Widmerpool wrote:Nice to know there are fellow Spaniard/Catalan fans lurking about. I didn't notice many non-foreigners at the Barcelona listening party. I would assume their soundscape and themes have always resonated more within the anglosphere and northern europeans, but they are definitively spreading!
Hey!
Despite the sunny weather there's a gloomy and introspective side to Catalonia. Barcelona is a post-industrial town and it didn't rust to death because of the service economy, but nobody's exactly happy about the way things are going and even the Olympic redevelopment/gentrification scheme was sort of traumatic. Except for St Miquel and Barceloneta all of the beaches are artificial and built on brownfield/former industrial waste disposal pipelines. The Forum is built on Francoist execution grounds. They were killing so many people they'd make them stand in a row, then mount a machine gun on a car and drive by until nobody was standing. Plus if you go back in history there's not a lot of happy times. Basically everyone has a list of people they'd kill if another civil war broke out lmao, we're just too polite and cowardly in a twisted way (despite being such an insufferably loud and brash town). You know, like how nobody tells the guys rapping in the metro to fuck off but everyone rants about them in private. It's also like that when things get ugly because, despite being loud as fuck, nobody wants to stand out like that.
But Primavera Sound for instance started in Barcelona and it does employ a lot of locals in decision making positions. I don't like their business model but I mean there's definitely a strong local musical intelligentsia. Canada the artsy advertising/music video studio is also from Barcelona and they've made some stuff for Warp bands, Battles iirc. Vagina Dentata Organ, the guy that rants about serial killers on that Whitehouse album was from Barcelona too, etc.
There's a fair bit of local experimental music too but I guess yeah, that's not even close to where the mainstream has been for ages, and since both Spanish and Catalan public TV has become dreadful I don't think there's going to be much in the way of making any sort of less mainstream music reach the public. It used not to be like that, and at least 5 or so years ago betevé had a couple of good programmes, I wonder what it's like now. Overall the scene is in a deep crisis but it has more to do with how difficult it's become to book a venue and how much of a right-winger in disguise Collboni is, rather than lack of interest. Sad times but being bitter and complaining all the time, then not doing anything about it is the quintessential Catalan character trait
