opposition as possible. The official narrative constructed by the CT presents the movida only as the former; punk culture, on the other hand, sees it as the latter and establishes itself as a countermovement that contributes to keep the CT and the movida from naturalizing their view—as we already saw in the introduction of this dissertation with the clash between La Polla Records’ concert in the Casa de Campo auditorium and its media coverage.
in the Basque Country and Barcelona punk was far more predominant. In this regard, it is illustrative that when, in 1980, Silvia Resorte—punk singer from Barcelona—was asked whether her band, Último Resorte, had any similarities with Alaska’s band, Alaska y Los Pegamoides, she said that “ha[bía] una gran diferencia: las muñequeras de Alaska sólo sirven de adorno y las mías son para pegar”107 (Punk, pero ¿qué punk? 185). Similarly, in No acepto, Boliche, drummer of the Catalan band Subterranean Kids, states that
a las bandas de Madrid no las aguantaba ningún punki de España. O sea, por
ejemplo, les hubieran partido la cara a Alaska y Los Pegamoides, a Siniestro Total y a cualquier otra banda de esta índole. Primero, porque no eran punkis, segundo, por la cabezonería de la época, porque luego igual los conoces y eran súper buenas personas. Pero por el hecho ya de salir en televisión, por cantar ‘quiero ser un bote de colon’ y su puta madre, ya te los cargarías a todos uno tras otro en fila india.108 Therefore, it seems that, as much as the movida might have had individuals who dressed in a punk style or followed early British or US punk bands, they were generally not
considered part of the Spanish punk movement by Spanish punks, precisely because of their celebratory attitude, lack of political opposition, and participation in the mainstream media.
Thus, I consider these last three to be Spanish punk’s most crucial differences when compared to the movida madrileña. Punk in Spain was viscerally oppositional and
politically engaged almost from the very beginning and, gradually, both became two of its main defining characteristics. Additionally, as a result of this political opposition, punk culture rarely ever had any institutional support or media exposure during the Transición
107 There [was] a huge difference: Alaska’s bracelets are only fashion and I use mine to fight.
108 No punk in Spain could stand the bands from Madrid. I mean, for instance, they would beat the shit out of Alaska y Los Pegamoides, Siniestro Total, or any other band like these if they could.
First, because they were not punks, second, because of the stubbornness of the time, because then, maybe, you meet them and they were really good people. But just for the fact that they were on tv, and they sang ‘I wanna be a can of colón’ and all that fucking shit, you would kill them all one by one in a row.
and it developed primarily in a precarious underground and DIY context. As a matter of fact, as we will see later on when discussing punk fanzines and fanzines from the movida, not being political or oppositional enough and taking part in the mainstream media even became, in the eyes of many punks, decisive elements for someone not to be considered part of the punk movement.
Spanish punk’s politicization is partly a result of it being primarily developed in peripheral Spain and, with particular strength, in the Basque Country. In the documentary No acepto and the books Punk: Tres décadas de resistencia and 20 años de punk en España, the authors establish four main punk scenes in Spain: the Basque Country, Barcelona, Zaragoza, and Madrid. For his part, in Punk, pero ¿qué punk?, González Lezama pays attention to different parts of Spain but stresses the scenes developed in the Basque Country, Barcelona, and Madrid. At the same time, and without belittling the rest of the scenes, they all agree on highlighting Basque punk’s crucial role in the development of Spanish punk culture. Along the same lines, in the documentary about Madrilenian punk, Lo que hicimos fue secreto, there is even a whole section in which several punk musicians from Madrid discuss the influence that Basque punk had on them.
While in 1977 the movida was starting to bloom in Madrid, punk bands such as Escombro or Asco were also playing their first shows in the Basque Country. Additionally, during the following two years, bands such as Negativo, La Banda Sin Futuro (which would later move to Madrid, change their name to Derribos Arias, and become one of the most successful bands in the movida), Zarama, Tensión, La Polla Records, Odio, and MCD (Me Cago en Dios) were also formed. Another crucial band in the Basque punk scene—and in the Spanish punk movement as well—is Eskorbuto, which was formed in the eighties and is probably, along with the also Basque band La Polla Records, the most international
and best-known punk band in the Spanish language. In this sense, Pascual asserts that Eskorbuto were decisive in the punk movement because they introduced “una crítica social tan radical y sin concesiones, que hasta entonces parecía impensable.”109 (93). Other popular bands formed during the eighties in the Basque Country were R.I.P, Kortatu, Basura, Las Vulpess, or Cicatriz. Additionally, it was also during these years that Javier Sayes printed the first issue of his fanzine Destruye!!! and that pirate radios such as Hala Bedi Irratia or Txantxangorri started broadcasting. This was crucial for the development of an alternative and counter-informative print and radio media in the Basque Country.
The political context in the Basque Country was also significantly different from other parts of the state, and this marked Basque punk’s character to a great extent. With the celebration of the 1982 general elections in Spain, the democratic system established during the first governments of the Transición became consolidated. Most political parties of the time, as well as the King, seemed to agree unanimously that there was no turning back in the road towards democracy, and they asserted so repeatedly in their different statements during and after Tejero’s coup attempt in 1981. Just to cite an example, in his response to the coup on TVE1, Juan Carlos I addressed the nation with the following statement:
Para evitar cualquier tipo de confusión, confirmo que he ordenado a las autoridades civiles y a la junta de jefes de estado mayor que tomen todas las medidas necesarias para mantener el orden constitucional dentro de la legalidad vigente. Cualquier medida de carácter militar que en su caso hubiera de tomarse, deberá contar con la aprobación de la junta de jefes de estado mayor. La corona, símbolo de la
permanencia y unidad de la patria no puede tolerar en forma alguna acciones o actitudes de personas que pretendan interrumpir por la fuerza el proceso
democrático que la constitución votada por el pueblo español determinó en su día a través de referéndum.110
109 Very radical and uncompromising social demands that seemed unthinkable until that time.
110 In order to avoid any kind of confusion, I confirm that I have ordered all civil authorities and the junta of chiefs of the state to take all necessary measures to maintain the constitutional order within the current legislation. Any military action that should be taken will have to be approved by the
Therefore, there was a significantly widespread consensus among the political forces on the fact that democracy was there to stay. In this way, when the PSOE won the general
elections in 1982, the fundamental structure of the new Spanish democracy was
significantly well established, and the government focused on other endeavours among which—along with the already cited cultural one—we must highlight the changes
conducted in the economic system. The eighties are the years in which Spain consolidated the adaptation of its economic structure to neoliberalism. This was not solely fostered by the PSOE government, and it has its roots in the late Francoist period of capitalist
development and the economic measures developed by the previous governments of the Transición. However, it is during these years that the great “reconversión industrial”
(industrial restructuring) took place and that the government, instead of implementing measures to prevent the precarization of the working class’s life, began to dismantle the Spanish industrial structure by shutting down numerous companies that, following a
neoliberal logic, were considered unprofitable at a macroeconomic level. It is true that such measures aimed to renovate the Francoist economic structure, but it is equally true that such renovation followed a macroeconomic strategy that worsened many working-class people’s lives in the process. Additionally, this scenario was also aggravated by the EU’s (European Union) demands of efficacy in the economic area for Spain to be accepted as part of the union. Ultimately, this process of neo-liberalization resulted in Spain going from 3.2 per cent of unemployment in 1974 to 21.4 in 1985. The latter is almost twice as high as the
junta of chiefs of the state. The crown, symbol of the permanency and unity of the nation, cannot tolerate in any way some of the actions and attitudes of people who attempt to interrupt by force the democratic process that the constitution voted on by the Spanish people determined through a referendum.
European average, which rose from 2.9 in 1974 to 11.2 in 1985 (Petras 18), and it shows the exceptionality of the Spanish case. In this way, while the PSOE government tried to make the country more “efficient,” the industrial working class of Spain faced during the eighties the worst unemployment figures in years. In the specific case of the Basque Country, taking into account that this region is one of the most industrialized areas of Spain, the unemployment rates there were especially high. It is for this reason that these years in the Basque Country were characterized by huge demonstrations and
confrontations, such as those developed in Bilbao in response to the closure of the Astilleros Euskalduna.111 This scenario, in addition to the Basque independentist
movements, the high activity of the separatist armed band ETA, the implementation of the ZEN112 plan by the government, the activity of the GAL, and others, gave Basque punk an almost inevitable political character. It is in this context also that the media coverage of La Polla Records’ concert in the San Isidro festivities needs to be understood. Through their concert, La Polla Records represented the voice of many Basque citizens who—from
111 There is a highly informative documentary in which they show the ferocious opposition presented by the workers of the Astilleros Euskalduna called Astilleros Euskalduna: Una Guerra contra el estado: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txeCkWhQuNA
112 ZEN (Zona Especial Norte) is a plan conducted by José Barrionuevo from the PSOE and that aimed to:
-Potenciar la lucha contraterrorista en todos los campos: politico social, legal y policial.
-Alcanzar la máxima coordinación entre las Fuerzas y Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado y con otras Instituciones empeñadas en la erradicación de la violencia.
-Compatibilizar las misiones generales de los Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado en la Zona Especial con las específicas que precisa para hacer frente a la problemática planteada.
-Conseguir la permanencia en la Zona Especial del personal de los Cuerpos de Seguridad del Estado y darle la adecuada formación para cumplan su misión con eficacia,
proporcionándole los medios materiales y técnicos para tal fin.
-Realizar acciones encaminadas a concienciar a la población vasca de que la desarticulación del aparato terrorista conlleva una mayor seguridad pública y una mejor defensa de las tradiciones vascas (Plan Zen, 106)
https://borrokagaraia.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/plan_zen.pdf
various and different perspectives—opposed the PSOE government right in the main festivities of the Spanish capital. In this sense, their concert represented a threat to the democratic normality that the official narrative constructed by the CT and the movida were imposing in Madrid, and it is for this reason that making clear that they were a “Basque radical band” and, hence, something exceptional in Spain as a whole, became a crucial argument for the media.
Another determinant element in the politicization of Spanish punk was the
emergence of anarcho-punk in the UK. While Basque punk provided Spanish punk culture with a social and political opposition derived from a general social disenchantment,
anarcho-punk added a somehow specific ideology and a more conscious countercultural agenda. In other words, Basque punk presented a more visceral political and social opposition whereas anarcho-punk brought a more profound political consciousness. The same goes for the underground and DIY character of Basque punk compared to anarcho- punk. The former did not necessarily do it as a conscious political stance but out of pure necessity, while the latter made avoiding the mainstream media and following a DIY ethos its core values. Anarcho-punk originated in the UK in the late seventies partly as a response to the rampant commodification of the punk movement, which had lost its revolutionary potential by becoming part of mainstream culture, and partly as the musical expression of various countercultural movements that were not necessarily connected to punk culture.
The initiators of the movement were the band Crass
who were a radical anarcho-pacifist, anarcha-feminist, vegetarian collective, and the anarchism it espoused was not the anarchy of the Pistols (“Anarchy in the UK”
begins with a frightening guttural laugh by Johnny Rotten and ends with the almost comic-book “Get pissed. Destroy”), but a lifestyle and world-view they developed through a combination of hippy idealism and resistance, punk energy and check, and some of the cultural strategies of the Situationists (McKay 75).
In other words, a group of people who were not simply a punk band but a collective with a broader revolutionary agenda in which punk music played a decisive role within a complex net of other artistic influences. In this sense, it is in anarcho-punk that the DIY ethos and a lifestyle influenced by anarchism acquire their most definitive representation within punk culture.
Similarly, it is also important to refer to the Barcelona hardcore punk scene when talking about the politicization of Spanish punk. In The Philosophy of Punk, Craig O’Hara uses the term “hardcore” as “simply a synonym for Punk that Americans invented in the early eighties” and asserts that “hardcore music is usually faster than the Punk music of the seventies, but the ideas and people involved are virtually the same” (16-7). Such a
statement is extremely vague and generalizing, especially if we think of the numerous differences between punk scenes around the world, but it holds true if we limit the
comparison of hardcore exclusively to the more politicized branches of punk developed in the UK, such as streetpunk or the previously mentioned anarcho-punk. Along the same lines, one could say that hardcore punk in the US originates in similar terms as these two by trying to provide American punk with a countercultural and political significance that other proto-punk bands such as The Ramones or the New York Dolls lacked. Additionally, the fact that hardcore is faster than other punk is also extremely important because it adds a far more aggressive sound to the music that produces different effects and reactions in its listeners when compared to other punk music. This is especially true in a live show context, as the development of moshpit within hardcore punk culture attests. In this way, the
Barcelona punk scene was characterized by a faster and more aggressive sound than most of the punk coming from the rest of Spain. At the same time, since politics was another crucial element in hardcore punk, that also influenced Barcelona’s punk politicization
tremendously. According to the Subterranean Kids drummer, Boliche, the concert played by the American hardcore band MDC in Barcelona in 1984 was decisive in the
development of a local hardcore punk scene. In Harto de todo he states that in that concert Vimos una actitud mucho más politizada, más radical; una estética menos llamativa que la que llevábamos hasta el momento heredada del punk pero agresiva y muy de calle, y sobre todo por el sonido. […] Ahí chocaba la actitud punki destroyer con la actitud de MDC, una banda de hardcore que entre canción y canción te explicaban de qué hablaba cada tema, contra qué iba dirigido ese tema. Los punkis decían
“¡Que te calles y que toques!”, pero a mucha gente nos marcó mucho y yo creo que de ahí salieron todas las bandas hardcore que ha dado Barcelona.113 (n.p.)
Nonetheless, it is important to note that there were already Catalan bands that played very fast and politicized punk before 1984 such as, for instance, Último Resorte, L’Odi Social, Frenopatics, or Kangrena.
In addition, as Delincuencia Sonora’s singer, José Calvo, points out in No Acepto, and due to Spain’s strong anarchist culture all throughout the twentieth century, the influence of Spanish anarchist movements was also crucial in the politicization of many Spanish punks. Similarly, due to its fascist and dictatorial past, Spain had an already strong leftist and anti-fascist discourse of its own that also contributed to the politicization of the punk movement. As a matter of fact, in Antifa: The Antifacist Handbook, a book about international antifascist movements, Mark Bray describes the strong connection between punk and antifascism while also referring to the Spanish Civil War and the republican resistance during Francoism as a deciding influence in the development of a global anti-
113 We saw a far more politicized attitude, more radical; less striking aesthetics than the one we followed and inherited from punk, but aggressive and with a street attitude, and above all because of the sound. MDC, a hardcore band that between songs explained what each of the songs talked about, against what each song stood. Punks would say ‘Shut up and play!’ but many people were very influenced by that show, and I think it was from there that all hardcore bands in Barcelona emerged.
fascist web. Such a connection is symbolically represented by the book’s first chapter about the origins of antifascist movements, “¡No pasarán!”, as a reference to the slogan used by the antifascist resistance in Spain during the Civil War. Ultimately, Spanish punk
developed in a strongly politicized context, and that gave it a decisive political and oppositional character when compared to the more hedonist and apolitical movida madrileña.