Ariel Aparicio

Ariel Aparicio is a true renaissance man.  Since he moved to New York from Miami to study music and audio engineering at NYU, he’s released two CMJ charting CDs and launched and operated 2 wildly successful restaurants in Brooklyn.  But his latest musical effort “Frolic & F***” is not at all what you’d expect from a gay Cuban restauranteur: with an unpredictability reminiscent of of Zappa or Beefheart, Ariel adds a tinge of San Francisco psych, a touch of dubby upbeats and slapbacks, and a healthy dose of sludgy hard rock to his punk rock.  Not exactly the Miami Sound Machine.

 Growing up in the Cuban community in Miami isn’t the most likely breeding ground for a young punk rocker.  But as he grew up, Ariel found himself less interested in the Latin rhythms which surrounded him as he grew up and more taken by the Replacements, the Ramones, and the Clash. 

Yet, perhaps owing to a healthy respect for the cultural richness in his background, Ariel is more fascinated by punk’s initial diversity (Talking Heads, Television and the Ramones on the same stage?!) than enamored of its style (awesome studded belt Ashlee!).  This becomes quite clear to those who don’t know him personally through “Frolic & F***.”  Though at heart a punk-rock album in the popular sense of the term, Ariel jumps freely from driving rock to reggae beats, to syrupy grunge grooves, and back again.  The Hired Guns traverse these curves as effortlessly as Ariel’s songwriting.

In “Frolic & F***,” Ariel Aparicio delivers a great record in the true spirit of 70’s New York punk rock, from the perspective of a contemporary New Yorker.