Everything Is Possible

This may seem like no great shakes to most of you, but tonight is the Os Mutantes show, and I, for one, have not been this keyed up for a rock gig in a very, very long time. This is because Os Mutantes, the Brazilian psychedelic pioneers, have not toured in forever -- or at least since 1973.

The original Os Mutantes consists of Rita Lee and the Baptista Brothers – Arnaldo, Sergio, and Claudio. Tonight, we will not see Rita Lee, which is tragic, but not show-stopping. It’s kind of like missing just one Beatle; you learn to accept the situation and build an appreciation for what you have.

What you have with Os Mutantes is a keeling, reverberating, keyboard-driven brilliance of frenzied pop, fixed in whims and loops, which just narrowly dodges the act of disaffecting its followers. Or, you could just refer to it as Tropicalia. Tropicalia is the Brazilian genre of psych pop, which the Baptista Brothers, the founding fathers of Os Mutantes, perfected more than any other band of the 1960’s psychedelic epoch.

((Now, today, we have the group, CSS, carrying on this Brazilian influence.))

I was not around back then to see these legends perform their magic and neither was my comrade, Bree, who first introduced me to the music of Os Mutantes, and who planned her New York trip around this very show. So you can understand, I'm sure, why I am a little more excited than usual to get the hell out of this meat locker excuse for a cubicle.