Thursday, August 30, 2012

Barcelona’s Famèlic Family


Read the whole post on thebomberjacket.com

Exploring live music in Barcelona led to overhearing every once in a while about a group of crazy dudes from a place called Vic. I first heard about a collective called Famèlic when speaking with the Barcelona band Mujeres. The name Els Famèlics is Catalan Spanish that actually means “the hungry” rather than the false friend, “the family.” It seemed like an elusive group of kids playing music and doing things their own way, similar to a lot of D.I.Y. collectives in the U.S., which is something rare to find in Spain. The members live in Barcelona, but have shows in a suburb called Vic, because it’s much harder to book venues in the city. They also operate an independent record label and have releases from the bands L’Hereu EscampaMates Mates,OhiosRegalim, and they work with Vic Goddard & the Subway Set. In addition to these groups, they’re also working with some of the best bands in the country. Eduard Vila and Aleix Vila are two members of Furguson, a band that THE BOMBER JACKET recently interviewed, and are also co-founders of the collective. TBJ spoke with Sergi Egea, the third co-founder who manages a lot of Famèlic’s ventures, about the group and music in the Barcelona area in general.

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Sunday, July 08, 2012

Furguson’s Swindlers and Cross Country Runners


In THE BOMBER JACKET’s interview with Barcelona’s Mujeres, the group mentioned a little town outside of the city called Vic where they said a makeshift D.I.Y. music community had formed. Such types of spaces are great at producing creative (or extremely weird) acts. Furguson is an example and they are part of the Vic collective Famèlic, although they’re from the village’s neighbor, Gurb.
What’s immediately noticeable about the music is the fusion of punk rock and electronic elements. The singer’s voice barks with a grit similar to Minor Threat or At The Drive-In and is guided by overdriven power riffs, but it’s backed by 8-bit synthesizers and effects. Even though the songs are in English, the vocals are as distorted as the guitars, making the grumbling shouts sound like it could be in any or all languages. It’s a fresh sound and the music is full of pop experiments listeners wouldn’t expect. And true to the suburban area that it comes from, listening to the music makes you think of friends in a small town with nothing to do, piling into a car on a Saturday night and speeding off down a dusty road.

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