September 1993, July 1994
He had a stout frame, long straight black hair, and a round and warm face – a cross between Zed from Police Academy and Argyle from Stranger Things.
Here was Churdy, sat opposite me in a cafe in Valencia, Venezuela, in my first month there. He was a friend of Martha, the teacher sub-letting a room to me in her flat. This was the amicable period, long before she decided flat sharing was a bad idea and asked me to find somewhere else (with some justification).
He was introduced as a musician. I remember a snippet of the conversation, which for some reason has stuck with me for over 30 years. Venezuelan cafes served coffee in small doses, espresso-based and milky, roughly equivalent to a piccolo. The beans were sourced from local farms or across the border in Colombia. It was the best coffee I’d tasted. Churdy eyed his small cup and praised the invigorating high of coffee, while lamenting the drop in energy which was sure to follow later. Coffee had this inherent duality, which he compared to how the same notes of a scale can play both a major key and a minor key.
As I started work at the university and made friends, it soon became apparent that anyone with an interest in music seemed to know and love him. And those who didn’t know him knew of him. It turned out he was nothing short of a rock celebrity, not just in Valencia but countrywide. I would learn in time that he played bass for Gillman, Venezuela’s pre-eminent metal band.
This was equivalent to playing bass in Iron Maiden in England. Except this brand of metal was alive and kicking at this time in Venezuela, despite the competition from grunge, alternative rock and other flavours of guitar-based music. Metalheads were everywhere, in a way I did not see in the UK. Impressionistically, it seemed to me that the per capita popularity of heavy metal was off the charts. Statistically, that appears to be true right through to the present day where Latin American metal megacities top the listening charts. (Special mention too for Finland, home to the highest number of metal bands per capita.)
Churdy kept popping up through my year there. Always friendly, devoid of arrogance or airs and graces, never trumpeting his successes. I saw him for the last time around July 1994. Roberto – one of those aforementioned metalheads – invited me to a party near my tower block in Naguanagua. The metal scene was out in force, with a band playing in the yard to the accompaniment of a healthy dose of headbanging. Then Churdy arrived, walking casually and gracefully through the crowd which parted before him, creating an irresistible path towards the band. He took over the bass and played along for a few songs, just doing his thing, loving the music, to the delight of everyone.
Whenever I hear Wilco’s Heavy Metal Drummer it takes me back to this moment, sincerely celebrating as it does the joys of the metal scene. The double kick drums, the spandex, the KISS covers. I was never a metalhead, but that song and this moment in Venezuela chime and bring a wide smile to the face. For those about to rock, Eulalio Toledo, aka Churdy, we salute you!