cover art pulled directly from https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/album/fangio; art by Marty Davis, illustrator extraordinaire, and also member of the greatest band the world will never hear, Exit House
cover art pulled directly from https://peterpeterhughes.bandcamp.com/album/fangio; art by Marty Davis, illustrator extraordinaire, and also member of the greatest band the world will never hear, Exit House
From Bandcamp:
When I was seventeen, for reasons that will remain forever inscrutable, I wrote a song for my Casio-powered solo project Party of One which imagined the 1950s race car driver, five-time Formula One World Champion, and Argentine icon Juan Manuel Fangio piloting a then-current 1980s-model Saab 900 Turbo across the Andes mountains on a covert mission to assassinate the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Twenty-three years later I bought a well-traveled example of the ingeniously versatile car that accompanied the hero of that song, and began writing songs for an album that would pick up where “A Fangio for the ’80s” left off.
The real-life Fangio died in 1995, long retired from racing. On the track he’d been known as El Maestro—the teacher—and a legendary bad-ass. Off it, he was El Chueco—most commonly translated as “bandy-legs”—short, squeaky-voiced, the very essence of good-natured humility and universally beloved for it.
The Fangio of my imagination is slightly different. He’s still alive for one thing—though by what Borgesian mechanism it’s never made clear—and so haunted by his own refusal to speak out against the atrocities of Argentina’s Dirty War that he’s gone underground as a sort of international rogue agent, beholden to nobody and determined to clear his conscience by evening the score: against the CIA, against the cartels, against every agent of oppression that conspired to terrorize and exploit the people of Latin America over the last half century. This album should be properly read as one part DC comics, one part Tom Clancy novel, and one part Marxist revolutionary tract.
Fangio was recorded entirely at home, by me, using GarageBand—which, in its ubiquity, cheapness, and user-friendly simplicity, I regard as the clear 21st century successor to my old Casio MT-100. And it sounds like New Order because I’ve always wanted to play in a band that sounded like New Order. I make no apologies.
Peter's posts about the album, for more reading at your leisure:
And again, I must insist:
Rather than do a tracklist and breakdown, which the above will certainly give you, I had a better idea. In the interest of this page and this website bringing Peter a little more joy than it does stress, I invite you to hover your mouse over the following text or, if you're on mobile, just click around a little :-)
A very short summary of this record: Fangio is an album about Juan Manuel Fangio (yes, the racing legend) on a mission to right the wrongs committed against the people of Latin America by any number of imperialist and capitalist and otherwise evil entities (such as the CIA). He pays unto evil what evil is owed, and considers the life he had in the history books.
The album is a departure from Diskothi-Q's rock sound or Party of One's Casio tunes, instead opting for synths and a more sotto voce delivery. The message is a strong one and the tunes are good. You may have noticed some recommended reading here, all books I own myself and where I found them. Viva Fangio.
Click any thumbnail below to view a full size scan from the 7":
Click any thumbnail below to view a full size scan from the LP:
any images, lyrics, song titles, etc are property of the original artists, where at all possible images are pulled from my own scanned copies and any found/submitted images are noted and credited. this is a fan site without ads, trackers, or even so much as one of those site counters from the late 90's. if you see your intellectual property here and want it removed, email away. thanks