Barcelona’s most famous musicians: Macaco

One of Barcelona’s most famous musicians Macaco explains in an interview how it all started;
“Carrer dels Escudellers number 6”, says singer Dani Carbonell, in the heart of Barcelona – was the address where it all started about ten years ago. “On the first floor there were prostitutes, we were on the second floor – the musician squatters, and on the top floor there lived Maghreb’s thieves who after robbing someone hid in ‘Alibaba’s cave and the forty bandits’ as we used to call the parking lot on the ground floor”.

Nowadays the formal house of Carbonell alias Macaco seems peaceful in the narrow alley behind the Plaça Real. The continuous cleaning and restoring anger of the city has made a noticeable difference, the only thing that could point out the existence of the “cave” is the clean blue sign with a white P on it. And nothing shows that this was the formal breeding ground of Barcelona’s most famous musician Macaco and flamenco group Ojos de Brujo.

Macaco sums up: Juanlu El Canijo (born Barcelones) lived there, the founder of Ojos de Brujo and  nowadays bandleader of the successful band Calima. Percussionist El Muñeco (Cuba), now well known with his band La Troba Kung Fu. Sound engineer Carlos Jaramillo (Colombia), who produced all cd’s of Macaco and Ojos de Brujo. Singer Kiko Claus (Brazilië), drummer Danilo (Mexico). And let’s not forget Luc, the French pizza courier on skates.

The History
“We lived here with about ten, fifteen musicians. It was a continuous visiting of friends, and friends of friends from all corners of the world. Nobody had money. The only thing we did was make music all day long. Everything emerged spontaneously, and at the back of our house there is the University Pompeu i Fabra where we would often open the window and play for the students on the square. Ulises, a VJ that lived with us projected visuals on the building across the street. It was a magical era.

Macaco – curly hair from under a Che Guevara-like headband, ring beard, arm wide tattoo – is a mixture of a romantic troubadour, a robust sailor, and a traveling gypsy. His name – literally monkey – originates from that era, when he was performing on the streets. “Before playing we always did some kind of performance to attract the attention of the people by running around chasing each other like monkeys.

Macaco is one of the most important representatives of ‘the sound of Barcelona’, more specifically the sound of the neighborhood el Raval, which became internationally famous under the name música mestiza (‘fusion music’).  The most famous descendent of Música mestiza is Manu Chao, even though Macaco likes to point out that by far he was not the first, he mentions that: “Manu was around frequently at Escudellers 6 but we were doing this before he came to Barcelona. A fact is that Raval after the success of Manu’s production Clandestino in 1998 became a Mecca for Latin American musicians, north west African musicians and southern Europeans musicians.

Despite the success of Macaco who came from Barcelona, he has more difficulty with the label ‘Música mestiza’,”It is a label that someone someday came up with, nowadays the reality has changed. It has become controlled and organized.” Spontaneous jam sessions as in the old days when you would run across Manu Chao in some little bar or cafe are not occurring anymore. It has hardened for immigrants; the rent has gone up and flats have become unaffordable. All kinds of places in the city where we used to jam – like houses or garages – are closed. In the old days we used to perform live on Las Ramblas or at Placa Catalunya. Those were huge concerts all publicized by word of mouth. But that is now forbidden by the police.

The albums of Macaco, the most famous Musician from Barcelona.

• Puerte presente (2009)
• Ingravitto
• Entre raíces y antenas (2004)
• Rumbo submarino (2002)
• El mono en el ojo del tigre (1999)

The endless improvising, that certain freshness makes him reminisce about the old days at Carrer dels Escudellers,”I seriously considered if I wanted to live forever in that way: no recordings, no tours, no interviews, not having to be somewhere at a certain time, no responsibility for a complete band, just for the fun of it.” Eventually he listened to the people around him. His last two albums were recorded in his own studio El Murmullo in Barcelona.

The Catalan rumba and Bob Marley still are his main sources of inspiration.” The basis of my music is “que camine”, that which flows. “It has to flow, turn push and snore like a locomotive. Rhythm is everything. What groove is for funk, or la cosinha is for Brazilian samba, and el soniquete for flamenco, that is what camine is for the rumba.” He himself plays piano, percussion and guitar, “good enough to compose” he writes his own lyrics, often short philosophic, spiritual and poetic, about nature, about the earth the universe and the futility of mankind or about the equality of mankind, about communication and the power of a positive attitude towards life. Fixed concepts that ought to increase awareness and a growth of conscience which is what fusion music is about.  click here for the offical site of macaco.

“La buena onda” is how Macaco sums it up. This is what the Macaco spirit is about, together the right flow “the power of thought, the conviction and belief in changing yourself and others, that is what is most important”. He shows his tattoo, on top there is a labyrinth that evolves into a road that eventually leads to something that is not there yet, but will be placed when the time is right: a monkey.

Listen to Macaco on You tube From his latest album “Puerto Presente: Moving” on you tube you can see the original video clips and many other songs of Barcelona’s Musician Macaco

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYsWav6dowY[/youtube]