After Avándaro: the black hole of mexican rock
 The repressión
The repression against the musicians was terrible (although there have always been many obstacles in the development of Mexican rock), until the last decade of the 20th century, when they normalized the conditions for rock's development. Today, there are high quality concerts in the Foro Sol, Auditorio Nacional, Palacio de los Deportes, Cine Metropolitan, and a multitude of places in Mexico City alone. Even the local and federal governments organize concerts. he repression against the musicians was terrible (although there have always been many obstacles for the development of the mexican rock), and it is in the last part of the XX century, when they normalized the conditions for the development of the rock.

 
According to Fernando Aceves, there were more major international rock concerts between 1991 and 1992 than in the previous 20 years! This shows how far we've come from the years of repression and crushing blows to the Estadio de la Ciudad de los Deportes and El Toreo in Mexico City, in Pachuca, Querétaro or Puebla. This, from the view of the Federal District, would not include the histories in Tijuana and Guadalajara, besides the other cities where the rockers crashed and burned.

 

 
The organizers, such as Armando Molina (in charge of hiring the groups who played Avandaro), were accused of the worst things one can imagine.

The video footage shot by Telesistema Mexicano (now known as Televisa), thanks to Luis del Llano Macias, remains in a vault somewhere in Mexico and if it still exists, it is an extraordinary document to rescue. In keeping with these proportions, if the files of the Movement of 1968 were ever opened up, it would not be unreasonable to request that they open up and study the documents of Avándaro.

Under the repression, the threads of local rock came undone. Radio and TV stations were ordered not to play rock music, local clubs were closed and many of the groups disbanded and their members took regular jobs.

The programmers who broadcast the festival, Félix Ruano and Agustín Meza de la Peña of XERPM, Radio Youth, were suspended for two months under orders of the Secretaría de Gobernación, and all that sounded and smelled like the Festival of Avándaro disappeared from the radio. eturning to the untied repression, the radio and the TV allowed to program music's type, the local to play were closed and many of the groups finish and their members were devoted to other works.

It created a big hole in Mexican rock in all respects. The upper and middle class stopped hearing local rock, taking refuge in english rock or in the disco music whose peak had begun by that time.

And worst of all, it created a decline in musical quality within the lost generation and the one which followed. They could not draw on these musical influences and many of the new groups started with almost nothing.

 

 
If we compare the songs of 1960-1965 with those of the 70s, we notice big improvements in the arrangements, musical quality, sound quality and originality in the lyrics, while on the other hand, the songs of later decades sound more primitive and not even well-played.

Today it is believed that Avándaro was just Three Souls in My Mind and the Encuerada (Naked Woman). But it is much more than that.

 
Javier Batiz

 The point of no return occurred at the Festival de Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro. Javier Batiz remembered it 30 years later:

"I was very happy sitting in my limousine hoping to get in to the festival, and then I heard what (the singer of Peace and Love) said. And - click! - rock and roll left the radio forever."


What was what Batiz listened?

   
Peace and Love
  "¡Chingue su madre el que no cante!" ("Fuck your mother, whoever doesn't sing!")
And later the avalanche of accusing articles spilled from the pens of the various newspapers of Mexico (El Sol de México, Novedades, Excélsior, El Universal and El Heraldo), the magazine Siempre! and scandal sheets like Alarma, Alerta y Porqué?.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Degenerates; reactionaries; promiscuous, stoned, exhibitionistic, dirty, imperialistic hippies; traitors to the homeland -- these and other epithets were applied to the festival audiences and musicians. But in general the crowd was well behaved (for a massive rock festival). There was alcohol, marijuana, and sex, but nobody was hurt.
Among the accusing writers were Roberto Blanco Moheno, Alberto Domingo, Horacio Espinoza, Guadalupe Hernández, Mauricio González de la Garza and Carlos Monsivais (the ones who would later change their opinions) and many others who, fortunately, are already forgotten.

The authorities didn't lag behind either, such as the professor Olivares Santana, Carlos Hank González (Governor of the State of Mexico), Mario Moya Palencia, Secretary of Government and other lesser authorities. There was even a relief manifestation to the flag for the group Nueva Juventud in the crowded capital.

And that created the black hole of Mexican rock which continued in the funky holes (hoyo fonquis), which absorbed an entire era upon which it is necessary to shed new light.

 
I walk within my brain...