Draft:Frank Blumetti

Frank Blumetti (Buenos Aires, January 5, 1965) is an Argentine journalist specialized in gastronomy, arts (music) and popular culture. He is also a translator (from English, French, Portuguese and Italian into Spanish) and proofreader. He published collaborations in the magazine of the newspaper La Nación, in the supplement "Turismo" of the newspaper Página/12, in the magazines Planeta Joy, Bacanal and Glam Out and participated in the radio programs El Alargue and La Caja Negra. He is also known for being one of the founders of the Argentine magazine Riff Raff (1985) -dedicated to heavy metal, one of the most influential publications in the country in the 80's- and for having served as editorial secretary of Madhouse magazine from 1989 to 2001.

Beginnings
He was co-director of the first Spanish-language fanzine dedicated to Kiss (1973), which circulated in the streets of Buenos Aires in the early eighties (1982-1983) under the name Kissmanía: "«I was a member of the Kiss Army Argentina around 1982, a club from which we later joined with some friends to create the Kiss Club Argentino. There we edited the magazine Kissmanía together with Marcelo Cofán and Sebastián Mónaco. It was the first magazine I directed in my life. Modestly and despite its flaws, it was quite good. Kissmanía was in black and white and had all the information we could barely get our hands on. There was no Internet in 1982-1983, at least on a public level, remember. It was sold at a stand in Cerrito and Corrientes that specialized in underground magazines and while we released it, it always had sales records. 'It even inspired the guys from Kiss Fever to edit their own magazine, which then kept the tradition going through the '80s and '90s.'" After Kissmanía, he worked as a cadet in the magazine El Porteño and then began to work in professional journalism in the first period of the magazine Cerdos & Peces (1984), thanks to Enrique Symns, who offered him to do a section dedicated to heavy metal. Subsequently, he moved on, always as a collaborator, to the magazines Twist & Gritos, Shock!, Kiss Fever and Rocker. Jorge Zamorano, director of the latter two, offered him to write a magazine about heavy metal together with another collaborator, Daniel Ladich, and so they founded Riff Raff (1985), one of the most important Argentine magazines dedicated to the genre in the 80s.

After Riff Raff, he had a fleeting return to Cerdos & Peces until 1989, when Madhouse magazine was formed, of which he was the editorial secretary between that year and 2001, in what was a long and fruitful period. Later that year, he took on the position of editorial secretary at El Conocedor magazine (where he had been collaborating since 1998), dedicated to wine and gastronomy.

Heavy Metal Argentino, documentaries and other books
In 1993, at the request of publisher Gustavo Díaz, he wrote together with Carlos Parise (editor of Madhouse magazine) the book Heavy Metal Argentino, currently considered a key reference for the history of the musical genre in Argentina. His opinion is present in several documentaries about Argentine rock bands. In the mid 90's, he appears giving his testimony along with other journalists, musicians and related in La Historia De Riff, a documentary that was released on DVD. Subsequently, in 2010 he was interviewed to be part of the documentary Sucio y Desprolijo, an independent audiovisual project that traces the history of Argentine heavy metal, in addition to seeking its dissemination and vindication.

He was also interviewed for the documentary La H, about the Argentine heavy metal band Hermética.

In 2023 he translated into Spanish the biography of Richie Ramone (one of the four drummers of the Ramones), entitled I Know Better Now and published in Argentina by Pinhead Press (under license from The Rowman & Littefield Publishing Group).

RSVP Magazine
After two years as editorial secretary at El Conocedor, in 2003 he left the position and started editing his own magazine called RSVP -Restaurantes, Sabores, Vinos, Placeres- together with Mercedes Parise (his current wife) and Yu Sheng Liao, until its closure in 2011. Since then, he has worked as a free-lance collaborator in different media such as the website Vinómanos.com, the radio program El Alargue (Radio La Red) and several advertising agencies..

In 2015, and together with a renewed group of collaborators, Blumetti opened the website www.madhouse.com.ar, online version of Madhouse magazine, with news, features and reports on both music (mainly rock, although it covers all styles) and pop and urban culture, following the line that characterized this publication in the 90s. After obtaining an encouraging initial success, various internal organizational problems led to its closure in May 2018. On July 1, 2020 the website was re-launched and has been functioning normally ever since, as well as the fan pages Madhouse - Revista on Facebook ([1]) and the respective accounts on Instagram and Twitter.