SHIP

About SHIP

SHIP’S BIO.

In 1980, a group of Colombian investors make the vision of two local sound engineers, come true: Mario Sarasti and Enrique Gaviria build a state of the art, world class recording studio, to attract major artists to produce their projects in Bogotá. Thus, Fonovision, currently AudioVision studios, is born.
To test the facility the administration hires the services of renown Engineer/Producer Eddie Kramer, of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and KISS’s fame among many others, who in turn requests a Rock band to run the tests.
Sarasti and Gaviria contact a prominent guitar player, keyboardist and singer, Jorge Barco and ask him to organise a band for the purpose. He in turn calls session players Alexei and Mario Restrepo, on lead guitar and drums respectively, and Nacho Pilonieta on Bass guitar. The band writes some original tunes and starts recording. The chemistry among them is great and they decide to make the experiment a band, forming SHIP, a group that would become a landmark to Rock music in Colombia, the first local band to raise the bar of sound quality and production to a world class level.
With great sacrifice as an independent production, and with the back up of Gaviria and Sarasti, plus the contribution on production and drums of Joe Galdo, of Robert Palmer and Gloria Stefan’s Miami Sound Machine fame, the album “Born” is recorded and mixed at Fonovision and Quadradial studios in Miami, and mastered at Criteria Recording in Miami Beach.
The results are wonderful, a very colourful album that surpasses world quality standards, entering the local hit parade and reaching two number one and five top ten songs on radio in Colombia and a US university.
The album gets poor distribution by the Polydor label, achieving limited sales but reaching great popularity in the country.
After three years of touring, TV and local shows, the band dissolves, overwhelmed by the cost of supporting it, the lack of country’s infrastructure and internal problems.
Barco returns to his native USA where some time later he would dedicate his talents to the world of Contemporary Christian music with projects D’Angelo and Shepherd, and eventually moving to Spain and producing Grandma James, a powerful Pop band with lead singer Martha Sam from Madrid.
Returning to Colombia after a 35 year absence, Jorge settles in Bogotá, badly affected by Parkinson’s Disease. After some time residing in the capital, he is contacted by new generation musicians, drummer Diego Torres and guitar player Raul Rojas, who propose to start up SHIP again, which then with Barco and the guys, enlists original bass player Nacho Pilonieta and Nahum Perez on keyboards and vocals.
So, the SHIP is back, a band that highlights the writer/producer talents of Jorge Barco, recording and performing a powerful repertoire of high energy Prog Rock, playing themes that span from “Born” classics, across the years to present and freshly cooked new material.
An album is being recorded, and already the single Love’s Face has been released, entering local radio charts in position 17 and rapidly climbing up the list toward the top ten.