Los Blonders

Due to the musical influence of the American and Dutch colony, Los Blonder, a pioneer band of the rock music movement in Venezuela, emerged in the city of Maracaibo in the early 1960s. His initial training consists of José "Tantán" Baptista (guitar), Nerio Manrique (guitar) and Bernardo Ball (drums), who are joined by Ricardo Finol, Manolo Barrios and Henry Stephen. The Blonders is a musical ensemble of modern rhythms, it is the most complete and youthful organization and, its beginnings coincide with the dissolution of other rock and roll bands of the Zulian circuit, such as The Flippers, The Tempest and The Impala. In 1964, the inexplicable situation was experienced in Maracaibo that, a broadcasting sector criticized openly and insistently to the North American rock music performers, to the point that the police dissolved parties and presentations because they were considered obscene and unpatriotic. The first LP, "The Go Go of Los Blonder", was recorded in August 1965, the second LP, "Blonder ll", was recorded five months after the first, with the same label, the same studio and the same "technique "; the little time elapsed between the first and second disc reflects the speed with which its popularity grew. Previous offers of powerful record labels such as Discomoda and Velvet did not crystallize due to the difficulties of moving from Maracaibo to Caracas and because of their student conditions. "If you decide to go" was located in the first places of the radio stations of the country of its first LP, where they fulfilled in December 1965 a successful tour. However, given their recognized musical quality and despite the problems to rehearse and stay together, in 1967 they achieved what any musical group of those times meant their artistic consecration at the national level, to appear in "The Renny Show", program of greater hierarchy of Venezuelan television during the 60's and 70's.