Day 499
Saturday November 16
Weekend and Monday is Frank’s show. So the plan is to take one day ‘off’ and give one day over to Now Hustling. We decided to do the hustle thing today. Basically because you never know how these things are going to go and we thought we’d take the day ‘off’ tomorrow for more touristy things, with this done rather than still hanging over us. But yeah, there is still most of Monday with the show of course not until the evening. We have mild plans to Now Hustle that day too.
As for today, we have a simple starter for ten. I think. There’s a smallish English bar called J & J. Lovely one room lounge bar upstairs with a whole bookshop thing downstairs. A place I very much used to be a regular of. I remember this place as being quite easy going, full of a music friendly crowd, and I may well know one or two of the people involved in running it. And if they’re not up for it for any reason, it will still be lovely to say hello and maybe have a bit of a hang before hitting the road again. It’s also just a five or so minute walk from us in the back streets of Malasana, so a lovely little meander to begin the day.
Here we go. Bugger. It’s closed today. Oh well. We start now instead. It all becomes a bit of a frustrating wander around the narrow streets of Malasana as in every place we come to one of three things happens. They’re either too busy for us to contemplate trying to fit in there to play, or they’re too quiet so no point. Or I actually get to speak to someone, only to be told, sorry. No music licence. Oh well. We keep going.
We’re in that kind of midworld of hustling. The salesman cliche, except this one is really true. Every no gets you closer to the yes. And there’s another one. One that we invented, or at least came up with independently. It’s impossible until suddenly it’s the easiest thing in the world. It’s about to become the easiest thing in the world.
I’ve been bringing us in a mild, round about beeline to Plaza dos de Mayo, one of the most famous squares in Madrid, or maybe even in Spain. This is the main plaza within Malasana and has lovely little bars all around it and a park in the middle. The first place we come to is called El 2D, so the bar most associated with the square by name. It’s just the right kind of busy with a perfectly open floor. And now it happens as we tell Ivan our thing. He breaks into a huge smile and says, of course. Why not.
Oh, but he has one condition, saying, can you do it completely acoustic because, well, the police. Yes, I say. He indicates to the floor, does a semi shrug and says, do it then.
We have to play purely acoustic a certain kind of way. That is, me in the background with Maja a few paces out front so that the guitar doesn’t drown out her voice. This means I’m kinda pushed back in the far corner of the bar, while Maja is out there on her own right in the centre of the floor. In the middle of everyone. And we’re straight in with How You Rock’n’Roll. Suddenly everyone is jiving in their chairs and Ivan has a big smile on his face. This is really working. Even moreso when Ivan comes to the bar, gestures to me and says something. But I can’t hear anything. When we finish the song, he calls me over and says it again. The gist of it is, it’s too late now, but I wish you were amplified. Brilliant. But yes. It’s too late now. We’re in a flow. We stay in it with two more songs before saying thankyou very much and packing up. We’re not doing the hat thing anymore, but still, a few people want to give us money. We say thankyou but that’s fine. And Ivan wants to give us drinks. But we really want to be out on the street and finding then next hustle. But before we do, a new customer comes in. She’s stunned when she sees us and even more stunned when she discovers that we’ve just played and she missed it. Where is all this going? Well, on Thursday we went to one of my old local bars, Bar Sisi, before heading to Triskels. I didn’t Diary it because it was a bit of a non event. Just me and Maja sitting in a bar talking about nothing much. But. The lady we’re speaking to now is called Natalia. She lives in an apartment overlooking Bar Sidi and she saw us in there and was massively intrigued. She says we really stood out, and just seemed to be having a lovely fun time and we looked like people she would like to hang out with.
Then we disappeared into the Madrid night, clearly never to be seen again. Now we’ve resurfaced in one of her own main locals. Not only that but she’s now discovered we’re visiting musicians from London and we’ve just played in her bar. But yeah. Damn. She missed us.
Through this conversation, and as we’re now joined by one of her friends, I say that we would love to stay and chat but we’ve got to go sit in the lobby and wait for the limo. No. Sorry. If you know, you know. No. I tell her that we would love to stay and chat but Maja doesn’t speak Spanish and would be totally left out of any conversation and fun. But yes, of course we very much make sure that Natalia gets a card. Oh damn that was fun.
So back out onto the street it is to continue. Or so we think. Until we see that Saturday really has moved on and everywhere is absolutely packed busy. Even one of the places we passed before that was totally empty at the time. This Now Hustling thing is a bit tricky. It has a sweet spot with not a great deal of margin around it. Too quiet and there’s almost no point. Five or six people in a bar, maybe. Two or three, or less even, no. But too busy and we have to consider where we would even be, so that’s out too. Everywhere we look now is too busy to even think about. A mild shame as we’ve brought our speaker, not even used it in the place we just played, and now it looks like we’re not going to do another hustle. But. We’ve proved we can come to Madrid and do this. And that is huge and totally enough. And not needing a speaker isn’t something you can legislate for in a situation like this, so we had to bring it.
Oh, we do get a video, but we’re unplugged as we said so the sound really doesn’t work. And it’s from the phone propped up at the bar, and with Maja out in front, she ends up mostly hidden from the phone by a pillar in the middle of the floor. So, a great experience but not so great a video.
We take ourselves back to the hostel to drop the guitar and bits and pieces off, then head out again. Now we’re heading to another bar mentioned in one of Rick’s videos. El Tigre. The reason? They apparently deliver the most insane tapas portions. Confirmation. They do.
If we get another beer, we’ll get all this again, but we don’t even finish this lot. Quite simply the best eating on a budget I’ve ever seen. We don’t get another beer, but we don’t need to. We are also totally set up for the evening.
I have simply never seen anything like this and it is surely just their thing. It really is for the tourists. Croquettes, patatas bravas, jamon – and the cold cooked variety too. Chorizo, tortilla, bread. It covers two plates. Are these the best versions of themselves that I’ve ever come across? No, but who cares? Although, to be fair, the tortilla is perfectly good and I am a particular fan of tortilla. I also really like the patatas bravas. And koalas. Sorry. No idea where that came from. It’s just ridiculous. And amazing at the same time. And simply just outrageous fun. All around we see similar reactions. We also happen to be sitting at a high table right at the bar and see the incredulity of people who receive a plate, then another, then another. Surely it’s totally a marketing thing. Has to be. And again, a tourist thing. That’s definitely the feeling I get, especially with all the photos of the food being taken, which is something you surely wouldn’t do if you were here all the time as a local. Bizarrely I was a local and never came. For a good few years of my time in Madrid, if you’d done a good solid throw of a stone from this place you would have hit mine. And yeah I never knew about or came. Quite a lot of that time financials really weren’t that great, as was the case for just about everyone I knew; I arrived just as the financial crash had happened and it hit Spain particularly badly. One friend often said to me, ‘Just as your plane was landing, the plane carrying all the country’s money was taking off.
Of course we take our own pictures, and yes we can make our own videos, but it just isn’t something we massively do when out and about and it’s not something I would be hugely comfortable doing in this kind of public setting. I know. We really need to get over that. We did start it at home and did a few video chats, but we haven’t been great at keeping that up either. Maybe it’s something we’ll get back to. But in any case, I’ve mentioned Rick’s wonderful channel in here and before, so I think we should keep that going and let him fill you in on what goes down at El Tigre. The link to that video is there at the bottom of this entry.
El Tigre is in the heart of Chueca which borders Malasana and it really has a very similar feel. We have an aimless wander around seeing what we can find and come across a great rockabilly type bar I know called Louie Louie. Oh, we have to. We keep on though, just to see what else we can see, but yes. It has to be Louie Louie. With that, I get in touch with one of my old music friends, James Jamp, a well respected singer songwriter in Madrid and a much in-demand producer and session musician. Basically a total all rounder, a real talent. Also someone who I hit it off with immediately when he first arrived in Madrid and headed straight into whatever music scene he could find. He’s still there.
Another great meetup and he arrives not long after we’ve managed to settle ourselves down at a unique table. It’s a lifesize Herman Munster model carrying a tray like a waiter. The tray is the table. Here, we once again enter the Madrid concept of ridiculously large gin pours in their gin and tonics. We get stuck right in and James joins us. A few drinks here and we decide we have to go to El 2 De to maybe hang out with Ivan. It’s quite a trek and we find the place is quite busy. Unfortunately Ivan isn’t there so no real point sticking around Oh well. CBGBs then. It will be great to say hi to Nacho again.
However, we seem to strike out there too. No Nacho. But instead, we meet his brother and business partner Manu. We tell him we were in here last night and met Nacho. That’s all he needs to realise who we are, as he says Nacho told him all about us and our music. Oh wow. OK. We absolutely have to stay now, although we were going to anyway. There’s more. He exactly where our songs are on the system and now we’re in front of him, he’s curious to hear them himself. With that our entire playlist is played in here again as we all settle in to a wonderful atmosphere between the three of us and our new friend Manu. A few drinks in here and we say a big goodbye to him because we simply have to go and visit Triskels which is just a five minute walk away. Damien’s in again which is great, and it’s another great catchup between the three of us as Maja joins in like a Madrid veteran. A great way to head deep into the night.
Rick Meets World meets El Tigre
