The Music Scene in Madrid

Indras playing in the James Joyce pub near Plaza Cibeles, Madrid

I lived in Madrid for almost 3 years. I was an 18 year old girl in a new city. I quickly got into the music scene, which back in 2003 was awesome. Almost every bar and nightclub had live bands and so much fresh new talent. The bar I worked in, Oneills, played host to some of the best new bands from all over Europe.

I soon became a 'groupie', following loads of Spanish bands. Although it's hard to pick the best bands I followed around Madrid, my favourite bands were Sexy Sadie, a Spanish band who sing in English but who are no longer together, Indras, a great band who aim to have a similar musical style Beatles but Spanish and Los Reyes del KO, a soulful band with amazing rhythm.

The best music venues over in Madrid include Bourbon Café, a country music style saloon bar which is home to Jazz, country and reggae music and had live beats flowing along with the dance tunes late night, the then Chesterfield Café, which is named the Orange Café, which is home to a very popular Erasmus night and Honky Tonk another popular music venue used by semi famous bands who are popular on the Madrid music scene. There is also Moby Dick Club up near the Bernabeu Stadium, where I had the pleasure of discovering one of my favourite Spanish bands Sexy Sadie.

A lot of the venues I used to hang out at are still popular now in 2010. The Sala Arena club still holds top gigs and La Riviera, where I saw Travis woo the crowd and sing Flowers with just an acoustic guitar and nothing else, is an amazing venue where MGMT and Motorhead are both performing there this month.

Although there are so many areas in Madrid, the most popular include the Calle Huertas close to the centre of Madrid, which has some live music venues as well as open plazas, nightclubs and small disco bars.

I have to say though one of my favourite places to hang out was Malasaña, an area that was the centre of the cultural movement of reinvention and freedom of expression, La Movida. It's a place full of retro bars, gothic bars and plazas where you would stand out in high heels as everyone is just in converse, jeans and t-shirts. The range of music in this area is amazing, ranging from Punk Rock and heavy mental to Indie and the 80’s, the 80’s being my all time favourite musical era.

My music

One of the funniest experiences of my life was sitting in a bar in Madrid and hearing myself come on the radio! I featured on the track Bottle; from the album Forever Living Young, by Spanish band Blue Child recorded in Mallorca a couple of years earlier. I was a bit shocked to say the least when it came on the radio but it was fun. The band made a video too and apparently as I was 'absent' they replaced me with a mannequin… not sure if there is a hidden meaning there or not ;-)

The one thing I learned about the Spanish music scene while living in Madrid, Mallorca, Granada, Barcelona and Albacete (phew!) is that it is VERY hard for a Spanish band to made it big singing in English. Sexy Sadie are one of the very few Spanish groups who have made it singing in English. So I leave you with a video from them recorded at the Sala Arena, Madrid in 2004. I am pretty sure you can hearing me singing from the crowd. It was one of the best concerts ever. Enjoy!

Leeds Street Style: 13/12/10

Rachel

 

Top: Pop Boutique (Vintage)

Dress: H&M

Shoes: Vans

Watch: Urban Outfitters

Necklace: Vintage

Ring: Vintage

Tights/ Socks: Primark

Sweater: Pop Boutique

 

Rachel's favorite Leeds clothes shop: Pop Boutique

 

 

Joe

 

Bottom: Edwin Jeans

Coat: Barbour

Shoes: Vans Old School

Hair Accessories: Obey Beanie

 

Joe's favorite Leeds clothes shop: HIP

 

 

Andrew

 

Coat: Vintage

Bottom: Urban Outfitters

Shoes: Vintage

Bag: American Apparel

Belt: Vintage

 

Andrew's favorite Leeds clothes shop: Vivienne Westwood

Describe the Leeds fashion scene in 1 word: Electric

 

 

My Thoughts:

I went cool-hunting last week in a freezing day, so big thanks for these beautiful people who pleasantly allowed me to shoot them.

 

Rachel works in Pop Boutique, one of my favorite vintage shops. I love her accessories from head to toe, and she's such a friendly person, she's definitely not one of those shop assistants with attitude.

 

I stopped Joe as he was on his way to a meeting, that's why he was holding a projector  (And no, it wasn't part of his accessories) I imagined Joe has a great knowledge of brands and is certain of his style, because of the brands he was wearing were from everywhere in the world - Scottish coat, American hat and shoes, and Japanese jeans. Or maybe he just buys everything from HIP. ♥

 

Andrew uses many vintage items, and Leeds' vintage scene is definitely growing bigger and bigger the moment. Wearing boots normally shortens the length of legs, so I like where he positioned his belt to balance the proportion.

Until next time! (Or maybe see you on the street! ;))

Old fella with "FREESTYLE" on his backpack. ♥

Hebe Media’s Lee, The Birthday Boy!

As Lee is out of the Hebe Media office today celebrating his 29th birthday I thought I would write a blog and list some of Lee Johnathan Hicken's greatest achievements before creating Hebe Media. Over the years Mr Hebe Media has achieved many things but I have to decided to pick out my favourite achievements for your enjoyment.

Lee began to realise his ambitions from a young age. He started out by trying his hand at photography at just 7 years old. All the other kids just watched in awe.. (except me at the back ;-))

I would also like to put the records straight and confirm that at age 10, Lee was actually the original creator of the ever so famous Ricky Gervais dance from the TV show The Office.

After his childhood had past and he had reached his teens he had bigger better goals and being the entrepreneur that he has always been, he was making the news and talking on TV shows at just 16. Oh and doing a bit of modelling himself!

At 19 he became a young Jerry Maguire and worked with different acts and he made things happen! Show me the money! He was not too shy about making sure people knew who he was (see the album cover below, and yes that is a bandana).

After all that, and many other things along the way, Lee discovered, yet again, another talent within him and became an amazing Dj in both England and in Spain. He also created his own night called Clique which was successful in Harrogate and Barcelona. I remember those days well(surprisingly)... Check him on the decks.

But to end this ode to the birthday boy, i will finish off with his biggest achievement by far, which is... wait for it.... the 8^th wonder of the world, the Dj Booth Of Love. Not only did Lee build this amazing piece of art [along with a couple of his friends] he drank all the cans of beer himself. Always looking at the bigger picture is our wonderful birthday boy Lee.

STP's Far East Feature: Pimp My Teeth

Let's bring back braces! Wait a minute, were braces ever IN?

I absolutely adore people who wear braces; they are cool, represent youth, there is some kind of beauty in being in pain, and not everyone gets to wear them! 

In the Far East, braces are a complete hit right now. You have got to admit, if you can look good with a cage in your mouth, you can look good in anything.

 
So all you youngsters (and adults) who wear braces, there's no need to be shy about your ultra coolness anymore, EVER!

Introducing: iCALLSHOTGUN

In October we blogged about an event called Fashion Vs Football where we discovered our 'new favourite band' iCALLSHOTGUN, a band from Leeds consisting of Iain Bolton, Giuseppe de Luca(Joe), Josh Weller and Graham Robson. I caught up with Iain for a coffee and a chat to find out all about iCALLSHOTGUN and what they are all about.

The story behind the band's early life is really interesting;

"It started when I was at uni, I knew Joe, our lead singer, from college… and then I wrote some music for uni and I just wanted to get a band together, just to play and be in a band again while I was at uni. Originally it was me, Joe, Josh and Sam who was the drummer"

‘Sam and I were at Bourbon (a popular music bar in Leeds) and they had a little ‘Does your band want  to play here’ thing and I just had a chat with the manager and I said ‘I’m in a band’ and I had all my stuff up on Myspace already even though I didn’t have a band so he gave us a gig and I had to get a band together. That’s how we originally started.

Just as the iCALLSHOTGUN story began to gather pace, there was an early, but completely amicable, change in line-up:

‘Sam and I set up a business and Sam wanted to concentrate on that so since the band was my baby I said I could carry it on. Joe worked with Graham so he learnt one of our tracks and came in and we played for the first time all the way through and he was bang on so we asked him to join.’

The speed of the band's rise was something quite remarkable. Very quickly they were winning competitions and playing big events, and being played on Radio 1, things that can take other bands years to achieve:

'We then all started writing together and we did quite a lot of stuff, like we were on Radio 1 and we went over to Austria and played at the Snow Bombing festival  in the King Of The Mountain Competition which was an internet voting thing. We put ourselves forward and we were chosen out of thousands of bands that entered. It was a public online vote that decided. 15 bands got through and then about 8 of those went to Austria for the competition and we won it! We have played a couple of showcases down in London and drummed up a lot of industry interest.We all write the songs now, we got a bit sick of the pop stuff so we wrote the song Evie and that got a lot of good feedback and we enjoyed playing it. It was just cooler. So we decided to keep writing together as a band.'

iCALLSHOTGUN, as Lee said in our previous blog, are ‘pushing musical boundaries’ so it is difficult to categorise the bands music style. We feel like it’s a mixture of sounds that makes them stand out from other bands. I asked Iain to have a go at describing their unique sound.

‘When we started out we were doing sort of power bubblegum electro pop but it was before all that electro pop stuff came out so it was a bit new but then all that electro stuff came out and we sounded really pop’

Now with their new style Iain describes their music;

‘It’s a bit of a cross, I would like to think we have our own style and I don’t think there are any bands out there doing what we are doing but all bands say that so it’s a bit of a cliché…. There’s a bit of dub step in there, a bit of indie-esq in there and a bit of electro in there. Its been described as dub-rock or dub-indie so anything with dub in the title’

Iain says the band think there are some good acts on the Leeds music scene but they wouldn’t class themselves as part of that scene as its more indie orientated and they are something different to that and he believes the UK has a good music scene but more record labels need to see the potential of fresh new acts and stop sticking to safe acts such as the X-factors acts and other manufactured music. I agree completely.

iCALLSHOTGUN have achieved some cool things so far and we predict there are many more good things to come. I asked Iain what he would say the bands greatest achievements are to date..

‘I think going out to Austria when we were just starting out and playing against some bands that had been going for a long time. We went out there not expecting to do anything, we just played and had fun, enjoyed the experience and ended up winning the King Of The Mountain Competition. More recently we got to play at Creamfields this Summer just passed. It was a half an hour set and on the main stage"

 I finished off by asking him about the small house party gigs they continue to put on and why they do it.

‘We play some wicked house parties which are really good fun. At one end of the scale you have Creamfields and Radio 1 but at the other end it’s always awesome to play little house parties where everyone is up for a good time… everyone is in it for the fun.’

I for one am looking forward to more gigs, more house parties and more tracks from this awesome band that stands apart from the rest. Although it’s hard to choose which iCALLSHOTGUN song I love best, I have decided to leave you with a live studio version of Evie, the song which I have been singing along to all day!