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Rock Tales
#666-Jay
Vaquer
Mamonas
Assassinas-Photo from Playgrounds
Magazine
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- Last year, about this time, there were five young (between 22
and 26 years old) musicians in Sao Paulo, Brazil who called
themselves Utopia. They played some serious rock and roll but
not too many people seemed to care. Their first record sold 50
copies, to friends and family, and they were looking at their
day jobs as their main source of income. The guitarist of the
group, Bento, was a close friend of my son Djae, who was
recording his first L.P. in a garage studio owned by Rick
Bonadio, the keyboard player in my son's group. Rick was
sympathetic to Bento's predicament and offered to produce his
group if they changed their name and image. Rick suggested they
combine humor with satire in their lyrics, mix heavy metal with
indigenous Brazilian music styles, and wear costumes from
cartoon characters. Bento agreed to all of Rick's suggestions
and they became Mamonas Assassinas. A mamona is a green fruit
with spiny protrusions and is also slang for a woman's breasts.
It would translate to Killer Melons or Killer Tits. They spent
the following months writing irreverent, immoral, and sexually
explicit lyrics, which were humorous, and recording their new
L.P. titled Mamonas Assassinas. When all the tracks were
finished, Rick took the master tape to Los Angeles and mixed at
The Enterprise Studio with Jerry Napier, who does Ozzy Osbourne.
When they returned to Brazil, Rick arranged a manufacturing and
distribution deal with EMI-Odeon Records and they were put on
the market in July. Rick was also their manager and booked a
national tour including all the cities. They started out getting
about $1,000 per show. Then, the unprecedented magic ( black or
white) began. They became an overnight phenomena. During the
following six months they sold over 1.8 million records and for
that achievement were featured in a December issue of Billboard
Magazine. Their audience was primarily kids and teens and their
shows were going for $50,000 each by the new year. They played
200 dates from July 1995 through February 1996 and grossed over
3 million dollars just from the live shows. The final show of
their tour was in Brasilia on March 2. They planned on taking
vacations and enjoying their new found wealth and fame after
this final show. They left Brasilia at 11 P.M. after the show
and while trying to land in Sao Paulo at 11:30, their chartered
Lear jet slammed into a mountain top doing 200 miles an hour. It
then cut a path 200 yards long down the hillside, knocking down
huge trees and spreading debris along the way. The following
morning all of Brazil was shocked to see the televised rescue
attempt. All 9 passengers had been killed instantaneously on
impact. The 5 Mamonas, the stage manager, the body guard, and
the pilot were severely mutilated. The only body intact,save a
few visible bone fractures, was the co-pilot's. Millions of
Brazilian children and teens wept, horrified, seeing their
idols' body parts being taken from the mountainside by
helicopter. The media spared no gore as later in the week
magazines showed pictures of the crash sight with the
dismembered bodies being collected in full color. Over 100,000
fans came to the funeral which, coincidentally, was held on the
lead singer's birthday (Dinho would have been 25) and sang the
Mamonas' hits to the closed coffins.
- There were many strange ironies and mysteries surrounding the
tragedy. First was the crash itself. The pilot made four errors
in less than five minutes trying to land. The jet approached the
runway at twice the speed for landing and too high. The airport
procedure for this overshoot was to turn to the right, climb to
1800 feet and circle. After he overshot the runway, he turned
left and went to 900 feet then hit the rock. Speculation is one
of the Mamonas was flying the jet instead of the pilot. This
Lear jet, PT-LSD, had no black box and the pilot was in
communication with the tower seconds before the collision and
gave no explanation for the aborted landing. Secondly, at the
end of the year, a famous Brazilian psychic, Mae Dinah,
predicted the death of the Mamonas in a air disaster. She said
the first time she saw them on T.V. she noticed dark shadows
around them and their death was imminent. The third coincidence
was the drummer of the group, Sergio Reoli, who collected news
clippings of plane crashes as a hobby. The fourth was from the
keyboardist, Julio Rasec, who just hours before leaving for
Brasilia went to a hair dresser to get his hair dyed red. The
hair dresser always video taped his customers and on this tape
Julio said he had a dream, last night, that their plane crashed.
In the real crash, Julio was decapitated. It gets more macabre.
Dinho, the lead singer, was a sex symbol and always stripped
down to a G-string during their shows. He was found missing both
legs, his genital organs, and the top of his head from the mouth
up. The guitarist, Bento Hinoto, also played in his underwear
and was found dismembered and decapitated. The other members
were found scattered in pieces over a 40 yard radius. The
Mamonas took several publicity photos in which the three front
men squatted down and pulled their shirts down to their shoes
creating the illusion of no legs. In the crash, they lost their
legs. Despite their enormous popularity, the moral majority did
not like their children singing those nasty songs. In Brazil,
Christians can pray to a Saint to kill someone and the results
of this crash take on the aspect of Voodoo. The Mamonas
corrupted millions of children with their sexual lyrics, and the
rescuers found three sets of genitals in the woods. These guys
sang about their peckers, played in their underwear, broke all
the rules and, as if through some cosmic karma, paid the
ultimate price for their success. I'm sure the priests in Brazil
will write many sermons on this subject. And, of course, the
practitioners of black magic will claim the influence of the
evil demons responsible for the Mamonas' meteoric success were
the same ones responsible for this tragic ending. You don't
really think the Devil plays fair do you?
Rock lesson # 666- Death can be stranger than life.
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LEGAL
DISCLAIMER
All sounds, images, video, and graphics are a Copyright ©
of Jay Vaquer Press. Any use or reproduction without
expressed prior written consent could result in legal action or an
extensive full-body cavity search.
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