#Sonorama20. The Report. Part Two

When we left Pin&Pon djs’ session at 02:30 we felt almost dead. But after we came to our beloved Kinedomus (surely the best place to enjoy Sonorama) and had a good sleep in the dead silence we felt our batteries fully recharged. So at 12:00 sharp we stood on the Plaza de Sal waiting for the new grace to fall upon us.

10/08/17. The Morning. Main location: Plaza de Sal

Gimnastica were the perfect band to start the morning right. Their songs were melodic, and the band was brimming with positive energy.

Apartamentos Acapulco are widely considered the new hopes of Spanish shoegaze. They even come close to the “new Los Planetas” tag. In the middle of their performance it was slightly spoiled by the problems with the gear but these problems were not so crucial as those for Dorian last night, so the band continued without slowing down. As many other shoegaze bands, live Apartamentos Acapulco sounded louder than on albums. For me they seemed closer to Modelo de Respuesta Polar than to Los Planetas (it’s neither good nor bad as I adore them both).

Then Alberto Y Garcia stepped onto. They were good but this was not our kind of music, so after 4-5 songs we started roaming around the old town. As the most people gathered in Plaza del Trigo, the tiny streets around were empty almost completely, and when we stepped onto another callejon we saw a bunch of people with some luggage. Initially shocked, we recognized the musicians of Leon Benavente in these people. I couldn’t help but rushed to them with my classic ‘sorry men we’re your fans from Russia, we’ve got all your releases physically, could we please make a photo with you!’ They seemed having fun of this situation, and they told us they would be this day’s concierto secreto. We expressed our doubts of being able to attend this as there were so many people on Plaza, and wished them the good journey, as we knew that this day they should fly to Tenerife to take part in Phe Festival.

After this unexpected but extremely pleasant encounter we returned to Plaza de Sal to see Willis Drummond. Willis Drummond are from the French part of Basque Country but they’re not considered foreign band as they are singing in basque and are managed by Panplona-based booking agency Black Izar having many concerts all across Spain. The band played the highly energetic show which I summed up with the words: "The best post-hardcore possible". Now I can only repeat that.

Fortunately, we managed to find ourselves a place on the overcrowded Plaza del Trigo to see Leon Benavente. They proved one more time that they are probably the best live act of Spain #rightnow. They’ve got the magic.

10/08/17. The Night. Location: Recinto ferial

Another band to have the same kind of magic (though staying on the lower level of publicity) is Yo, Estratosferico. The Guadalajara-based quartet mixes guitar-driven indie rock with post-hardcore angularity and 2nd wave emo dramatic tension to the perfect results. Additionally, these four musicians are the great performers. And the fact that rare person knows about it causes me real physical pain. ‘We’re just trying to get better with every show’ – Jose told us when we met him the next day. But even if Yo, Estratosferico are not intended to gather thousands, they deserve much more spectators than they got now cos they are not another faceless band.

Ivan Ferreiro presented his most recent release “Casa” ((p)2017 Warner). As for me, his two latest albums (“Val Minor – Madrid” and the aforementioned “Casa”) contain good songs but no hits comparable to “Turnedo” or “NYC” (with possible exception of "Pajaro Azul"). So the show was somehow the reflection of it. It was 100% alive and kicking - but I'm still dreaming about Ivan's concert that would include the rocking numbers like “Cancion Humeda” or “Paraisos Perdidos”.

After having some wine in VIP zone listening to Coque Malla who was performing on Aranda stage we decided to skip the Sidonie’s show (as the considerable crowd seemingly hard to enter already gathered there before the main stage) in favor of having ourselves more wine and listening to it from afar. Then we trod our path to the Burgos stage. At the moment when we came Flamingo Tours were finalizing their set. On the first line right at the security bars we met Rodrigo Valiente from The Trunks. I warned him that I’m going to shout all the Radiohead tracks out as loud as I can, and as I got no musical voice it might cause him pain in the ears. He told me it’s OK – but in the middle of the set he disappeared without saying anything, so I still have the fear I annoyed him to the core with my crooked screams.

Paranoid Android was some kind of coverband supergroup consisting of the members of Igloo, Eladio y Los Seres Queridos and Rufus T. Firefly and playing the songs of “OK Computer” (in fact their program included numbers from “Pablo Honey” and “Kid A” as well). All these people gathered onstage could make it too chaotic to perform so the show was divided onto some sections led by different bands. It started with Igloo, then Eladio Santos and his band stepped into with their two-song sequence. After that Victor and Julia from Rufus appeared onstage to play some songs including “Idiotheque” from “Kid A”. The show was finalized with Igloo covering “Let Down” and “Creep”. All three bands did the best they could creating one of the most interesting events of the fest.

The next point of interest in our schedule was the performance of Niños Mutantes but when we escaped the Burgos stage we saw the largest crowd we had ever witnessed before the second-rank stage, so it was apparent we had no chance to see Niños Mutantes from any proper place. Disappointed we went to VIP zone to have ourselves some beer or calimocho (and we had it, yeah!) and to wait for the moment when we could go for gaining two good places before Xoel Lopez in fair competition with other festivaleros. Right after Niños Mutantes went offstage, and the whole crowd started migrating to Ribera, we came to the far left of Aranda stage and settled down there in couple of meters from the security bar. Not ideal but quite appropriate.

As we were intended to wait here more than 45 minutes, I escaped the location to see what was happening at Burgos stage where Capsula were paying their homage to the late David Bowie. Capsula is another band whose live performances you shouldn’t miss. I stayed there for 15 minutes, and these 15 minutes were fantastic.

Earlier it was declared that Xoel Lopez would play the set of songs based on his Deluxe past. In fact it was 50/50 Deluxe and Xoel. Everybody would expect him to perform "Que No" and "Historia Universal" - what he surely did. Other ones - like "Cielo de Madrid" and especially "See You in London" were the relative surprises. Xoel performed being backed by the full band that included trumpets, sax and percussion. Closer to the end of the set he stopped singing and revealed that 20th anniversary coincided with his own 40th birthday now. While he was talking Javier Ajenjo entered the stage and made his heartfelt congratulations to the old friend.

Sonorama Ribera 2015. The Report. #4 Sonorama Is Life

The last day of Sonorama is usually the one you start to feel yourself exhausted. The hotel lobby was all quiet at 10.45 am even though it was full of young people - just because the young people was totally worn out. For me and Tanya, we were quite brave, but somehow we made our biggest mistake making the decision to come to Plaza just in time to see Rufus T. Firefly at 2 pm. This decision ruined our morning session almost completely cos when we came to plaza we were forced to face one simple fact: even the tiny streets that adjoined the Plaza del Trigo were already overcrowded. We did our best trying to find the appropriate place to see Rufus but occasionally we appeared at epicenter of water pistols war. The people closest to us was more interested in shooting themselves by water than in listening to the band, so we spent more time avoiding from the water drippings than looking at the stage. The footage was troublesome as well. Victor Cabezuelo and his pals were great anyway. Live they sounded even better than on "Nueve", the album that made it to the very top of my year 2015 's top list. One of the most heartfelt moment of the festival was when Victor changed the lyrics of the song "(escribe aqui el nombre de la persona a la que mas quieras)" and sang "Si al final moriremos igual, yo prefiero morir en la Plaza del Trigo" (if we're going to die anyway, I prefer to die on the Plaza del Trigo) instead of "Si al final moriremos igual, yo prefiero morir ahora mismo contigo". 

Rufus T. Firefly

When the Rufus show was over we felt like there was enough time to find ourselves the better place for today's concierto secreto, so we decided to step back to escape the water wars. It was another totally wrong decision as what we managed to get finally was the place from where we could see nothing that was happening onstage. Was it Xoel? Was it Zahara? For God's sake, what is going on there? Was it... who was it, really? It was bad, it was really really fucking bad to stay pretty close to something important having absolutely no idea what is it. So we turned our backs and paved the roundabout way to Red Bull stage where Willy Naves were performing. They sounded interesting so we stayed there until the performance was finished. We noticed JuanMa behind the bus and talked a bit to him ("Supersubmarina? Oh no, I walked away to sleep").

Willy Naves

Our next stop should be the Carson camping stage  where the post rock band Blusa was schediled to perform. I contacted their drummer Antonio and, unfortunately, he revealed to me that the performance of Blusa was cancelled due to the injury of the band's bass player. The second disappointment of this morning.

For the last night of Sonorama we came to recinto ferial right at the start of Zahara's performance. Zahara Gordillo Campos tours with her latest album "Santa". Also she presented some songs from the previous albums like "Lenador Y La Mujer America" from "La Pareja Toxica" but 90% of the set was dedicated to "Santa". Onstage we could see some familiar faces - Victor Cabezuelo (Rufus T. Firefly) on synths and Ramiro Nieto from The Right Ons on drums (two days ago he played drums for Tulsa). The performance was concentrated mostly on the personality of Zahara much like the shows of Garbage are concentrated mostly on the personality of Shirley Manson or the shows of Blondie are concentrated mostly on the personality of Debbie Harry. So the impact of other musicians was some kind of shadowed by the anthropomorphous fountain of feminine power. When she was dancing, when she was playing acoustic guitar, when she was playing drums, when she crossed the security border and entered the crowd - all eyes were on her. Even Tanya who initially was kinda sceptic on Zahara summarized the show with the words "very bright, very smart, very talented girl!"

Zahara

One of the first bands to appear on Sonorama 2015 lineup were Mercromina (the legendary shoegazers from Albacete returned to activity the last year). In contarst with Zahara their show was built around the sound rather than on the visual side. The musicians were static, and the rich and deep guitar reverb along with the trademark baritone of Joaquin Pascual were the only dominants of the show. For the song "En Un Mundo Tan Pequeno" Joaquin's daughter Angela came onstage to sing the lyrics with her dad. As Mercromima is one of my Top10 bands it was the pure pleasure for my ears to be there.

Joaquin Pascual (Mercromina)

Then we rushed to VIP zone to find some palce to behold the performance of Xoel Lopez. Xoel was alone onstage. Two years ago he was supported by the full band, but now there was just Xoel and nobody else. Though I don't quite like the "Paramales", his latest effort, he is - and always will be - on the very top of my favorite musicians ever, so it was no way for me to miss his show. 

Xoel Lopez from afar

Nevertheless in the middle of his set we went off to see Havoc on Burgos stage. And this came out as one of the best decisions ever made by us because we appeared to attend one of the best performances of this year's Sonorama. Initially we planned to catch a song or two and then come back to Ribera stage for the final part of Xoel's performance, but these plans had never come true.

Havoc (initially PLV Havoc) was not lucky enough to have the timeslot which wouldn't coincide with the Xoel's (less lucky were only Berri Txarrak who were set to perform in the same time with Vetusta Morla) so the crowd before the Burgos stage wasn't any substantial. That was better for me as in seconds I went crazy and needed some space around to jerk and jump quite freely. When Havoc finished the set with the trippy version of "Cazador De Ballenas" it was almost physically painful to stop cos I wanted more of this energy, more of these catchiest of songs. Surely the best gig of the fest along with Dorian and La Habitacion Roja's concierto secreto.

Havoc

Returning to VIP zone to take some wine and to meet JuanMa for the last time here we were attracted by the sounds from Castilla Y Leon stage where Bigott was performing. As for Arizona Baby I've never liked his albums at all. But live he caught my attention pretty easily cos he sounded more cohesive, more guitar-driven and less quirky and psych. Instead of sounding synth-laden psycho pop he sounded rock. And it was cool. then we met with JuanMa and he encouraged us to see his friends Eladio Y Los Seres Queridos so in 5 minutes we returned to Burgos stage. And Eladio Y Los Seres Queridos were fantastic too. The name of the band was familiar to me as I had been noticing it here and there for years, but I never heard their songs before. So the band became one more discovery for us.

Eladio Y Los Seres Queridos

The next stop was the show of Correos on Castilla y Leon. The Basque band recorded the new album "Seres" here in Aranda. The show was a mix of the new songs and the old ones. As I purchased "Seres" on iTunes right at the moment it was issued we already knew all the songs. Energetic as ever, Correos confirmed their status as uprising and unmistakably catchy band.

Correos

The next show should be some kind of apex of the festival. Vetusta Morla gathered the largest crowd before the Ribera stage. Spending time with Correos we had no chance to get closer to the stage so for Vetusta we returned to VIP zone. In VIP zone I noticed Mikel Izal and asked him for the photo. He didn't decline. It was nice because Izal is one of our favorite bands.

What should I say about Vetusta Morla... Vetusta is Vetusta. I suppose, to stay on the first line before the stage on their concert could be the fantastic experience - but to get there we should skip Correos and probably most part of Eladio, that was no way. So we watched Pucho from afar. On the tiny dancing zone within VIP zone I went mad dancing and shouting out the lyrics of "Valiente", "Cuarteles de Invierno", "La Deriva", "El Hombre del Saco"... And maybe it was even better because how could I dance before the stage being pressured by all these bodies around... Anyway. I shouldn't be asking for more as all that I already got was great.

Vetusta Morla

Devastated, we came down to the ground and stumbled at Castilla Y Leon to look at Neuman. So we looked at Neuman whom I like alot but my feelings were cut short at that moment. Then we looked at Sidonie from afar as the sea of people before them was as huge as before Vetusta Morla. And then abruptly Sonorama 2015 ended up for us. For the final time we came to VIP zone just to take our final cups of wine cashing out the funds drawn to our NFCs. We were as happy as killed by the necessity to live again our everyday lives starting from the next fucking gloomy morning. Right at the ladder we run into Correos. I quickly captured the attention of Fermin Bouza with my classic "Fermin! Por favor una foto con dos fanaticos rusos!" and we took a photo together with all of them. The guys were smiley and nice.

What should I say to wrap up my report... "La vida es lo que pasa entre Sonorama y Sonorama", says the slogan of the festival. In fact no. No, life is not what passes from one Sonorama to another Sonorama. Sonorama is mere life. And what passes between Sonorama and Sonorama is just something that passes from life to the next life.

Sincerely yours,

Mikhail, el ambassador del rock espanol en Rusia

Xoel Lopez "Paramales"

Xoel Lopez "Paramales" (p)2015 Esmerarte

The bitter truth about this album is that I don't like it. It's sad to say so about the musician that - unbeknownst to himself - invited me to the world of rock espanol 8 years ago. My soul is crying and my fingers are bleeding over the keypad of my laptop when I type these words here but that's what I really feel like: I don't like "Paramales". I liked "Atlantico", and I can't say that there are lots of changes on the new album being compared to "Atlantico". From the first track "Patagonia" (definitely the best song here) it seems like "Paramales" picks up where "Atlantico" left off. And if the whole album followed the steps of "Patagonia" there would not be any problem. The next song "Yo Solo Queria Que Me Llevaras A Bailar" is also quite pleasurable... and that's the point: the rest of "Paramales" is full of songs that are 'quite pleasurable' at best. That's how I feel it. Maybe I'm not just fine-tuned for it. I appreciate the fact that the album might look great being considered within the context of Spanish roots-folk song tradition (in comparison with any 200 years old song of a seaman leaving his darling so far away it could even be considered 'inventive'), but it's just not the way I'd like Xoel to be considered.

UPDATE: after the multiple auditions the album starts to grow on me. So maybe I will finally fall for it sometimes later.

The best tracks: Patagonia, Yo Solo Queria Que Me Llevaras A Bailar, Caracoles, Almas Del Norte

How It All Started, or What Brings The Spanish Grief To This Guy?

I have a bunch of columns in my blog now. 'Las Resenas Casuales' is for reviews, 'Los Treinta Principales' is for the best 30 albums of Spanish indie rock on my humble opinion (or, should I better call this 'The 30 Albums That I Truly Love And Adopt The Grandeur Of''?), 'Las Canciones Ocasionales' is for occasional videos which I suppose to be pretty interesting for some reasons. I started an overview of the bands from Canary Islands - the thing which never was made in English before. I dream of starting getting the interviews here. And the question is 'Why?' Or 'What's up to you, guy? What happened to you and made you totally wasted and fucked up? Why, for the God's sake, Spanish indie rock?'

I don't know, really. It was something like that.

Autumn of the year of 2006. 6:55 a.m. I'm sitting in front of the TV set and having my breakfast (I recall this to be some kind of sandwich) before going to the work. And it's 'Euronews' channel on TV. I'm talking with my wife and looking on the screen without a care. The 'music' section of Euronews could be pretty interesting at times. Not this time, possibly, as this morning there is someone called Deluxe. Never been heard about him. The skinny and unshaven guy in black clothes leaves his bycicle at the fence, sits on the low barrier of the playground in the park and starts playing a song with his acoustic guitar to a bunch of occasional beholders. 

And within the next minute I stopped chewing, stopped talking. Even stopped breathing.

I can't recall the song Deluxe (yes, I learned only his alias from this short clip) was playing. I only know that the song changed my life.

The next couple of years I was trying to find in Internet some information about this guy. And it was not an easy target. First af all  - requesting 'Deluxe' in Google you might retrieve the whole lot of useless trash including tons of deluxe versions of everything along with, dunno, VIP prostitutes. The second obstacle - my native town of Tula was not that sort of advanced place of living in terms of Internet expansion. It was, frankly speaking, one step above the dial-up.

The things started changing in the 1st half of 2008 when I moved to Moscow. Having cheap and fast Internet now, I learned that Deluxe was the alias of Galician native Xoel Lopez. But the far more important thing that I learned from all of my unstoppable searches: there were lots of great bands in Spain besides him. I recall Tulsa to be the second Spanish band I fell in love with, and my actual all-time favorites Love Of Lesbian were the third. Then I learned about Mi Pequena Radio, Pumuky, Vetusta Morla, El Nino Gusano, El Hombre Burbuja, Mercromina, etc. There were also lots of Spanish-languaged musical blogs which were mostly piratic ones. Some of them successfully converted into the informational and cultural resources intended for the support of indie musicians: El Mundo De Tulsa, Senor Pollo leaving their unfair past behind - and some fell into obscurity.

I might start this blog in Spanish - but there are many music blogs in Spanish which are far better than mine (I'm just living too far from the event places - and I'm way too shy to finally start making interviews! - to create really good resource). But almost no one talks about this great scene in other languages.

Why not in Russian? There is a big problem with my countrymen - they like something for free very much and don't like at all to pay for something they used to get for free. But I don't - and never will - give links to mp3s here unless it's free distribution by an artist himself - and it vastly diminishes the importancy of me and my blog in the eyes of an average Russian music lover. I know it sounds a bit snobbish - but that's the fact.

Los recuerdos de Sonorama 2013

Just spent some time editing the [mostly poor quality] photos I've made with my mobile phone till Sonorama fest in August.

Sin Rumbo:

Cyan:

Igloo:

Leon Benavente:

Pumuky:

Havalina:

Stay:

Xoel Lopez & his band:

The New Raemon & Maga:

Mi Pequena Radio:

Garamendi:

Dorian:

Sonorama Ribera 2013. The Report. Day 3, 17.08.2013. El final and other hesitations - Part 2

We missed the show of McEnroe so the 1st band we saw in the evening were Barcelonians Stay. Stay are the britpop act with the psychedelia touches, and as for me their presence on the main stage was kinda difficult to explain. The venue was definitely too large for these guys. I don't want to say they were bad or playing poorly or anything. No, they were playing well and bandleader Jordi Bel was really good in stretching the psychedelic vibe out of his guitars - but it was really too large for them. Plaza del Trigo or Carson Camping would be much more appropriate.

Stay

Havalina is one of the bands whom I really adore. But for Tanya, they seemed to be too loud to fall in love with before Sonorama. So the Castilla y Leon stage was lucky for loud bands this year. And two of us were on the first line of defence again - we were standing pressed to the security bars right in front of the bass player Ignacio Celma. 

In terms of the playing techniques all three members of the band - Manuel Cabezali, Ignacio Celma & Javier Couceiro - were amongst the best musicians on the fest. Their control over the sound they made was almost unbelievable. They produced such the solid wall of sound that it would be undistinguishable for many bands of larger 'capacity'. We were absolutely stunned during their show. We were so stunned that even did not noticed how the man behind the scene turned them off while they were in the very beginning of "Incursiones" due to they got out of timing so the rest of the song was some kind of unplugged with the audience singing all the lyrics.

Havalina

After the unforgettable set of Havalina we started running to the escenario principal - started and... all of a sudden stopped at the same moment. In the falling curtains of the dusk we saw the 'footballfieldful' sea of people who were just standing there. All of them were awaiting for Xoel Lopez. So the mean plan to get to the stage as close as possible fell apart.

Xoel Lopez is the reason I'm here. Not only in Sonorama. Globally 'here'. This is the musician who, performing under the alias Deluxe opened for me the door to the world of the spanish indie music. Searching for his recordings in Internet I had discovered all the rest of the bands I love now. So this would be the heartwrenching moment for me. And it was, really. Xoel and his band were playing, and I was standing in the middle of the crowd with my eyes shut and listening to his voice not being able to make a single move. The set consisted mostly of the songs from Xoel's lates release "Atlantico" with only one new song and only one song from his past days (it was gorgeous "Historia Universal"). And his supporting band was so harmonious that there was no single wrong note in the whole hour-long show. And Xoel's artistic magnetism kept the crowd as the whole entity with the thousands of hearts beating as one.

Xoel Lopez

Then was the time for us to spend a couple of sonos for sparkling water and calimocho. Our legs were crying for us to give them some rest so we placed our tired bodies on a sidestep against the FutureStars stage, where we noticed the band playing in there. The band was good, so we stood up again and came in. According to the schedule this would be Llum. I had never heard about this band before so it was another good discovery for me (later that night that band revealed to be Garamendi, not Llum). We had made some jerky dance for half an hour anf then came to Castilla y Leon for The New Raemon. 

Garamendi

For the last couple of years Ramon Rodriguez is acting in the close connection with the band Maga from Sevilla, and here they were promoted as The New Raemon & Maga. Before their show started we had to listen to the part of Standstill set. Standstill is the renowned band who began in 90's as 2nd wave emo act but lated changed the direction and started making music with post rock-tinged chamber pop in its core base. What the fuck were they playing there I could not understand. It was something tribal, with doubled drumkit on the stage, dense strumming of acoustic guitar, all very repetitive and disturbing. Sorry, not my kind of music at all.

The New Raemon & Maga were the opposite thing. With the whole bunch of the good songs where the Ra(e)mon's songs were interleaved with Maga's power-pop singalongs this show was driving and upbeat. Both acts were very warmly received by the audience. But at the end of the show we hardly could stand on our feet. Fatigue have knocked us down to the ground, and three Supersubmarina songs ago the Sonorama Ribera 2013 was over for us.

The New Raemon y Maga

It's a pure grief and disappointment that we have lost the chance to watch the show of L.A. and now I am deemed to cope with it. The only reason to lower the grade of self-disappointment is the fact of L.A.'s "Dualize" album purchase on the mercadillo. 

And for the most part, that's all.