Between La Cueva and La Perla del Once: City and Memory in the Sketches of Argentina’s First Rock Movement

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between the emerging Argentine rock scene and the city of Buenos Aires during the 1960s, highlighting how music and youth urban practices became intertwined within a context of political instability and repression under the self-proclaimed “Argentine Revolution” (1966–1973). In this setting, the so-called naufragios –nighttime walks undertaken by young people– are framed as a form of urban experimentation and are recognized as one of the pillars in the construction of Spanish-language rock in Argentina, as well as in the symbolic cartographies shaped by music. The study focuses on two emblematic spaces within the rock coordinates of the 1960s: La Cueva de Pasarotus and La Perla del Once. Drawing on concepts such as croquis (Silva 2006) and memory activators (Gonçalves 2015), the article approaches rock as an urban practice that connects music, spaces, memories, and affections, aiming to show how these places, though physically vanished, remain alive in the collective memory and cultural identity of Argentine rock.