Secos e Molhados, Next Big Thing for '73

By anybody's standard, 700,000 records sold is a huge success.  By Brazilian standards, that's just incalculably enormous.  32 years ago, the Sao Paolo band Secos e Molhados ("Dry & Wet Goods") sold 700,000 copies of their eponymous debut record (shown, left), and still nobody outside Brazil knows who they were - not even WFMU.  Let's start knowing.

Secos e Molhados "Sangue Latino" and "O Vira" (wmv movie, 18M)

The most important thing you can do for yourself today is watch this video, which ends on the frame you see to your right  Go do that, then come back and I'll tell you more about them.

When I first heard the debut Secos & Molhados album, I endured several months of confusion trying to figure out who's the woman singing, and why isn't she on the album cover?  Well sir, "she" is Ney Matogrosso, and he is indeed on the cover.  No, he doesn't sound like a feminine guy, and he's not singing falsetto - he sings like a girl!!  And it's totally beautiful, and these songs are mostly achingly sweet.  The confusion lingered as I got hung up on the disconnect between the sound of the songs and the look of the total freaks who, it seems, are performing them.  And then along came Wolmar.  He's my fave dealer of Brazilian esoterica at the annual WFMU Record Fair, and he actually had some video footage - lots of it.  And now the pieces are coming together.  Go listen to some songs:

O Patrão nosso de cada dia (realaudio link)
O Vira (realaudio link)
Rosa de Hiroshima (realaudio link)

Jump the flip if you're interested in a little bit of history on the band (which is remarkably scarce in English).

Secos e Molhados was formed by this dude, João Ricardo (link is to his official site -- in Portuguese, natch).  He's from Portugal, actually, and his father was a famous journalist, who even contributed some lyrics to the debut album.

João had the idea to form a band, and he definitely had a concept to go along with it - and that concept definitely seems to have involved a great deal of camp.  But again, all the info's in Portuguese, so I'm guessing.  João is the guy who continues to revive the name Secos E Molhados, although he's the only original member.

Around 1972, João met the utterly compelling Ney Matogrosso.

Clearly, a look was coming together.  Bear in mind, this was before (and completely remote from) the Rocky Horror Show, and Kiss hadn't happened yet.  (Reportedly, Ney continues to maintain that Kiss stole their look wholesale from a full page Secos & Molhados ad in Billboard).  These guys seemed to be developing out of an indigenous form of Brazilian camp that was totally removed even from British glam rock. 

Ney Matogrosso (link to his official site), it must be told, is a massive star in Brazil.  He struck out solo in 1975 and developed one of the more lasting stage shows in MPB.  He did shed the makeup eventually, and I get the weird sense that he's currently on a level with Julio Iglesias - but I'm probably way off the mark here!  He's still at it. 

Gerson Conrad filled out the trio.  He's the mystery man. He didn't have the high-profile career that the other guys had.  At least according to the internet. 

Speaking of the internet, here's some English translations of João's site, and a bit of history (good luck!) from the Brazilian Wikipedia

Comments

[scalovik]

jesus fucking christ !!! ::
this time you break all the limits . . .
secos & molhados, even for a brazilian guy
it's hard, cool stuff !!!

[Audiosports]

Secos e Molhados: TV appearances 1973-4 mp3s

http://audium.blogspot.com/2005/10/secos-e-molhados-tv-appearances-1973-4.html

plus

Os Mutantes Live on TV mp3 set

http://audium.blogspot.com/2005/10/os-mutantes-live-on-tv-mp3-set.html

[Scott]

Thanks for the links Audiosports! --Scott

[fatty jubbo]

that video is amazing.

[dave]

great stuff! Their look probably owes something to images of Brazilian/Amazonian indigenous people. Gal Costa also wore an "indian" costume on the cover of the India album.

[Scott]

Gal Costa's "India" album cover deserves a post all it's own! Front, back, gatefold, all of it! Jesus...

[lola]

The video is cool, although I wish you would have posted in a mpeg format so that we could save it easier. Watching this guy dance around, it kind of reminded me of MANGO from that Saturday Night Live show. It seems that the gender-bending and glitter movement even went on down there in Brazil back then.

[dave]

Hey, gender-bending in Brazil is something way different from what we have in gringolandia. So was life as a pop music star in the 60s and 70s. Caetano Veloso's book, Tropical Truth, is essential if you are into this kind of thing.

[John L]

Cool. My college roomate had both that Secos e Molhados album and a solo (first?)Ney Matogrosso album that I checked out back in the early 70s. He spent a fair amount of his youth in Brazil. I taped acoustically (boom box near speakers) most of the Secos e Molhados album and just the jungle intro to the Ney Matogrosso years later and recently listened to them but it's somewhat lo-fi. I look forward to checking all this out.

Fond memories.

Cheers,

Lipwak
(The rest of the music he had was pretty straight, Eduardo Gudin, who else?... Chico y Caetano (Veloso) (Live) was pretty cool though - great bass & drum. I don't know where my tape of that went... If anybody knows of a copy, let me know.)

[Emilio]

Yes, Ney Matogrosso does believe that Kiss copied Secos e Molhados after seeing that Billboard ad. Ney also claims that, when the group performed in Mexico (a landmark in their career), he was contacted by an American promoter with an offer to take him to the United States. Ney believes that, since he refused, the guy who spoke to him eventually suggested the make-up idea to Kiss. Secos' first manager Moracy do Val goes even further: he states in no uncertain terms that Kiss "traveled from Los Angeles (sic) to Mexico to copy the make-up thing". This is quoted in a book about Ney Matogrosso. As a fan of both groups, I don't believe Kiss copied a Brazilian group they probably never heard about, but Brazilians are divided on that: Secos e Molhados fans say of course it's true and Kiss fans say of course it's NOT true (even though some Kiss fans say Ney is "lying" because he's "jealous" and all that rap and I don't think that is true either).

[Fitzcarraldo]

Scott: Thanks so much for posting about the Secos & Molhados, and for the video from TV Tupi. Fantastic! I remember first seeing the group performing on TV in Brazil in 1972 or 1973. Although João Ricardo's Web site makes no mention of it, I am as certain as I can be that I saw the group perform 'O Vira' on Programa Silvio Santos (a Brazilian 1970s TV talent show in São Paulo with a large, young and noisy audience), and I certainly recall seeing them on TV Tupi and TV Globo before they really became famous, and many times thereafter. They were a blast.