Q:Introduce yourself and the band; hope I'm not wrong when ask you to do the same for the instruments you play since I don't think, many of our readers ever heard for surdo, repinque, ganza or chocalho...
Ian: There are ten in the band full-time: Hanley Crouch (Gary), Jal Frezi (Jasper), Lady Lovelace (Ewen), Cinzano Bianco (Esther), Carlos the Jackal (Ian), Mister Beet (Mike), Miss Construed (Laura), Zen O'Phobia (Rob), Annie Climax (Claire), and The Chocolate Kama Sutra (Jane).
All the percussion instruments are Brazilian. The surdos are big bass drums - up to 24 inches across - repiniques are high pitched drums, snare drum you know, chocalho and ganza are like lots of tamborine jingles. Gary plays electric guitar, Jasper plays trumpet and Jane operates the puppet. Five of us sing at different times. Normally seven or eight are playing different percussion instruments: Claire and I play repinique, Rob chocalho, Jane ganza, Esther snare, and Ewen, Laura and Mike play surdos. But we swap around depending on who is singing.

Q:How did you come up with such incredible name for a band? Who's idea it was?
Ian: A BLOCO is a small Brazilian band, and as we are punk, VOMIT is a good name to go with it. Gary and I both had the idea to do this independently, and when we met at the samba school we discussed it over a lot of Guinness. Six months of late night jamming sessions later, Ewen got interested and galvanised us into setting it up. It was really easy to get the right kind of warped personalities together, and we had a band. Neil (Agent Orange) played for 18 months but moved away, though we still enlist him as needed.
Rob: It fell out of the samba-sky turning black just before a massive pourdown although the previous minute it was still bright sunny and thirtysix degrees and a half celsius. We were not accustomed to that, coming from winterish wet Scotland and, in line with the weather, we threw up en-bloc while waiting at the bus stop. As everyone else starting laughing we decided to sing Jilted John with his acknowledgable description of sadness linked with these street hang-outs. So there was an early link between some of the songs we cover and the name of the band. But Jal (Frezi) or Carlos (the Jackal) might come up with one of their fantasies denying the truth and suggesting something along the lines that Bloco stands for a parading group of musicians that process in a tightly packed formation in order not to lose each other in the dancing carnaval crowds. Then they will complete their disgustingly rational expose with saying that vomit is the punk element of the band because we use samba-percussion instead of kit and bass to back-up the punkish tunes and the singing....

Q:Do you have any information concerning other people or bands playing similar kind of music?
Ian: There's a tradition of mixing pop and rock in Brazil with Brazilian rhythms. The nearest might be Chico Science, mentioned below, and bands like Sepultura have done similar things. In Scotland another band called Roaring Silence uses the rhythms, but with a different line up: drumkit and bass and electric guitar, with Brazilian instruments on top. We played some great gigs with them in 1997, but they've been dormant for a while.

Q: What kind of reactions, can expect an samba-punk band from the public?
Ian: The audience, whatever they are, seems to like us, because essentially the music is easy to dance to and we set out to have fun. Also there's a lot going on and we dress up crazily...a lot of cross-dressing which is very Brazilian. So far we haven't had an audience that didn't like us, though I am not sure about students or the kind of crowd that is waiting for their band to appear and won't listen to the support.

Q: You played in Brazil during Carnival in February 1997. How it was? Have you played your samba-punk songs too? Have you ever played on Brazil Chaos Tour? Do you know band called Blind Pigs (Brazilians)?
Rob: Brazil was hot, and very tough: with all those caipirinha (Brazilian cocktail) stands you couldn't ignore. Luckily the sun burnt away any hangover within minutes.
Ian: We haven't played on the Chaos Tour, but hope to return (maybe next year). I've heard of the Blind Pigs; we're in touch with a few Brazilian punk bands and want to make more contacts.

Q: You have one CD released so far; when can we expect new releases from Bloco Vomit?
Ian: we've recorded some more material, including a couple of our own songs. A single, or some vinyl hopefully, and another album sometime this year. We have no money to do this ourselves so I am not sure how this will happen, but they'll be available by mail order at least.

Q:What kind of music do you listen? Any favourite bands?
Ian: Everyone has different tastes, and probably a little out of sync with modern popular music. I listen to latin stuff (Cuban, Brazilian), 1976-79 punk, Celtic and Eastern European music and anything interesting. Rob's tastes are too odd to describe. Gary knows post79 punk better than me, I really like the Serbian and Macedonian music done by Marta Sebestyen.

Q:Rob, what it's like to play bananas, milk and eggs?
Rob:It spaces you out, really. The combination of white and yellowfeelings. It helps to transmit signals from one brain cell to another, so...eat loads of them and you get better through the winter..

Q:"Never Mind The Bossa Nova, Here's..." is dedicated to Chico Science.Who's the guy?
Rob: He died in a car crash on the weekend we arrived in Brazil. He was immensely popular in the town of Olinda where we were staying.. Then someone told us in English what had happened. Later-on during the week his music was blasting out of speakers from every corner-pub in town. Then we recognized his powerful combination of grunge, rap and the local samba-rhythms called Maracatu.. We really like the maracatu and Chico Science's approach to old and new, which is running parallel to our combining styles which are (presumably) not fitting together.

Q:How did you became interested in samba, or should I ask how you got into punk?
Ian: I was at college in 1976 and punk came on the scene and made me realise what was so wrong with music before that. But I never played music until 1993, when I joined the samba school. I got into samba through listening to 'world music' and heard samba at the WOMAD world music festivals - and fell in love with it, hundreds of percussionists making a hell of a noise in the street!

Q:Who is the funniest person at the Edinburgh Samba School?
Rob: They are all pretty funny, the funniest? I think Ben, he got a whole football stadium (watching the game Kilmarnock-Hibs last season, with Hibs being already relegated and Kilmarnock fighting for a place in European cup-football) laughing at him. And he was only three at the time! Further there is Colin, but he needs some transformation, say into Mr. Crabbie, or into the carrier of Hamish the Boneco in order to become really funny.

Q:Tell us something about your previous music experiences...
Ian: Mike comes from a very musical family and has played with quite a few bands, Mule Stone and Cold Staune Slap..folk/rock is the best summary I suppose...Gary played guitar with Gobi Desert Canoe Club, Where Next Columbus,Temple Ball and Plastic Noise. Ewen (she) sings a lot of opera, it's true! And, unbelievably, Laura sang with Massed Choir of Uppsala University. Clairehas played in lots of different types of bands since she was 16.

Q:Describe one of your shows using 27 words including...Yugoslavia, corn,liver.
Rob: One, two three, four, Yugoslavia, Holland, Brazil, eight,nine, ten, eleven, twelve, corn, banana's, crop, crap, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, liver, brains, serotonin, milk, eggs, twenty-sic, twenty-seven!
Ian: Our second gig at the Attic was late, spent four hours in the pub,drank Guinness until my liver hurt, could have been Yugoslavia. Corny but true.

Q:Do you know anyone from the following bands: Oi Polloi, Gin Goblins, Scacha or Exploited?
Ian: We have Jim Park, who was a drummer with the Exploited though he hasn't come to a rehearsal yet! Gary used to play in the Gobi Desert Canoe Club with the Oi Polloi bass player.

Q:What is the strangest coloured vomit you ever puked?
Rob: Can't remember, they told me it was me, when the ceiling in the toilet was dotted strangely orange and green with some red in it, but I think it was Carlos, but he claims never to throw up, and then it would be black-not red-because he drinks Guinness all the time, not wine which was reported to be part of the smelly bog-decoration... no sorry, I cannot tell, no memory of that night left.