| Maximo Park Diary Entries |
| These are diary entries by Maximo Park members from the Official Maximo Park Website. |
Streets of Barcelona |
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| 16 Mar, 2006 |
Hello,
I have food poisoning. I am listening to the Native American rhythms and symphonic sounds of Moondog.
At the weekend, I was DJing in Barcelona. Aside from having my flight back to Newcastle cancelled, I made notes as I went about my business. Here they are...
Stone bats stare down from the Arc De Triumph, wide eyed and open mouthed.
Dragons, halved, crane outwards from tall, black lamp posts. I cast a long shadow, here in March as the wind billows and gusts.
Sponsored basketball courts encased in plexi-glass stand next to rugged palmtrees, which, in turn, are flanked by more decorative street lighting, coloured a pale Victorian blue.
A painter or decorator squeezes the brakes of his bike as pedestrians block his route. There is a box, rather than a basket, attached to his handlebars, which is covered in dribbles of paint from other journeys along bumpy cobbles. It is multi-coloured, but the tones are all muted and low key, adding to a quite beautiful practicality.
The music of Roxette is playing in a shop that sells tights. The lady behind the counter seems to be enjoying it.
One of the best things about this place is the way that the corner of each block is effectively chopped off to make the junctions more open. On the street where
the posh shops are situated, the corners are grand and gilded. I sit alone and look at the way the street is made of ornate, hexagonal tiles that tessellate perfectly. A broken paperclip lies next to a drain cover that emits an unfortunate, familiar smell. Meanwhile, a grey-haired man smoking a startlingly
long cigar looks into a bin.
A ladybird drops, fluttering from the sky onto the pavement. Just as it settles, the robust grey wheels of a pram roll straight over the bug. Unruffled, it takes
to the air, its red colouring becoming paler as it moves from sight, drifting, unsteadily into the mesh of leaveless trees lining the avenue.
I am on the Metro system. Two older ladies with marmalade hair infused with colouring sit side by side. They must be mother and daughter, since they also share the same impertinent bottom lip and a perceptible age gap. Their clasped, puffy hands wait on their laps, before they disembark arm in arm, tottering along the platform...
On Saturday, I went to a tiny Catalan community radio station to appear on a program called Hey Ho, Let's Go. The station is called Radio Scanner. I don't know how many people it reaches, but it is broadcast from within crooked, hillside streets by dedicated people who want to provide an alternative to the bland, mainstream radio in Spain. It strikes me as funny how the kind of music that our band makes is accepted as chart-friendly, especially within the context of bands who are seen as our peers. Out here, there is a perceived edge to what we are doing, and I hope that will always translate to audiences wherever we are more popular.
Later, around midnight, I was short changed by the guy on the door in the Magic Club on the Passeig de Picasso. I went to watch two local bands, who were promised to be 'out rock'. I enjoyed myself among the small crowd, enthusing about something they believed in. The DJ played an interesting selection.
I have never heard the Go Betweens and Howe Gelb in a club before that night.
I went back to the hotel tired and happy, accompanied by the chatter and cries made by the revellers of this beautiful city.
Paul And The Park |
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