Firpo (and Edinburgh)

In the summer I heard Organito del suburbio (Firpo, 1929) played by an experienced dancer, one of the current DJ crew in the rather shadowy Edinburgh Tango Society. Perhaps they exist but I have never seen a committee, accounts, public meeting or any kind of public accountability of this organisation to its - what, members, dancers, attendees?  In contrast to this apparently loose arrangement, milongas in Edinburgh are tightly controlled.  There is astonishingly little diversity in milongas for a scene with the longevity of that city - some twenty years.  The organisers at the Edinburgh Tango Society currently have the monopoly of the two regular weekly as well as the one monthly milonga in the city.

Organito del suburbio is the sort of track that makes me lose the will to live. You would have to be made of steel to be willing to travel to endure this sort of music which has been part of the Edinburgh milonga culture for many years.   It was teamed with Marejada (1929), example again by DJ Xenia of Israel and Entre tangos y champagne (1928) to which unless you're a masochist I suggest you don't listen. This sort of thing is why Firpo has such a bad name among many DJs. 

Whereas Fresedo, Canaro, OTV, Lomuto, Di Sarli all improve in the 30s, Firpo and De Caro do not, or not enough.  For a while, hearing it so often I thought I must be mistaken in my gut feeling about Firpo.  I searched once for hours looking for a decent track. Last week, someone else told me they did the same recently, with the same result. I even followed a social media thread about Firpo looking for a good tanda for dancing, without success.  At best there was Volver a vernos with Ignacio Murillo (1943).  Perhaps I've just been listening to Firpo too much again lately but it is pretty good and apart from a certain plod, a certain jerkiness, a certain affectation and a slight desperation in the singer, it hardly sounds like Firpo to me...  Di Sarli's (1942) version though with Podestá is better.  Arrepentido is too self important and heavy and if I cringed at the start by the last 35 seconds I don't know if I want to laugh, cry or am just transfixed.  It's trying stuff but it might fit well with the sorts of tracks (like Desengañao) prized by those who like "special" music. 

Fantasmas is - optimistically - a fun gimmick (not for dancing). I heard it also in a milonga in Edinburgh last year with El compinche (1937) and De vuelta al pago (1940) which I think is supposed to be clever and quirky and subtle as many Firpo tracks try to be and it is none of these.  Todotango cites La chola (1941) from this "inspired composer" but I find it in the same vein as these (no link available online).  Apparently De Pura Cepa was an early hit of his, and this might be it in 1934. But compare what D'Arienzo does with the track of the same name, as a milonga in 1935.  There's no comparison.  Why play Firpo? 

Milonga.co.uk calls his El amanecer ("the dawn") iconic.  According to tango.info, Firpo seems to have recorded this track many times. The 1928 version is a pretty awful, but inventive track. The 1936 version is manic and it isn't good for dancing.  The 1938 version is startling.  Everything is toned down, subtler, much more relaxed with the birds very much in evidence.  I still don't think it's good for dancing but it doesn't sound like most Firpo.  By 1953 he has gone back to the manic, stressed tone. By this time, Di Sarli had picked it up in 1942 and refined it in the well known version of 1954. I hear both in the milongas. Why play Firpo?

La murra is typical of the Firpo I hear from time to time. The jaunty tone tries to persuade you it isn't actually as dull and nagging as toothache. This and the moaning struggle of the tuba-like instrument makes me groan in unison. It's the kind of track you might nod off to only to be jerked awake by those insistent violins and that's before you get to the cheering and the chanting.  It was joined when I heard it in Edinburgh with Loco lindo (1936) and Vea Vea (1937) which both seem to try so hard, as often with Firpo and yet they just don't do very well. It is one of the things that makes listening to Firpo depressing. I prefer anyway the very early and wholly different Di Sarli version of Vea Vea - and even then not for dancing.

Firpo's Didí (1937) is embarassing, like bad Fresedo, especially in comparison to the Biagi version or the Tanturi. I've seen it teamed with Tierra negra (1947), which feels like a stand-in trying desperately to temporarily entertain an audience who've been let down by some other act.  You can hear examples of whole Firpo tandas by DJs Bärbel Rücker and Paul Svirin on Tanda of the Week here. Just compare though Paul's opening choice No quiero verte llorar with the Fresedo version and feel the qualitative difference. Why play Firpo?

Not far from me I heard in a social dance many tracks in the style of the Buenos Aires Tango Trio’s El Ultimo Cafe (hearing is believing).  Hearing afterwards Firpo's La carcajada (1935) I thought with relief “At last - a potentially danceable track”.  This though was in, I can’t say a set, because it had no discernible structure let alone cortinas but was stranded in a list of tracks so unremittingly undanceable that the reason I stayed was partly through a kind of hypnotised disbelief and partly because my children were happily playing and eating tapas.  Listening to it in more balanced circumstances I was wrong about that track. Leaving aside that insane cackle in the violins and the baleful tone of the piece, of course it isn’t danceable. When you consider what might otherwise be played who would want to dance it? 

I prefer Firpo in vals. In Aberdeen last year I heard Atardecer campero, Barreras de amor (both 1936) and Entre los ceibos (1942). They aren't my favourite kind of vals but I think these are nice, certainly in comparison to the tangos. I don't know if they pull me from my seat but I doubt I would avoid dancing them with the right partner. 

Poor Firpo. He was just too early.  He records Alma de bohemio in 1927 but the Biagi (1939) and especially the Laurenz (1943) versions relegate his version to history.  He records Ya no cantas, Chingolo in 1928 but is eclipsed by Rodriguez in 1943.  Because he has a place in the history of tango music is not reason enough to play him for dancing in milongas today.  When people come out to play, why would you lecture them?  Never to a partner and not via the music either.  Nor, for that matter by organisers to the dancers in general. There is a milonga in Edinburgh "borderline pretentious, so everyone is a little bit serious and constrained" (not my description) where people are lectured collectively, publicly about cabeceo and the ronda - "Everyone always sits squirming in the seats like naughty children."

Even in the 40s Firpo just can't quite keep up.  Here's Sábado inglés (1940), irritatingly Firpo-like, though so different to Volver a vernos and the relaxed 1938 El amanecer.  Compare though D'Arienzo's version (1946). And so it goes on. The desperate edge to La murra in 1936 and earlier is explicit in his frenetic El entrerriano.   But compare the great D'Arienzo version. (1946)  Why play Firpo?  Firpo seems to have a divided personality, sometimes plodding, sometimes raving, occasionally relaxed, when he is at his best.  His tangos have range, but it isn't good range, like Canaro's or Di Sarli's.

Unless the tangos really speak to you, please consider not dancing them because when you do it tells the DJ and their friends to play more of it and then you get whole geographical areas of Firpo, like a fungal blight, played regularly.   The awful thing is, if you hear enough of it you can get used to it as you slump in your chair.  Few DJs though really rate Firpo. When you ask them they do a sort of half shrug and look a bit shame faced and confess to a tanda now and then.  Firpo is one of their last choices, or their first - they put it on at the start of a milonga when no-one's there, with all the other poor early stuff.   Luis Petrucelli by the way is another such e.g Yo soy la milonguera, La Viruta (both 1928), heard in Stirling 2015.  Michelú (1930 - no online links but you didn't miss out;) is another, heard with La Viruta again in Edinburgh.  So is Julio Pollero e.g. Yo soy la milonguera (1928), Qué Vachaché (1928) also heard in Edinburgh 2015.  Playing these and the unmentionables to whom I gave enough space last time ensures virtually no-one turns up for the first hour of a milonga as is indeed the case at the Edinburgh weekly milongas. 

Not enough milongas are even the four hours that Edinburgh's used to be. Doubtless the idea is to try to bump up attendance when there is little throughput from class into the milonga from the 11+ teachers running classes locally. 

This is such a shame when Edinburgh in the last year or so had started to play cortinas in the milonga more than before when there was often its trademark "silent cortinas" with the many attendant problems those create. The lights will also dim for the milonga which I know from experience makes it harder to invite by look, especially for visitors. 

Were there great music played from the start, as elsewhere with good conditions such as excellent lighting and cortinas, people I have found are often in situ early.