La Movida y los 80's

A Scottish pal who lives here in Pinoso commented on one of my photos the other day. He said something along the lines that he was beginning to learn some of the ways and customs of Spain but that it would take a lifetime to learn the subtleties that his Spanish neighbours just know innately. Absolutely right. What a person learns about their own culture comes from so many sources, over such a long time, from so many clues and with so much reinforcement that it is difficult to simply learn it. That's why I know about Harold Wilson, his Gannex coats and the fact that he preferred tinned to fresh salmon. It's why I vaguely know who Katie Price is and what Delia Smith does but also why I'd never heard of Los Monaguillosh until today

I was in Elche this morning. Another class had been cancelled, my watch battery had been replaced and I had time to pop in to see the exhibition about la Movida in the MACE (Museu d’art Contemporani d’Elx). I hadn't realised, till I read the leaflet that I picked up after I'd looked around, that there have been other events linked to la Movida in Elche since January, with more things scheduled through to June.

Now my knowledge about la Movida is pretty basic. I think of it as being the time when Franco had been dead long enough for young people in Madrid to start making music and doing those counter cultural things that, pre Instagram, young people did - strange clothes, strange haircuts, writing poetry, publishing funny, short lived magazines and probably using a lot of drugs. A bit like late punk. I know the names of a few of the bands that were successful then, especially the ones that linger on, Alaska, Los Secretos and Mecano, but almost nothing else.

There was nobody else in the gallery - Spaniards call them museums but I'm sure the English word is gallery. The chap on the door said that there was a video to go with the exhibition and that it lasted an hour. He turned it on. A mixture of old age deafness, problems with Spanish and boredom meant that twenty minutes was all I could take of the video. It appeared to be people like the late Antonio Vega talking about how Nacha Pop did this or that and Herminio Molero doing the same about Radio Futura. The TV was in the middle of a lot of sheets of paper which, it slowly dawned, were enlarged pages of a fanzine. If there was an explanation I didn't see it.

I climbed the stairs to the top floor where there were a couple of display cases, one had some shoes in, the other proved my theory about the fanzine. The main thing though was around twenty perfectly decent photos of people standing next to dustbins or in front of peeling paintwork. Some of them wore goggles and lots had very spiky hair. The captions would say things like "Next to the bar La Bobia". I've just Googled the chap, Miguel Trillo. I think I should have been more impressed - he seems to be quite a famous (Spanish) photographer.

I love going to exhibitions. Even when they're not interesting and exciting I still think they are worthwhile. It's exactly like going to the pictures. You never know when you'll bump into something spellbinding. So the exhibition was OK but I just marvelled at the lost opportunity.

Where was the brief description of what la Movida was, where were the examples of writing, of art or at least the names that came out of it? Was the bar la Bobia an important club in the development of la Movida in the same way as The Cavern, The Marquee, Hacienda or The Ministry of Sound were in the UK? And if not la Bobia then where were the influential venues? Was there a Carnaby Street, a Malcolm McLaren, a Vivienne Westwood. This stuff is important, not just the Movida, the stuff that makes up the culture of a country. I don't know enough about it and I don't suppose that the typical Spanish 18 year old knows either. We should both get the opportunity. We may decide not to take it but at least it should be on offer.

Don't you agree David?

Oh, and the apostrophe in the title is theirs. I have a lot of trouble with commas but apostrophes aren't so bad. Castillian doesn't have apostrophes though Valenciano uses them.

Festival time

I see that Adele was on at Glastonbury. I don't imagine that a Spanish festival would think to go for that same sort of mix - Enrique Iglesias alongside Vetusta Morla? Last year, as I remember, Florence inherited the top spot in Somerset, now something like that I can imagine. Indie band turned money spinner alongside the long line of competent but unexceptional bands yes, one time big pop act now reduced to second or third class status, yes, but current big industry acts, no.

I like plenty of Spanish bands but I'd be hard pressed to tout any of them as material for world domination. To date there have been no Spanish Kylies or Abbas or U2s. Luz Casals, Paco de Lucia and Mecano aren't really of the same clay.

We've been to quite a few Spanish festivals like SOS in Murcia, Low in Benidorm and FIB in Benicassim. We've also seen some Spanish big name acts from old timers to plenty of current top forty stuff and tons of indie. We've done hardly any big name international stuff though. Yesterday, more or less by chance, we ended up at a mini festival in the nearby town of Elda. We'd never heard of the festival, EMDIV, but we saw some unneeded tickets for sale on a second hand site and we ended up with them. Small scale stuff indeed. Just one stage, seven bands with DJ sets in between for the roadies to do their work. There were some filler bands, local stuff with a local following like Gimnastica and Varry Brava, but three of the Spanish bands were quality acts, standard festival fodder, Zahara, Sidonie and Supersubmarina. There was a nice enough band from Ireland too, the Delorentos, who seemed to have a really good time.

I was alone for a while whilst one of the DJ sets was on. Lots of young people were jumping up and down and singing along. Even with the music there to listen to I have no idea whether the lyrics were English or Spanish. I have albums by Supersubmarina and Zahara and  I vaguely recognised a couple of tunes but the chances of me singing along (only under my breath of course) are pretty remote. I did sing along to some old Fat Boy Slim stuff though. It's an age thing I suppose. I think it may be too late for me to learn a new repertoire.

It was the same concern when we were trying to decide whether to go for the unknown bands at the start of the day or turn up for the mid order and headline bands. It was pretty obvious that we would not be doing the full fourteen hour stint. My legs won't hold me up for that long, my contact lenses would make my eyes sore and probably I'd just fall asleep anyway. Going early had the advantages for snaps, if there's light the photos tend to be in focus, but, then again, a band on a stage in broad sunlight doesn't look quite right. Early also has space advantages. I like a bit of space around me, I like being able to move around. When it gets to 2am and whether it's the drink, the drugs or the pure exuberance that makes young people jump up and down (fine) and crash in to me (not so fine) I don't like it. I don't like being, to all intents and purposes, a prisoner until the set is over and the crowd moves off to the bars, the food stalls or the toilets.

We went early. We were there to hear the very end of the second band set, we watched three bands over the next four or five hours in relative comfort with good viewing positions, very little vomit or beer spilled on us and the chance to get a drink, go to the toilet and try some of the, always interesting, festival food. By the slightly late running 1am band it was a bit more unpleasant. The brusque passing manoeuvres, the constant dodging to avoid burns from fags or flaring joints and the wobbly neighbours made us retreat to somewhere near the mixing desk, on the edges of the crowd. We watched for a while but it was cocoa time and we were home by around 2.30.