Cólera

Cólera holds the distinction of being Brazil’s inaugural punk rock outfit both to commit material to tape and to stage concerts on foreign soil. The São Paulo group came together in November 1979 when brothers Edson Lopes Pozzi and Pierre—born Carlos Lopes Pozzi—joined forces with Val, whose full name was Valdemir Pinheiro; he was succeeded first by Josué Correia and later by Fabio Bossi. From the outset the musicians concentrated on exposing violence and armed conflict through pieces such as “Pela Paz Em Todo Mundo” and “Duas Ogivas,” while tracks including “Não Fome,” “Condenados,” and “Sarjeta” addressed exploitation together with wider social inequities. Additional songs tackled humanity’s enslavement by technology (“1992”) and the disorder of city life (“Vivo Na Cidade,” “São Paulo”).

Their earliest release arrived in 1982 on the split album Grito Suburbano, which united several acts belonging to the same scene that championed peace and environmental themes within punk. A German pressing of that record appeared two years afterward. Prior to issuing their own long-players, the band contributed to three further compilations: O Começo Do Fim Do Mundo in November 1982, Sub in March 1983, and Beating the Meat in October 1983. The first proper Cólera LP, Tente Mudar O Amanhã, was captured in 1985. Its successor, Pela Paz Em Todo O Mundo, emerged the following year and quickly earned classic status inside Brazil after moving 80,000 units, 30,000 of them in the United States and Canada.

An extensive European trek in 1987 took the musicians through fifty-six performances spread across ten nations that included Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, and France; selected recordings from those dates later surfaced as albums. Activity persisted into the new millennium, when Plebe Rude revisited “Medo” and Inocentes tackled “Quanto Vale a Liberdade” in 2000.