Balkanika Sounds and Mataderos

One of my English students tipped me off to a monthly event featuring Eastern European music, more specifially the Balkan gypsy brass band style popularized by Kusturica in his films. I assumed he meant live music, and so a friend and I made our way up to the huge old theatre-cum-bar where the show was to take place. We got there early (1am!) to beat the crowd, and were excited as the band took the stage. Until they started to play... ska and reggae. They were actually a great band, and the crowd was going wild. But Jamaica's a far way from Yugoslavia.

They finished their set and then the DJ came on between bands. Or so we thought. It actually turned out to be a DJ night called Balkanika Sounds, where the DJ spun Eastern European tunes, some with a nice techno beat underneath, others danceable by simply by virtue of their pulsating tuba bass line and horn sections. The place was packed and people were going crazy. It was actually surreal looking down from the balcony on a packed dancefloor of people doing their best drunken rendition of the kind of dances that accompany this music. It was like some kind of mad, out of control bar mitzvah. I've never seen anything like it.

We made for the door at around 5, and things were still going strong. I've been told that Balkan music is hot with a certain subset of in-the-know young porteños. Kusturica himself makes it here every so often for a couple of sold-out shows, and I guess the Balkanika Sounds nights used to happen at smaller bars, but they got so popular they've moved to bigger venues.