Illustrious friends and Malaysian hummus (take 6) | Madrid

A cultured singer-songwriter erected as a massive idol as a result of a brilliant and novel album. And some lads in tank tops that are unique to fuss over the staff.

Between friends, by Luis Eduardo Aute

(Movieplay, 1983)

The bombing was dropped by Luis Eduardo Aute himself, on the Mercedes Milá program, on February 4, 1983. “In exactly one month, we will record a live album in Madrid among friends,” he announced during prime time. The idea had been forged during the fall, in successive meetings with musicians and friends on his rooftop on Calle General Diaz Porlier. There the concept and repertoire were discussed, and sketches were recorded on a Philips cassette recorder with which Luis Eduardo continued to work until the end of his days.

The one of the albums with illustrious guests today seems common currency, but then it was a real revolution. Aute had taken advantage of a trip to Varadero to transmit the invitation to Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés, and here he entrusted it to Serrat and Teddy Bautista, then even more recognized as the founder of the Canarios band than for his incipient career in the executive of the SGAE. On March 4, in afternoon and evening sessions at the Salamanca Theater (Conde de Peñalver), that double LP was recorded for history, Between friends. And the success was superlative: number 1 on the sales charts and a tour of more than 80 concerts, between May and the Fiestas del Pilar, in Zaragoza. The man from Madrid from Manila went from a cult singer-songwriter to a stadium hero.

No one had foreseen such a cataclysm. Neither did Movieplay, a modest record label that had released the two previous studio jobs (soul and Leakage, from 1980 and 1981) and rented a simple 16-track table for recording, despite the insistence of the band’s artistic director, Luis Mendo, for having 24 channels. Aute, who died on April 4, had admitted to the book 201 records to get hooked on Spanish pop-rock: “I remember it as one of the most nervous days of my entire life. I was terrified, terrified and terrified. ” Mendo smiles today as he remembers it. “We were a bit under attack since 10 in the morning, with the dress rehearsal. But in the first pass everything went well and from the second, and less tense, almost all the shots were chosen ”.

It contributed to the nerves that Milanés and Rodríguez arrived by plane from Havana the same day of the concert, without musicians or luggage. “Silvio, in fact, played with a Spanish Ibáñez guitar that I had just bought for the Conservatory,” says Luis Mendo. “And he liked it so much that he ended up getting an identical one.” Aute had already summoned a couple of friends a year earlier at the Alcalá Theater: Luis Pastor and Pepa Flores (Marisol), for whom he was composing an entire album. Few remember such an antecedent, but the author of At dawn that night he became convinced that having illustrious collaborations could give good results.

The moon has not yet risen, of The Wonderful Alcohol Orchestra

(Prmvr, 2016)

What were seven twentysomethings from Burgos doing with just a couple of albums on the market, considering recording three consecutive nights at the Joy Eslava? “Above all, check if all those who insisted that the live band motivated them much more than with the records were correct,” admits David Ruiz, the unmistakable torn voice that commands these workers folk-rock plateaus, emerged in the populous Gamonal neighborhood, the most combative in the Castilian capital. It was the end of the tour of Spring winter (2015) and the tickets were sold out for the nights of October 20, 21 and 22, so why not try your luck? The result, 21 songs in tight, boisterous and effervescent succession, with Iseo and Quique González as guest voices; a kind of sound photography of the characteristic ecstasy of sweat and fuss that these boys in white tank tops tend to provoke.

Almost all the material published comes from Friday the 21st. “On the first day we felt tense and on the third, tired,” reveals Ruiz, the only one who returned to the hotel, anyway, after each bolus. “Those who do not have to sing always prolong the celebrations a little more,” he admits with resignation. Of course, on Saturday, after the third concert, they celebrated success in style in the Fun House room. “Quique also signed up [González] and we don’t stop until we see the sun rise ”.

Even more emotional was the Sunday meal, faint but happy, on a terrace in Malasaña. “One of those modern places, all the same, where they always put you hummus and they charge you at the price of foie gras with Iberian”, David describes with mockery. “At that meal we looked at each other and said to ourselves: ‘Damn, we did it!’ Two years later we were playing on the WiZink, but I recently listened again It still hasn’t come out … and I was pleasantly surprised. It is very worthy. I am not ashamed!”.

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