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D.L.50 is interviewed because this Paraguayan band is going to release 2 cassettes on the Murder Records label. It is in depth so take you time to read the conversation between Manos and drummer Jorge.

Hello and thank you for the interview! D.L.50 are about to release the "Regresivo I (Period 1999-2009) & Regresivo II (Period 2009-2019)" compilation. The material included in the comp. covers a large period of 2 decades! How did those decades passed for D.L.50?
Hello friends of BRUTALISM.com! It's a real pleasure to do this interview and we are very grateful for the consideration towards D.L.50. Here answers Jorge FUNEBRE Jourdan, drummer and founder of D.L.50.
Yes, the compilation "Regresivo I & II" that will be released soon is a tour through the first 20 years of the band that recently commemorated 22 years of activity and we are anxious for it to be released. They have been intense years, sometimes complicated, with too many line up changes (30), this year 2020 that passed has been disastrous because of the pandemic. I think we have never had anything very easy, so the real achievement to highlight in all this time is to have been able to keep intact the essence of the band that involves a lot of persistence, passion and sacrifice..... An act of resistance contributing our grain of sand to keep the Underground flame alive and vindicate noise as a form and channel of expression.

What has been the D.L.50 discography so far and how did you choose the songs that appear on "Regresivo I & II" comp.?
Despite the difficulties that a band with an underground identity must contend with in South America, the record production has been relatively interesting to date, highlighting our D.I.Y philosophy and that in South America many things are done with great effort and with few available resources. Despite this, our discography is more or less summarized in: 1 Demo Tape, 6 Split Tapes, 2 DVD's, 4 CD-r's, 3 Split CD-r's, 1 Split CD, 2 Vinyl 7 '' EP's, 3 anthologies of the band and several participations in compilations in different formats (CD, Tape, Vinyl, etc.).
Regarding the compilation to be released soon, the "Regresivo I (1999-2009)" had already made a limited edition of 30 copies in 2012, I only rescued a song from the early days of the band and included it as a Bonus track archive for what will be Tape I. For the "Regresivo II (2009-2019)" if it was a more thorough work that in times of quarantine kept us active rummaging through the band's archive and where based on what we had of that period between Lives, rehearsals, studio tracks, etc. Some 40 songs were selected that we sent to a friend who was part of the band (now he live in Bs. As. Argentina), to help us with the mastering, equalization, leveling of the audio tracks that for a matter of duration we ended up using 24 songs for Tape II and in this way do the journey through the 20 years including rarities and rescued material.

"Regresivo I & II" will be released on a double cassette tape. What does the cassette tape format mean to you? Will you release the compilation in other formats, too?
The double Cassette compilation was a proposal from our friend Danihell from MURDER RECORDS and it will be possible (the European version) thanks to him and the great support of KANASHIBARI RECORDS that make this co-edition possible, also involving my little label FUNEBRE RECORDS (we will do the South American version from here).
I love Cassettes, beyond the great sound characteristics of the Tapes, I highlight that the format developed bonds of friendship and detonated minds through Tape Trading, breaking borders and making it possible to disseminate or know what was happening around the world in the exchange of letters. My first contact with music as a child was supports for analog formats, I have memories of those times when we even recycled used tapes to put together a small music archive or when we did not have the equipment to copy them, we went to the houses of collegues or neighbors to listen to or recording the tapes and horrified parents’ reactions to the noise ha ha ha. For me, Tapes are part of the foundations of my underground culture and I recall that time when Tapes arrived and passed from hand to hand sometimes with a precarious sound or degraded by use, but they acquired the consideration of a valuable countercultural piece that developed friendships and identities. At the moment "Regresivo I & II" will only be released in double tape format + Poster + Informational triptych in Europe and South America. Who knows later maybe someone wants to re-edit it in another format.

For over 2 decades the D.L.50 lyrics have been socio-political, aiming at real problems and focusing on the hardships humanity has to face in the modern world. What has changed in the world within these 2 decades? What has changed particularly in your homeland, Paraguay?
You have synthesized very well the lyrical theme of D.L.50!. We put a lot of emphasis on the socio-political reality of the South American third world (but without distancing ourselves from what happens around the world), exposing the problems of the state of things, the crisis and the harsh environment of life in an impoverished and culturally backward country like Paraguay, which is like a small isolated hell or as it is also called "an island surrounded by land" and that having suffered the longest dictatorship in South America, even marches at a slower pace than other countries in the region with a conformist population marked by the nefarious "Paraguayan idiosyncrasy" which has been imposed, naturalized and glorified to indoctrinate entire generations hypnotized by a nationalist fallacy of pure historical manipulation, subscribed to conservative preconceptions and a tradition fully functional to a corrupt, rotten system and cruel. The world has changed a lot in the last 20 years, especially with regard to technology and in some aspects such as individual freedoms or decriminalization, but many "factors responsible for the greatest evils" are still very relevant, dangerous and strong, such as damn capitalism, oppression, exploitation, pollution and depredation of the environment, etc. In the name of a "progress" that does NOT seem to me to be the case, since they promote it as such. In Paraguay sadly in the last 20 years the lyrics of D.L.50 are still very valid, since NOT much has changed, and so much so that for example a son of the dictatorship (main cause of misfortunes, backwardness, impoverishment, corruption, etc.) today is the president! ..... Just imagine how bad we are when the people themselves give power to one of their executioners!.

Regresivo I & II" cassette tape is a co-release of Murder Records, Funebre Records and Kanashibari Records. How important is the cooperation of labels/artists/bands for the underground?
Personally, I think that only in the Underground the irreverence, the combative character, the essence of struggle (protest), and acts of resistance of the proposals remain genuine. The Underground is collectively built by uniting individualities by affinity, making every possible contribution valuable and where cooperation is vital, forging ties of friendship and activity that often break down difficulties, barriers and apathy from the social margins. All interaction / cooperation between those involved is what keeps the flame of Underground passion alive. With D.L.50 we feel very fortunate to receive this support and to be considered by labels such as MURDER RECORDS, KANASHIBARI RECORDS and others who have also supported us at the time and for which we are very grateful because here in Paraguay the underground culture It is not very developed and a group like D.L.50 goes almost unseen because it is NOT subscribed to fashions and is NOT functional to local opportunists.

When was D.L.50 formed? How did you decide the band's name and what does it mean?
D.L.50 started on January 9, 1999. The founders who came up with the concept of the band came from the ashes of another previous band called KODIGO NEURÓTIKO (1995-1998). By that time there weren’t active PUNK / HC bands with Underground identity and the scene was very decayed with difficulty to function, few spaces to play or rehearse, little support, and a general lethargic, passive and infested circuit of passing fashions, of that decadent period. At that time we had the firm intention of adopting a shocking and relatively original name and we deliberately took the name D.L.50 (DOSIS LETAL MEDIA) which refers to the cruel laboratory test that is performed in toxicology to determine the level of lethality with which it is classifies or designates the most dangerous chemical and combined elements, which then appear expressed in the dosage of the base of products such as agrochemicals, whose indiscriminate use in rural areas of Paraguay ravages and where those responsible with the excuse of "progress" They use the scientific alibi of "controlled risk" to justify their destructive actions.

Some of your songs are Noisy/Raw Punk, while others have metal structures and are close to a Thrash/Hardcore/Grind crossover. How do you call your music style?
From the beginning of the band we were conscious that it wouldn’t be easy to activate a proposal that starts from the idea of developing our own terms, where the influences flow as such and not be simple aesthetic imitations or musical forms and for which we would even integrate the part graphic as a complement to the letters and noise that some typified as “HARDCORE EXTREMO”, others described it as “CRUST”, but far from obsessing for the typecasting we synthesized the whole concept of our proposal and baptized it “HARDCORE DESDE EL TERCER MUNDO”.

interview D.L.50 band 2

Which bands helped D.L.50 to form your own music identity? Do you still listen to the same bands you did 20 years ago?
When we started D.L.50, we tried to look at ideas from a spectrum outside the typecasting / classifications of the conventional that was supposed when talking about PUNK / HC here in Paraguay in terms of references or influences. We did not want to be "a parody" or the local equivalent of a band "x", so our proposal was like an amalgam of the music that we are passionate about and that we continue to listen to even today with great enthusiasm and that consists of groups from the old school 80's like: GBH, DISCHARGE, VARUKERS, E.N.T., Scandinavian bands like RATTUS, TERVEET KÄDET, BEDRÖVLERZ, ANTI CIMEX, also a lot of old Latin American PUNK / HC, louder bands like AGATHOCLES, FEAR OF GOD even old bands from METAL such as VENOM, HELLHAMMER, CELTIC FROST, SODOM, etc.

We are very curious about the paraguayan scene. Regardless of the music style, which paraguayan bands (old and new) would you recommend us to check out?
Honestly a long time ago I have been very disappointed in the direction the paraguay scene is going. It has happened to me that I recommended with great enthusiasm bands, projects or people that ended up disappointing me, leaving me in a bad position or even defaming me, so it is difficult to put aside those bad experiences and be objective, even more so today when it is increasing a disgusting process of trying to make massive bands with extreme sound or Underground, something I call "rock nationalization of the Under" and where aspiring "Rockstars" share spaces, projects or activities with opportunists of the worst kind, even fascists of shit or even religious fanatics with all their ultra-conservative prejudices. This is totally pathetic and I would not like to recommend something that will be another disappointment and feel guilty for collaborating with those who want to kill the Underground here. I hope you understand me. Regarding the historical bands, the references are everywhere and there are few that started the underground here through Metal (which is the most deeply rooted, developed and disseminated style) in 1984/1985 and important names are RAWHIDE, METAL URBANO and BATALLÓN. Also in Punk are the pioneers KAOS and already in the 90's C.D.S., RABIA KALLEJERA, 200 MUERTOS, GUARDIA URBANA, G.D.O. An current and active local Punk band that I really like is MURCIELAGOS with whom we made a Split Tape. Also our singer in D.L.50 (BENJA M.) is active in current extreme Metal bands that deserve to be highlighted as EOSPHORUS or GLORIFICATION and has left good references with others such as SEPULCHRAL THRONE and ATOMIC CURSE. Another emerging band that I have found interesting is a Thrash / Speed band called SECUTOR SAVAGE that sounds beastly and whose drummer was part of bands like OVERLORD, HELLISH MASSACRE, among others.
I recommend you take a look at the South American underground scene and check out bands like TERROR REVOLUCIONÁRIO from Brazil which is a great Crust / Grind / HC band, one of the best in the region. ASESINATO EN MASA from Argentina that play HARDCORE and generate a lot of activity in their western area of Buenos Aires. PHERETRUM from Uruguay who make a very powerful Death Metal and recently I discovered a brutal Crust band from Chile called SOBRAS DEL DESCONTENTO.

Is D.L.50 a live or a studio band? Where do you feel more comfortable and why?
We have always wanted to be a band with a time to compose / record and another to play live. We are comfortable on both aspects. We are an Underground band and we are not subscribed to the rigor of adding a number of concerts and the regularity of the productions is subject to the possibilities. We try to combine the 2 facets and not be too repetitive in a circuit as small and centralized as that of our city Asunción, and where having material with new songs to present is always something positive. There have been periods where we have played more than others and lately the lack of affinity with the direction the scene is taking, has led us to organize the concerts ourselves, inviting new bands, even acting as the opening band for many those emerging bands, trying to get people to come early or come in to support even debut bands.

You have shared the stage w/ Violator and Ratos De Porão. Which other bands have you shared the stage with and which has been your favorite live show until now?
We have had the opportunity to play with referent bands from the region such as R.D.P. or VIOLATOR, we have also played with other Brazilian bands like BLASTHRASH, CALIGO, DETRITO FEDERAL, CRUSHED BONES and others like PHETRETRUM from Uruguay, EL PUNKE Argentina and maybe some more that I don't remember now.
A memorable concert for me was one that did not involve playing with a prominent band, rather it was an improvised concert in a public square as part of protests against a US military base installed in Paraguay. It was a chaotic concert, intense with the police threateningly surrounding the whole place and our singer from that time insulting them from the improvised stage. There was only 1 guitar amp and D.L.50 had 2 guitarists then and they would take turns playing the songs. At one point the stage wobbled and literally the drum kit (kick and toms) fell on those present, leaving me alone with the snare and the cymbals and some friends arranged the drum kit as best they could, all that without stopping playing, it was brutal!. And things got even more intense when we played the cover of RABIA KALLEJERA and even those who didn't even know the song yelled at the policemen "canas de mierda" (shitty cops).

Do you plan to hit the stage again after the pandemic? Any plans or offers to play outside of Paraguay, in America or Europe?
Of course, we really want to get back on stage and play the new material that was written and composed before the pandemic and is pending recording when possible.
To date D.L.50 has only been presented once outside of Paraguay and it has been in the city of Brasilia - Brazil. In these years we have received proposals to play in Europe and also in other parts, but travel expenses were always the problem since we do not have the means to cover those expenses either. The desire is always of course, maybe sometime can be realized.

How do you compose a D.L.50 song? Have you ever written spontaneous songs without having rehearsed even a single riff before?
Every song by D.L.50 starts from the lyrics and the noise that complements it tries to dye the message with an atmosphere according to the tenor of the lyrics. I am the writer of 99.9% of the lyrics and composer of 90% of the music and from the beginning it has been done this way, getting interesting results highlighting that at least I do NOT have any musical or writing education. I'm not very sure that this can be considered a "method" but it has always been done in that kind of chaotic, raw, direct, outrageous, noisy way. We have never improvised live songs, we have not reached such spontaneity, but for example we have played songs with very little rehearsal or recorded whole materials of several songs in a short time of studio recording.

Which D.L.50 releases from your discography are the most significant for you and why?
For me, all the releases have their importance, they all involved dedication, time and effort. Personally, I spend part of my time writing or composing and that activity is a very slow process, highlighting the musical limitation I have, but I enjoy it a lot, so I am not very anchored in the past because there is always something to do, something to review. Obviously I give their relevance to the material of the discography since they are pieces that make up the foundations of the band's trajectory.
I've noticed that people look a lot for some specific materials like the “Demo 2005”, our first 7 '' that got a good review on the MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, the Split Tape “El Sistema es el culpàble”, the Split 7 '' EP With AGATHOCLES, some have even been asking about our first Demo Tape that has been sold out for years and will be released entirely as part of “Regresivo I & II”.

Which punk era and which country's punk scene do you like the most?
I really like the 80's scenes from different parts of the world, from Latin America, through Europe, the USA or Asia. I very much evoke the spirit of that period for the creativity in the face of the lack of resources, the guts of that urge to express oneself and the motivation made of passion and NOT of commercial aspirations. I really like things done with courage, anger and the passion of that time when music itself had other terms and many concepts were genuine. I would’t like to be those who glorify an age pretending to live in the past and I do NOT like the "nostalgia industry" that opportunists set up to promote parodies and / or simple aesthetic or musical imitations without risking an idea of your own. I do NOT subscribe to that opportunistic trend, I do NOT subscribe to that opportunistic trend, nor to the speculation behind it.

interview D.L.50 band 1

What does D.I.Y. mean to you?
Beyond the obvious definition of what the D.I.Y. is, which means involvement oneself by activating directly without intermediaries in everything that involves undertaking a project within the Underground, I consider it important to highlight that the D.I.Y. it is an alternative to the disgusting mainstream, its top-down products and structures. D.I.Y. is countercultural, anti-capitalist and allows operating away from mainstream agents (managers, opportunists, etc.), it is a form of resistance promoted by nonconformist people to the manipulation of corporations that are only interested in profit and that they try to reduce everything to a simple product for hedonistic and domesticated consumerism. The D.I.Y. It is an act of resistance that reflects a tenacious integrity and anyone can undertake a project from its premise, with the means they have, stimulating creativity, impregnating all the commitment, effort and sacrifice to what they are passionate about.

What is your opinion on mass media? What is their role in Paraguay?
I do not trust the mass media, which are like satellites of capitalism and in the supposed role of "opinion makers", falsify or accommodate the real panorama of events to the measure and whim of the business groups of whom they are dependent or of the oligarchic elites whose patronage, disguised as publicity, is used for the co-option and servility of journalists. Here in Paraguay the same event is usually presented in so many ways depending on the medium that is viewed. Media owners are either part of the business elite or are functional to it. Even the party sign marks the tenor of the facts, literally misinforming or creating a "fictitious reality" installed tailored to the interests with pathetic content that idiotic the population. Even the self-proclaimed “independent media” here are suspiciously biased and there have always been cases of journalists on bribery lists to misinform or divert the attention of the population.

Is the modern world's progress a real progress for the benefit of humanity?
While it is true that the technological advances of the modern world have made many things easier, comfort has brought with it a disgusting apathy. The dependence on technology has become naturalized to the point that in a meeting of people everyone is more aware of the telephone and at that point (without generalizing) there are those who renounce their autonomy, their privacy in order to exist on social networks, submitting to invasive requirements and abusive protocols with a bombardment of propaganda that alienates to the point that such dependence, for example, leads some to give only importance to others who interact under those terms of "existing virtually."
Some seem like automatons more than humans, since they live pending a monitor where they run montages based on fake news with which people are indoctrinated, mistaking them for pure fascist or consumerist garbage passed off as something "cool", euphemisms and theories delusional that makes paranoid people, who live connected 24 hours a day, they don't even sleep well, they don't eat well, they even only repeat things that they don't even reflect on and if we take that edge as progress in the modern world, I DO NOT think they are have advanced as much as humanity to see those hordes of crying babies appeal for cutting-edge technology but who do not even distinguish fiction from reality.

What emotions do you try to express in your songs and how?
Generally it is like a catharsis of discontent, criticism, denunciation, it is like vomiting that contained anger and noise accompanying the tenor of the lyrics with a nuance that makes those states of fury, anger and nonconformity flow. The lyrics of D.L.50 have a social-realistic approach made from our place of ordinary people who survive as we can through our efforts, we do NOT pretend to go from theoretical references with intellectual approaches or "pose as smarties". We are ordinary people who suffer the vicissitudes of this chaotic shitty system in which we live and where corruption is a cancer that generates feelings of great anger, frustration, helplessness, weariness and where the music of the band acts as a vehicle to express everything this through a fast and furious sound, other times heavy and dark that some classify as something very “negative”, but which for us totally reflects reality.

What's next for D.L.50? What will be your next moves? Please let us know the contact ways with D.L.50 and close the interview with your message to the world and your fans.
Regarding news and projects. In the last days of December 2020, was been released a 6 way Split tape entitled “Nuestra América HC / PUNK Vol. 3”, is a project that integrates scenes and bands D.I.Y. of Latin America and this time it was focused on the southern block. We had already appeared in Vol. 2 too, and this time this release was supported by more than 20 Underground labels and there will be several editions in different parts of the world. In this time of pandemic we also found material that was delayed so long that we thought it was lost and that we will be seeing soon so that it finally sees the light years late. It is time to rehearse the new material written before the pandemic and record it for some proposals that have been made to us but that depend on us recording that new material, there are some somewhat insipient projects that I am not yet in a position to advance much but you will find out if you visit our blog: http://dl50hcdetm.blogspot.com/ The coordinates to contact us are:
JORGE JOURDAN Salvador del mundo · 447 c / Dr. Noguéz. CP: 001524 - Campo Grande - Asunción - Paraguay Email: funebredl50@yahoo.es or jorgejourdan78@gmail.com We want to thank you for this consideration and these very interesting questions, we greatly appreciate the interest and I hope that I have not exceeded too much in the enthusiasm of answering and being boring for the readers who took the annoyance to get to the end of the interview.
We take advantage of this space to greet and thank all the people who have contacted us in this period of pandemic, concerned to know what we were doing, how we were in health and encouragement. Also to send our gratitude to those who, without knowing us, have supported the projects and / or ventures in which we are involved, allowing us to spread our underground proposal, which just a few days ago commemorated 22 years of activity, and which perseveres without giving up even until in pandemic. THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO ALL HARDCORE DESDE EL TERCER MUNDO remains for a long time! The underground noise don't stop!

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Band:
Interviewer: Manos Michaelides
Feb 4, 2021

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