MADrid

A cheesy title I know … . Just on the way back from Madrid on a trip to get my French visa for my next semester in Le Creusot. I am writing this on the flight back to Girona. The real pity is that this is my second trip to Madrid, the first being a more tourist-ish one this February, and I haven’t written anything about that nor London or Valencia, the other places I visited during the break.

Two hours later and I’m in my new flat in Girona, which cost me all of 175 Euros per month, a real song for this room. I share the flat with two French guys, Thierry (Yeah, he referenced the football star too) and Jerome or Jazz as he says ‘English’ people call him. Sure, I’m REAL english! I look down and see a Harry Potter wastebin and there’s a rose in a jar, on the desk, with ‘Sant Jordi’ written all over it. Sant Jordi’s day is an annual celebration in Girona where girls buy guys books and guys give them flowers. The girl who had this room, Anna, is a real nice girl. I hope she’s ready for the mixed aroma of cigarettes and cheap room freshner that’s gonna greet her in 2 months!

Anyway, back to the description of Madrid.

Talent is something that the Spanish really strive for. Somehow the image of mimes, contortionists, imitators and people posing as statues crowding up every single ‘rambla’ and plaza in every single city in Spain gives you an image of a European city maybe 50 or 60 or more years ago. Witches, sandmen, men on bicycles with monocles and tophats, Jacks-in-the-box and more circus freaks than your mind can dream of standing in perfect silence and décor till you drop a coin in their hat or box, and at the sound of this jingle they’ll do their thing, which could be anything from jumping wildly on springs for the jack-in-the-box to a chuckle and a pointy toothed grin that you’ll remember for long from the witch. You also get the customary photo and pose with them (I was initially scared of going too close since I thought they’d smell bad!!!) To see this weird spectacle roam any plaza of Spain on a Saturday afternoon. A sure shot is Plaza Mayor in Spain, named after the Mayor’s office located among the various buildings round the area. Some photos and a video from the February trip: (I cant seem to upload all now, will do later)

Another thing that struck me about Madrid and actually London too, were the number of professional musicians who take their act to the streets, and the subway. Although it is probably strictly regulated in London and the guys may have to worry about the cops on their backs, this is clearly not a problem in Madrid. In ten days of traveling in the London underground, I’d seen exactly one musician (A black guy playing Jimi Hendrix beautifully on his electric guitar), compared to atleast 10 musicians in a span of 5 days in Madrid. And I think I may have traveled underground maybe only three of these days. The acts varied from a violinist blasting off Stravinsky or Mozart…. I would’t know which, to a Spanish elvis singing ‘Hound dog’ in a stereotypically Spanish accent. Although his rendition was kinda funny, I wouldn’t say it was bad, atleast he seemed to be hitting the right keys. I also saw a full band (bass , guitar and drums) playing rolling stones and a large number of guitarists playing with a song or drum sequence in the background.

In any major city in the world, the idea of plants and water among the concrete towers and asphalt roads is coolly refreshing. In this respect, a description of the Madrid underground would be sacrilegious if I didn’t include a description of a particular station. Okay, it’s been three months and I don’t remember the name, but I’m sure anybody who’s been to Madrid will be able to identify it. The word that comes to mind is ‘forest’. The Spanish people have gone the whole yard with this one. I thought I was on an acid trip when I stepped off the platform and entered the station. The jungle was complete with sounds of crickets, what seemed to be birds, and water flowing in some South American waterfall. It had a distinct tropical feel to it, but what was surprising was it’s mere prescence and chosen location more than anything! Please check this station out if you go to Madrid.

Like any major metropolitan, Spain has it’s hidden ugly side as well. Well, the word ‘ugly’ would depend on the perspective. A trip to the ‘Jardin Botanique’ on a warm Spanish afternoon saw me signing petitions for the support of voters in some republic in South America, which some students were handing around. I think it was one of the ‘Salvadors’. I could sense something strange in the vibe that day, but being a tourist I couldn’t say if it was normal or not. There was this group of guys on bicycles amusing themselves with very stupid antics and looking like they were laughing a tad too unnecessarily. A few minutes later, a big guy wearing a rastafari cap came up to me and said something in Spanish. After I indicated that I don’t know Spanish, he seemed to be happier. The next few words that came out of his mouth puzzle me to this day. What he exactly said was ‘Man, You give me a tobacco cigarette and I give you a Marijuana cigarette’. My brain was tied up in thought and disbelief…. Was this guy out of his mind? A joint in exchange for a cigarette ? Who had heard of such a deal? Luckily, my involuntary responses were still working and I refused, since nobody except me would be smoking and although I’m all up for this sort of thing, it was really my first day in a different city and a different country. Later on I realized that this was probably just the introduction, the ‘courtship’ stage so to speak, and that if I had yes, he would have probably dwelved into the complete agreement. Something that Chennai could learn from Madrid and Parque del Retiro would be ‘How to keep a park cool on a swelteringly hot day’. By some amazing sprinkler technology the city had managed to suspend cool water in the air so it felt like a cool sauna of some sort, and make a especially hot day of 25 degrees (I was coming from Scotland and London) seem 15 degrees cooler. When you stepped out of the park you just felt like jumping back in.

One thing that Spain shares in common with India, well some parts of it anyway, is the feeling of informality in the atmosphere, compared to the rigid stiffness usually associated with the streets of London for example. Ofcourse there is a perfectly logical explanation for this, in that the colder a place is in weather the more restricted the body language is, giving an impression of ‘colder’ behavior.

When I was sitting in the airport waiting for my flight, I was getting bored out of my wits. After having a mammoth lunch at the indoor buffet-style restaurant and futile attempts at reading the Spanish equivalent of Stephen King – ‘Murmullos de Satan’ , a cheap paperback that I picked up the previous night on the streets for 2 euros, and with 2 hours left for my flight I was bored. I noticed that there were tons of twenty-somethings sitting on the floor waiting for the flight, something that even India would be not tolerant about! And some of them where not even wearing shirts! It was super chilled out. The police were just walking by, giving them glances and smiling as if thinking ‘been there’, or something!

It’s common to see Madrid-ians greeting each other REALLY loudly on the streets and talking for a long time. Picture a dumb Italian man gesturing (I mean someone who can’t speak), now tone it down a bit, that’s how Spanish people gesture while talking. Every now and then they will put their hands up to shoulder height, stretch their arms out in an inwards curve, in something like a ballet stance. That’s the most common body language I’ve seen Spanish people employ. It’s somewhere in between a hug and a dominating gesture. And their voices will get really loud at this point.

If you’re staying in Madrid and you’re a little short on cash spend your nights at MAD hostel for 15 euros(or less if you book earlier), which is REALLY cheap(Put away the calculator, don’t convert to rupees!). My breakfasts involved stumbling down to the lounge in a post-drunk stupor, taking milk out of the fridge(you can buy stuff and store it) and having a bowl of cornflakes while watching VH1 on a super-big plasma screen. For some strange reason, 90% of the hostel guests were female, which wasn’t a problem ofcourse. People were from everywhere, but predominantly from the UK. It was good to speak english to native-speakers for a bit. There’s actually a free breakfast also, but too light to count, something like a croquette, some tea and juice.

The hostel was in the old city part of Madrid which in 10 years is definitely going to be called Chinatown or it’s Spanish equivalent. The number of Chinese (or other Asians) on the streets was astounding. Every third shop is a really cheap Chinese store and they are mainly second or third generation, which means they all speak Spanish!

I observed another example of how ‘open’ the Spanish are when I went to the French embassy to get my visa. Since we were all Erasmus students we had a prior arrangement to all go on a separate day and get special preference. I had to go to a different room then the others and the guy inside sounded as if he was giving me a permit to the laboratory, rather than an international visa to another country. After a LOT of small talk he asked me when I wanted to go to France. In retrospect, I should have said ‘tomorrow’ or something, cos he would have given me the visa. After waiting outside for a bit he just came in to the waiting room for a bit, talked a bit more in front of the dozen or so really irate people and handed me my passport. I’m sure they were a bit pissed off!

I want to end this blog with a part of present Spanish culture. Like the english speaking world has Borat, Spain has ‘Rudolfo Chiquilicuatro’ a nonsensical name. The character the actor plays is supposed to be an Argentanian farmer who’s got a break in show business in Spain. His hair makes him look like a 70s popstar and has one of those cheap toy guitars strapped around his shoulder. Dressed predominantly in a white suit, still in the 70s theme, he goes around Spain performing his staple hit ‘Chiki Chiki’. The song is actually not bad! Find the link below. If you don’t understand what he’s saying, it’s basically the instructions to dance the ‘Chiki chiki’. Uno, or first is the Break-dance, dos is the cruquito or cross legs, tres is Miquili Jason or Micheal Jackson, referring to the moon-walk(By the way, Spanish people DO NOT say ‘Miquili Jason’) and quatro, the ‘Robocop’. He performed recently at Euro-vision, a show that was really popular a decade back but is now more a part of tradition than anything else, that involves audience voting to decide the best act among all the European countries. This is a new system, and there was a judging system till a few years back. The new system is a little screwed up because everybody just votes for their favorite country(not the best act), and they aren’t allowed to vote for their own country obviously. As a result of which all the former-USSR countries vote for Russia, which had an extremely effimanate Russian ‘teen-idol’ singing some english song in a REALLY STRONG Russian accent. Russia won, but it should definitely have been Spain. Judge for yourself.

Russia’s act which won first place:

(Cant upload from esta computer, search for eurovision spain, its really funny, I assure u worth the trouble...)

Spain (which did not figure in the standings at all), with their ‘Argentinian’ super star Rudolfo Chiquilicuatro:

I am Shanker. I am 22 years old and the one claim to fame that I have is that I play the Bass Guitar. Or do a very good impression of it... No I'm kidding, I do play the bass guitar. I was born with a gifted ear and a good style of writing. Which I exercise very rarely...

But not any more! I solemnly swear to write a blog a day ....and other similar large figures.

Here's my attempt at writing a long blog.

*********************************************************************************
There was once a mouse in a house
He lived on flounder
In days of wanting and needing
He stopped and wondered...
All this flounder eating is making me fat
And I need none of that
My god this poem just rhymed
I should do this (...NOT!) another time
*********************************************************************************

Let me get back to my story. I live now in Girona, Spain which is a small town, and as all small towns are , close to a big city ....BARCELONA!!! ...Which I've been to maybe thrice. The last time I was there was for the Daydream festival...

Daydream festival
****************

It was a warm night in June and the albatrosses outside my window were making sounds you only hear in a madhouse. If you haven't heard the sound that Albatrosses make, I strongly urge you go to youtube (or wherever else) and check it out. Sometimes it's remotely human-like which in itself is scary, other times it's what you hear during Ringu, Grudge or whichever other Japan-ish horror movie got you off the last time. And my room has a HUGE balcony from which I may sample these sounds at night. It's the main reason I stay awake at nights (Yes, I am scared of the dark), and thus one of the main reasons I don't attend classes. Damn you, big flying dragon mouthed birds! The truth is they actually look good, for all their insane howling, which can be the only reason perceivable to me that people keep them alive.

This somehow inspired me to attend the Daydream festival, where I may hear bands like the Liars, Faust, Radiohead(see how I just slipped that in there), Clinic and impersonators of Massive Attack and a pretty good impersonation of Bjorke play. I just found out from an article from the festival (http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3491899) that the latter was called "Bat for Lashes".

The article above gave it 9/10, which I think is ridiculously high. (Let me bash it around a bit.. ) It deserved a maximum of 1 on my scale. This band had an all out feminist theme, with all kind of feminist freaks on stage mainly to sell the idea rather than play good music. Several kinds of freaks featured in this menagerie: a punk-ish girl with a purple mohawk who looked totally out of place, the lead singer/pianist/multi-instrumentalist dressed like the Good Witch of the East from the Wizard of Oz and the rest of them were just in-between ... sort -of confused on which direction their band's aesthetic sense was really going. The music to me (atleast live) sounded like crap on a frying pan. It was terrible and on top of it all, I had to bear with the lead singer's weird "trip", which looked like on of those drug induced highs when you suddenly love everybody and all things are bright and golden....... yyyeeecccchhhh!!!

Why the crowd was clapping was also beyond me, though I think I made a bit of sense out of it. The feminists in the crowd must've gone wild at this intensely insane display of dressing, which must've pushed in all the other chicks, since no chick would want to be anti-feminist. Whereas, the guys around the chicks must've seen all the girls in the arena suddenly go ga-ga and with a sudden loss of self esteem and self worth joined in in the effort. Pathetic..... (Or they might have had different tastes than me, which is possible :p)

The opening act of the evening was Clinic, but due to misadventures of "Perdon, Senor" and getting lost in the city, coupled with having work at home and other scenarios, we (Me and Beto, my classmate from Mexico and fellow music fan) missed Clinic and the opening act for us was the Liars. Beto hated it but couldn't deny their undeniable stage presence. Though it was a bit over the top, due to substance abuse on behalf of the lead singer, who was clearly on the crescendo of an acid high when he started stripping on stage thinking in his mind that he was Jim Morrison or whatever, it was tastefully done in the rock-concert sense of the word (not the stripping but the whole act). They had a very raw feel to their sound and I actually listened to it at home and they sound bad in their studio recordings. But on stage they were fabulous. It was a bit woodstockish but they added really cool effects and "modern" sounds and had a good sense of music and timing. The lead singer was quite a crowd puller, as you may have inferred, also since he made spanish people sing in english, the words or 'sounds' of songs they had never heard before. So Liars was a pretty good experience for me.

After Liars, the bands were so-so and I pushed my way through the crowd at "Bat for Lashes" for Radiohead at around 10 pm. There were many stages and the terrible act mentioned above was for some reason opening for Radiohead. This possibly might explain why so many people were there for Bat... , they were waiting for Radiohead!!! Ah-ah! Another mystery solved!

Radiohead disappointed me a bit since they played from "In rainbows" (obviously since it's their newest album), since I din't know the songs that well and couldn't sing along :(. Or drunkenly hum along... But I can tell you one thing, if Radiohead is playing In rainbows live, you go see it! Actually see any Radiohead concert, cos the lighting is brilliant.




See those vertical bars in the image above (ofcourse you can see them!). They were ALL OVER the stage and they made weird kinda symbols form on them and if you looked at it from far (though I was in the third row :D ) , it would look like a big screen which would change colors depending on the angle you looked at it from. And the band is in between and under these "bars".

The funny thing was in the beginning I had to REALLY fight for my position and although Europeans are kinda nice and polite and all that, drunk europeans are just prissy. Girls especially, they shouldn't be there if they are so high strung! And after all that pushing and shoving to claim what was mine (apparently), some 45 year old fool came on stage where Jonny Greenwood was supposed to be standing. My mind raced frantically and I was hoping I din't have to make my way out of this sea of insanity if Radiohead was playing at another stage!! From row 2 to circle-radius 200 would NOT be fun with 2 glasses of beer and a bagpack... The reason I was carrying the backpack was to protect my camera which I thought was illegal but which turned out to be totally unnecessary, since it was Spain and nobody gave a fuck anyway.

Then I thought maybe Radiohead was surprising everybody, like they do with their albums (which I don't like, I would prefer 4 albums with songs like Paranoid Android and There, There rather than the "variety" that they sometimes decide to provide). It turned out the old fart was the sound crew for Jonny Greenwood who was just testing his guitar. I had really thought it was Jonny dressed like a hobo on stage tuning his guitar.

To sum things up, though I hate "In rainbows" as a recording, I loved the sound they made at concert and some songs made it sound like you were in a trance themed disc playing beats at a much lower bpm. These were just made with regular instruments by the way, and the use of synthesizers as the rhythm element was only in one song which I suspect was a take on "Myxomitosis" from Hail to the thief. My brief moment of glory came when they played "Paranoid Android" and "There, There" , the only two songs I know by-heart and I sang it in a full throated growl with alcohol-fueled passion. They din't play "Creep", which I like but is pretty much only for the commercial Radiohead fans and is such an old song anyway.

We (Me and beto) made friends with a bald Radiohead fan from Madrid who's name I forgot, but spoke surprisingly decent english for a spaniard. Speaking of haircuts, the funny thing was that like many wannabes, even Radiohead had a fan following of confused teenagers who for some reason wanted to look like Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, probably two of the worst dressed popular musicians alive today. Their choice.... although it looked ridiculous.

Another high point of the concert was in a song in which Thom was playing piano and singing into a mic with a small spy-cam attached to it. The spy-cam put Thom Yorke's out of focus half-shaven face on the big screen and he was having quite a laugh from the whole thing. There must have been a small screen near him because he was making funny faces all the time at the spy-cam. I'm sure the producers of the concert must have put it there for some aesthetic reason, but he absolutely abused his privileges by sneaking up on the spy cam from odd angles and scaring the not-so-amused crowd by making different faces of paranoia and lunacy. He got bored of this as the song progressed and the screen broke up into 4 , 8 and 16 small screens as the solo got underway, which was pretty cool.

After 2 hours of strange stage experiments and psychedelic music, the concert was finally over and we managed to wade out of this large army of Thom Yorkes and Jonny Greenwoods who din't quite realize that the concert was over, to reach the stands and eventually the gates. We were discussing and agreeing with different statements of how good the concert was and making a decision we had put off till that moment. We had no place to stay till the metro started at 7 am and it was too late to find a youth hostel and check into it. And also too expensive for just 6 or 7 hours. We decided that food was a priority and sort of agreed upon wandering around the city till dawn. A late night diner/bar served the purpose of food and 3 beers later we were wandering the streets and thinking of what to do. We ended up in a park I had seen on my previous visit to Barcelona and spent about 6 hours just sitting there talking about music. I looked around hoping to find freaks that roam inner city streets at night. However in barcelona, there is nothing of the sort. Sure you find drunk bums who will pester you for a cigarette till you throw one in their face, but you'll also find couples impeccably formally dressed going back home after a night out in some fancy pub. There was also this one normal looking guy who was sitting alone on a bench next to us, who just sat there for 5 hours. The other late night crowd consisted of skate boarders or cyclists who probably enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of traffic free streets that only night time could give.

On the subject of music and how to appreciate it, Beto is king and we were in an intense discussion about appreciating music and how commercial everything was. Beto is a real hardliner on this issue, since he finds about 2 new bands to download the discography of every week and thinks that Massive attack and Radiohead are too mainstream. As I sat there and listened to his idea of original music, consisting of Matmos who record noises from surgical procedures exclusively in one album, another of a guy who bought a house in New York City which acts like an instrument, meaning you can actually play the house!!, and another group that uses buildings getting demolished as their main sound, I seriously wondered if we were being too pompous. I mean, so what if someone just listens to music and enjoys it. There are some people who listen to some 90s pop purely because they enjoy it (Me for one, songs like "Steal my Sunshine" by Len, "Swamp thing" by Grid, Mmmbop by Hanson, Sca-bi-da-ba-whatever by Scatman, the list is endless. ) These songs send me on nostalgia trips. I also like some 70s power ballads like "Ready for Love" by Bad Company, "Nights in white satin" by the moody blues although I hate most of the Scorpions music which is usually grouped into the same category. It doesn't mean that I would download the whole Moody Blues discography (although it isn't such a bad idea), but it's just certain songs that I enjoy. In the end, I put it down to personal taste.

We also had a similar discussion about how some people consider Slash from GNR to be the ultimate guitar god, but for me it might be Frank Zappa and for Beto possibly Adrian Belo, Robert Fripp or some Japanese experimentalist he was telling me about. It's just down to personal taste and conditions.

Anyway, after 5 hours of rabid diatribe all the alcohol had been sweated out of our skin thanks to the humid air of Barcelona and we were in condition to go back home.