2023-12-25 16:45:26
The mugas in rock don’t mean much, but it is not so common to come across cases of Biscay-Alavese brotherhood like that of Sonic Trash and Víctimas Club, which began as a friendship strengthened in clubs and clubs and has ended up crystallizing in a shared LP and an imminent presentation tour of the three Basque capitals. David Hono (from Sonic Trash, formerly Ya Te Digo) and Iñaki Urbizu ‘Pela’ (from Víctimas Club and La Excavadora, in addition to touring the planet as vocalist of Marky Ramone’s band) combine extensive experience and a passion for music which does not seem to have diminished over time, so they are ideal for chatting about the past and present of the scene. The conversation, by pure chance, takes place at the Portu Berri in Iturribide, which at the time was the mythical Marina, where so many things happened at very late hours: the waitress explains that nostalgic people usually come to take photos at the back of the bar .
Let’s get carried away by the retrospective atmosphere. Do you remember your first concert as musicians? «I think the first was in Solares, Cantabria – David answers –, in a nightclub: I fell off the stage, which was very small. We were kids, we rehearsed in Otxarkoaga and we covered Barricada, Leño, Pink Floyd, a super varied thing. And Pela? «With Obligaciones del Estado, my first band, in a fronton in Adurtza in the early 90s. Then in Gasteiz there was a punk band in each neighborhood and we organized that: it was like illegal, a rave-type thing, without entrance or anything. “So you could do those things… Well, I don’t like being Grandpa Cebolleta, because maybe now the kids are doing it too and we don’t find out.” David nods: «Yes they do, they make up their stories. Young people are always going to have to express themselves and everyone seeks to feel supported by their loved ones, to belong to something.
How have the Bilbao and Vitoria scenes evolved since then? «In Bilbao, venues continue to emerge, like the Rocket recently. In fact, I believe that the Biscayan scene is becoming more and more centralized, to the detriment of places like Barakaldo. And, at the same time, I have played in a lot of bars – only in Barrenkale, I remember two or three – and now that is almost impossible,” David analyzes. In Vitoria, on the other hand, it is the intermediate step that is failing: «Concerts are held in many bars, totally necessary for the bands to get their groove on. But, since Ibu Hots is gone, you go from very small joints to Jimmy Jazz or Hell Dorado,” says Pela. There are always places that are missed, and Ibu Hots stands out in that category: «It was a space of freedom around music, and that is very important: many things were forged there. “You spoke and you knew they would understand you.”
–And any bar that you miss in Bilbao?
–The same thing that Pela says happened in the Kubil, here in Iturribide –David chooses–. It is the bar where I have heard the best music, although afterwards I could play the anthem of the Socialist Party. And in the kitchen he had a virgin that he found in the flood.
–Yes, I remember perfectly the first time I entered the Kubil – supports Pela –, with the Stooges at full capacity and the whole crowd singing.
The Cramps and the Radio Topolino Orchestra
«Bilbao is very big if you compare it with Gasteiz. It has a program with a lot of things for a hundred people, and that is impossible in Gasteiz, because the hundred in Bilbao maybe stay at ten and it becomes a ruin,” laments Pela. Both continue to frequently attend concerts (of the latest, David highlights the one by Traams and Wet Weasel and Pela, the one by PiL) and are aware that the average age of the audience is clearly and unstoppably rising. «There are definitely more and more viewers who have gray hair. If rock was marginal before, at least in our sense, now it will be increasingly so, and perhaps it will be better that way,” says David. «It is logical that young people pass by a bar, see it full of forty-somethings and do not want to enter. I remember when the Topolino Radio Orchestra came out making music from the 40s and my parents loved it. Now you play the Cramps to a 20-year-old kid and, for him, it’s like that music from the 40s for us,” Pela compares.
Víctimas Club and Sonic Trash might seem, at first glance, to be two quite disparate projects, but their excellent shared album seems to find, without having premeditated it, a common territory. “It has been very homogeneous: whoever likes one side will also like the other,” celebrates Pela. “It has coherence, although we have worked independently,” says Hono.
–It also influences that they will have common tastes.
–In the end you like so much music that it is difficult not to have them –Pela agrees–. If a Tchaikovsky fan enters this bar now, you just have a little interest and taste for art, you will surely end up connecting too.
Split Tour
The cover corresponding to Víctimas Club.
Víctimas Club and Sonic Trash will present their shared album on December 27 in Bilbao (Kafe Antzokia), on the 28th in San Sebastián (Dabadaba) and on the 29th in Vitoria (Le Coup). In January they will be in Pamplona, Gernika and Logroño. The ‘split’, an LP with a side dedicated to each band, is co-released by the Guns Of Brixton, El Beasto and K7 Ekoizpenak labels.
#Rock #marginal