Words/film photos by Huitziloxochitl Jaramillo
Tucked away in the neighborhood of Chapinero, in the heart of a bustling Bogotá; you’ll find Casa Rat Trap. A place known worldwide as a sanctuary for punks. A second home to many of the local artists and musicians in Colombia. Casa Rat Trap exists as a community space with a variety of services available. They offer serigrafia (screen printing), practice spaces for bands, and studio rentals for artists.
I had the privilege of crashing at the house with my partner and attending their twelfth annual punk music festival called Asfixia. Each year they welcome a plethora of international bands who perform across four days at a variety of different spaces in Bogotá. Some notable bands from this year’s include Oslo’s Guff, Mexico’s femme punk troupe Soga, and Zorn — crusty metal punks from the exotic lands of Philadelphia, PA.
When we arrived, the house was relatively quiet. As we made our way to our room (a loft in the house’s top floor that would end up housing five bands over the weekend), we marveled at the art hanging on the walls. 99% of the pieces hanging were drawn and then screen printed on paper by members of the Casa’s main cohort of artists. The frames adorn the wall above the staircase like a museum.
As each night passed and we got closer to Asfixia XII, the Casa filled to max capacity. The house came alive with music as bands practiced nightly, some in preparation for the festival. As more bands arrived, more members of Rat Trap began working in a flurry. International bands that arrived often needed merch (and one international band requested help building a coffin). Casa Rat Trap members would buy shirts from a small shop down the street, retreat to the back of the house where their screen printing studio lived, and have upwards of 100 tees done in a matter of hours. As a preshow offering to bands and showgoers, we were treated to a donation-based vegan feast; prepared by local anarcho punks as a fundraiser for shelters that rescue animals from factory farms in Colombia.
Casa Rat Trap and Asfixia Festival are the creative culmination of nearly 20-years of work by Carlos Velasquez and his friends Rafa Augusto, Andrea, Wilson, Darcy, and many more. This incarnation of Casa Rat Trap is the second. The group had to abruptly move from the original location because their landlord decided that they had cleaned the space up nicely and wanted it back.
Carlos is an individual who truly lives by the punk ethos. He’s one of the main organizers of the festival, he’s a visual artist, and several of his own bands have played Asfixia over the years. Most notably MURO, composed of the Casa Rat Trap all-stars Rafa, Darcy, and Wilson. MURO is a terrific force of calculated punk insanity. He and his team screen print album covers for MURO, and for bands all over the world. I got to witness them and my partner screen print the 7” cover for a new Unlawful Assembly release. Carlos gets his clothing from a friend who hand sews denim jeans and leather jackets. This same friend is also teaching him carpentry skills so he can remodel Casa Rat Trap on his own. From start to finish, Carlos lives in and helps cultivate a vibrant ecosystem of DIY for the Bogotá scene. He and his friends do their best to live outside of corporations and algorithms, and to contribute to punk by creating stunning visual art and ear splittingly loud music.
I missed day one of Asfixia because I got sick. So my review will start on day two. What’s the Colombian equivalent to Moctezuma’s Revenge? Anyway, day two was at a local bar venue called “La Mecánica.” An appropriate name for where the building was, nestled in between auto repair shops on the southeastern side of Chapinero. If you’ve attended punk shows, there are familiar sights here. We found ourselves in a sea of spiky hair and even more spiky leather jackets. Punks smoked cigarettes and drank beers they bought from neighboring tienditas (cornerstores) while we waited for doors to open. I’ve never been a stud punk, but I appreciate the craft and will always love entering a room full of decked out clothing.
The venue served food, so while we stood in line and waited to buy our nightly entry, we savored the smell of empanadas hitting the fryer. Upon entry, we were welcomed to Crass style banners hanging in every corner of the venue. Banners displayed the Asfixia lineup or political art and of course, each banner was drawn by someone from Casa Rat Trap.
To get to the stage, we squeezed between punks and merch tables lined with goods — buttons, vinyl records, cassette tapes, and black t-shirts adorned with each band’s chosen graphic (often involving skeletons). Before bands got started we were able to watch an exclusive screening of “Jawbreaker,” the official documentary of Sweden’s legendary D-Beat band, Anti-Cimex. The movie was in Swedish with Spanish subtitles, which was amazing because most of the crowd spoke Spanish, but unfortunate for everyone that didn’t. Due to the language barrier, I didn’t really know what was going on but I loved hearing classic Anti-Cimex songs like, “Victims of a Bomb Raid,” over the PA.
Nine bands were slated to perform that night. My favorite sets were Guff from Norway and Mexico’s Soga. Guff delivered a powerful set of good ole’ traditional hardcore punk music that makes you want to dance, and that’s exactly what the crowd did. I was regularly thrown into the speakers on the side of the stage by moshers who shoved in every direction, like a perfectly chaotic tornado of people. Soga’s lead guitarist, Sara, was incredible. Her solos were fierce and ripped through the band’s intense sound that moved between walls of aggression, and dancy riffs with catchy lyrics, Tüsken finished off the night’s music. The band was playing their first show back home in Bogota after performing at “Ciudad Maldita,” (a different annual punk fest in CDMX) the weekend prior. It was wonderful being able to experience them play on home turf. The singer regularly jumped into and on top of his friends during the set, often being returned to the stage via crowdsurf.
Night three was hosted at the Casa Cultura Luis A Morales, a gigantic cultural center in the S.C Policarpa neighborhood of Bogotá. There was a busy skatepark out front of the venue, so while loading in the night’s PA from the street, we dodged niños learning how to skate. Finding information about what the center specifically provides is difficult. There were posters with different moments of Colombia’s political history on the walls. The space had a stage, showers, and a kitchen where volunteers were preparing food for bands and staff. My partner and I were tasked with hanging banners. As we made our way up a set of stairs that led to a balcony where we could properly hang them, we passed a concrete sculpture of a mother and her child in one arm. In the other arm, she was holding a paper with a hammer and sickle that read “VOZ.” From the balcony we were able to get a great view of the venue’s… wrestling ring? Yes, a full-sized wrestling ring situated in the back of the space with a banner hanging overhead that read, “Restistencia Policarpuna.”
11 bands were on the roster, the biggest night of the fest. Five of the bands were international, two from the States. The night had a mix of genres including grindcore, noise, and hardcore with a capital H (think Hatebreed). Casa Rat Trap service such a wide variety of musicians, and Carlos said this variation is to help platform the smaller local bands. It was great to see them prioritizing the local community even at such a large festival. My favorites of the night included locals Tupa, who play a style of punk with the same name, which comes from the ,“tupa, tupa, tupa”, sound of the drumming. Their set was short but sweet, and got the crowd moving. The singer spent most of his time on the floor level with the crowd. He’s also an artist under the name CHULO, who tattoos and (respectfully) makes disgusting punk comics. His art can be seen spray painted on different walls throughout the city.
Icelandic band DAUÐYFLIN played an incredible set that evening. The singer’s vocals were haunting, with shouts that echoed through the space followed by an occasional crazed cackle into the mic. The band were as exciting to watch as they were unsettling.
Zorn from Philadelphia performed second to last, their vocalist entering via coffin ushered by members of other bands. The crowd erupted as the singer burst from the coffin to the stage. Zorn is a band I’ve seen a couple of times, having lived in Philadelphia for a year. They are always a treat to see live. Philadelphia has an affinity for making terrific medieval-metal-punk and Zorn is no exception. The entire band performed shirtless and in corpse paint. I watched someone literally be brought to tears by their performance. The crowd chanted, “Otra” (“another,” as in more, a regularly heard phrase after any band the locals enjoyed was finished) but Carlos hushed them; saying,”We know the gringos were cool but there’s one more band.”.
Headbanging and crying, what a wonderful way to end a night of fast and violent music.
On day four we found ourselves outside in the sunshine, at a park lovingly nicknamed La Concha, after the small amphitheater that resided in the middle of the park’s square. The day’s lineup was made up almost entirely of the international bands invited to play the fest. Since I missed the first night, this was my chance to see a good handful of the bands that had played. La Gleba were the only locals on the bill. The band opened and as we watched the next couple of sets, we watched locals and punks alike gather. Some stood a safe distance away from the mosh pit being started by the more youthful punks, to take videos on their phones of the weirdos invading their otherwise quiet space. I noticed a few buying chicha, a previously banned fermented alcohol, from a street vendor who was also selling belts studded with soda can tabs.
As the sun was setting, Icelandic post-punk band Börn (composed of most of the same members of DAUÐYFLIN) took the stage as heavy rain rolled in. The rain and their “Christian Death” inspired music created a pleasantly gloomy and surreal atmosphere. However, the rain caused the crowd to separate and forced 90% of the show goers onto the stage and under the protection of the amphitheatre’s roof. It was cramped but everyone being in such close proximity helped propel the intensity of the sets to come. I found myself situated between a rock and a hard place (the deafening space in between the drums and the huge speakers pushing out vocals).
Even though it was loud, it did prove to be an ideal spot as Polish band Laxity started playing. The singer stood with his back away from the crowd and I had a front row seat as they started their set with a slow but evil intro, which quickly turned into discordant, bass heavy hardcore punk. It was reminiscent of the kind of hardcore punk you’d hear from a basement in the 80s. Slightly out of tune but in a ”shitty on purpose” kinda way. I looked away from the band to eye a crowd member who had entered the pit with an umbrella. He was pogoing with it while being thrown side to side. When I looked back at the band, the singer had ditched the black track pants he was wearing and was sporting a bright white jockstrap instead. Moments later, it was set ablaze with a sparkler. The vocalist ran back and forth at the crowd, who approved of the gimmick with loud applause.
Asfixia Festival is a testament to the passion that lives within punks, and more specifically to the dedication of those punks in Colombia. It exists to show us that punk is still an underground movement hellbent on independence and liberation.
From start to finish, this festival is organized with love. Love for the music, love for the culture, love for the community. It’s only passion that gets us out of bed at 8AM to load a pickup truck full of sound gear after mopping up beer from the floor of a community space until 3AM the night before. This festival is not backed by any corporate sponsors and doesn’t have any mysterious anonymous donors. You won’t find a PBR booth to get a free koozie at, but you will find gorgeous one-of-a-kind handmade art pieces and good company (shoutout Sergio in No No No). It’s hosted by some of the most selfless and compassionate people you could ever meet.
My thanks extend to Carlos, Rafa, Wilson, Darcy, and friends for providing this sanctuary for weirdos near and far. If you’re ever in Bogota, make sure to check out Rat Trap and get a record from them.
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