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Monday, June 07, 2004 [continued from yesterday's entry] The drive ended in a slightly rundown section of city along a major thoroughfare, me with no idea where we were. We fall out of the car, my friend J. gets my attention, pointing up into the darkness toward the top of an office building across the street. Where, apparently, during daylight hours one can see the station's antenna rising up into the city sky. At the front entrance, someone upstairs buzzed us in. (The station's alias on the label by the buzzer: el lobo de [the wolf of], er, something.) We managed to squeeze into a small, tired elevator, endured the slow ascent. The door wouldn't open at the right floor, we went up one more, got out, walked down. Loud music poured out of a doorway. Blues. At high volume, drums and bass pounding away beneath big-time guitar. A kind of sound I hadn't heard -- apart from the bit earlier in the evening -- in a long, long time. The program being broadcast, pumped through an in-house sound system. We follow the music into what turned out to be the anteroom of a bar -- a genuine bar, located on the fourth floor of a nondescript office building in a nondescript neighborhood. No sign on door or windows, no neon lights. Just the bar, tucked away. A pirate bar, fronting the pirate radio station. A foosball game stood beneath a hanging lamp in the center of the anteroom, patiently awaiting players. Another door led to the bar itself, we filed in, the music playing loudly enough that its driving beat began hijacking my heart's rhythm. Apart from station personnel, few people were about -- 11 p.m. is early in Madrid. Clubs, parties often don't get truly underway until 1, 2, 3 a.m. A large-screen projection of a top-40 music video station played on one wall of the space, big-hair, leather-suited heavy metal bands flailing away. Providing a strange disconnect between the visuals and the music actually blaring from the in-house sound-system. Folks involved with the station dispensed free drinks to the growing crowd of mostly male 20- and 30-somethings, brought around free sandwiches, cheese, tapas. The music just got better and better, the kind of tunes that made it difficult to stand still. I found myself in conversation about music on vinyl, then about the first programs that appeared on Spanish television, The Munsters turning out to be one that provoked an extremely affectionate response in the person talking with me. I hardly knew what to say to that. A week earlier I'd found myself at another quirky musical happening, of a whole different variety. [continued in entry of 6/8/04] ************** Bad dog.... BAD DOG!! Madrid, te quiero. rws 7:18 AM [+]
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