The Crawdaddys, Nashville Ramblers
in Spain: A view from Toledo

Ron Silva, The Crawdaddys; El Sol, Madrid, Spain; June 12, 2011 (Silvia Zadarnowski)In mid-June, the reunited Crawdaddys and Nashville Ramblers were the latest of our San Diego crowd to enjoy the hospitality of Spain. Both bands played the Go Sinner Go! festival in Toledo June 10 and 11, and the Crawdaddys followed up the next day with a surprise appearance at the renowned El Sol club in Madrid.

Go Sinner Go!, Toledo, Spain; June 10, 2011 (Silvia Zadarnowski)I’m grateful to Silvia Zadarnowski (spouse of Crawdaddys bassist Mark) for these photos of all three events and to musician and show organizer Eduardo Arriero Hernandez for answering my questions about the show and Spanish fondness for this San Diego scene.

Buy your tickets now for the Crawdaddys and the Unknowns at San Diego’s Casbah, Sept. 2-3!

What is your own involvement with the Spanish music scene? You have a band, and you’re an organizer of the Go Sinner Go! Festival. Can you tell me briefly about those and how long you’ve been part of the music scene over there?

I’ve played in bands since I was 17, and I’m 32… so half of my life!! I’ve played guitar and sung with Hollywood Sinners for 11 years and keyboard with Fumestones for one year. I started organizing concerts in Toledo, my home town, of national bands I liked, and I continued it in Madrid. I can try get my favorite bands from all around the world, spend some days with them and have fun!!

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in Spain: A view from Toledo

You Never Give Me Your Money: IOUs and the Ché Underground

(Tell-Tale Heart/Town Crier Ray Brandes takes up a karmic collection with 25 years’ interest.)

Detail: El Cobrador del Frac 1In the cafés of Madrid, in the outdoor flea markets of Barcelona, and along the beaches of the southern coast of Spain, everyone is talking about “La Crisis.” The Spanish economy is now faltering badly, on the edge of a recession brought on by the collapse of a building boom; an average household debt 120 percent above the gross domestic product; and an unemployment rate of over 10 percent, the highest in Europe.

One company, however, which employs a curious and uniquely Spanish trade, has seen its business surge in this environment of unpaid bills. El Cobrador del Frac, the “debt collector in top hat and tails,” exists to humiliate debtors, playing on their sense of public shame. For a percentage of the collection, you can have your debtor’s footsteps dogged by a man conspicuously dressed like Fred Astaire and carrying a briefcase emblazoned with his trade. It is a shrewd and imaginative premise: that people are quick to repay the money they owe when their indebtedness is paraded in public.

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Lemons Are Yellow: Afuegal Pitu

(Paul Kaufman describes the creative ferment behind a Lemons classic.)

Afuegal Pitu cheeseThis song was written in tribute to the delicious cheeses of Spain. I chose “Afuegal Pitu” as the title not because it’s my favorite (that would be the powerful blue Cabrales or the smoky sheep cheese Idiazabal, depending on the day) but because it has the best name. Afuegal Pitu has a lot of red pepper in it, and the name is a local-dialect version of “Fire in the Throat.” Indeed, all the lyrics (except for the spoken-word part in the middle) are simply the names of different Spanish cheeses.

I used to live near an excellent cheese shop (the Cheese Board in Berkeley, CA), and I was so enamoured of the Spanish Cheese Poster they had on display, I wrote to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture to ask where I could get one. It now hangs in my kitchen.

The Che Underground