The Mugas in rock don’t mean much, but it’s not as common to come across cases of Biscayan-Alavesian brotherhood like those of Sonic Trash and Víctimas Club, which began as a friendship that was strengthened in clubs and clubs and eventually turned into crystallized a joint LP and an upcoming presentation tour through the three Basque capitals. David Hono (of Sonic Trash, formerly Ya Te Digo) and Iñaki Urbizu “Pela” (of Víctimas Club and La Excavadora, also touring the world as singer with Marky Ramone’s band) combine extensive experience and a passion for music that doesn’t seem to be the case have become less important over time, making them ideal for conversations about the scene’s past and present. The conversation takes place purely by chance in the Portu Berri in Iturribide, which was then the mythical marina where so much happened at a very late hour: the waitress explains that nostalgics usually come by to take photos behind the bar.
Let’s let ourselves be carried away by the retrospective atmosphere. Do you remember your first concert as a musician? “I think the first one 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 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 every neighborhood and we organized it: it was like illegal, a kind of rave thing, no entry or…” anything. “So you could do these things… Well, I don’t like being Grandpa Cebolleta, because maybe now the children do it too and we don’t know.” David nods: “Yes, they do, they invent theirs Stories.” Young people always need to express themselves and everyone wants to feel supported by their loved ones and belong.
How have the scenes in Bilbao and Vitoria evolved since then? “Event venues are constantly popping up in Bilbao, like the Rocket recently. In fact, I think the scene in Biscay is becoming more and more centralized, to the detriment of places like Barakaldo. And at the same time I played in a lot of bars – only in Barrenkale, I remember two or three – and now it’s almost impossible,” analyzes David. In Vitoria, however, the intermediate step fails: “Concerts take place in many bars, that’s absolutely necessary so that the bands really get going.” But since Ibu Hots no longer exists, people have switched from very small bars to Jimmy Jazz or Hell Dorado says Pela. There are always places you miss, and Ibu Hots stands out in this category: “It was a space of freedom around music, and that’s very important: a lot of things were forged there.” “You spoke and you knew, that they would understand you.”
– And a bar you miss in Bilbao?
– The same thing that Pela says happened in Kubil, here in Iturribide – selects David –. It’s the bar where I heard the best music, although I was able to play the Socialist Party anthem afterwards. And in the kitchen he had a virgin whom he found in the flood.
–Yes, I still remember the first time I walked into the Kubil – supports Pela – when the Stooges were at capacity and the whole crowd was singing.
The Cramps and the Radio Topolino Orchestra
“Bilbao is very big if you compare it to Gasteiz. “There is a program with many things for a hundred people, and that is impossible in Gasteiz because the hundred in Bilbao might stay at ten and it will become a ruin,” complains Pela. Both continue to attend concerts frequently (currently David highlights Traams and Wet Weasel and Pela from PiL) and are aware that the average age of the audience is rising significantly and inexorably. “There are definitely more and more viewers who have gray hair. “If rock was marginal before, at least in our sense, it will be more and more so now, and maybe it will be better that way,” says David. “It’s logical that young people walk past a bar, see it full of people in their mid-forties and don’t want to go in.” I remember when the Topolino Radio Orchestra played music in the 1940s and my parents loved it. “Now you play the Cramps to a 20-year-old kid and for him it’s like music from the ’40s,” Pela compares.
Víctimas Club and Sonic Trash appear to be two quite different projects at first glance, but their excellent collaborative album seems to find common ground without meaning to. “It was very homogeneous: If you like one side, you also like the other,” cheers Pela. “It has coherence even though we worked independently of each other,” says Hono.
–It also influences that they have a common taste.
– Ultimately, you like music so much that it’s difficult not to have it – agrees Pela –. Now if a Tchaikovsky fan walks into this bar, just have a little interest and taste for art, you will surely end up making a connection too.
Split tour
The cover corresponds to the Víctimas Club.
Víctimas Club and Sonic Trash will present their joint album on December 27th 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 labels Guns Of Brixton, El Beasto and K7 Ekoizpenak.
