Living the Noche Loca
"If you lived in the eighties and remember it, then you didn't live the eighties." That saying refers to the wild nights and days of that reactionary decade the way it was lived in Madrid and a few other cities, Vigo in Galicia included. The new constitution had been signed in 1978 and it was only then that people realized they had shaken off the effects of Franco, who had died in 1975. Censorship had been done with, people became aware of the world outside Spain, and the Church lost its total control of public morality.
It was much like the counter-culture of the sixties in other countries, minus the philosophy. Those who lived la movida, as it was called, weren't interested in changing the world. They were interested in having fun without anyone telling them it was a sin or forbidden. It started in Madrid, in the neighborhood of Malasaña, one of the oldest. That was the center of the movement, with different discos and music bars appearing like psychedelic mushrooms. Teenagers and young adults dedicated themselves to living as they saw fit. The baby boom in Spain came of age in the eighties and helped to create la movida. It was a hedonistic wave that never stopped moving. The most lasting aspect of the movida was the music. It may never have drifted onto the international mainstream, but anyone here over forty-five remembers Alaska y los Pegamoides, Hombres G, Gabinete Galigari, Loquillo, Mecano, and many others who were the music scene. That was also the decade which spawned some of the more memorable early movies made by Pedro Almodóvar, himself a product of the movida.
One bad thing to come out of there, though, were drugs. The use of heroin and cocaine escalated. Thanks to the ins and outs of the Galician coast, with little inlets reached through fields and woods without any type of vigilance from neighbors or anyone else, Galicia became the entry point of most of that cursed merchandise. Those were the golden years of the narcos, the drug traffickers that made millions from the disgrace of others. Mansions were built, expensive cars roamed the roads and everyone knew of someone who had been paid well to take a cargo to other parts of Spain. Eventually, the narcos helped the local economy. To help launder their money they set up factories and canneries that employed local people. The building and outfitting of the mansions gave jobs to many local companies. Most of the uptick in the economy at that time was due to drugs. But all that came to an end in the nineties, with the capture and trial of the heads of the different drug families, such as the Oubiñas and the Charlíns. A myriad of relatives and friends of those families were also sent to prison then.
I caught the tail end, in the early nineties, when I arrived just in my twenties. Every Saturday night my friends and I visited different discos in different towns. Most of us could drive at that point and maybe two or three cars full of people would get together to go out. I remember one time we were three cars full of friends and acquaintances and we decided to go to a disco beyond Santiago, on the road to Lugo. It was a drive of well over an hour. We took it in stride. The music at that time was our music, and back then the discos would have sessions of slow songs, for the romantics and newly formed couples to get into the mood. Women always paid less at the door and could get one drink for free. The discos would have differentiated areas, the well-lit area around the bar, the dance floor, tables and sofas for groups to sit and talk as well they could, and the reservado, a small area filled with sofas with just enough light to distinguish shapes in the dark and little else. That was where the couples would go to make out. And other things. The parking lots were as large as those of shopping centers. Some people would always be out there, roaming up and down the rows, ready to sell some powder. Police would only show up on occasions when the bouncers couldn't control the situation. Otherwise you wouldn't see them anywhere around. It was a fun time when you could decide just how to have fun.
Now it's all over. The few discos that remain have specialized in certain music or certain clients just to stay open. They're either all electronic music that you feel will cut you in half as it reverberates through your body, or Latin music which can become repetitve after a while. Now kids out on the town stay with the free entry music bars with a different style each, and generally all on the same street. So, as you wander you can hear dance, house, techno, Latino, pop, and oldies. Drugs still exist, but after the lives cut down one way or another in our generation, recreational use is pretty much limited to hashish or weed. Alcohol is the main drug nowadays, with kids buying liters at the supermarket to then chug in parking lots or alleyways, with car stereos blaring.
It's true that the movida was an age of excesses, some dangerous. But it was our age and our youth. To those of us who didn't partake of the drugs, it was a simpler time in which having fun was easy. We did drink, but not as much as today's teenagers, it seems. But the greatest fun we had didn't come from a bottle. It came from being with friends, listening to music that reflected what we were seeing and living. And I suppose every generation feels the same about their own youth, not just us.
It was much like the counter-culture of the sixties in other countries, minus the philosophy. Those who lived la movida, as it was called, weren't interested in changing the world. They were interested in having fun without anyone telling them it was a sin or forbidden. It started in Madrid, in the neighborhood of Malasaña, one of the oldest. That was the center of the movement, with different discos and music bars appearing like psychedelic mushrooms. Teenagers and young adults dedicated themselves to living as they saw fit. The baby boom in Spain came of age in the eighties and helped to create la movida. It was a hedonistic wave that never stopped moving. The most lasting aspect of the movida was the music. It may never have drifted onto the international mainstream, but anyone here over forty-five remembers Alaska y los Pegamoides, Hombres G, Gabinete Galigari, Loquillo, Mecano, and many others who were the music scene. That was also the decade which spawned some of the more memorable early movies made by Pedro Almodóvar, himself a product of the movida.
One bad thing to come out of there, though, were drugs. The use of heroin and cocaine escalated. Thanks to the ins and outs of the Galician coast, with little inlets reached through fields and woods without any type of vigilance from neighbors or anyone else, Galicia became the entry point of most of that cursed merchandise. Those were the golden years of the narcos, the drug traffickers that made millions from the disgrace of others. Mansions were built, expensive cars roamed the roads and everyone knew of someone who had been paid well to take a cargo to other parts of Spain. Eventually, the narcos helped the local economy. To help launder their money they set up factories and canneries that employed local people. The building and outfitting of the mansions gave jobs to many local companies. Most of the uptick in the economy at that time was due to drugs. But all that came to an end in the nineties, with the capture and trial of the heads of the different drug families, such as the Oubiñas and the Charlíns. A myriad of relatives and friends of those families were also sent to prison then.
I caught the tail end, in the early nineties, when I arrived just in my twenties. Every Saturday night my friends and I visited different discos in different towns. Most of us could drive at that point and maybe two or three cars full of people would get together to go out. I remember one time we were three cars full of friends and acquaintances and we decided to go to a disco beyond Santiago, on the road to Lugo. It was a drive of well over an hour. We took it in stride. The music at that time was our music, and back then the discos would have sessions of slow songs, for the romantics and newly formed couples to get into the mood. Women always paid less at the door and could get one drink for free. The discos would have differentiated areas, the well-lit area around the bar, the dance floor, tables and sofas for groups to sit and talk as well they could, and the reservado, a small area filled with sofas with just enough light to distinguish shapes in the dark and little else. That was where the couples would go to make out. And other things. The parking lots were as large as those of shopping centers. Some people would always be out there, roaming up and down the rows, ready to sell some powder. Police would only show up on occasions when the bouncers couldn't control the situation. Otherwise you wouldn't see them anywhere around. It was a fun time when you could decide just how to have fun.
Now it's all over. The few discos that remain have specialized in certain music or certain clients just to stay open. They're either all electronic music that you feel will cut you in half as it reverberates through your body, or Latin music which can become repetitve after a while. Now kids out on the town stay with the free entry music bars with a different style each, and generally all on the same street. So, as you wander you can hear dance, house, techno, Latino, pop, and oldies. Drugs still exist, but after the lives cut down one way or another in our generation, recreational use is pretty much limited to hashish or weed. Alcohol is the main drug nowadays, with kids buying liters at the supermarket to then chug in parking lots or alleyways, with car stereos blaring.
It's true that the movida was an age of excesses, some dangerous. But it was our age and our youth. To those of us who didn't partake of the drugs, it was a simpler time in which having fun was easy. We did drink, but not as much as today's teenagers, it seems. But the greatest fun we had didn't come from a bottle. It came from being with friends, listening to music that reflected what we were seeing and living. And I suppose every generation feels the same about their own youth, not just us.
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| Icons from the 80's in Spain. |
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