Callejeros

The band was formed in mid-1995 by a group of young people of Villa Celina, Greater Buenos Aires. They were known initially as Río Verde ("Green River") and mostly played covers of Chuck Berry, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Patricio Rey y sus Redonditos de Ricota. At the end of 1996 the band changed its lineup and recruited new members. Given the extensive change to the original group, in January 1997, they changed their name to Callejeros. A new guitarist and a saxophonist came into the band between late 1999 and early 2000, and it is with this lineup that Callejeros recorded the three albums it has released to date.

In 2001 they recorded their first album, Sed ("Thirst"), in which they followed the rock format they had kept for years, but with the participation of sax player Juan Carbone, former member of Viejas Locas. A single came out of this album, Vicioso, jugador y mujeriego, and a video was made for it, but did not see much TV airtime.

Their second album, Presión ("Pressure"), also self-released, came out in 2003. It premiered at the Atlanta football stadium in Buenos Aires and it included fourteen songs, ranging in style from tango, ballad, rhythms of candombe (black music from Uruguay) and Latin rock up to classic rock'n'roll. This record made their name known in almost the whole country and, to some degree, in Latin America. Not long after the release of the album, the first single, Una nueva noche fría ("A New Cold Night"), was aired on radio and music TV stations during several months.

After playing at the Obras Sanitarias Stadium, known in Buenos Aires as the "temple of rock", in 2004, it seemed as if the band would reach far, because of its growth in popularity in such a short time. In a six months span, they went from drawing less than a thousand people, to play in arenas with capacity of five thousand or more attendees.

In late 2004, they released their third album, Rocanroles sin destino ("Rock 'n roll without Destiny"). It did not have the "power" of previous albums, but more attention went into describing themselves, their lives, their career as musicians and the conflicts that fame brings. The album was played live twice: First in Córdoba, in front of ten thousand people, and then in the Club Atlético Excursionistas football stadium, for an audience of almost fifteen thousand people.

Cromañón

The night of December 30, 2004, the band played a concert at the club República Cromagnon, in Buenos Aires. During the show, someone in the audience lighted a small firework that threw light balls up, which impacted a plastic fibre net that held the acoustical panels (made of foam rubber, to lower costs) and combustion begun. The club was overcrowded (there were more than four thousand attendees, and it had a capacity of two thousand people) and the emergency exits had been (illegally) locked from the outside. The fire spread and eventually killed 194 people, mostly due to burnings in the respiratory tract and inhalation of carbon monoxide. Among the dead spectators were relatives of various band members, as well as the band manager's wife and the lead singer's girlfriend.

The band was investigated by the authorities regarding their responsibility in the tragedy, because it was well known that the audience frequently made use of pyrotechnic devices during their shows; though in this case Callejeros had asked them not to, to no avail.

In April 2011, the six band members were convicted of murder.

After Cromañón

After República Cromañón, Callejeros did not play for a long time. First, due to their own decision, then because of the opposition from the relatives of victims of the fire.

In May 2006, the band released their fourth album, Señales ("Signs"), which sold 20,000 copies on its release day. The band signed a contract with Pelo Music and had both previous albums re-released (Sed and Presión) by this company.

On July 6, 2006, Callejeros appeared without prior announcement during a concert of the band Jóvenes Pordioseros, in El Teatro, a club in Flores, Buenos Aires. The band had previously agreed not to go on stage, and the show was suspended by the management of the club. Later, relatives of the victims expressed mixed opinions about it; some claimed that the band had "the right" to play because there was no judicial order to keep them from doing so, while others called it "a mistake", or claimed that they should be in prison. After the tragedy, the band played five more times, always outside Buenos Aires city. The last time in Olavarría, Buenos Aires Province.

Second trial

In April 2011, an appeal court retried them and found the members of the band guilty, sentencing each of them to eleven years in prison. In October 2012, band members were sentenced to 7 years of prison, making it effective at that moment. Founding member Fontanet was moved to a psychiatric clinic in Córdoba. On June 10, 2013, he moved from the clinic in Córdoba to the Ezeiza prison psychiatric ward. He traveled in an ambulance accompanied by his girlfriend Stephanie Miguel and a mobile Federal Prison Service.

Members[edit]
Pato (Patricio Fontanet): Vocals
Dios (Christian Torrejón): Bass
Elio (Elio Delgado): Guitars
Maxi (Maximiliano Djerfy): Guitars
Edu (Eduardo Vázquez): Drums
Juancho (Juan Carbone): Sax