Lenay on the Scene: Your Sneak Peek From São Paulo, Brasil ft. We The Kings & Tipo Uísque!
May 3, 2012
Savvy readers may have seen hints here and there that RAGGED was on the scene in beautiful São Paulo, Brasil for Lollapalooza Brasil in April, and we’re excited to officially give you a peek at some of the details! Just a few weeks ago, we set off for São Paulo with our Girl on the Scene, Lenay, and Warped Tour headliners We The Kings to meet up with Brasilian band, Tipo Uísque, on a quest to experience Brasilian culture as part of our new musical foreign exchange program. From Brasilian barbecue to impromptu acoustic jams in the park to the big stage at Lollapalooza Brasil, we experienced it all! That’s not the end of it though—we documented the entire trip on film and will be releasing the results in a 6-part webisode series, kicking off next week! Stay tuned for episode 1, a limited Brasil edition of RAGGED, and the invitation to a special U.S. event with Lenay and both bands! In the meantime, get an exclusive inside look at what’s to come from Lenay’s personal blog and video diary from the week!
Straight from Lenay:
Olá! It’s 4:00am on my flight back from São Paulo, Brasil!! I have a bad habit of drinking multiple caffeinated beverages right before I go to bed, especially when flight attendants ask you four times if you want something else. Blogging is better than sleeping anyways—so many stories to tell!!
To start from the beginning, I spent this last week in Brasil hanging out with the bands We The Kings & Tipo Uísque (an amazing Brasilian band). We had photoshoots all around town, drank water straight from coconuts, rode around in an old Cadillac convertible (so fun! I heart convertibles!!), jammed at a guitar shop, met a lot of Brasilian teen WTK fans because they always seemed to find us, and went to Lollapalooza Brasil!
It was the first time Lollapalooza was in Brasil, and I got to interview some really sweet bands there like Bassnectar, Cage the Elephant and the actual creator of Lollapalooza, Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction! That was cool. I interviewed him in the penthouse of a race-horse track (that was the Lolla venue). There were guards. He had a lock around his neck as a necklace and colorful socks. Later I noticed Travis from WTK had a key on his necklace. I asked if he and Perry were BFF’s, but they are not. Then WTK & I watched Tipo perform. It was their first time playing for such a huge crowd, and they said they were super-nervous, but they ROCKED it! They were seriously so good. I used one of their songs called “Eyes for Eyes” as the music in my video for this blog. They sing all of their songs in English even though they speak mostly Portuguese. And I finally figured out that “Tipo Uísque” means “Type of Whiskey”… maybe because when you listen to them it makes you want to loosen up and dance, like Whiskey does to people.
I took the liberty to stray from the group and wander around the festival a bit by myself, hoping that by smiling a lot and waving would my free pass to videotape anybody, since I had no idea how to say, “hi, mind if I videotape you sitting on the ground with your friends for my American Rag blog” in Portuguese. I heart Lollapalooza Brasil fashion! In my adventuring, I met someone with a shirt that said “NY Loves Me” (instead of the usual “I Love NY”)… thought that was funny. And then there was a girl with the little cursive tattoo on her collarbone that says “Let It Be” (Beatles lyrics). It’s cool how music can break down language barriers like that. Like how 50 Brasilian teens can sing along to every word of WTK’s impromptu acoustic set in a park, but then you talk to them afterwards and they can’t speak another word of English.
On Easter Sunday, the bands and I hung out on a closed down freeway. It was surreal. It kind of felt like a zombie movie because there was graffiti everywhere and the freeway was abandoned with no cars. But I guess they block it off from traffic just on Sundays so people can walk on it (which is a little less dramatic). The bands jammed together with an acoustic guitar and a drum in the middle of the road. And wow that little redhead (Pin) in Tipo Uísque has such a strong voice for such a tiny girl! The song carried down the empty street so much that people in buildings leaned out their windows over the freeway to listen. It was such a cool moment.
I’m going to miss my new friends from WTK & Tipo :( But luckily both bands are coming to NYC in a few weeks for a concert in Herald Square! So we will all hang out again soon. (Ed. Note: Stay tuned for details and your invitation!) Maybe I’ll pick up some coconut water for the occasion, even though it won’t be in a real coconut 
On a side note… shout-out to everyone from Macy’s & RAGGED who went on the trip with us!! We had a little posse of like 20 people, and it was seriously SO much fun and I hope to see them all again soon! We ate at some of the coolest Brazilian restaurants (yay for yuca-flour for being my new fav), one of which had a seriously ginormous tree in the middle with branches going through the glass roof. Crazy. Oh and one night, we were all sporting glow stick bracelets because I had found some in my purse from Tennessee (weird yet awesome purse find).
We had a camera crew following us all week to make some webisodes (Ed. Note: Stay tuned for the first one next week!). But I also made a video of my favorite footage that I got on my camera and put it to music from the trip as a sneak peek for you! Editing videos is one of my favorite things to do. If you can edit some cool footage to some good music, it’s like dancing with your computer kind of lol. Sounds weird but it’s true! And it’s one of the only things that I can totally lose myself in, and lose track of time. Which is how you know you’re having a good time I think! Like the Brazil trip, that went by so fast. :p
xo,
Lenay
Episode 1 of RAGGED’s “Olá, Brasil!” Web Series Coming Next Week!
posted by Staff
