Let the good times role

I thought I knew everything there was to know about 21-year-old Brazilian sex vixens but, nope, Bonde Do Role’s Marina Vello has just gasted my flabber by informing me that she’s fluent in Russian, has read Ulysses and is getting up obscenely early tomorrow to visit The Joyce Tower in Sandycove.

“You think Ulysses is difficult?” she asks. “Try reading it in Portuguese, the translations are crazy!”
A guest on the upcoming Go! Team album – “That was soooooo cool!” – she also admits to a preposterously diverse range of influences.
“The Pixies and Nine Inch Nails were the most perfect shows I’ve seen in my life, but I also love Iron Maiden, Venga Boys, The Cranberries, 2 Many DJs and Franz Ferdinand,” she says with nary a trace of irony.
If only she was a Wolfe Tones fan, she'd have every musical base covered. Hailing from the southern Brazilian city of Curitiba, Marina and her Bonde-mates Pedro D’Eyrot and DJ Gorky take their country’s trademark baile funk and give it the sort of heavy metal kicking that made rich men out of the Beastie Boys. While things on this side of the Atlantic couldn’t be going better, progress at home has been slow.
“Basically, you don’t get played on the radio in Brazil unless you pay,” says D’Eyrot who shares MC-ing duties with Marina. “The best DJ in our town doesn’t get paid the best because he’s black. There’s a lot of prejudice, which extends to people who dress differently, are gay or come from the ghetto. Baile funk and hip hop are regarded as ghetto music, so there are a lot of barriers.”
“A British tour is 15 or 16 shows, but without sponsorship it’s only possible to play Rio, Sao Paulo and maybe one other city in Brazil,” Gorky rues. “90% of young people at home wouldn’t know who us or Cansei De Ser Sexy are. The only group that’s really famous inside and outside of Brazil is Sepultura.”
Starved of likeminded company in Curbita, Bonde Do Role have been busy making friends with Architecture In Helsinki, Blazing Forrest, 2 Many DJs and the charmingly monikered Radioclit. Disappointingly for Marina, they’ve yet to get up close and personal with their Domino Records labelmate Alex Kapranos.
“He was at our gig in New York, but by the time we found that out, he’d gone. I was so disappointed!”
Do I detect a little bit of a crush on the boy Kapranos?
“No, I have a boyfriend and he has a boyfriend too.”
Alex Kapranos has a boyfriend… my goodness, that’s a scoop!
“I mean girlfriend!” she shrieks. “He has a girlfriend and I’ve a boyfriend, so wanting to meet him is a fan thing.”
Glad we’ve cleared that up. Adding to Bonde Do Role’s outsider status in Brazil is their penchant for lyrics like, “I was at a party/And I saw a whore/I put my tongue into her asshole/And my tongue came out all dirty” (‘Melo do Caldinho’). Other subject matter on their excellent With Lasers album includes crime, cocks, sex changes and a princess with rabies.
“It’s sexual but funny,” D’Eyrot maintains.
“Like a John Waters movie,” Gorky adds helpfully.
“No, you’re both just sick,” is Marina’s verdict.
Bonde Do Role – in case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “Bon-ge doh Hole-e” – return to Ireland in September for the Electric Picnic, a gig Ms. Vello is counting down the days to.
“The other person I really, really want to meet is Kim Gordon, and Sonic Youth are playing there. She’s even cooler than Alex Kapranos!”
With Lasers is out now on Domino.