It was there, but it didn’t stay to live in the past. Paco Clavel, one of the icons madrid scenestill the same, a man whose words are not settled in nostalgia. She never wanted to be famous “because she’s tacky” but this. Young people who see him on the street look up from their mobile phones and ask for a selfie.
What was the move?
It has been greatly enlarged. Spain experienced a radical change from dictatorship to openness and democracy, and there was a time in Madrid when people wanted to have fun, get out and get in. It was really interesting. We were younger and each has experience and it’s interesting to know what he was cooking in those years.
Isn’t that a bit nostalgic?
No. A past tense when many things were missed. It saddens me to think of people who are no longer like Tino Casal. He dated a lot with Fabio McNamara and we were very close in his last scene. The three of us had a project that was left unfinished by his death. We used to go a lot to the “Tate Tate Gallery” (named after chocolate), a place in Chueca where Chueca is nothing, a night owl place where people serve items that go all the way to a little “coconut.” Movida had two faces, fun stuff, and others that weren’t so fun. The thing went through neighborhoods and there were circuits. There was a small committee made up of Alaska, Carlos Berlanga or Las Costus. The locals had a lot of influence. I was guarded at La Vía Láctea and Rokola was there with live music, but there was so much more. One day at nine in the morning they called me and said that Bowie would be performing at Mora Sol that morning, there were places that hadn’t made much progress and that these were very important.
Like “Libertad 8”, which is still the Mecca of those who want to promote themselves in music and where you started.
The first, ‘Libertad 8’ and ‘La Aurora’, was the room where the left went, where Almodóvar presented his stories in short films, where Krahe or Sabina began. It was a time of events.
You worked at Radio Nacional.
Radios played a very important role. I was watching Bowie’s politics recently. While working on the radio, I had the opportunity to meet him at the Prado del Rey. He signed me a memorandum. Programs such as Juan de Pablos’ “Flor de PASSION” on Radio 3 were crucial to promoting Movida groups. The influence of the media was huge. Now there are social networks and everything is garbage. Networks are a fascinating thing, I hallucinate with myself, I go out on the street and people know me even though I’m not in the media. You have access to take photos with these phones.
What does Paco Clavel think when he looks back?
I’ve been hallucinating enough. Everything was so groundbreaking, so much more than now. Now let’s go back as we saw in the residences. There is a revolution, and despite the revolution of networks, people went crazy.
What’s left of the 80’s?
A pivotal moment in pop music. And on the downside, the drugs, people passed by because there was no information. Many great friends are gone. We lost Enrique Urquijo, a lot of people fell by the wayside. My great friend Germán Copini, Tino, how he died in that accident, is Javier Furia from “Radio Futura”. It was a positive, very entertaining groundbreaking time.
Musically, they were not virtuosos.
No, people did not know how to play, but the public did not demand that much, the tastes were not expected. The Beatles also didn’t know how to play when they started.
I said earlier that Movida goes by neighborhoods and social classes.
Yes, of course. The luxury ones were also Movida. There were those small groups that were Berlanga and your father’s sons. Then there were the heavyweights who had so much power, it was a movement within Movida. But the building had a mix of everything, you could find a Usera quinqui or a manager with ties to a politician. Cristina Almeida was there and we became very good friends, I think she was the one who left me the money to buy Tino Casal the jacket she wore to sing “Emborráchate” at the Benidorm festival. He’s great, should I take him to Mieres?
Definitely.
Only Tino was a very special person. It wasn’t from Movida, it was above it, it was before.
In the ’80s you weren’t young either.
No, it wasn’t a girl who had her first communion the day before. At that time I was teaching English to Carmen Flores’ children at a school. One day he stopped me on Lucia Echevarría street and said he was his teacher. I had many friends at the conservatory and one day it was a bull run. They were Víctor Manuel and Ana Belén. It was at the Teatro Real and they were there with the protest songs, it was beautiful, but we started singing “Corazón de melón” because it was a bit boring and we had to have fun.
Have you always wanted attention?
No, what’s up? I never wanted to get over it. I never wanted to be famous, it seems tacky to me. Popular yes, because people know you. Eye, I have a carreron. I recorded many albums, fashioned with Pepe Rubio, Alvarado. I did duets with Almodóvar, Carlos Berlanga, Alaska or Susana Estrada. What happens is that you went out at night, you saw people, somewhere they said I don’t know what to do, and you stand there. Another very important meeting point was Rastro, you got there and set up a stall with four things you were carrying and earned twenty pesos to go and have a beer, now you didn’t need a license and paperwork for everything. I remember buying Carlos Berlanga a record from Carmen Sevilla. It was constant fun, now people are looking for money and followers, we spent day to day caring about nothing, we didn’t have a penny, we just wanted to have fun.
You were a pioneer.
Yes, I recorded the first independent album. The Milky Way did and gave. Then we played in the Sol room and CBS saw us and signed us. They caught what was fashionable, they had no idea. Camilo Sesto, Perales or Ana Belén were from that group, there were people selling cantidubi and then people just starting out and not investing a dime in us.
During Pandemic He did a show with Samantha Hudson.
Yes, we left a year behind. For teenagers, this is too extreme. Of course they don’t know Miguel de Molina, Antonio Amaya or Paco España, these were groundbreaking people. Today’s people did not invent anything, they adapted it to their own time, which is very good, but young people do not know history.
How is your record collection going? (there are half a million)
It’s a little cramped. I’m a big vinyl fan. I have super-curious things that no one else has, but that’s not what interests me, it’s because they’re interesting. I was listening to Juanito Valderrama singing in French last night, think about it.
And Movida in Asturias?
Of course, starting when Víctor Manuel was yeyé. Tino shows off his boob in front of Tierno Galván long before ‘Los Stukas’, ‘The Illegal’, Rosa María Lobo, Susana Estrada, Sabrina and others. Asturias, beloved homeland.