Music Video, 2014. 4’50”. Color. HD
Alma en Venta
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Soul for Sale
Does Nacho Vegas remember he allowed himself to be beheaded by Luis Cerveró? Or even: does Luis Cerveró remember having ever beheaded Nacho Vegas? Who can really remember the whole affaire for sure is Luis Troquel, the music journalist behind it all. De Benidorm a Benicàssim was a mad and sane project at the same time that took the form of a record which was a kind of a, let’s say, compilation of 2006 and now is a script for Cachitos de hierro y cromo. When seeing this TV programme at La 2, Troquel came up with a proposal: why don’t we rescue, since we’re at it, the two videos that Luis Cerveró shot with Nacho Vegas for that album? Excellent idea! Two music videos that have NEVER BEEN SEEN BEFORE! Two souvenirs of the pre-HD and pre-YouTube age very worthy of digging up because they are exclusive unpublished material and also because… they’re really amazing!
So Luis & Luis had a go at their pre-digital times archives and, bingo!, they have found Alma en venta / Soul for Sale. You can watch them here. Oh, and you can also read the text that Luis Cerveró has written, after diving in the abyss of his memory, much more that a making of.
By Luis Cerveró
Alma en Venta
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The two-headed, in many respects, music video for Alma en venta / Soul for Sale is one of the weirdest projects I’ve been involved with… And that’s saying a lot! It’s two pieces for the promotion of an album that finally never saw the light of day, except as part of an artistic installation that has been travelling, very slowly, all around Spain. We did this ten years ago, and since then, these videos have been zealously guarded by the paws of Luis Troquel. Teddy bear paws, really, but paws after all.
The truth is I can’t remember much about the way in which they were created. I can’t recall how I met Luis, either. I imagine it must have been through David Rodríguez, for whom Luis wrote (and sang) Vejaciones en la costa in the lately vindicated again La Estrella de David’s first album, the one about the clown and the Olympic games mascot, Cobi. In fact, I remember that the original plan, when Luis Troquel told me to do a video for the album De Benidorm a Benicàssim, was shooting with music by Beef and the voices of Jota and Christina Rosenvinge, who had to kiss in the video like Nick Cave and PJ Harvey on the cover of . I don’t know why plans changed so much in the end, but we finally shot Nacho Vegas and Troquel himself, beheaded among minerals.
What I like the most about this double video is having shot Troquel. Shooting Nacho Vegas is always a pleasure, but shooting Troquel is making History. Troquel is one of the most underground characters of the already mega-underground Spanish indie scene. He’s our Byron Coley. Always writing in the margins of the margins, defending rumba and copla in shoegazer and lollypoper circles. What Troquel managed with De Benidorm a Benicàssim, by giving a voice to people such as Jo Alexander or Rosa de España, surrounded by la crème de la crème of the time, doesn’t seem much of an achievement today, but back then it demolished many walls and put an end to a lot of snobbery. And he didn’t do it to appear important or clever, but just because he has never really believed in putting borders to music. He likes all that and many more things, so what?
I don’t know why Luis has decided to make these videos public now, either. He’s explained it to me twice but I didn’t get it. Which only makes me defend him more as a lyricist in the best tradition of harsh remarks and greguerías. Troquel’s lyrics use language in such a hypnotic way that I often become flabbergasted by their surface, and stay there looking at the words following each other. I’m sorry, Luis: a lot of the times I don’t listen to you, I just enjoy the waves.
And finally, I don’t know exactly why ten years ago I decided to compare the human soul to a mineral. But in hindsight, I think I was right. I can’t think of a better metaphor for it. What are you? I’m a lapis lazuli. And you? I’m coal. The older I get, the more I realise that life is a parabola, not a parable, in the geometric, not the moral, sense. I mean: how well I did things when I was young, without noticing, and how badly I handle pure and simple ideas now that I think too much about them. Today I wouldn’t have the guts to do not one, but two videos with static stones sitting on colourful tablecloths. But everything looks so great! I moved my camera so well! I really believed I was shooting the human soul! And we all look so young and beautiful!