Canadian Band Ready to Travel to Cuba

Vancouver rock ’n’ rollers The Vicious Cycles will travel to Cuba in January to help support Cuban rock bands.

The Vancouver Sun

Vancouver band Vicious Cycles ready to rock Cuba

Band of bikers expects ‘a whole bunch of Harleys’ to come to their show

By Francois Marchand, Vancouver Sun December 14, 2011

The Vicious Cycles 'Solidarity Rock' Cuban Tour Kick-off

With Rich Hope and his Evil Doers, AK-747s

Friday, Dec. 16, 9 p.m.

The Media Club, 695 Cambie

Tickets: $10 at the door

VANCOUVER — It’s almost a rock ’n’ roll Buena Vista Social Club.

In January, Vancouver rock ’n’ rollers The Vicious Cycles will embark on a tour of Cuba, performing alongside underground Cuban punk act Arrabio.

In the process, they will be helping a Cuban community organization secure new equipment for up and coming rock acts and music schools in a country that has been repressing rock ’n’ roll for decades.

The Vicious Cycles are the fifth Canadian band to head down to Cuba as part of Solidarity Rock, a charitable music initiative launched by a handful of Edmonton-based musicians and Cuban friends like William Garcia, a member of Arrabio who is handling logistics on the Cuban side through the Hermanos Saiz Association.

The Cycles are the first Vancouver band to make the trek to Cuba, playing seven shows in 10 days across the country.

“It’s artists helping artists, musicians helping musicians,” Vicious Cycles bassist Rob Wright said. “It’s not just Canadian musicians helping Cuban musicians, it’s a true exchange.

“It’s about helping musicians find their own way. It’s not about any sort of political structure. We’re going over there to play rock ’n’ roll and to help others play rock ’n’ roll.”

The Vicious Cycles are a motorcycle-loving crew that released their first album The Strange and Terrible Saga of ... this spring.

The band includes members of Raised By Wolves, The Blackjacks and Les Tabernacles and is known for its wild, sweaty performances.

For Wright, the opportunity to play for Harley-Davidson fans in Cuba was a no-brainer.

“The guys in Arrabio organized a meeting with the Harley-Davidson club in Trinidad,” Wright said. “They’re getting a whole bunch of Harleys to come out to our show, which should be pretty wild.”

Edmonton-based documentary filmmaker Drew McIntosh has been involved with Solidarity Rock since its inception in 2008, when he and Edmonton rock band 7 and 7 Is made their first trip to Cuba as part of the project.

Over the course of four tours, McIntosh has shot hours upon hours of footage that he hopes will eventually become a full-length documentary about the underground rock ’n’ roll scene in Cuba.

“The guys that play traditional salsa music and shake maracas for tourists make the money,” McIntosh said. “But there are these bands that are some of the best bands I’ve ever seen and they would never be invited to play big festivals in their own cities. We’re showing the world that Cuban rock ’n’ roll exists, and if we can start putting that stuff in music schools now, I think it will be an interesting legacy.”

So far, the Solidarity Rock project has donated a full band setup with P.A., amplifiers, drum kit and guitars to the Hermanos Saiz Association in Sancti Spiritus, and it has also provided instruments to various bands directly.

“There’s a thriving punk rock scene in four cities in the centre of the country,” McIntosh said. “For the last 16 years, there has been the same 10-12 guys playing that kind of music. Arrabio is part of that. They are the original surviving punk rockers that have been there the whole time.”

McIntosh added that he hoped this fifth tour would see Solidarity Rock expand into different chapters across Western Canada via groups based out of Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver.

“We want to break it into chapters that can take on their own autonomous projects,” McIntosh said.

“That way we can achieve more successes.”

The kickoff concert at the Media Club Friday night will also feature performances by Rich Hope and his Evil Doers and the AK-747s, as well as an exhibit featuring pictures by McIntosh and other photographers who have documented the Cuban rock ’n’ roll scene over the past four Solidarity Rock tours.

“In the long term, one of the goals of solidarity rock is to bring Arrabio to Canada to tour,” Wright said.

fmarchand@vancouversun.com