the sound of a gas balloon genuinely portrayed Chilean society at the time.

The first song of this album "Muevan las Industrias" is of the Synthpop, new wave genre and was released in a single of Vinyl format 12-inch, whose B-side of the single is a remix of the song "Quieren Dinero". More than three versions of this song were made: the original one published on the album Pateando Piedras, the remix of the single mentioned (which was later published in the compilation album Antología, su historia y sus éxitos) and finally a version published in the compilation album "Grandes éxitos".

The song he was talking about the unemployment [7] and was composed taking into account the situation that Chile was going through during 1980s where there was a feeling of disappointment and anxiety due to the unemployment rates caused by trade liberalization, eliminating the protectionist barriers of the national industry , causing the bankruptcy of the national industry, to give the option of competing to different foreign companies, such as the British, United States and French that were able to enter the market national, many people roamed the streets looking for what to do to survive. Jorge claimed that he imagined the song while traveling by metro to the university. The metallic sounds that are heard were produced by Jorge hitting a gas balloon in the kitchen of «Caco» Lyon.

He had previously tried to obtain said sounds with an iron that he collected from the Mapocho river. González (who was a fan of Depeche Mode and other artists who used the keyboard) incorporated the keyboard for this and other songs from the album Pateando Piedras. In August of 1985 the song "Muevan las Industrias", composed by Jorge González, made his debut in a concert at the Teatro Cariola . According to Jorge "This song was originally made as part of a quartet: «Muevan las industrias», «¿Quién le tiene miedo a las máquinas?», «Arte para cuatro gatos» y «Por favor» (In first version). We thought it was going to be a single and we recorded it separately before the rest of the album. The lyrics were the fantasy of an uninhabited industry, but with a lot of resonance from when they fired many people in the 82, in that economic downturn where Miguel 's father also lost his job".

The second song "¿Por qué no se van" from the genres Ska and new wave is a criticism of those artists and snobbish intellectuals who wanted to leave the country. The single was released on September 15, 1986. The third song, "The dance of those who are left over" is considered by the group as their best song and one of the most emblematic of Chilean popular music of the eighties. The song tells of young people who promised to go to university but, nevertheless, the neoliberal system left them without the possibility of studying, leaving them practically census for their future. [8]

The recording of the second plate began in the winter of June 1986 after Santiago recovered from a storm that overflowed the Mapocho River. For the recording of "Pateando Piedras" they again worked with the engineer Caco Lyon, who in this work had a fundamental role, "Pateando Piedras" was a different recording from "La voz de los '80" «Seven of the songs don't have bass but keyboard bass. All the drums are programmed and three of the songs have no guitar, ”said Narea. Claudio bought two Fender guitars, a Lead 1 and a Deluxe Telecaster, both black; Jorge got himself a drum machine Linn, loaned by Miguel Conejeros of the group Pinochet Boys, [8] he bought three synthesizers Casio, and a Electronic Drum by Simmons. However, Jorge had already played the keyboard for the previous album but as an accompaniment to the songs and in Pancho Straub's studios a drum programmer was used. The first disc was recorded with an 8-track recorder and the second disc with a 16-track recorder. For this disc the sequencers were used as the Voyetra, where it was recorded with a time code that controlled the sequencers leaving 15 free tracks, Lyon noted. The songs now came prepared and were not rehearsed.

Claudio only participated by playing the guitars, he couldn't get used to going from being a guitar, bass and drums trio to being a techno group, and he never felt comfortable playing the keyboard, so he left early. sessions to go see who would be his wife months later, Claudia Carvajal. He played acoustic guitar on the song "El baile de los que sobran", they recorded a first version of this song, it was a drum machine with a bass, at the beginning I didn't have a guitar, and the tempo was faster. Jorge didn't like it, so he recorded it again and asked Claudio to play the guitar, they lowered the tempo, and added dog's barking, what use the Synthesizer emulator 2",[2] [8] According to Jorge Gonzalez, without the dog, the issue would not have been bright. "Muevan las Industrias was a recording in which only Jorge participated. "And the gas balloons and all that, he recorded them" Lyon said. They also recorded the song with a Linn Drum, the programmable drums that existed in Chile at the time, he concluded.

On September 7 of 1986 the dictator Augusto Pinochet is attacked on the way to Cajón de Maipo, those responsible for said attack were assassinated by the. A week after this incident, on September 15, and under "state of siege", Los Prisioneros released their second album "Pateando Piedras" in a presentation at the Bellavista sector, El Café del Cerro, before less than a hundred people. That day the historic Chilean rocker Peter Rock accompanied them in a couple of songs. Then he officially performed two months later in two concerts held at the Chile Stadium.

The album sold five thousand copies in the first ten days of its distribution. A record never reached by a youth music group in Chile and in two months and two days after the album came out they achieved a second platinum record with twenty thousand copies sold, something that no artist has achieved since the times of the new wave. Two months after the launch of their second plaque, in November 1986 they officially launched "Pateando Piedras", appearing at the Chile Stadium before some 11 thousand people. [9] The Chilean group broke a record by filling the Chile Stadium twice in a row. The media began to take seriously Los Prisioneros the magazine Super Rock named them the best group in Chile. In addition, he awarded "Pateando Piedras" as the best album in same year, Jorge Gonzalez as the best composer and chose the song "El baile de los que sobran" as the best song of the year and also as the best song of the year in Peru. [10]

Cover photo

On the front page, Los Prisioneros appear on Line 2 of the Santiago Metro heading to San Miguel. In the original photo, Miguel appears standing, with his arms behind his head staring into space; sitting in front of him, Jorge and Claudio looking at the camera. Jorge with an ironic smile and Claudio laughing happily. At first Jorge González, I had thought of making the cover green and reflecting the South of Chile. However EMI did not like the idea and the cover ended up being in the Metro,[4] in 1987, during a promotional tour in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the guitarist related in his book "The Prisoners: Biography of a friendship", that the cover of "Pateando Piedras" had a different photo. "It seemed the same except for one small detail: I didn't appear laughing" he said. According to the group's representative Carlos Fonseca, the original had been lost, so they decided to look for the one closest to the sequence taken a second before or after the other to replace it. "It was almost the same, except that in this one I had a lost look," explained Claudio. Later, in Chile, the photograph was also changed, later, when Pateando Piedras came out on CD, the photo of Claudio was smiling, however, soon after they replaced it with the other one. "In short, the story goes like this: Pateando Piedras was released in September 1986. But already in April 1987 there was another photo. Then in 1991 it appeared. Then, in 1992, it got lost again," he concluded. The session in the Metro was led by Jorge Brantmayer, inspired by the "wave" techno that the band took with their publicized synthesizers Casio and Tapia's Simmons battery, "the second best brand in the world, according to Super Rock, the magazine of Latin rock The vinyl edition, which could only be bought at Fusión, had on the back cover a photo of the band in low angle in front of a high voltage tower, 40 kilometers south of Santiago, on the way to Rancagua.

Los Prisioneros never liked the Metro photos, according to Fonseca. At first Jorge suggested to Carlos that the three of them appear in the photo in a huge green field, and that they see each other in the distance walking, however, EMI rejected the idea, since, according to them, it would look like a Los Huasos Quincheros.

Pateando Piedras CD 1992 made in Canada

Before the anniversary No. 20 Chilean actor Héctor Morales said that the lyrics of Pateando Piedras are still current, and that they can fit in any stage of the country. And shortly before for the anniversary Nº. 25, Jaime Bollolio from El Mercurio made an analysis of current Chile with the songs of Pateando Piedras according to their order, from "Muevan las Industrias" to "Independencia Cultural» reaching contingent issues such as student mobilization in Chile in 201 and HidroAysén. Not only does the contingency arrive in Chile the letters of Pateando Piedras but also in countries like Colombia and Peru, country where they were a phenomenon At the end of the 1980s, according to Mario Ruiz, EMI Marketing manager at the time, Los Prisioneros managed to open those markets for "rock in Spanish". [9]

For the album Tributo a Los Prisioneros (2000), Florcita Motuda recorded a version hardcore punk entitled "I better leave the country", in which he completely changes the lyrics and the original approach of the song. This version was performed by Florcita Motuda during the tribute concert to Jorge held at Movistar Arena in November 2015.

Side A

All tracks are written by Jorge Gonzalez.

Side B

All tracks are written by Jorge Gonzalez.