SANTINO: Live Session in Hollywood

Santino

Live Session in Hollywood

© 2008 Santino Worldwide Music (634479954870) (format: CD-R)

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A DVD + CD package of intimate, yet poignant and sultry live recording of 11 upbeat Latin/English pop/rock tracks including two new songs at a state-of-the-art studio in Hollywood, CA.

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Santino has built a strong reputation as a true artist with an extraordinary voice, a resourceful songwriter and an energetic live performer. Inspired by the culture and the music of the various countries he visited or toured, Santino writes mostly about love and social injustice. Many of his songs and vocals have been recently featured in major Hollywood movies and TV series such as War of the Worlds, Employee of the Month, The Shield, Prison Break, Kidnapped and America’s Ballroom, but to name a few. Santino won numerous songwriting awards and contests like Billboard and received 5 stars reviews by both the Anglo and Latin media. But this exciting journey has not always been easy…

Santino is an unusual artist in the Latin music world. He was born and raised in Lima, Peru, a country better known in the rest of the world for its sightseeing than for its contemporary music scene. Santino’s artistic journey from Lima to Los Angeles, California exemplifies the hardship that such a large number of people decide to experience to find the Eldorado. It is a trip filled with hardship, despair, but also joy and successes.

When Santino grew up in Lima, Peru the country was going through a difficult internal situation, ravaged by a non-stopping civil war between the Government and the Shining Path or the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. This struggle left thousands of innocents dead. Santino was finding a sanctuary in music and arts in this heavy and desperate atmosphere.

It all starts with the family! His siblings helped him to secure his musical and theatrical education. Santino would head to the other side of the city, often in dangerous parts of town, for his daily lessons and rehearsals. He had to hurry back home to avoid curfew. Santino recalls one instance when he decided to use a different route back home than his usual itinerary. A bomb exploded on the street he took everyday. He also got kidnapped by the police who robbed him of everything he had. This was the prize a young Peruvian musician had to pay just to afford going to rehearsal.

After a trip to Holland with his heavy metal band, Sentencia, Santino came back to Peru at age 17 to complete his college degree. This is when luck struck for the first time. Santino had become a well-rounded vocalist and performer, and earned the attention of the most popular progressive rock band at the time in Peru, Fragil. The band invited him to become its new lead singer. Being part of a constantly touring and pro band, Santino developed his skills and brought them to a higher level: he composed songs, produced and recorded an album for Fragil, and most importantly started performing all over Peru in front of very large crowds, the US and other Latin American countries. Fragil is the school where Santino became a solid and charismatic performer. Playing in front of several ten of thousands of people, performing live on TV and on the radio turned him into a professional and highly skilled musician.

During these years Santino decided to expand his horizons and develop his own sounds and career. He started studying theater, harmony and song composition. He then re located to Los Angeles, where, as for thousands of immigrants who take the critical decision to make their way to the United States, he had to fight a new struggle. This time it was not terrorism, civil war and the fear of kidnapping. Like a vast number of unknown immigrants, he took any small jobs he could to survive in Los Angeles. He was a dishwasher in a restaurant, a furniture deliverer…but in spite of these long hours of poorly rewarded labor, he still had the strength to work on his own music at night, writing the future songs for his solo album. This early Californian experience is the main influence for the song “El Inmigrante” that tells the daily life of an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles.

Santino eventually founded the Latin rock band Likido. They opened for Mana and Luis Miguel at the Universal Amphitheater. The band gained a strong local follow up and will perform regularly in LA in venues such as the House of Blues. In 2006, Santino left the band to pursue his solo career. He produced his first record, Indiocumentado, in 2007, mixed by German Villacorta (Rolling Stones, Eva Ayllon, Metallica) and featuring renowned musicians such as Luis Conte (Madonna, Phil Collins) and Ramon Stagnaro. Santino went back to the club circuit to play his new Latin pop material with a new group of LA musicians. At a time when the Latin music industry only bets on Reggaeton and Ranchero, Santino’s infectious and uplifting Latin pop came as a breathe of fresh air for many listeners. He also got the attention of many Hollywood executives and his songs landed placement in major film and TV hits. Indiocumentado includes “Nadie Es Como Tu”, a Spanish cover of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take”, originally requested by Sting/The Police’s manager, Miles Copeland.

This is the beginning of the adventure for Santino. Indiocumentado, has been released in the USA through Milan Records – an independent label distributed by Ryko and present on the American market for now 20 years –

Now with the support of a label and a management team, Santino is ready to bring his solo career to a new level.

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  • author: Jeremy Carter

    Santino is the rare artist who sounds every bit as good live as he does on disc -- perhaps even better. This CD and DVD are a fantastic representation of his live show, which combines the superb musicianship of Santino and his entire band with Santino's soaring voice and electric stage presence. Several of the songs here receive finely crafted makeovers so they're both familiar and refreshingly new. An added bonus is two new songs: the rocking "Llévame contigo" and the funktastic "Feel So Good Tonight." This set is a welcome companion to and a must for fans of "Indiocumentado," his debut CD. And if you have neither release, pick them up now so you can say you were listening to Santino before he hit it big, which is destined to happen very soon. The proof? It's right here in "Live Session."

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