The 10-and-a-half-song story of Total Sinister

‘Ayatollah!’ (1982)

“Don’t touch the Ayatollah pyroman.” From Carl Perkins’ mix of ‘Blue suede shoes’, punk vitriol dead kennedys and the 1979 Iranian Islamic revolution was born Total Sinister’s first classic anthem. An irresistible absurdity that rhymes Alá with chachachá and German Coppini, the group’s first singer interprets as if he’s effectively cutting off his hands. “The rumor came to me because they were on TV and in the press all day with the Khomeini revolution,” says Julián Hernández, who contributed to Sinestro’s first LP. ‘When do you eat here?’find out intense interest in international conflicts (Songs like ‘Uganda martyrs’ and ‘Chinese hands out of socialist Vietnam’ are also his signature.) “International politics gave so much play because it allowed us to escape the classic ‘I love you, you don’t love me’ scheme. There was also the influence of the Dead Kennedys doing things like ‘Holiday in Cambodia’. And people caught the references because more newspapers were read than now”.

‘I was stung by an egg’ (1983)

Released along with ‘Sexo chungo’. double B-side ‘single’ with legendary cover art (A copy of Clash’s ‘London Calling’ with Paul Simonon replaced by a piper), this song, Crazy performance for TVE show ‘Caja de Rhythms’ that never aired on ‘playback’. “That was very good: the program paid you to record it in a good studio and then made the video for you. We did it at Rock-Ola and it messed up because they said yes to everything we found. Later on The story turned out to be fatal because of the Las Vulpes affair. [el diario ‘Abc’ azuzó una campaña contra TVE por haber emitido en horario matutino la canción ‘Me gusta ser una zorra’ y ‘Caja de ritmos’ fue cancelado]. Our performance was due next week, and of course it was in limbo. Pity: the sentence ‘I lay eggs’, perhaps, The best ‘playback’ in Spanish pop history. Not long after, Coppini (1961-2013) left the group.

‘About us? where do we come from Where are we going?’ (1984)

On his third LP, ‘We are lucky that Portugal stayed’Sinestro Total is definitely outclassing dumb punk and already showing that they’re a band with a wide record range. a classic rock and roll model to ask the big questions. “The title was a phrase we used a lot when someone got nervous. The song is so old that it talks about ‘big bang’ instead of ‘big bang’. And Orc Man turns out to be a paleontological find aimed at showing that the missing link was Spanish. Then it turned out to be a donkey jawbone. [risas]”. ‘Who are we?…’ A highly relatable pop anthem with proven pedagogical value. “David Summers told me a religion book of your sister with lyrics in the exercises at the end of a chapter. For example: “Comment on the text. What does the author mean? In a religious book! I couldn’t believe it. I hid it like gold in cloth”.

‘I will dance on your grave’ (1985)

This The most hackneyed three-chord sequence in rock history (“Louie appears on Louie,” “La Bamba,” “Psycho,” “Get off my cloud,” and 50,000 million other songs”) The flagship theme of the group’s fourth LP from Vigo. Another inevitable classic of his repertoire. “I don’t know why, but it suited it. I think it had something to do with it coming out at a time when garage rock was reviving and there was a kind of proto-punk. The song was a collective creation. What happened was that we were recording it and we didn’t have the lyrics. Their voices The night before I recorded it, a friend of mine, who later became a professor of philosophy, told me: He had gone to see the movie ‘Cotton Club’ and had fun with the words “I’m going to kill him with my sneakers”.. And it went from there. I already had the idea of ​​dancing over your enemy’s grave, which is pretty offensive as a final revenge gesture. Although dancing is better than spitting like Boris Vian does”.

‘Tell You What I Debt’ (1987)

Hernández must have found it funny to write the songs at the last moment, because during the recording of the album ‘Not today’just before adding the sounds, it occurred to him to throw the folder containing all the letters (in one copy) down a sewer into Calle del Pez. “It was terrible, this. we were in it. [bar] There’s so much of Palentino and I started saying the lyrics were crap and I threw it all away. The next day I had to redo them in the studio with an ice pack on my head.” This is the anthem with a hooliganesque chorus in between. drinking the music from Devo (the title does not deceive) and the letter is drunk without more. “I do not know How many songs did we do about life in bars? Too much. it was our natural habitat. Sinister had very little drugs but a lot of alcohol, so there was no choice but to talk.”

‘Create My Day’ (1988)

Downgraded to trio after bassist’s departure Alberto Torradoenters to record their sixth LP after the band joins Doctor Feelgood concert In Madrid’s Universal room. And what happens? “Of course the album is very similar to them. It was a huge amount of cash. Y ‘Heal My Day’ Feels 100% Good”. It’s music, because the lyrics are their angry anti-bullfighting criticism, unmistakably ‘sinister’. “Spring was coming in Madrid, the San Isidro fair was starting, and nothing else was mentioned. I went to a bar and found friends arguing about bullfighting, and I freaked out. So I started laughing and went into meetings saying things like, ‘I think you have to distinguish the bull from the bullfighter. to do.” And they told me very seriously: “This! That’s what Antoñete doesn’t understand!” [risas]. a piece of shit And from there I found a song.

‘Everything for the nose’ (1990)

With ‘For the benefit of all’Takes Total Loss First Golden Record of his career, partly thanks to the commitment of record label DRO who “decided, for once, to spend the money on promotion.” The success may be fulfilling the label’s wishes, but certainly not those of Perico, the star of ‘Todo por la napia’. human vacuum cleaner. “The title is a gorgeous statement that came up on a TVG show they made. Manuel Manquiña and Antonio Duran, ‘Morris’. These two crazy people presented the channel’s weekly programs by making ‘sketches’ and in one they looked like this: some ‘picoleto’ passing by Villagarcía de Arousa admiring the gliders 15 engines. At one point Manquiña says “it’s all for napia” and I thought, “Damn, he already gave me all the lyrics”. The show was canceled shortly after.”

‘Mine Basin’ (1993)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FcP9HaFFUE

The band travels to Memphis to record at Ardent Studios. producer Joe Hardy, a lifetime honorary ‘sinister’ (died 2019). The band’s sound hardens like steel in the temple, and Hernández celebrates it with enthusiasm. A resounding anthem in tribute to the mining of the Caudal and Nalon valleys. “The chorus came from a sentence made in the Asturian mining basin. A kid in a bar in Oviedo told me this over and over. “Note that: ‘Mining basin, drunk and dynamite’”. And me: “Fuck it, if I take notes. Right now”. And with that we made a song that should appear in the movie Álex de la Iglesia. ‘mutant action’takes place in a mining colony partially located on the planet Axturiax. But in the end, Álex chose to keep two songs from Def Con Dos. [grupo en cuya fundación había participado el propio Julián] and we recycled ‘Cuenca minera’ for the album ‘In Japan’ making the most of everything here”.

‘Spain Takes Drugs’ (1995)

Total Sinister’s debut album without Miguel Costas, ‘poor clinic’, the most difficult and most complex of his career. Also the longest (directly apart). “Miguel just left and we started working like crazy and although he was very inquisitive, something a bit extreme came out.” Including this gloss Narcotics inspired by Frank Zappa’s song ‘America drinks and goes home’ condemns the hypocrisy of the media and loudly proclaims a disturbing truth: “In this Spanish empire / the sun does not rise”. “As I told you before, There has always been more alcohol than drugs in Total Sinister.. Hashish has always made me feel awful, farlop that has been cut thousands of times is also unattractive and also very expensive… And when it comes to the most brutal drugs, it’s never really been a problem”.

‘The world turns’ (2016)

This is the last song the band released. Successful attempt to replicate the sound of Equals (“a band I love even though they are never taken seriously”) lyrics Seems to herald the impending end of Total Sinister. “Calamity is coming, and with it/we are big fans of the fatal outcome,” says Julián. “We didn’t know what was going to happen at the time. And when it was time to go back to the studio, Ángel’s illness came. [González, batería desde 1990], and that stopped us. The following year, Joe Hardy died. Then the pandemic came upon us and we lost considerable inertia. And there we already said: “Well, here we are, everything has already been said. The story is over and now we have to collect it”. And from there came the decision to give one last concert”.

‘The land of Miña Galicia’ (1984)

‘Bonus track’ as a version. or how The humorous thought of “to piss off modern Rock-Ola” became perhaps the band’s most famous song. “The idea came to Pepo Fuentes, a core character at the start of Sinestro Total. We were at a party with a band doing versions at the Escuela de Caminos in Madrid and they ‘My Sweet Home Alabama’. And Pepo published the “miña terra galega” thing. It sounded so funny to us that we decided to put together a lyric to play on Rock-Ola and piss people off with a southern and racist rock song, but it didn’t work because the public loved it so much. He loved it so much that he was in Spain Sinister’s version soon surpassed Lynyrd Skynyrd’s original in popularity.. “Look if it’s better known than the SGAE registration form says: “’Sweet Home Alabama’. Authors: Ed King, Gary Rossington and Ronnie Van Zant. The song also known as ‘Miña terra galega’”. These Americans are in everything!”