Los Blops were a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

band, regarded as one of the foremost bands in the country. The band originally formed in the town of

Isla Negra Isla Negra (Spanish: ''Black Island'') is a coastal area in El Quisco commune in central Chile, some 45 km (70 km by road) south of Valparaiso and 96 km (110 km by road) west of Santiago. Pablo Neruda Isla Negra was the re ...

in 1964 to perform

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

s of pop hits in local clubs. They took their name from characters in a popular

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...

, ''Condorito''. The original band members were Julio Villalobos (guitar, vocals), Alejandro Greene (guitar) and Pedro Greene (drums). After Alejandro Greene left in 1966, the remaining pair were joined by Felipe Orrego (guitar) and his cousins Juan Pablo Orrego (bass) and Andrés Orrego (vocals). In 1969, Felipe and Andrés Orrego left, shortly followed by Pedro Greene, and the classic band line-up formed, consisting of Julio Villalobos (guitar), Juan Pablo Orrego (bass), and new members Eduardo Gatti (guitar, vocals), Juan Contreras (keyboards, flute), and Sergio Bezard (drums). They performed versions of songs by such bands as

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

and

Cream Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this proces ...

, and also incorporated elements of Chilean folk music and increasingly performed their own compositions. The band members lived communally in

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile (), is the capital and largest city of Chile and one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is located in the country's central valley and is the center of the Santiago Metropolitan Regi ...

, together with several members of the Instituto Arica de Santiago. Their first LP, mainly of

instrumental An instrumental or instrumental song is music without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through Semantic change, semantic widening, a broader sense of the word s ...

s, was recorded in 1970, in 12 hours on a two-track machine and produced by DICAP (Discoteca Del Cantar Popular). It included the hit single "Los Momentos." Villalobos left in 1972 and was replaced by pianist Juan Carlos Villegas. The band recorded two more albums, ''Del volar de las palomas'' (''"The flying of doves"'', 1972), and ''Locomotora'' (''"Locomotive"'', 1973), before splitting up in 1974 following the coup led by

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean military officer and politician who was the dictator of Military dictatorship of Chile, Chile from 1973 to 1990. From 1973 to 1981, he was the leader ...

. Gatti and Orrego later reformed Los Blops in 1978, recording a single, "Los Momentos"/ "La Francisca," but they split again in 1980. They briefly reunited once again in 2001.

References

External links

Los Blops website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blops, Los Chilean rock music groups