If you lived in the 80s, you will understand this article very well, regardless of where you were in Spain. During that decade there was an unprecedented cultural explosion in our country, with which we witnessed the emergence, especially of musicians and filmmakers, who turned inside out, as if it were a sock, the gray that had prevailed during the last 40 years.
In places like Vigo, Madrid, Barcelona or Euskadi, all that creativity exploded and their own cultural movements emerged that transformed the way of making music, film, art and literature. In Madrid, the famous Movida Madrileña was consolidated, a phenomenon that became a symbol of freedom and experimentation after the dictatorship, with bands like Alaska and the Pegamoides, films by Pedro Almodóvar and fanzines that challenged any established norm.
But the cultural euphoria did not stop only in the capital. In Barcelona, for example, a musical and artistic scene influenced by punk and new wave flourished, with groups like Sopa de Cabra or Els Pets later on and an aesthetic that mixed urban with European modernity. In Vigo and other Galician cities, pop and rock bands such as Siniestro Total or Golpes Bajos emerged, which contributed humor, social criticism and a very own style to the national music scene. And in Euskadi, punk and radical Basque music gave voice to social and political demands, with groups like La Polla Records or Eskorbuto at the helm.
An exceptional witness to what happened in Euskadi at that time was the actor Karra Elejalde, who experienced everything on the front line. Born in Vitoria in 1960, Karra entered that time as a curious twenty-something artist, eager to soak up everything that was happening. During the interview we did with him a while ago, the protagonist of While the war lasts o Also the rainfor which he won the Goya for best supporting actor, recalled those years of “creativity and wildness“.
He had the great luck to attend many of those first concerts of bands that over time would become true myths of state music, made up of young people who, like him, were putting a face to each other: “Basque radical rock in the Basque Country of the 80s was a breeding ground for artists in which we all interacted“.
Furthermore, he told us that some of those artists he saw on stage attended his first performances. For some he even composed: “In the shows I did, Evaristo Páramo from La Polla Records, Natxo Etxebarrieta from Cicatriz, Gari from Hertzainak were there… For this group I wrote a few songs. For Korroskada only one. What times!“.
Now that we live in an era of nostalgia for those bygone times, it is a shame that what many miss is not all that culture that came out of our country through the pores, from the four corners.
