Return of good times for Charly
He’s not that rocker who used to make fun of his mental disorders anymore, the one who would brag “I am quadrophrenic, I have four personalities” on TV, the one who trashed many hotel rooms or used to put cigarette butts out on his hand to end a conversation.
Charly García, probably the single most important figure in Latin American rock — whose career stretches from the early ’70s in bands like Sui Géneris and Serú Girán to the solo act he has been since 1982 — is finally living gentler days.
“At this point in my life, I’m very focused on music,” García says from Buenos Aires, sounding like he means it. “I’m more calmed … more social,” the 60-year-old rocker adds, laughing at the last bit.
He’s referring, of course, to his very public downfall, which stretched for a good part of the past decade and ended with García in a mental and addiction-treatment institution in 2008.
After a lengthy recovery, in 2009 García emerged with a solid single, “Deberías Saber Por Qué,” and more reliable performances than in previous years.
An April 25 concert at Times Square’s Best Buy Theater will mark his first performance in the city since 2002, and his biggest show here in terms of venue and onstage display. His band has 10 musicians, playing a range of traditional rock instruments along with violins and bandoneón — the accordion-like staple of tango music.
“It’s almost like an orchestra. It has elements of tango and classical music,” says García. “It’s going to be big, really.”
His concert also coincides with the release of “60x60,” a box set of three DVDS and three CDS documenting the performance of 60 songs last year in Buenos Aires to mark his 60th birthday.
His New York performance will draw from the repertoire he built for those nights, from his early classics like “Canción para mi muerte” or “Viernes 3 am” to hits from the ’80s and ’90s.
It also may include — García teases — a few of the many songs in his repertoire inspired by or recorded in New York, like the 1983 classic “No soy un extraño,” or the more recent “In the City That Never Sleeps,” from his latest studio album, “Kill Gil.”
“Those two songs may be part of a sequence about the vision a foreigner has of the city, but marking a difference from slogans like ‘I Love New York’ and that type of stuff,” says García, who spent a season in the city in 1983 while recording the groundbreaking album “Clics Modernos,” often considered a turning point for Argentine rock.
García shows no bitterness about the fact that, despite his revered status in Latin America, he never made it outside the Spanish-speaking world. “It may be just because of the language barrier,” García says, “but with musicians like Luis Alberto Spinetta, Manal or me, Argentinean rock went on a quest to find a sound that was similar to the cacophony of English, and with lyrics that were very, very local.”