Almost four decades after the debut, the cycle is redefined as a lesson in good taste and encouragement to the music industry. From the Beatles to Soda Stereo, the secrets of a classic that changed television.
Marina Zucchi
02/11/2020 - 6:01
- Clarín.com
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- TV
In a Peugeot T4B truck, the brothers Juan and Carlos carried the cardboard Beatles club by club, town by town. The idea was wonderful: a gigantography of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, a slide screen, 16 mm films and the voice of an announcer from Ramos Mejía. Thus, the youth of González Catán, La Plata, Moreno or Ezpeleta could feel close to the fabulous four unattainable. The magician who made them feel on Abbey Road was Juan Alberto Badía.
We will have to take that milestone as a germ, as a prehistory of Badia and company . The tenderness of recreating Liverpool on a stage of the deep Conurbano. From that company, something bigger was brewing. Hundreds of first kisses, hundreds of marriage requests while John sang to them All You Need is Love. All they needed was that ... love.
Carlos Badía, Juan's brother, tells it today and the feat is enlarged. Seven years ago he fired his John and yet he sees him in everything. He puts Back and there is "Juancito", keeping him company. The one who invented a program that changed television and TV's relationship with the music industry. The public misses him, the musicians miss him.
Juan Alberto Badía in 1988. / Archivo Clarín
Badía y cía was born exactly with the arrival of democracy, in 1983, on Channel 9. The following year he went to Channel 13 and had air until the end of 1988. He went through hundreds of lives, intercepted musical destinations, so much so that there are dozens of groups from the National rock of the eighties who still appreciate that zoom, that magnifying glass that pushed and opened roads.
The 1996 announcer spoke of an innocent time: "After that program, other channels began to give artists money, to close exclusive agreements. Alejandro Romay on Channel 9 paid. I remember Federico Moura calling me crying to tell me that I couldn't come to my program, by contract. I never got into the artist's business, nor did I charge a fee for bringing people to my program, "he recalled. "The agreement was to support each other. They gave me their music, me a place. If we hold on, nobody falls."
The Badía clan, very low profile, agrees to open the trunks of untold treasures that built a stretch of post-dictatorship TV . The legacy guardians summoned for this special are Carlos - Juan's brother - and Belén, his niece.
Carlos, two years younger than JAB, is the great witness of this story. “I worked at RCA Víctor and my brother already had the True Music program, in Rivadavia. In that cycle there was a section called The Eyes of the Night , which consisted of a cell phone that went to cinemas and theaters interviewed, for example, artists, ”he says. “One day the man in question was missing, Rosito, and Juan Alberto told me 'go and make a note'. Thus I began to visit incredible places, such as Borges' house. The program lasted until 4 AM, and I arrived asleep at my job at RCA. Next comes the Beatlemania. Up to three shows per night taking us that neighborhood by neighborhood. We bought 16 mm films in the United States. Juan spoke up. ”
That picturesque anteroom also had its scares. “Something horrible happened to us in the middle of the military coup. The shows ended and we kept the equipment, the lights, the sound devices in an apartment on Avenida Rivadavia at 4300 ”, Carlos explains. “We had large packages in huge bags and one day we arrived and saw the street cut. The military were hanging on the trees, pointing, spying. Juan had to explain what it was all about. We had an ugly time. ”
The truck of the company founded by Badía in the late '80s, RecordVisión.
That neighborhood success with the Beatles as its axis led them to found a video company, Recordvisión , “the first color television projection firm”. Joe Cocker arrived in the country, for example, and Recorvision provided the giant screen projection and cameras. The same with Luis Miguel child or Sui Generis. Until Juan, who was already stomping, puts the finishing touch to all that radio popularity debuting in Badia and company.
History of the name and other pearls
That in the title of the program the name Badía appeared first and the words "and company" later, it was not a kidnapping of self-centeredness. This is what Badía used to say : "It was something casual. It all starts when they offer me the project to do for a while on Saturdays on Channel 9. They wanted a structure similar to a Saturday bus program. If we had to present the written idea , they would not have approved it, so we tried to escape to the meeting where we had to raise the idea, so, in a form, from the channel they provisionally write down in that space on Saturdays, 'Badia and company'. And finally we adopted the name. It was not a tone of vanity. It was also taking responsibility with the last name for what I was going to do .
The file does not lie, but sometimes it becomes a big wink. On the day of the farewell of the cycle, a brief talk that seems inconsequential between Juan and a sports journalist becomes a joke resigned by time. “A humorous little ball, right? In some program you would not cheer up? ”, Visionary Juan Alberto asks the very young journalist. "Do not! A humorous program, no, ”replies the boy, Marcelo Hugo Tinelli, blushing, who two years later would debut in Telefe with a humorous night show program, VideoMatch.
Juan Alberto Badía. / Clarin file
Badía crying after Luis Alberto Spinetta's exquisite show, Badía marveled at 'Todo a lung', anticipating the boy-faced singer (Lerner) who was facing "the most important theme of his entire career" . Music was happening and between four televised walls the history was claimed and constructed. Behind, more than 100 ants ran in a perfect gear.
Astor Piazzolla to pure bellows, The grandparents of nowhere, Virus, Sumo, Charly García, Juan Carlos Baglietto, Raúl Porchetto, Marilina Ross, Sergio Denis, Susana Rinaldi, Fito Páez, Luis Spinetta, Estela Raval, The Twist, Raúl Lavié, Victor Heredia, Riff, Teresa Parodi. The music menu of that moment, summarized in an invitation to play and sing without focusing on the minute by minute of the needle tyrant.
ByC was also music, word. The extensive talk as a value, the question and the answer, the time to ask and let answer. Thus, Ernesto Sábato himself was interviewed - interviewed by Mario Mactas - and Charly left his questions for posterity. Before the question of "how is your head?": "I don't feel different from the rest of the people, it's just a matter of amplification. Did you see the rock recitals that have a lot of speakers and everything is very powerful? The feedback comes "The press is coming, there is an amplification. And a distortion. I go to the psychiatrist four times a week and he tells me that I am fine. I do not do anything, I make good music. Nothing can be created from madness. never die and that is serious: it implies commitment to be eternal. "
The day Soda Stereo caused a blackout
Among the musical emotional peaks of the program, there is one that is preserved as gold in the Back Channel video library. "Exclusive, 1988. Today on stage, Soda Stereo," announces Juan Alberto lengthening the "o", and in the studio all skins are synchronized on a single chicken skin. " I know that place, where the stars burst. I know the spiral staircase towards the dome," sang the kid, Gustavo Cerati, who told us about X-rays and love that was bleeding. That the last time together they three and Badia. It was all promises zone.
Soda Stereo in "Badía y Compania".
But that was not the only time Soda live there. The trio was a main course every year. 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987. "You are no longer the future," the driver told them, before 400 people crowded who copied the fashion of the shoulder pads and the eyeliner . The last year (1988) the program was made from the River Plate micro-stadium.
By 1983, Oscar Maresca - who would be one of the directors of the cycle - was the cameraman on Saturdays. The product ranged from 13 to 21, but from 8 to 12 sketches or musical numbers were recorded, so many worked “without stopping from 8 to 21,” Maresca recalls.
“In 1987, one day that Soda Stereo played, the assembly was already planned, but Gustavo Cerati, Zeta Bosio and Charly Alberti brought a different light equipment, wanted something more modern, and arrived with their audio equipment. That served in a stadium, but not in a television studio, and what had to happen happened, "Maresca evokes." Terrible. They plugged in all that, the fuses blew and we ran out of light . We had to grab a portable camera to film through the corridors of something emergency. The light was just restored at 19 ”.
Carlos Badía, brother of Juan Alberto.
ByC was a kind of artisanal TV, preproduction, but also improvisation. “Trials with groups were not possible. The musicians arrived and in three minutes that lasted a commercial cut the sound was tested. There was no time to go to the bathroom, and the public saw everything impeccable, as if it had been prepared, ”adds Maresca, who remembers unforgettable episodes like the musical Evita, with Nacha Guevara at the head . "We were trained to solve in speed, that was a master in the art of spontaneity."
“I think there were two programs that marked the television bus. One was Circular Saturdays, with Pipo Mancera, and another Badía and company. The latter came from Serrat to Diego Maradona when he played in Napoli, ”recalls Maresca. “He was going through moments like the Carapintada Coup during the Alfonsin Government, and we had to suddenly approach the issue. That day the figures gathered in the program in support of democracy. ByC was part of the story and was also a hotbed. With Badía he debuted, for example, Anibal Pachano with the Botton tap ”.
Cecilia, the sweet voice of Badía and co
"I worked at ATC and I joined the program because I watched it. I called Channel 13 very expensive, I had a meeting with an executive of the channel and told him I wanted to be in that cycle," recalls Cecilia Laratro, who was the coequiper of Badía several seasons after Ana María Campoy . "A week later they called me to cover The Flower Party in Escobar from a cell phone. After Student's Day. They were testing me. Both of them were already in co-driving."
"The program was done in two studios, The Backroom and the study of the show, where the audience was staging. Hyperproduced, thought minute by minute, someone was engaged in the week, for example, to go to the record stores to discover new talents to later summon them. Maria Elena Walsh was coming, Jorge Luis Borges was coming. From Borges I remember that he just came in asked how much the ceiling measured . "
Cecilia Laratro in "Badia and company"
Laratro warns that there was no business but to build a luxury program: "There were no arrangements with musicians, or with record labels, or with producers in between. It was another world, with a production that no longer exists on Argentine TV. , where today we are looking to fill the space with two people and a confrontation. The playback was not admitted and the live could ruin anyone's career . That is why it was thought impeccably in everything, the soundman behind all that was Tupa Messiah. "
"Juan's generosity was such that in the interviews he was called 'the interview of the 8', because he let us all do it. He considered that the better he was with him, the better for the product. He did not feel that anyone could do it shadow, quite the opposite of what is usually thought of in the middle . "
From that school that the Centennials will never see is a huge file and even a lost vinyl and cassette, with songs by Sandra Mihanovich, Alberto Cortez, Alejandro Lerner, Fito Páez, Sergio Denis and César "Banana" Pueyrredón. The copies rescued by a collector are sold between 400 and 1000 pesos online.
From Fito Páez to Professor Lambetain
Dolls, ventriloquists, lunatic teachers. Not everything was music, interviews or journalism on that bus, or better, that Saturday truck. The comedy step, for example, was underpinned by a man "bottle ass glasses," Professor Lambetain (actor Esteban Mellino, who then used that trampoline for his own show).
Juan Alberto Badia and Esteban Mellino (Lambetain) in 1986.
Alan Pauls, José de Zer, Juan Carlos Thorry, Víctor Sueiro, Liliana López Foresi, Luisa Valmaggia, Jorge Dorio, Pepe Eliaschev and Silvia Fernández Barrio were just some of the names that enriched the afternoons (and nights) throughout the five years of air
A few years ago Fito Páez fans enjoyed the reappearance of a treasure. A recital by Rosario (1984) recovered some time ago by the South American Musical Archive (Armusa). Legend has it that Marisa Badía, the producer of the cycle, gave her a chance alone. "Charly García came with a keyboard player. One day Juan asks me: 'Who opens the program?'. I said: 'Beto give me a ball that you will like. That's how Fito debuted with us.'
Tinelli himself often tells that he asked Beto that his cousin's band be invited. Badia accepted the disciple's request. So one day some "kids" came to the studio, The Fabulous Cadillacs.
Luisa Delfino remembers her time at Badía and company as her television debut. “I was working with Juan Alberto on Continental radio. I think it was 1986. And it takes me to the side and tells me: 'I would like you to come to TV, Badia and company.' I replied that I did not know if I would feel comfortable on TV. 'Those who are are very cute,' I said. He replied: 'But I don't love you as pretty, but as nice, spontaneous, creative.' That decided me, although I expected him to say: 'Luisa, you are not so ugly'! "
Juan Alberto Badía, Pepe Eliaschev and Silvia Fernández Barrio in "Badía y Cía, in 1984. / Clarín Archive
“The idea was that I was in the back room, with Quique Wolf, Tinelli, Jorge Dorio and a homogeneous group. The first year I invented a famous guest to come with his treasure, which would save you in a fire. It worked, ”he gets excited. “I especially remember a note I had to make to Tita Merello . When Juan did not like something, he said: 'There is no energy here. I love you well above. ' So one day we raised the piano on a table, for example, to be well up 'and we made him laugh. "
" Another year he set up a table of journalists to interview politicians: Sergio Sinay, Jorge Telerman and I. I was never a political journalist, so mine was more for common sense," says Delfino. "We started at 13 and we went out at night. I don't remember ever hearing a bad word in that program. They didn't need to. And you could laugh the same way. I'm not a language potato, but the program was made with quality, I took care of the language. And it was the glory for rockers. "
The program that never ended
When in 2012, days before his death, Badía raised Martín Fierro to his career, summed up the spirit of what he had been as a communicator in 40 years. "It is a prize that relieves because it did nothing but make me compete with myself. I look up and find it difficult to find an enemy. I have not gone through life to look for them."
By 1996, Badía y cía had returned for a while, "compressed", from 17 to 20, on the old channel 13: "I am another and the television is another", JAB warned "The TV now has a video clip time, not only in those who do it, also in those who see it. " He declared himself "an advocate of live performance, in the face of so much playback eruption."
-Isn't it an old fashion, the attempt to bring musicians to a television studio, Badia? Isn't it slow television? (Juan Alberto responded with class):
-Do not confuse rhythm with speed.
Juan Alberto Badía / Clarín Archive
Badia's communication lessons are resigned today asleep in the archives. For 1993 he returned to the screen "something saturated", in front of A good idea . I already had "few fleas": "I'm tired of hearing that music programs are pianta rating. I'm not to adapt to a script that says that to make a successful program you need this or that. I'm not going to scratch the television screen to get caught. "
"I have memories of Badía and company from outside the studio, because I was born in 1982," evokes one of the heirs of the trade, Belén Badía, broadcaster, Juan's niece. "The conversation tables at home were, of course, around the television screen. Literally and symbolically, because we ate watching TV, and we thought about what was happening on TV at the business and programming level. My uncle was one of those who gave prestige to the profession and one of the most creative. He was a complete communicator, not just an announcer, but one with ideas. No one knows where the media is going and it would be good if someone today transformed into Badia to mark the path .Where are we going? "
The last months of life, Juan Alberto had on his light table a pebble given by his oncologist. I had to do the exercise of breaking it every day. As a metaphor for what he wanted to get out of his life, but at the same time as an element that reminded him of what he had built. Something of his was indestructible, like a stone: the career he had built. "Step by step, without frantic climbs." Badia could leave, but thanks to videotapes, he would never leave us without his company.
