Interview with Ian Daley

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The Train of Ice & Fire

This is the story of a misguided tour by a French Rock band, Mano Negra, in Colombia between November and December of 1993.

It had all the elements to be considered the maddest and most dangerous tour ever but also the most idealistic. At that time Colombia was considered the most dangerous country in the world with thousands of assassinations every year.

For this presentation, Ian Daley (Selwyn) from Route Publishing, the publisher and editor of The Train of Ice & Fire will tell us the reasons that led him to make the book translated into the English language and unveils some of the incredible stories about this quixotic tour.

The author of the Train of Ice & Fire is Ramon Chao (1935-2018), father of Manu, who was on the train with the rest of the bohemian entourage of artists and musicians around Colombia, but he was not just the father of the famous musician he was a Spanish progressive intellectual who lived in France for most of his life where he worked as a journalist and broadcaster for Radio France Internationale, Le Monde and Le Monde Diplomatique.

The song list is mainly from “Casa Babylon”, the last album Manu Chao recorded under the name of Mano Negra just after Colombia with some of the compadres of this adventurous tour even though by that time Mano Negra was only in name as the band has disintegrated even before the recording started.

There is also a track from the BBC winner for World Music best album award in 2006, “Dimanche a Bamako” by Amadou & Mariam. The latter album was produced by Manu Chao who also worked with them for one of his solo albums “Siberie M’etait”. But also there is Colombian music by one of its most talented and reputed musicians, Andres Landero, The King of Cumbia. This skilful accordionist was championed by none other than Joe Strummer from the Clash, himself an idol of Manu among his peers and later a good friend.

Finally, the last song in the playlist is a song suggested by Route publisher which is by The Fall, one of the bands Selwyn has launched some riveting books.

Playlist

1- Sueño de Solentiname - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”

2- Casa Babylon - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”)

3- Love and Hate - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”)

4- Machine Gun - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”)

5- Señor Matanzas - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”)

6- Infinita Tristeza - Manu Chao (from the album “Proxima estación Esperanza)

7- Super Chango - Mano Negra (from the album “Casa Babylon”)

8- Rosa y Mayo - Andres Landero

9- Mama Call - Manu Chao (from the album “Clandestino”)

10- La réalité - Amadou & Mariam (from the Manu Chao’s produced album “Dimanche a Bamako”)

11- Fantastic Life - The Fall Note: The background music used for the interview are all excerpts of Manu Chao solo albums - Mi Vida and Me gustas Tú (from the album “Próxima estación Esperanza”), Bongo Bong and Mentira (“Clandestino”) and Siberie Fleuve (“Siberie M’etait contéee”).