Oscar Pinho
Amerika
Oscar Pinho
I was born in 1967 a few months before the Summer Of Love. Nothing particularly interesting happened in my life until I discovered punk rock and started to drink alcohol. After being a pretty solitary nerd, around 1983/84 I got myself a good bunch of friends a little older than me (some involved in the compilation) which showed me, amongst many other things, the music of MC5 (which I loved ever since).
A couple of adventurous trips to London and the intake of some unprescribed drugs helped to open my mind. At the end of 1985 I did Tosse Convulsa with Guilherme Lucas, the 1st punk oriented fanzine issued in the north of Portugal.
After some unfruitful tries to play an instrument I got invited to be the bass player of Cagalhões, a quite original hardcore band from Aveiro: It didn’t matter that I couldn’t play because they were as lousy as me. Played with them in 1987 and 1988 until I got fed up with their careless attitude towards music and after doing only 1 gig (a pretty violent one). During 1987 and 1988 I did a weekly radio show with Marta Machado. The program was called Minuto D’Ódio and was mostly directed to the disclosure of hardcore punk music with lot of social and political issues being featured. In spite of the good intentions it was poorly directed but it gained quite a following in the region. It was syndicated in one of the free (pirate) radios that existed back then - Radio Chaos - they were all shut down by the government at the end of 1988. In 1990 Guilherme Lucas invited me to play bass in Cães Vadios, with whom I started to take playing a little more seriously. Cães Vadios music then could be broadly classified as post-punk. The band played all over Portugal, made several appearances on national tv and was close to being successful, but made the mistake of not recording a propper album - with them I recorded a 4 track demo and several tracks that were included in compilations. Cães Vadios ended up in 1995. In 1994 I did 4 gig as bass player for Renegados de Boliqueime, a happening punk band, but didn’t want to compromise for longer. I deputized with them again in 1997 as guitar player for a festival as a substitute for their guitarist who had an accident. I did Sociology at University, which was a bit of a disappointment, and almost finished the course - it didn’t happen because in 1995 I got an invitation to do the Porto’s franchising of the Lisboa´s independent record shop Carbono. This venture successfully lasted till 1999 when the Lisboa shop decided to part ways with the Porto one, when the shop turned into Piranha - I stayed with Piranha till 2006, when left starting another record shop with my beloved wife - Lost Underground, a more personalized project which lasted till the end of 2011. Finances were not going good and we decided to stop before we got in any kind of debt. By 1996 I started to do some deejaying, first in the famous Comix bar (where I was resident), then in several other places and festivals. Recently I got bored of that activity and gave it up. In the meantime I also started to occasionally promote gigs, bringing several touring bands to Porto. I started in 1997 at the Comix bar, then did some at a bigger venue (the good old Hard Club), then in Porto Rio (a boat in the Douro river). It was in Porto Rio that I formed with some friends the Cooperativa dos Otários, an informal association held to promote gigs with quality foreign bands (mostly) without the intention to make any profit. In 1999 I formed Speedtrack with Frágil, who was in a hiatus from his other band - Renegados de Boliqueime. This time I played (badly) guitar and did most of the composition. We played a sort of a high energy punk’n’roll. The band lasted till 2005, when I decided it was enough. We only recorded a studio demo. In 2003 I also started to play bass in Motornoise, a harder punk band (with a saxophone included) with Frágil (again) as vocalist. I quit in 2008. I recorded one album with them. In 2008 I played strings live on the only 2 gigs that the conceptual black metal band Cabidela did. In 2009 I recorded guitar for the last release of shamanic doom band Profan (a split with Josué, O Salvador em Busca da Perdição). From 2011 to 2013 I played bass in Tinnitus, a furious grindcore band. It was when I started to heavily incorporate effects into my playing but didn’t record anything with the band which sadly ended up due to personal differences. From 2012 to 2013 I worked as a doorman and event producer at the established venue Hard Club (in its second installment). Then my wife and I made an unsuccessful try to emigrate to Norway (it lasted around 3 months). By the end of 2014 we opened Cave 45, a bar/rock venue which lasted till the end of 2017. This place had a steady diet of gigs and it seems to have left a very fond memory around here but a lot of problems made us quit. In 2018 I formed Necro Chaos with Morto. I play bass in this band relying heavily into effects which gives the death metal we play a sort of a psychedelic coloration. So far we recorded an ep - released in 2020. I got into fx pedals by the time I started to play guitar in Speedtrack but it was only in 2018 that I got heavily into it. By 2020 I discovered synth pedals and during the pandemic shutdown I got into the wonderful world of synths and a new Pandora box opened up for me… With time my taste in music spreaded to a myriad of genres (as well as my recorded collection), I’m still discovering stuff, recent and old, and I hope to do so till I die. Necro Chaos- Bandcamp Necro Chaos - facebook