The wayward ‘children’ of patriarch Rosendo: from Robe Iniesta to urban rock with class pride

The movement, the felipismo and the culture of the transition overshadowed urban rock, a rebellious subscription to the working-class periphery of the cities. Until in the nineties, with the Olympic hangover, exposevillana and xacobea, Leño’s legacy caught on in bands like Porretas, Boikot, Platero y Tú, Reincidentes and, of course, in Robe Iniesta and Extremoduro. The wayward children of the patriarch Rosendo Mercadowho in 1985 had embarked on his solo career withCrazy to bother.

“He is the most influential artist in contemporary Spanish music. Not in terms of fame or audience, nor dictating trends, but as a bearer of the style and attitude that has made more kids decide to pick up a guitar and start a band,” he writes. Rubén González in the book Rock versus scissors (The Red Sheep), an encyclopedic history of Spanish rock between 1991 and 2021, where it also addresses other genres such as indie, mestizaje, heavy or music mainstream.

Extreme He flew higher, but Rosendo’s mark is deeper, clarifies the music journalist, who traces another time arc to explain how two musicians against the current managed to rise to the top of rock in Spanish. “In 2014 Rosendo filled Las Ventas with 17,000 people and, ten years later, Robert Iniesta The Rivas-Vaciamadrid auditorium was packed with 30,000 attendees. “There is a critical mass that supports a genre that, despite having been ignored by the mainstream media, continues to resist, when it would normally have disappeared.”

How did he manage to survive? “After the Felipismo crisis and the arrival of Aznar – who at first seemed very politebut he immediately showed his dictatorial paw—, urban rock and alternative metal were the only ones that highlighted the problems of youth“, remember Ruben Gonzalez. “Meanwhile, on a commercial level, the Miami Sound arrives, a Latin American invasion of the bad ones, from top to bottom, which comes from the hand of the extreme right (Gloria Estefan, Paulina Rubio, Ricky Martin) and represents the most absolute impoverishment of the Spanish dial” .

Compared to Alejandro Sanz or David Bisbal, rock with political content is claimed. “A class clash joined by anti-fascist hip-hop and revolutionary miscegenation,” adds the author of Rock versus scissorswho highlights the indigenous character of the genre, which does not look outwards but inwards. “Sôber or Hamlet have foreign influences, but they share a component that is based in the territory, like Barricada, The Soft OnesSoziedad Alkoholika and, later, Marea o La Fuga”.

Rosendo, then, creates a school. Many bands are indebted to the leader of Leño and others drink indirectly from his style, through communicating vessels, like Robe Iniesta himself, whose shadow is elongated: Albert Pla, Estopa or Melendi, not to mention those already mentioned. Repeat offendersPlatero and You, Marea or La Fuga. Some of them pay tribute to him on the album Grateful… Rosendo (1997), in which they also participate BarricadeSka-P or Los Enemigos, a band that has always recognized the maestro’s ancestry.

“Rosendo would be, by style and attitude, the living testimony of a working-class rock, committed and alien to pageantry, and those who collected his inheritance thanked him by unanimously hailing him as Patriarch, finally evidencing what in the not so underground “It was already known that there was a new generation with plenty of tables that had arrived to revolutionize rock,” comments Rubén González in the book, who criticizes that in this country “whoever sticks his head out and stands out is condemned to ridicule and oblivion.” “.

For this reason, his hand does not tremble when he writes that “neither Antonio Vega, nor Loquillo, nor Alaska, nor Miguel Rios nor any other has had so much to do with the formation of new groups, either directly or through his descendants, and that a few flew even further than him.” Without a doubt, one of them is Robe Iniesta, who has canceled his two concerts at the Wizink in Madrid after suffering a pulmonary thromboembolism.

According to you, ‘Agradecidos… Rosendo’ (1997) and ‘Agila’ (1996) mark a turning point in urban rock, because the claim of the founder of Leño gives a stamp that is clearly indigenous to the genre and Extremoduro “assaults for the first time the heavens of popular countercultural music”.

At the beginning of the nineties, the groups fed each other, because they were outside of commercial music and the Spain brand. That is, a culture of transition understood as a pact: culture does not interfere with the State except to agree with it and the State does not interfere with culture except to reward it. Then the Viña Rock school emerged, with hip hop, miscegenation, heavy metal and urban rock scenes, to which must be added leading groups such as Los Enemigos or Lagartija Nick.

Agila It’s the rock album of the decade [cuya publicación coincide con la primera edición del Viña Rock, donde Extremoduro toca junto a Platero y Tú, Porretas y Los Enemigos]. At that moment a critical mass is created that is important enough to be autonomous. In fact, when the whole world was hit by the crisis of 2008, the alternative rock, urban rock or punk rock scene—call it what you want—is still experiencing some sweet years. I attribute this survival to a withdrawal of essences and, above all, to the loyalty of its audience.

However, you emphasize that they acted as a buffer generation, given the longevity of their careers.

Yes, years later they were a plug that prevented the new generations from being able to struggle and open up. For example, when Desakato could take over, the band breaks up. And the 15M gives hope for regeneration of the movement that does not become such because other styles appear, but that does energize the scene a little, although with less pull than the previous ones.

I’m referring to La Raíz, Mafalda and other rock stizaje groups. Massive and demanding bands that emerged when Rosendo’s urban rock mutated into a more party style, in a kind of great refoundation or updating of that culture, but unable to configure a critical mass as had happened in the eighties and nineties.

Which more recent groups has Rosendo influenced?

Without going any further, in Brava, a band from my neighborhood, Aluche: cañí rock with spectacular references to Rosendo. Also Dura Calá, who plays a lot with Burning and Los Chichos, but with urban rock in their veins.

And Rosendo joins many bands via Extremoduro.

Although Rosendo is the patriarch, Extremoduro makes a splash and, in the nineties, becomes the benchmark of its generation. There is no possible comparison, the difference [con sus coetáneos] It’s overwhelming.

Furthermore, Robe Iniesta’s group breaks the Spain brand, which comes to say: “Democracy has arrived and there is nothing more to do. The right has landed and it is the end of times.” And it turns out not, because the seams are beginning to break: the tanks in Reinosa, industrial reconversion, the Basque conflict, insubordination, no to war, squatting, etc. In other words, political content appears that was not on the agenda and that breaks with the culture of the transition.

Do you think that Basque radical rock is a distant cousin of Leño?

Clear. They are brothers.

Has Robe Iniesta lost many Extremoduro fans along the way?

I think not. Robe has been revitalized and rejuvenated. Few artists are able to reach three different generations, with Agilawith The innate law and, now alone, with Maieutics. We are talking about three top albums of their time. It is a creative whirlwind, a wonder of nature. And that, like other urban rock groups, has been systematically ignored by the media.

His essay is so extensive that, inevitably, many genres and eras of Spanish rock are left out.

I would like to raise a but. In the mid-nineties, especially after the murder of Ana Orantes, some groups composed lyrics aimed at women, far from a heteropatriarchal vision.

However, although this represents a small change, the new generations have not yet reached [practicar] this style, which has always been eminently masculine. Nat Simons, Tulsa, Zahara and Maika Makovski are great references, although the genre has a pending issue. That is to say, there was a male vision of feminism, but the female vision of rock is missing.