The ‘B’ Word

A few words on a book called Balearic which might interest certain English language readers. It’s not a review as such but just a general impression. At nearly 600 pages and with almost 80 interviewees this might be the most extensive and exhaustive book ever written about the Ibiza party scene. There is no editorialising by the authors so the story instead offers a unique glimpse into the modern history of the island, through — and exclusively through — the eyes of some of the key players. All I can say is it is quite simply fantastic.

At this point, some may already be groaning. Ibiza is a divisive topic. Many will never set foot anywhere near it on principle. Others are jaded, bored of hearing the same story, the same hackneyed tales, the same coverage by the same journos in the same music press for over 25–30 years. Others missed the boat or have given up or like Earl Zinger, escaped elsewhere altogether. Anyone who remembers the halcyon era would be over 50 now. Whatever Ibiza is in 2020, it isn’t novel. Yet — paradoxically — my own interest has increased when in theory, surveying my interests, my associates, my music collection, I should have nothing to do with Eivissa Inc.

It took me a long time to be seduced even though I too was there in 1987 (albeit on a boat with my parents and their rich friends and nowhere near KU) and even though I only had the vaguest inkling of what it was ‘all about’ via those Grid, Leftfield and Transglobal Underground records our university DJ played in 93–94. Whilst enthusiastically embracing dance music of all stripes in the 90s, I had been a truculent Ibiza refusenik with the mentality that I could just as easily hear Duke So In Love With You or Double Dee Found Love for 1000 pesetas at L’Atlantida in Sitges — so why pay extortionate units of pesetas to hear the same records in the same Hawaiian shirt in an identikit whitewashed open air temple of sin across the water?

I would say my attitudes changed dramatically post 2000 as I grew older and began to meet the island’s foremost evangelists through London parties or Hastings pubs or Dundee backrooms and started to realise just how much global variety there was to this music. As I researched the history further, I recognised many of the things I had experienced on family holidays, such as Citroen Meharis, hierbas and porrons of wine, nudist cala beaches and a very cavalier attitude towards everything except the serious art of food. On successive visits, I embraced the chance to visit the nooks and crannies and parts of the north and east which had survived unscathed. It wasn’t however until Folk Ibiza 2010 that I had what you might call a celestial experience (so much so that I missed my ferry back). I finally ‘got it’, over 20 years after everyone else. A true Juanito Come Lately.

Which brings us back on to this book. I was conscious that no real Spanish perspective had ever been offered on an aspect of clubbing traditionally ignored or frowned upon by the mainland music scene, something the authors, Luis Costa and Christian Len, themselves readily acknowledge. Having previously read Costa’s Bacalao, an equally epic account of the late 80s Valencia scene (which the outside world still remains bizarrely ignorant of) and other books by Spanish writers rooted in underground music such as Joan M. Oleaque, David Puente and Pedro José Mariblanca Corrales, I was keen to finally get a local angle on a slice of cultural history all too often dominated by foreign DJs and music writers and which is too frequently reduced to urban myths.

I enjoyed an additional personal interest as someone of Anglo-Spanish heritage who is painfully sensitive to what each country thinks of the other, themes I regularly visited in my own Guiri trilogy of books published over the last six years. Ibiza, like Barcelona, is the classic tourist playground where two sometimes alien cultures have come — not always happily — to interact in different ways for over 50 years and I was eager to read a narrative which avoided the obvious anecdotes and which instead gave the real inside story. Sparing you any spoilers I’ll share a few things I gleaned from the book which I previously wasn’t fully aware of.

Firstly, much as Radio 1 will tell you otherwise, the English categorically did not invent Ibiza in 1987. There were people like Alfredo, César de Melero and Nelo already DJing there years before British clubbers had even heard of the island. I detected a residue of lingering bitterness (particularly from de Melero) about the way the music of the time was shamelessly pilfered, copied or repackaged for an ‘anglo’ audience.

Particular contempt is reserved for Paul Oakenfold, having never credited any of the local DJs with introducing him to all this new music. Moreover, from a local perspective, there was clearly no such thing as ‘balearic’ beyond a loose geographical reference to the islands, so the version that was sold back to the Brits was an outrageous exercise in marketing somebody else’s ‘product’ — or what in 2020 speak might be labelled cultural appropriation. In fact, the most uncomfortable parts of the book reveal the extent to which people were ripped off, not just culturally and musically but financially too (something that the late José Padilla discusses with regard to his relationship with the Café del Mar).

So, did the Brits shamelessly colonise Ibiza or did they bring anything positive to the table? Well a lot of Ibicencos were complicit and undoubtedly got rich as the clubs and hotels entered the next dimension. You will struggle to find a bad word about the Brits from Space supremo Pepe Roselló. You also realise just how diverse the range of people who came to Ibiza is, across classes and professions. There is no such thing as a typical Brit or Ibicenco and for every French hippy or Italiana selling homemade scarves on Salinas, there are others dancing to the David Guetta tune. Similarly, the ageing music loving Brit who plays sunset records has little to do with the skinny pasty-faced kids spewing kebabs down the road. Es complicado..

The complexity of the whole music infrastructure is explored in great depth. We have contributions from the psy scene, the people behind DC10, Space and Nightmares on Wax all offering wildly different takes on Ibiza clubbing. Structured in a loosely chronological sequence of interviews, I skimmed over the ‘industry’ (Carl Cox, Danny Whittle et all) because the real interest for me is in the less heralded figures, people like David El Niño, Tanit and Juan Mari discussing the early naïve years before greed and cynicism conquered all.

People such as the flamboyant Vaughan, master of ceremony at the Pacha funky room (albeit someone I first met at the Monkey Bar before it (got) closed down) lamenting how dull the youth are now. Or the amusing little asides from the North with Lenny Ibizarre freely admitting taking acid with the head of Warner, little vignettes about how the islanders preferred hippies to beatniks and the general air of innocence in the early clubs such as Glorys or Playboy 2.

Much of the older music I listen to, from early Amnesia to 90s Café del Mar has a strong public association with the island, although I do remember hearing everything from Les Negresses Vertes and Raul Orellana to Mano Negra and Deep Forest on stations such as Radio Club 25 in Barcelona never imagining these would later become celebrated artists in the anglosphere. However, the book doesn’t delve too deeply into the cult of the balearic music scene which emerged in the post millennial years with the advent of specialist record ‘digger’ forums and which in recent years has been most famously championed by DJ Harvey at his Mercury Rising parties at Pikes (the chapter on which recognises its seemingly unique status on the island).

As much as I love DJ Harvey, I’ve never felt entirely comfortable with the cult created around him because it was only ever about the music to my ears whether it sounded good on the beach or summer knees-ups but which is now celebrated on ironic merchandise (such as the cosy XXL Chris Rea sweater I was once given for Christmas). I am probably a hypocrite but I’ve actually come to dislike the ‘B’ Word, an increasingly trite and meaningless description of music that I just now associate with fun, carefree parties.

Much like those Spanish DJs, I also share some unease at the way we came to chuckle at and ironically revere comedy haircut Europeans or South Americans or how ambient music came to mean dinner party or advert fodder. The point is there were clubs in Barcelona in the 90s like Music Box where you could hear italo and camp French disco interspersed with the Pet Shop Boys and Sam Fox and B-Tribe and cheesy batucadas remixed by DJ Pippi, casually played by some anonymous DJ nobody had heard of but without the obsessive nerd fascination.

And this is why I always approached Ibiza from a different angle to others because it felt to me like an extension of the music in those Catalan summer carpas of the 90s, those open-air marquees where Mystic Ritmo de la Noche or Opus Live is Life would — for better or worse — routinely soundtrack any night out.

Whilst economically the island operates in its own ecosystem, musically I cannot recall a new record the island broke in the last 15 years. Perhaps the last was Villalobos Enfants or what some might call the more acceptable face of minimal. But beyond that..? At some point Ibiza became an importer rather than an exporter of music. As a result, I approached the latter part of the book with trepidation because we are all painfully aware of what happened next… something which predictably divides the interviewees. The monstrous billboards, the shit music, the egomaniac DJs, the bad drugs, and sterile, herdlike tourists. But despite the obvious decline in quality, it is interesting that none of the contributors are quite yet ready to throw in the towel. Perhaps because we still cling on to the idyll, in the hope it will one day return.

Three of the saddest deaths of 2020: Weatherall, Padilla and Maradona were all people I identified with the cult of balearic in some way. I think we celebrate it because those of us born in the 70s are nostalgic for grainy, crackly tv images and youthful excess and things and people you wouldn’t necessarily have found at the Hammersmith Palais in 1992. And perhaps there is a British fondness for camp and silly haircuts (yes, I am guilty too) and all that silly humour which foreigners don’t necessarily get. All the ingredients of something discernibly unique even if it has all been monetised to death. Watching the beautiful Sa Trinxa documentary on The ChillOut Tent earlier in the summer, I was struck by how there are still pockets of humanity, dotted around the island and this emerges too in the interviews with some of the local DJs.

None of those interviewed would realistically imagine Ibiza ever returning to a gentler past but I think many retain the romantic — and necessary — belief that life isn’t all about money or glamour. Who knows whether the pandemic and its dramatic impact on the island’s economy will usher in a more humble and imaginative music scene? My instinct says the industry is too entrenched to become any less cutthroat but we can only hope. This book at least enables readers to make their own minds up on whether the island is on the right track. Maybe Ibiza ain’t what it used to be but as Phil Mison amusingly points out, Walter Benjamin was already making the same observation in 1923…

Balearic is now available as a paperback in Spanish via Contra publishing.