Beatlemania started in England in 1963; it reached the USA around January 1964, but it took a bit longer to get to the South American shores. Circa 1963 & 1964, Latin America was in the midst of a different 'invasion', that of the modern Italian pop music that took hold of the charts in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Peru and other places.
Finally by mid-1964, the Beatles were getting their first hit in Brazil with 'I want to hold your hand'. São Paulo's TV Record had the means to sign foreign acts to perform at their theatre on Rua da Consolação. They, obviously, would not have the resources to sign the Fab 4... so they settled to 2nd (or 3rd) best: The American Beetles.
The American Beetles were so bad, Revista do Radio's editor Anselmo Domingos wrote an editorial almost calling them names. Revista do Radio, 5 September 1965.
article published by weekly Argentine ASI in its 24 July 1964 issue.
Defensa de la Moral
In 1964, South American fans eagerly awaited the arrival of the Fab Four – but four Americans named Tom, Vic, Bill and Dave turned up instead. It’s a bizarre story of a con gone wrong, writes Ed Prideaux.
By Ed Prideaux,
24 April 2020.
Finally by mid-1964, the Beatles were getting their first hit in Brazil with 'I want to hold your hand'. São Paulo's TV Record had the means to sign foreign acts to perform at their theatre on Rua da Consolação. They, obviously, would not have the resources to sign the Fab 4... so they settled to 2nd (or 3rd) best: The American Beetles.
The American Beetles were a combo of 4 young American males from Florida put together in a hurry with the sole intention of cashing in on the phenomenal success of The Beatles, that literally 'invaded' the USA in early January 1964 with a completely new sound and a new approach to rock'n'roll - that had been growing into an old fart lately after having been diluted in its energy by white teen heart throbs that knew nothing of what rock was really about.
The American Beetles were a complete sell-out since its inception. But let us not be too harsh on the American fellows. After all they only wanted to be part of a revolution started in Liverpool by the Fab 4 and make a little money themselves. They were really glad to be signed up by those crazy Latin managers who wanted to bring them to South America and show what Beatlemania was like.
Well, here are a few articles about the passage of the American Beetles in Brazil and Argentina.
The American Beetles were banned at two radio stations in Buenos Aires, Argentina
In Buenos Aires the American Beetles were banned from peforming on Radio Splendid and (ironically) Radio Libertad (Radio Freedom) by a certain Commission on Decency because they were 'sexually ambiguous' (see the text in Spanish below). Argentina had had a military coup de etat against Democracy in 1962, and was on its way to have another military putsch in 1966. Latin America was entering a new Dark Ages that lasted until the 1980s.
Even though the American Beetles suffered censorship in Buenos Aires, they appeared on a TV show that survives until today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCb-zVUwQhk
In June 1964, just a few weeks before the American Beetles flew down to South American they appeared on Dick Clark's 'American Band-stand' and sang Chuck Berry's 'School days'. Check it out:
listen to American Beetles singing 'You did it to me': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMuhOIPMDU8
Beatles de araque tomam de assalto o Brazil e Argentina.
Quatro americanos de Miami, eles tinham um conjunto chamado The Ardels. Depois de romperem relações com o seu barbeiro por 6 meses, transformaram-se nos American Beetles, e por pouco não provocaram um incêndio no Paramount Theater, no Brooklyn, onde tiveram sua estréia. Bill Ande é o bonitão do grupo, réplica do inglês John Vernon (sic). Victor Gray, papel carbono de Ringo Star, é o cômico. Tom Condra - que não tira as botas nem para dormir - e o baterista David Hieronymuos completam o grupo. Tem todos 22 anos, e um de seus sucessos, 'Don't be unkind' (Não seja indelicada), foi um dos pontos altos de suas recentes apresentações em São Paulo e na TV Rio, na Guanabara.
texto de Helga Sydow; fotos de Zygmunt Haar; revista Fatos & Fotos.
The Beetles Americanos EP released in Argentina; the titles are in Spanish but they only sang in English.
até a revista Melodias entrou na 'onda' dos American Beetles e os colocou na capa.
The American Beetles en Argentina
The American Beetles caused a commotion in Argentina where conservative right-wing groups tried to block them from appearing on radio & TV. They banned them from 2 radio shows on Radio Splendid and the ironically named Radio Libertad (Radio Freedom). Tom & Vic are led by men in trench coat but no fear, they were friendly and only a little curious to see guys wearing long hair with bangs - 'flequillos' in Spanish.
The following is a report by an Argenine weekly ASI journalist - who went to the offices of the Management Comission of Commercial Broadcasting Radio & TV to interview a certain Ms Nélida Baigorria who tried to explain the procedures such a Comission arrived at in the banning of The American Beetles performance on being broadcast by LR4 Radio Splendid and Radio Libertad on Tuesday 14 July 1964.
She talks a lot of fascist jargon in a very uninteresting way. She hints the American Beetles are an aberration of sexual misconduct, judges their music as 'unartistic' - God knows from what guide lines the young teacher - yes, the lady is apparently an elementary-school teacher - bases her judgements on. Probably based on Hitlerjugend's doctrines.
It is no wonder Argentina was still reeling from a military putsch in 1962, where elected President Arturo Frondizi was toppled, Congress was dismised and a Dictatorship installed. A rigged election was set up in 1963, in which another Arturo (Ilia) was chosen but deposed by a new military coup in 1966. As one can see, fascism was the main political force in Argentina since 1955.
Now, for those who can read Spanish is a transcription of the rambling nonsense uttered by Ms. Nélida Baigorria to the ASI newspaper man as to what is 'real art and proper sexual behaviour' and what is 'deviation' by the notorious American rock band. She hints there is a world-wide movement where dissolution will be imposed on countries like Argentina and which the American Beetles are the beach-head.
Los Beetles han vuelto a ser noticia. Otra vez fueron motivo de escándalo. La Comisión Administradora de Emisoras Comerciales de Radio y TV, prohibió su actuación en radioemisoras de su jurisdicción.
La situación surgió el martes 14 de julio 1964, al anunciarse la actuacción de ese cuarteto de flequillos (franjas) norteamericanos por la onda de LR4 Radio Splendid, emisora que iba a irradiar a la presentación de los cantantes yanquis en una audición en 'duplex' con Radio Libertad.
Los que sintorizaron la noche del 14 de julio Radio Splendid, a las 20,30 hora anunciada para la actuación de los Beetles, no pudieron satisfacer sus deseos de escuchar a los norteamericanos.
Qué habia sucedido? Esa fue la pregunta que se hicieron numerosos oyentes de citada emisora.
La respuesta se conoció muy pronto. Los Beetles no pudieron actuar por imperdirselo una resolución adoptada en la tarde de ese dia por la Comisión Administradora de Emisoras Comerciales de Radio y Televisión.
Equivoco sexual
El organismo que direge las radios oficiales fue terminante en su disposición y en los términos que ella contienen. Sin medias tintas se enumeran los motivos que obligaron a impedir la presentación del conjunto norteamericano. Los calificativos que se emplean para fundamentar la medida son bien concretos, como si con ellos se intentara desde el vamos a superar cualquier objeción contra la actitud de la Comisión.
Para que nuestros lectores sepan cuales fueron esos fundamentos y esos calificativos estimamos interesante darles a conocer el contenido textual de esa resolución.
'Esta Comisión - comienza diciendo el documento dirigido por el organismo administrador a la Dirección de la radio - se ha visto ingratamente sorprendida por la noticia aparecida en los periódicos, anunciando la actuación del conjunto The Beetles, en Radio Splendid'.
'Ha sido profusamente expuesto el criterio de la Comisión en el sentido de procurar elevar y jerarquizar la programación artistica de las emisoras administradas, subrayándose enfáticamente el deseo de promover valores que hagan a nuestra esencia nacional o de notoria jerarquía internacional'.
'La presentación del aludido conjunto, QUE CARECE EN ABSOLUTO DE VALOR ARTÍSTICO Y DE CUYA NOTORIEDAD SE AMPARA EXCLUSIVAMENTE EN UN LAMENTABLE REMEDO DE EQUIVOCO SEXUAL, parece una burla a todas las afirmaciones expuestas en el sentido de supeditar cualquier interés comercial por ingente que fuese a los fines éticos y artístico-culturales de nuestro pueblo'.
Defensa de la Moral
'Tenemos la seguridad que el criterio de esa Dirección General se indentifica con el nuestro. De ahí nuestra profunda extrañeza por la circunstancia que señalamos'.
'Por ello, estimaremos quiera estudiar las posibilidades de cancelar futuras actuaciones del conjunto de referencia y en lo sucesivo procure ajustar la programación artística a los lineamientos generales expuestos'.
Para conocer más detalles de esta medida que marca rumbos dentro de la radiofonia argentina, pedimos una entrevista con la profesora Nélida Baigorria.
Nos recebió en la sed de la Comisión, que funciona en Cerrito 941. La señorita Baigorria es, a pesar de su juventud, una mujer de valores destacados en el campo parlamentario y de relevantes cualidades como educadora.
Con amplitud se mostró dispuesta a responder nuestros interrogantes, a la vez que fijólos lineamientos principales de la labor que desarrolla y proyecta el organismo a su cargo.
Comienza señalandonos que 'la actitud adoptada en este caso por la Comisión responde total y absolutamente a los objetivos que tienen fijados el organismo'.
'Es nuestra obligación, dijo, cuidar la moral del pueblo y formación espiritual que pueden ser distorsionadas por representaciones del tipo de la que hemos prohibido'.
'Nos soprendió el Anuncio'
La señorita Baigorra nos señala que la Comisión se enteró del debut de los Beetles a través de los anuncios en los diarios. 'Como ustedes comprenderán, nos dice, nosotros no podemos estar en la intimidad de las programaciones. Dejamos libertad de acción a los directivos de las radios. Estimamos que ellos saben ajustarse a nuestro pensamiento. Por eso nos sorprendió el anuncio y dispusimos la suspensión del programa. Además hemos dispuesto una investigación para determinar responsabilidades'.
- Ustedes conocian las características de ese conjunto norteamericano, le preguntamos, o procedieron asi por el escándalo que precedió su actuación en nuestro medio?
- 'Nosotros, nos responde, sabiamos perfectamente cuales eran sus calidades artísticas, - si se puede llamar arte a lo que hacen -, y por eso adoptamos esta medida. Por saber como eran no podíamos permitir que se presentaran en una emisora del Estado. Tengan en cuenta que el Estado tiene la obligación de cuidar de la salud fisica y moral del pueblo y por tal motivo consentierse'.
La actitud asumida or la Comisión tiene vigencia dentro de los medios de difusión radiales y televisivos oficiales, pero no alcanza a la misma actividad en el campo privado. Por eso, las posibilidades actuales de 'preservar la moral y la salud espiritual del pueblo 'en ese terreno'.
- 'Desgraciadamente, contes, en la actualidad no hay ningún instrumento legal que nos posibilite intervenir en casos como éste. Sin embargo, se está trabajando en la regiamentación del CONART - el Consejo Nacional de Radio y Televisión - y dentro del articulado de ese reglamento, se darán los medios para defender a los oyentes y telespectadores de este tipo de manifestaciones pseudoartistica.
- 'En nombre de nínguna libertad, afirmó decidamente la señorita Baigorria, puede pretenderse defender a quienes corrompen la conciencia de un pueblo'.
Más adelante, la señorita Baigorria nos señala que 'los Beetles son instrumentos de un plan perfectamente estructurado de las fuerzas disolventes que se mueven en el mundo. No actúan solamente en nuestro país, sino que están en todas partes. Su designio es el de distorsionar el sentir nacional y pervertir las costumbres más puras de las comunidades'.
Pedimos a nuestra entrevistada,m que nos dé su opinión como educadora y qeu nos dia si los Beetles son el reflejo de una generación.
- 'De ninguna manera, responde con presteza. Ese conjunto sólo puede ser ejemplo de un estado social. Esa nueva ola, vacía y sin futuro. Representan un brete (problem) incalificable que apareció y que desaparecerá drásticamente. Son una lacra (scar)'.
Nos agrega luego que: 'la verdadera juventud está buscando nuevos y mejores caminos, instruyéndose y capacitándose para lograr un porvenir auspicioso que es fruto de su esfuerzo'.
Al despedirnos, la señorita Baigorria nos asegura que habrá un mayor contralor en todo aquéllo que la radio y la televisión ofrece al público.
- 'Hemos logrado ya - indica -, pasar de la desorganización efectiva. Estamos dando los últimos toques al ordenamiento prespuestario. Al mismo tiempo, encaramos un efectivo mejoramiento en el nivel cultural de nuestros programas. Pretendemos que la radio y televisión, no sólo constituyan medios de distracción, sino que actúen en función pedagógica. Por eso, no permitiremos, como no lo permitimos ahora, que se pretenda desviar nuestro rumbo'.
Cuando, finalizamos nuestra entrevista, hicimos la última pregunta a la señorita Baigorria: Han tenido ustedes, alguna manifestación de protesta de Radio Libertad o de los patrocinadores del programa, con motivo de la resolución que adoptaram?
- 'Si, senõres. Al conocerse nuestra determinación, habló a la Comisión un caballero que dijo ser representante de Radio Libertad. Habló con mi secretaria. No se dio a conocer y se comportó, además, en forma sumamente grosera'.
Equivoco sexual?
A Uruguayan newspaper trying to explain the 'swindle': The Beetles are not The Beatles...
How the fake Beatles conned South America
By Ed Prideaux,
24 April 2020.
Early in 1964, as Beatlemania swept the world, newspaper headlines announced that The Beatles would be travelling to South America later that year. Millions awaited their arrival with bated breath – and in July, when four young moptops descended into Buenos Aires Airport, it seemed that teenage dreams were about to come true.
The Beatles were actually nowhere near Argentina at the time. The British group – who split 50 years ago this month – were back home in London, on a rare rest stop between concerts and recording. But with or without their knowledge, four young guys from Florida named Tom, Vic, Bill and Dave had taken their place.
There had been a terrible mix-up.
Previously a bar band called The Ardells, the quartet were now 'The American Beetles', or sometimes just 'The Beetles' for short. "When The Beatles got to be famous," their manager Bob Yorey recalls in The Day The Beatles Came To Argentina, a 2017 documentary directed by Fernando Pérez, "I said, 'You know what? They’re the English Beatles. I’m gonna make up a group…'
We wore our hair the same, we dressed the same, we wore suits. It was pretty good – Bill Ande, guitar player with the American Beetles.
"I got these four guys and I said, 'Listen. Grow your hair and we’re gonna call you ‘The American Beetles'.’" They duly obliged. "We wore our hair the same, we dressed the same, we wore suits. It was pretty good", Bill Ande, their lead guitarist, tells BBC Culture, over the phone. Both a joke and a timely cash-grab, the group’s rebrand had won them big crowds and fresh attention from promoters back home.
An impresario named Rudy Duclós spotted them in a Miami club. He was from Argentina, he explained, and he was keen to book them on a tour of South America. Yet in selling the group to promoters and venues, Duclós hadn’t quite mentioned the 'American Beetles' part. He’d pitched them as the real thing. Contracts were signed, the press was primed, and teenagers anxiously awaited their arrival. The Beatles were coming.
Carlos Santino was a child in 1964. "I remember the moment when they announced that The Beatles [would] come to Argentina because of my cousin", Santino recalls in the Pérez documentary. "She was going nuts".
In Peru, headlines in La Crónica and La Prensa declared that 'The Famous Beatles Would Come in May' and that 'Channel 4 is finalising the contract'.
Duclós soon conned the band a spot on Argentinian TV. "I was working at the video room, and we couldn't believe it ourselves that The Beatles would be coming here. Alejandro Romay [the media mogul]… claimed to have secured a fabulous deal", recalled Roberto Monfort, an employee of Channel 9 at the time.
'Between indignation and laughter'
Competition for The American Beetles had been so hot, in fact, that both Channel 13 and Channel 9 in Argentina had booked them for the same night, and a mediation was arranged on the band's arrival at Buenos Aires Airport. While Channel 9 held the upper hand through an enforceable contract, Channel 13's close ties to local authorities soon afforded them the winning ticket. But not for long. Alejandro Romay, Channel 9’s slick-haired chairman, had little time for such details. He called Karadajian, a star in a contemporary wrestling show called Titanes in el Ring (Titans in the Ring), and asked him to bring his "heavyweights" for an "unorthodox" solution. "The bouncers went right over to the five boys, and they practically hung them over their shoulders", Romay explained in a 1998 interview with Zoo TV.
When they went on air – the people realised that they were not the real Beatles, but the fake Beatles
"Everybody was chasing them: the police, the people from Channel 13, the judge", Romay added. "... Already in Palermo [a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires], I had the trucks and everything set up. We got there, "went to a hotel [in] the suburbs in San Telmo that nobody knew about and we locked them up."
More than 50 years later, though, details can get a little hazy. For all the swiftness of Romay's "unorthodox" capture, it seems that Channel 13 temporarily stole at least one member back. Bill Ande tells BBC Culture that "when we got off the plane, they took us to a TV station", where "[our] drummer was kidnapped by a different station and they went through a whole thing to get him back".
'Kidnappings' and TV wrestlers aside, the band soon made it to Channel 9 in one piece. They were the main act booked on a programme called The Laughter Festival, and an excited assembly of wide-eyed teenagers filed neatly into the stands. The American Beetles waited behind the camera, guitars and sticks at the ready, as the host issued his opening proclamation. Carlos Santino’s cousin was, again, "going nuts". Then the camera turned towards the band. "When she saw it wasn’t Paul McCartney who was coming out from behind the curtain, she started to cry inconsolably" he said. Roberto Monfort, the Channel 9 employee who had been amazed at the first announcement, recalls that disillusionment set in fast. "When they went on air, yes – the people realised that they were not the real Beatles, but the fake Beatles."
"Between indignation and laughter" is how he summarised much of the night’s reception. "There were some people who were having fun. But others were waiting for the real Beatles, and they felt defrauded."
"No, people went crazy! They bought it!", the boss Romay claimed in the Zoo TV interview. Oddly enough, Romay himself was swept by a change of heart before the broadcast aired. "I want no part in this lie to the people. I’ll take a plane and go to Punta del Este [a beach resort]", Romay remembered telling staff. "I don’t want to know a thing about what’s going on." At the same time, though, his new-found conscience hadn’t stopped him reaping the rewards. "We had 63 rating points with The Beetles. I think it was the highest peak in the [channel’s] history."
Counterculture backlash
A country had been conned. But while their Channel 9 appearance had avoided outright hostility, The American Beetles’ later concerts were a different story altogether. "I remember in some of the soccer auditoriums, you had a few guys throwing coins", says Bob, the band’s manager. "Mostly everybody really liked our music and what we were doing. It was usually a certain element of people – jealous guys, you know", remembers Bill. "Sometimes they’d throw coins. Maybe rocks. We’d do a concert and have to get the hell out!"
The South American press were less forgiving. 'They have hair in their vocal cords! They sing bad, but they act worse!' went one headline. 'The Beetles showed that all the talent they have is in their hair!' screamed another. Crónica called the tour 'a farce far greater than their disputed male presence', and devoted column inches throughout the month to their attacks. The American Beetles were 'antimelodic', 'howling songwriters', and drew comparisons to los pelucones, the wig-wearing conservatives of 19th-Century Chile. As for their singing, reporters claimed bluntly, '…they are awful'.
The state media criticism was so intense that the band gained about the same quantity of coverage as The Beatles themselves by the end of 1964.
The press response was about far more than music, though, and more than likely reflected the continent’s troubled political situation. Argentina and Brazil particularly were governed by right-wing juntas intent on total control. All aspects of public life – from music and politics to education – were purged and monitored for liberal influence. Buenos Aires’ Radio Freedom banned The American Beetles’ music for being "sexually ambiguous" – as described by The Administrative Commission, an Orwellian state organ that regulated the press. The state media criticism was so intense, in fact, that the band gained about the same quantity of coverage as The Beatles themselves by the end of 1964.
In Spain – likewise caught up in fascism, under Franco – The American Beetles even formed the scapegoat for an episode of false state propaganda. Pueblo, a conservative newspaper, wrote salaciously of a frenzied outburst of vandalism following the band’s performance in Madrid, with young crowds apparently driven to a deranged violence by the music. Yet their lead guitarist has no recollection of any such events having occurred.
Tensions were rumbling. For every song they censored, a counterculture was growing apace beneath autocrats’ noses. And since the real band never came, for a new breed of longhairs The American Beetles would hold a strangely powerful significance. They inspired competitors to make their own Beatle-posing bands. One Argentine group, Los Buhos, made headlines that summer. With a name translating as The Owls, the group’s membership consisted of the parodic Juan, Yusti, Jorge and Rango, and claimed to Antena magazine that they were "more Beatles than The Beetles".
Most crucially, a TV performance in Uruguay inspired the formation of a genuinely nation-shifting band. Led by frontman Hugh Fattoruso, Los Shakers were a vanguard in the later 'Uruguayan Invasion' in Argentina, a movement that helped to birth the country’s revolutionary rock nacional music scene.
"The first time we saw guys with long hair making music was The American Beetles on TV", Fattoruso said in a 1993 interview with Página 30 magazine. "A week after seeing these guys, news arrives in Montevideo that there is a group like this in England, and that women go crazy and the cities stop when they talk about them on the radio." Like thousands of others, Fattoruso and his brothers soon watched A Hard Day’s Night at the cinema, and their lives were changed forever.
'A scam with mixed returns'
Even to this day, The Beatles hold a potent spell over much of Latin America, with Beatle engagement on YouTube in Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay as high as in the UK. You might wonder, then, why the real Beatles never made an appearance. As well as housing some of their most enthusiastic fans, Latin America’s American Beetles’ ruse had created a clear imperative to dull the confusion. The Beatles machine had already made important moves in this direction anyway. The label issued an emergency press release to confirm the falsity of The Beetles’ persona; merchandise was upgraded to emphasise their English roots; signs, movie posters and album covers were recast. And when scores of money could be made, too, why not just make the trip?
In a word: poverty. In 1964, South American markets formed but a fraction of those in the US, Australia and Europe. Peru, one of the stop-offs for The American Beetles, had an economy the size of the UK’s in the aftermath of World War One. The average Brazilian had an annual income 13 times less than the average American. Venues, promoters and agents simply couldn’t afford The Beatles’ fee, and the result was a shortage of supply that The American Beetles were more than willing to fill.
The American Beetles isn’t just a story of poverty, though. It’s also a story of deception. It’s a band formed with jokey – if not slightly grifting – intentions, only to be sucked into a scam with mixed returns. But whatever the lessons of The American Beetles, one thing is for sure: they were a silly rock 'n' roll band taking a chance. And once the tour concluded, the presence of both 'American' and 'Beetles' in their name made getting any radio airplay a challenge. DJs apparently prioritised British groups, and the explicit parodic element made it hard to take them seriously as recorded artists.
They changed their name again to The Razor’s Edge and cut a single for Pow! Records in 1966. Success eluded them, however, and the band would go their separate ways by the end of the decade. Following the recent deaths of Tom Condra and Dave Hieronymus, the band’s drummer and rhythm guitarist, it’s up to Bill Ande, Vic Gray and their manager Bob Yorey to carry the legacy.
But for thousands of now-elderly Beatlemaniacos, The American Beetles will hold an enduring – and no doubt bizarre – place in their hearts.
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Previously a bar band called The Ardells, the quartet were now 'The American Beetles', or sometimes just 'The Beetles' for short. "When The Beatles got to be famous," their manager Bob Yorey recalls in The Day The Beatles Came To Argentina, a 2017 documentary directed by Fernando Pérez, "I said, 'You know what? They’re the English Beatles. I’m gonna make up a group…'
We wore our hair the same, we dressed the same, we wore suits. It was pretty good – Bill Ande, guitar player with the American Beetles.
"I got these four guys and I said, 'Listen. Grow your hair and we’re gonna call you ‘The American Beetles'.’" They duly obliged. "We wore our hair the same, we dressed the same, we wore suits. It was pretty good", Bill Ande, their lead guitarist, tells BBC Culture, over the phone. Both a joke and a timely cash-grab, the group’s rebrand had won them big crowds and fresh attention from promoters back home.
An impresario named Rudy Duclós spotted them in a Miami club. He was from Argentina, he explained, and he was keen to book them on a tour of South America. Yet in selling the group to promoters and venues, Duclós hadn’t quite mentioned the 'American Beetles' part. He’d pitched them as the real thing. Contracts were signed, the press was primed, and teenagers anxiously awaited their arrival. The Beatles were coming.
Carlos Santino was a child in 1964. "I remember the moment when they announced that The Beatles [would] come to Argentina because of my cousin", Santino recalls in the Pérez documentary. "She was going nuts".
In Peru, headlines in La Crónica and La Prensa declared that 'The Famous Beatles Would Come in May' and that 'Channel 4 is finalising the contract'.
Duclós soon conned the band a spot on Argentinian TV. "I was working at the video room, and we couldn't believe it ourselves that The Beatles would be coming here. Alejandro Romay [the media mogul]… claimed to have secured a fabulous deal", recalled Roberto Monfort, an employee of Channel 9 at the time.
'Between indignation and laughter'
Competition for The American Beetles had been so hot, in fact, that both Channel 13 and Channel 9 in Argentina had booked them for the same night, and a mediation was arranged on the band's arrival at Buenos Aires Airport. While Channel 9 held the upper hand through an enforceable contract, Channel 13's close ties to local authorities soon afforded them the winning ticket. But not for long. Alejandro Romay, Channel 9’s slick-haired chairman, had little time for such details. He called Karadajian, a star in a contemporary wrestling show called Titanes in el Ring (Titans in the Ring), and asked him to bring his "heavyweights" for an "unorthodox" solution. "The bouncers went right over to the five boys, and they practically hung them over their shoulders", Romay explained in a 1998 interview with Zoo TV.
When they went on air – the people realised that they were not the real Beatles, but the fake Beatles
"Everybody was chasing them: the police, the people from Channel 13, the judge", Romay added. "... Already in Palermo [a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires], I had the trucks and everything set up. We got there, "went to a hotel [in] the suburbs in San Telmo that nobody knew about and we locked them up."
More than 50 years later, though, details can get a little hazy. For all the swiftness of Romay's "unorthodox" capture, it seems that Channel 13 temporarily stole at least one member back. Bill Ande tells BBC Culture that "when we got off the plane, they took us to a TV station", where "[our] drummer was kidnapped by a different station and they went through a whole thing to get him back".
'Kidnappings' and TV wrestlers aside, the band soon made it to Channel 9 in one piece. They were the main act booked on a programme called The Laughter Festival, and an excited assembly of wide-eyed teenagers filed neatly into the stands. The American Beetles waited behind the camera, guitars and sticks at the ready, as the host issued his opening proclamation. Carlos Santino’s cousin was, again, "going nuts". Then the camera turned towards the band. "When she saw it wasn’t Paul McCartney who was coming out from behind the curtain, she started to cry inconsolably" he said. Roberto Monfort, the Channel 9 employee who had been amazed at the first announcement, recalls that disillusionment set in fast. "When they went on air, yes – the people realised that they were not the real Beatles, but the fake Beatles."
"Between indignation and laughter" is how he summarised much of the night’s reception. "There were some people who were having fun. But others were waiting for the real Beatles, and they felt defrauded."
"No, people went crazy! They bought it!", the boss Romay claimed in the Zoo TV interview. Oddly enough, Romay himself was swept by a change of heart before the broadcast aired. "I want no part in this lie to the people. I’ll take a plane and go to Punta del Este [a beach resort]", Romay remembered telling staff. "I don’t want to know a thing about what’s going on." At the same time, though, his new-found conscience hadn’t stopped him reaping the rewards. "We had 63 rating points with The Beetles. I think it was the highest peak in the [channel’s] history."
Counterculture backlash
A country had been conned. But while their Channel 9 appearance had avoided outright hostility, The American Beetles’ later concerts were a different story altogether. "I remember in some of the soccer auditoriums, you had a few guys throwing coins", says Bob, the band’s manager. "Mostly everybody really liked our music and what we were doing. It was usually a certain element of people – jealous guys, you know", remembers Bill. "Sometimes they’d throw coins. Maybe rocks. We’d do a concert and have to get the hell out!"
The South American press were less forgiving. 'They have hair in their vocal cords! They sing bad, but they act worse!' went one headline. 'The Beetles showed that all the talent they have is in their hair!' screamed another. Crónica called the tour 'a farce far greater than their disputed male presence', and devoted column inches throughout the month to their attacks. The American Beetles were 'antimelodic', 'howling songwriters', and drew comparisons to los pelucones, the wig-wearing conservatives of 19th-Century Chile. As for their singing, reporters claimed bluntly, '…they are awful'.
The state media criticism was so intense that the band gained about the same quantity of coverage as The Beatles themselves by the end of 1964.
The press response was about far more than music, though, and more than likely reflected the continent’s troubled political situation. Argentina and Brazil particularly were governed by right-wing juntas intent on total control. All aspects of public life – from music and politics to education – were purged and monitored for liberal influence. Buenos Aires’ Radio Freedom banned The American Beetles’ music for being "sexually ambiguous" – as described by The Administrative Commission, an Orwellian state organ that regulated the press. The state media criticism was so intense, in fact, that the band gained about the same quantity of coverage as The Beatles themselves by the end of 1964.
In Spain – likewise caught up in fascism, under Franco – The American Beetles even formed the scapegoat for an episode of false state propaganda. Pueblo, a conservative newspaper, wrote salaciously of a frenzied outburst of vandalism following the band’s performance in Madrid, with young crowds apparently driven to a deranged violence by the music. Yet their lead guitarist has no recollection of any such events having occurred.
Tensions were rumbling. For every song they censored, a counterculture was growing apace beneath autocrats’ noses. And since the real band never came, for a new breed of longhairs The American Beetles would hold a strangely powerful significance. They inspired competitors to make their own Beatle-posing bands. One Argentine group, Los Buhos, made headlines that summer. With a name translating as The Owls, the group’s membership consisted of the parodic Juan, Yusti, Jorge and Rango, and claimed to Antena magazine that they were "more Beatles than The Beetles".
Most crucially, a TV performance in Uruguay inspired the formation of a genuinely nation-shifting band. Led by frontman Hugh Fattoruso, Los Shakers were a vanguard in the later 'Uruguayan Invasion' in Argentina, a movement that helped to birth the country’s revolutionary rock nacional music scene.
"The first time we saw guys with long hair making music was The American Beetles on TV", Fattoruso said in a 1993 interview with Página 30 magazine. "A week after seeing these guys, news arrives in Montevideo that there is a group like this in England, and that women go crazy and the cities stop when they talk about them on the radio." Like thousands of others, Fattoruso and his brothers soon watched A Hard Day’s Night at the cinema, and their lives were changed forever.
'A scam with mixed returns'
Even to this day, The Beatles hold a potent spell over much of Latin America, with Beatle engagement on YouTube in Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay as high as in the UK. You might wonder, then, why the real Beatles never made an appearance. As well as housing some of their most enthusiastic fans, Latin America’s American Beetles’ ruse had created a clear imperative to dull the confusion. The Beatles machine had already made important moves in this direction anyway. The label issued an emergency press release to confirm the falsity of The Beetles’ persona; merchandise was upgraded to emphasise their English roots; signs, movie posters and album covers were recast. And when scores of money could be made, too, why not just make the trip?
In a word: poverty. In 1964, South American markets formed but a fraction of those in the US, Australia and Europe. Peru, one of the stop-offs for The American Beetles, had an economy the size of the UK’s in the aftermath of World War One. The average Brazilian had an annual income 13 times less than the average American. Venues, promoters and agents simply couldn’t afford The Beatles’ fee, and the result was a shortage of supply that The American Beetles were more than willing to fill.
The American Beetles isn’t just a story of poverty, though. It’s also a story of deception. It’s a band formed with jokey – if not slightly grifting – intentions, only to be sucked into a scam with mixed returns. But whatever the lessons of The American Beetles, one thing is for sure: they were a silly rock 'n' roll band taking a chance. And once the tour concluded, the presence of both 'American' and 'Beetles' in their name made getting any radio airplay a challenge. DJs apparently prioritised British groups, and the explicit parodic element made it hard to take them seriously as recorded artists.
They changed their name again to The Razor’s Edge and cut a single for Pow! Records in 1966. Success eluded them, however, and the band would go their separate ways by the end of the decade. Following the recent deaths of Tom Condra and Dave Hieronymus, the band’s drummer and rhythm guitarist, it’s up to Bill Ande, Vic Gray and their manager Bob Yorey to carry the legacy.
But for thousands of now-elderly Beatlemaniacos, The American Beetles will hold an enduring – and no doubt bizarre – place in their hearts.
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The American Beetles arrive in Buenos Aires in 1964.
The American Beetles' extended-play released in Argentina by Disc Jockey, an independent label after their notorious 1964 South American tour.
'Los Beetles americanos' E.P. liner notes are a lot of nonsense and misinformation.
Carlos Guillermo Cimadevilla wrote on Facebook in October 2021: The American Beetles' Argentine release on Disc Jockey que era una discográfica pequeña creada por el DJ Rodriguez Luque y por lo visto se animaron a editar un disco de este grupo de Miami con ese nombre apócrifo The Beetles que se lo inventaron para traerlos a la Argentina, un verdadero fraude al público argentino creo que producido por Alejandro Romay.
Tal vez el grupo no era malo pero se prestaron a este engaño que no se creyó nadie. Me acuerdo haberlos visto en la tele el mismo dia que los presentaron, no habian empezado a tocar y me di cuenta que no eran los verdaderos Beatles. No se que habran hecho en Buenos Aires ni cuanto tiempo habran permanecido aquí. Habran al menos gañado algo de plata con esta parodia? Se presentaron en vivo en algun lado? Estes muchachos ya deben andar por los 80 años, que historia tan curiosa.
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