Very Be Careful — 25th Anniversary Celebration & Photo Exhibition
August 26 – September 4

Very Be Careful, the Vanguards of Vallenato for Los Angeles, celebrate their 25th year together with a photo exhibition and celebration at Human Resources LA in Chinatown. VBC friend and official photographer, Keith Sirchio, has been shooting the VBC scene since 1999 from Coast to Coast and across the Seas. Sirchio’s photography traces the band’s earliest moments living in New York, touring Japan, and up to the present at their home in Los Angeles.

 

Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 1pm-6pm

Opening reception Friday August 26th, 2022
7pm-12am
Full Bar

Musical Performances by:
Very Be Careful
El Haru Kuroi

and Featuring:
Las Sucias Social Club
Marionettes – La Smiley & El Triste
DJs – Linda Nuves & Cisco
Reception tickets $25 available 

Adventure has never been a task for VBC.  A Caribbean soul and a California heart have sustained two decades of ceaseless romp-downs and raucous times for L.A.’s vallenato veteranos, inciting 10s of 1000s of men, women, children, and even some wild animals, to boogie to the Colombian coastal beat. From the debaucherous streets of: Austin’s SXSW, Germany’s WorldCupTour ’06, L.A.’s Sunset Junction Street Fair; to the cultural pinnacles of: Chicago’s Summer Dance Series, New York’s Central Park Summer stage, L.A.s’ Grand Performances & Levitt Pavilion, London’s Hammersmith Apollo; colossal concerts: L.A. Sports Arena Cumbia Fest, Glastonbury Music Festival & Bestival UK, Fuji Rock Festival & Asagiri Jam Japan; clubs and hubs: N.Y.’s SOBs, L.A.’s HOBs, backyard BBQs, Very Be Careful has tamed the beasts within or unleashed the ones without, helping to popularize the beauty of the 1950s-1970s sound of Colombian vallenato and cumbia.

Bootlegged across the Americas, pumped in the clubs, and ripped in cyberspace and the airwaves around the world, VeryBeCareful forges ahead globetrotting alongside legends and antiheros: Joe Strummer, Alfredo Gutierrez, Antibalas, Carlos Vives, Grupo Niche, Kronos Quartet, Gogol Bordello, Buena Vista Social Club, Jack White, Celso Piña, Vampire Weekend, Fruko Y Sus Tesos. Their infamous fifteen year traditions hosting old school “dances” for Valentine’sDay, NewYear’s Eve, 20 de Julio, Halloween, and the legendary July Fourth Brooklyn “Cumbia Under The Sparks” rooftop affair, has brought together people from around the globe itchin’ for those early roots sounds that prove a stripped down parranda is the fiercest and funnest way to party.

 

Keith Sirchio moved to New York in 1992 to study cinematography at the School of Visual Arts. He began working as a camera operator on independent films and music videos from the likes of Elliott Smith to Wu-tang Clan, but soon found himself more intrigued taking stills of what was happening behind the scenes; between the takes. Since then, Keith was chosen for a residency program at the Camera Club of New York, interned at the prestigious Magnum Photos Agency and has photographed album covers for music labels such as Universal Decca, Epitaph and Fat Beats. His work has been featured in Hamburger Eyes and Upper Playground’s “Backyard Shakedown” along with dozens of other publications. His most recent solo exhibition, “Soft Tissue, Hard Bones” at Lorimoto Gallery in NYC documented Muay Thai fighters from 2015-2017 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Keith met Very Be Careful by chance at a Brooklyn loft party they crashed over 20 years ago, just a few months after they migrated from the West. His lens has been capturing their Cumbia capers ever since.

All images by Keith Sirchio