No Age No Mosh

No Age @ Apolo, Barcelona from Maria Elisa Gomez on Vimeo.

Barcelona crowds are no easy feat. Unless you're a band in the major leagues, you're playing at a festival where everyone's wasted (or English) or you play metal, chances are if you play here your crowd will just nod appreciatively and every now and then a slight attempt at moshing will be done by a brave few, only to die down quietly or be killed quietly by a big bouncer.

Thank god for teenagers then. Without the small group of keen 17 year-olds that barged their way in and started pushing people around, the boring onlookers at the front of the No Age gig wouldn't have moved from their spot, despite earnest attempts by the band to make the crowd dance. In the end, it was how it should be - guitar player atop of the amps and diving into the moshpit, a crazied audience trying to jump on stage and a concerned bouncer trying to kill it all down (not so quietly).

GIRLCORE article in Neo2

An article I wrote about Girlcore was published in the October issue of Neo2 Magazine. Here's the text in English:

A lot has been said about GIRLCORE. That boys are not allowed in. That we’re all dykes. That we featured in that Hustler video. That we’re like a hen-night on acid. That we’re feminists. Well, this is not the place for denials, they all have a bit of truth and a bit of lie. What’s actually true is that what started as a simple joke to exclude boys from our after-party has become – in this humble and subjective scribe’s opinion – in one of the best and most fun excuses, no, obligations, to go out on a Thursday night. And one of Shoreditch’s club hits to boot.

Chaotic, decadent and DIY, at the GIRLCORE parties, apart from an en exclusively female line-up (except in our annual Dragcore night), there’s a place for everything. Pansexual weddings, beauty pageants, drag queens, hula-hula shows, Oscar evenings, breakdance, rehab, freakshows, homages to Lisa “Left-Eye” Lopez... We’re 10 girls – from countries such as Colombia, Argentina, France, US, Holland and England – that dedicate ourselves to make for a different party each month and to ensure that anyone who comes to GIRLCORE has an amazing time, leaves their cool pose at the door and ends up covered head-to-toe in glitter.

Apart from our monthly nights, we’ve started expanding the GIRLCORE empire with collaborations and external events, including a short filmed in situ for the female film festival Bird’s Eye View at the Whitechapel Gallery, a radio show at Bestival, the dance tent at the Offset Festival, the Girlcore Olympic Games at Bar Music Hall and parties all around the globe in cities Duch as NY, Moscow, Berlin, Milan and Paris.

What about Girlcore Spain? Plans are in motion. So get prepared, because the next time you hear anything about GIRLCORE it will probably be true.

Club Cobra Launch

published in Urban Junkies:

The hip young things (us included, of course) gathered at Apolo on Thursday night to attend the launch of Club Cobra, the newest party to settle home at La [2].

A joint effort by the creators of the Boombox and Globo nights, it didn't disappoint: lots of fashionistas, dirty ghettotech and electro-pop hits and lots of hands up in the air. Highlight of the night though: an all-out battle between the diva-like promoter (a little worse for wear) and the crowd who ended up booing her offstage.

Something Fun

So I went to see The Mae Shi play at Razzmatazz on Saturday. Looking back on it without the booze-induced euphoria, I can honestly say it was one of the craziest audience reactions I've seen at Razz. Did they all know who this band were? Not to underestimate the Spanish music public but it would actually surprise me. Nevertheless, people were dancing - no, jumping and kicking about like maniacs - throughout the entire set as if it was The Sex Pistols (circa 1977, not the washed-out indie bashers I saw them be at Summercase).
Except for an incident that involved me pushing and punching a guy in the back of the head for grabbing my ass, it was exactly how I expected it to be - amazing.

A year ago...

I was dancing onstage with Iggy Pop in front of thousands of people. WTF.

A tribute to Garfield

When I was a child, I remember having arguments with my sister about who was better: Garfield or Snoopy. My dad was a Hagar The Horrible kind of guy ("Olafo El Amargado" in spanish) and I guess my mom would've preferred Mafalda (the one who inspired me to call my pet tortoise "Bureaucracy"). I rooted for Snoopy and his philosophic ways and always found Garfield quite boring...
Here's a few videos for my sister from the peeps at LasagnaCat. Gabriela, I hope you're watching.

"Everybody comes to Squallywood..."

weknowwhatyoudidlastnight.com - click to view more


This is a fraction of the people who are currently living in my old house, Squallyoaks. The photo was taken at the last *GIRLCORE* night, where the theme was "Girlcore Goes To Hollywood", and they are each holding a letter that makes up the word "Squallywood". Love it. Despite being quite happy living with three people instead of thirteen, this is the sort of thing I miss about my old household. Yes, it is a dirty, messy, mental asylum from hell (you can read some of the Squallyoaks stories in Karley's blog) but all in all, how many people can say they lived in places where walls are destroyed on demand, a fire extinguisher doubles as pet, rooms change from dance studios to photography backdrops to rehearsal studios to hostels for Romanian families to dining rooms to bedrooms all over again and all this with the unsuspecting agreement from the landlord A.K.A. "The Man"... I'd say not many, probably just the 20-odd people who have at one time or another lived at Squallyoaks.

Some Squallyoaks photos taken before my camera broke

Folk bit

Bon Iver is Justin Vernon. After breaking up with his old band, he decided to move to a cabin in the middle of nowhere (the Wisconsin mountains, to be more exact) and spent three months quietly crafting his amazing contribution to the folk landscape. This is the video for "The Wolves Act I and II", from his album For Emma, forever ago.

Pop bit

Solange Knowles - "I Decided"
this might be a good one for summer...

(what's Che Guevara doing there though? I wonder what he'd think.)

Something Amazing pt. 4

I want this DVD.

"Asshole!!!"

Coming out of some hotel at 8am after a long night of Primavera shenanigans, Karley decided to come up to some random guy, who had just probably stepped off a plane, and call him an Asshole. Immediately afterwards she lugged herself at him and hugged him as if he was a long-lost friend. Later that night we found out he was Brent Knopf, from Menomena. Thankfully there were no hard feelings and we actually talked politics with him after playing an amazing gig at Primavera. He said he'll vote for McCain (erm...)

Something Amazing pt. 3

MGMT - Time To Pretend
Uploaded by gotmullet

A tribe of futuristic hippie hipster warriors who live in a utopian commune and hold the secret ritual that will let us know what was of that future that we always dreamt of. Do you need any other explanation to why MGMT is my favourite band right this minute?

Unfortunately for me I have to add them to my long list of "bands I didn't realize what a COMMUNAL mistake it would be to miss". In other words, they played at Primavera Sound but I was too late to watch them...

Here's the lyrics to "Time to Pretend", which will make my reasons even clearer:

"I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision, to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah, it's overwhelming, but what else can we do.
Get jobs in offices, and wake up for the morning commute.

Forget about our mothers and our friends
We're fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home
Yeah, I'll miss the boredem and the freedom and the time spent alone.

There's really nothing, nothing we can do
Love must be forgotten, life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce
We'll find some more models, everything must run its course.

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end
We were fated to pretend
To pretend
We're fated to pretend
To pretend"

A few things that would make my life better

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

These are insightful days in the telenovela/comedy/drama that is my life. These phases usually come at times when I find myself yet again at the bottom end of the rollercoaster. Ever since the forced uprooting things have not gone to plan - if there was ever one - and despite those many great things that come with moving to a new (and beautiful) city, in the greater scheme of things I am deeper in the labyrinth than ever. This is all part of the game though, and self-victimization is usually the wrong pathway to take.
The best thing to do when life kicks you in the face is to get up, dust yourself off and learn how to avoid getting kicked in the same place again. Not easy, I know, but better than throwing yourself off a balcony, innit?

So to Maslow's pyramid (big up to the amazing Kate Moross who was the one to introduce me to mr. Maslow - you can see her own version of the pyramid here). I found this little piece of triangular information particularly relevant for times like these, when you need a complete regrouping of your own internal troops in order to charge into future battles.

My right hand holds this pyramid, my left one a Bukowski book. Counterproductive?

MSN conversations

- "Is my destiny to be
not what I want to be
or what I aspire to be
but to be a quiet observer
of what others are?
And if so,
would it make it easier if I knew?"

- "It would be sad"

- "It's already sad"

- "Well at least the door is open.
To close it would be the sad thing...
...If more financially rewarding."