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RICHMOND
TIMES DISPATCH
July 19, 2002
THE BEAT
Get ready to dance
Bio Ritmo comes back after a breather, regrouping
By Melissa Ruggieri
Music Critic
Last year, the rumors started.
Several band members had departed.
No live dates were scheduled.
Bio Ritmo had broken up.
True or false?
True to the first two, but the band, one of Richmond's proudest exports,
never broke up - it simply went on hiatus.
On Sept. 14, Bio Ritmo celebrated its 10th anniversary with a gig at
Alley
Katz. It was then, says timbales player/percussionist Giustino
"Justin"
Riccio, that some band members realized that the audience gravitated
more to
its older-style material, what he calls "classic-style salsa."
But all of the members weren't in agreement to return to this form,
resulting
in another round of personnel changes for the band.
Singer and arranger Rene Herrera, who had replaced Bio's co-founder
Jorge
Negron in 1995, moved to Atlanta to accept a new job. Shortly afterward,
keyboardist Charles Kirkpatrick left.
Replacing them were Juan Carlos on piano/keyboards and Stefan
Demetriadis on
trombone; both have been Bio members for about six months.
Bio Ritmo
When: 3 p.m. tomorrow at Plan 9 in Carytown; 7:30 p.m. tomorrow with
Oregon
Hill Funk All-Stars at Brown's Island for Friday Cheers; 1 p.m. Sunday
at
Brown's Island with Tito Puente Jr. for the Big Gig
Cost: All shows are free
Info: For Plan 9 show, (804) 353-9996; for Cheers and Big Gig, (804)
643-2826
Along with Riccio and the newcomers, the octet now consists of original
members Gabriel "Gabo" Tomasini on congas; Bob Miller on
trumpet; Tim Lett on
second trumpet; and Rei Alvarez on lead vocals and percussion. Alvarez
was an
original member of the band who left for a few years in the mid-'90s but
returned in late 2001.
After taking a month or so off in the fall to regroup, Bio Ritmo is now
performing more than it had in the past year or two.
Riccio is calling from his cell phone, heading back home from a pair of
weekend performances in Georgia and South Carolina and preparing for a
trio
of shows at home this weekend.
"It's been very rewarding to go back to some of the venues we
hadn't played
in a while. We played the Cat's Cradle in Chapel Hill [N.C.], which had
been
a very good market for us," Riccio says. "But the last few
gigs, we really
didn't deliver and people saw that. But this time, people came up and
thanked
us. We've been seeing that in Richmond, too. We've been playing more
local
venues, like Richie's, about once a month, building up a new fan
base."
Though Bio Ritmo's specialty is its original funky Latin grooves, the
band is
also tossing some covers into its current sets. But don't expect to hear
anything as obviously cheesy as "Hot Hot Hot" or the
"Macarena."
"The first guideline for us is that [the song] is relatively
obscure. We
don't play stuff that people hear every day, so some of our favorite
songs
wouldn't necessarily be remembered," Riccio says.
The last official studio release for the band came with 1998's
"Rumba Baby
Rumba," its major-label debut on Mercury Records. Like so many area
artists
who have been lured to the big leagues, Bio Ritmo's plan didn't unwind
in
classic storybook fashion, and the band has no plans to pursue another
record
deal right now.
"We learned a big lesson with that [deal]. It was really hard to
maintain our
artistic integrity," Riccio says. "Everybody has a different
idea and
whatever that idea is at the moment is the right idea, so you don't know
where you stand anymore."
Still, the group is writing new material and is tentatively planning its
next
album to be a live recording because, Riccio says, "we are a live
band."
Sounding upbeat and excited, Riccio clearly speaks for the band when he
raves
about how refreshed the guys are. For those heading to see the band this
weekend, Riccio has some expectations.
"We want them to dance!" he says with a laugh. "But,
being Richmond, we also
appreciate the good listeners. We're playing stuff we really believe in
now,
and we really are just doing it for the love of it."
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Write to Melissa Ruggieri at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 300 E.
Franklin
St., Richmond, VA 23219, call (804) 649-6120 or e-mail
[email protected]
website
www.bioritmo.com
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