ArtistInfo

Gerardo Rojas

voc, perc,
Rock
A.k.a. Gerardo Manuel Rojas

By the start of 1970, young Peruvian musician Gerardo Manuel Rojas already had an impressive body of work with various rock bands: The Doltons (in Ica), Los Doltons (in Lima), Los Shain’s and The (St. Thomas) Pepper Smelter; he had recorded to that point five LP’s and many 45 rpm records. He was 24 years old. And Gerardo’s work would continue with the implementation of a recording studio at the El Virrey label office. The label had hired German engineer Gerhard Nieckau for the installation of a new Neumann 4-channel recording console; they also asked Gerardo to act as Nieckau’s partner, and asked him to get musicians to perform the first test runs of the recording set up. The musicians came to the studio to record and rehearse during the hours that the studio was not in use, from ten at night until sunrise. What resulted was a kind of “ghost” band that recorded throughout the night. For this project, Gerardo joined with guitarist “Pico” Ego Aguirre, bassist Jorge “Coco” Pomar (both from Los Shain’s) and drummer Freddy “Pure” Sources of the group La Nueva Cosecha (The New Crop). After a month of testing the new studio, (they had already recorded more than 200 hours there), El Virrey suggested that they release an album with some tracks from those sessions. That album, “Apocallypsis,” was the first hard rock album recorded in Peru; it was released on vinyl in August 1970. The album includes five original songs, plus versions of tracks by Grand Funk, Liquid Smoke, Jimi Hendrix, and Question Mark and the Mysterians. Before the LP came out, El Virrey released two 45rpm singles that are included on a CD as bonus tracks.

Instruments

• Vocals
• Percussion

Genres

• Rock
• Latin
• Pop
• Folk
• World

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