Edition Box Recordings complete, it returns to the present that was one of the major groups in the history of English pop, The Last of the line. This box, lush presentation in size LP, includes six discs recorded by the duo (the first three remixed, remastered others), a DVD with exciting diverse materials and a hardcover book full of photographs and completed an interview today by Diego A. Portet Quimi Manrique and Manuel Garcia in which both reviewed, ten years after their separation, the human and musical adventure they lived together, revealing some hitherto unknown details.
Text: JUAN PUCHADES.
At one point, in the mid 90's, in which The Last of the row was considered the most important group in the history of English pop. With permission from Mecano, would have to say. And measuring important figures in data that overwhelm, we have to clarify.
But yes, the duo sold astronomical amounts bursting disc and all areas in which he acted, did what few have: to reach mass audiences and be caressed by the critics, the latter, at least in the first part of his career. And all this occurred unexpectedly, because Manolo Garcia and Quimi Portet, when success came to her door ("Love came through the window?) And were two veterans in this music, two brave fighters who had seen their previous projects and they failed hopelessly, stubbornly, he tried again. Many others in similar circumstances, threw in the towel, but this odd couple, like a boxer who has received so many blows do not care fall again on the canvas, it recognizes as a friend, he rose again and try it again, launching an air strike y. .. Look for where, in 1987 an album that was remixed-failure-themes of his first two albums as The Last in Line, gave the final blow, which led them not only to win the match, but to become, from that time for a few more years with the national title. BACKGROUND
Manolo García (Poble Nou, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1955) drawing and painting but also sang and played drums in bands, until in 1980 he set up a pop group, The Rapids. Training records as support band I have an idea of \u200b\u200b(1980), the first LP Sergio Makaroff-in which Manolo beating the drums and you can even hear some clear his voice choirs and a unique work in that same 1980, the group called, The Quick, to the EMI Label circulating among the vanguard of modern English pop, but little else. You remember, yes, the wild live in that scene and destroy televisions do, especially Manolo, donkeys with relish.
The Burros will be just the name of the next experience Manolo García, which is added part of The Fast and incorporated Quimi Portet (Vic, Barcelona, 1957), previously leader of Chuck Kul. This time for the much folk record label Belter, for which designs made Manolo (oh, sure anonymously!). Again, nothing happens, but history are two songs: "Bones" and "My girlfriend's name was Ramon." Uncertain times ahead, but they try Quimi Manolo and once again, turning to Los Burros in The Last in Line, a duo which will highlight the singing remarkably Manolo set to songs like "Bones" a sort of educated voice in rock but with ways Andalusian more debt to the flamenco copla.
PART
The first stage of trajectory Last Row is what leads them to disk 1988 as the head of the hat, the more uneasy, in which the duo laid the foundations for a sound that has its part in rock Quimi electric guitars Portet, its melting point in Moorish airs some flamenco melodies and the voice side of Manolo García, in addition to those acoustic guitars (their folk side) and English that are dropped here and there. Not forgetting, we can not forget even for a moment, the literary world who demonstrate, which combine social messages, pictures of who knows the slum, a luminous metaphors and surrealism as stimulating. With the addition of all these elements we obtain the formula that gives rise to the sound of The Last of the Fila. Which captured the music criticism in 1984, won the competition with models of Espezial Rock magazine, and from there everything was congratulations, and then was seeping into the public.
Although they had an offer from a big company, this came as Manolo and chemo were negotiating with the independent firm PDI and Barcelona, \u200b\u200bin a move that further define the attitude of both decide to ignore it and keep the small label Catalan. With which in 1985 recorded the first album, When poverty enters through the door, love jumps out the window which contained songs like "Sweet Dreams", "The fool on the street", "Miracles." An album that sells, in his first months on sale 30,000 copies, a figure that doubled to Enemies of the foreign-remember songs as successful as "Far from the laws of men", "Insurrection", "My home in my shoes" "Aircraft silver", "No "...-, get used the second paper, published in 1986. Today, with the crisis of the disk, data may seem remarkable, but at that time were just right and promising.
These two discs have to be considered almost as a whole, since both suffer from the same defects or virtues, depending how you look: a sound frayed, poor production, with Portet and Garcia as co-producers of the first and second-producers and a group with great songs and fresh but clearly recorded on a budget. The group's next record seems to confirm that the main problem of these two initial deliveries in the mixtures. For the last row. Remixes is precisely a compilation, which brings together the best tracks from those two albums remastered, what to do to win in depth and clarity. New mixes will eventually shoot the disc Last of the Line, leading them to sell three hundred thousand copies and put them in the musical foreground.
As a side note, let us note that in 2008, for a box that brings us here, When poverty enters through the door, love jumps out of the sale of the foreign enemies have been mixed and remastered in full and it shows, and much .
For his next work, the third with new songs and one for PDI, the duo has learned the lesson and as the head of the hat (1988) is recorded in France, in time, no hurry. Manolo Quimi and producers, order their ideas and define the disk that is unlike any other the true sound of your project. Here is the mark of the redesigned home, polished, improved, offering the best of herself. The audience welcomed him with open arms enter through the front door in the first division, rotating in big spaces and close to, the unseen, six concerts in the sports hall of Real Madrid. But, inevitably, has closed an era.
SECOND AND LAST PART
To address what would be the second and final part of the trajectory of The Last in Line, Quimi Portet and Manolo García, free contract with PDI decided to create his own label, Dog Records, a company that today continues and which is responsible for professional matters of both. An independent record label EMI with the multinational firm marketing their albums. This decision must be enclosed in the independent spirit that guided the trajectory of the group and that marked many of their decisions: they refused to appear on television performing playback, controlled the price of tickets for concerts and decide in full freedom what steps they wanted to. That is, reserved the right to say no, privileged few.
The first disc of this new stage is small catalog of new and be loved (1990), who wore a lot of logos of environmental organizations, and with reasonable Astronomy (1993) and Rise of the frogmen (1995 ) is to form a trilogy that might well be called the loss of joy. Yes, if even then the work of The Last of the row had been marked by a very healthy constant search is now over and the duo recreating their own findings in its own successes, but also in their own tics, in their own clichés. Thus, the disks become more opaque-in music and texts, not that old mad joy, sadder. Something which, however, seems not to care much about his own followers. But data-back-data, sales figures, the concerts offered and the thousands of people attending them fail to alleviate the flatness of the latter part of his discography, in notes that no rope or some country managed to raise. Their sound has been standardized, they call it style, and defended themselves against accusations that they made the time-critical, but they forget that the style should not be necessarily at odds with evolution, and they clung to excess to its own format, sometimes (Rise of the frog men) to appear engrossed in it.
On January 13, 1988, The Last of the Fila announced its dissolution. As did Al Green, The Last Row closed its doors at the summit, when the public was not yet tired of them. Behind a decision which is Quimi Portet, who simply would rather be the aperitif with friends (this is expressed in the book that includes the complete recordings box) to proceed with an export machine (their albums were released in some European and Latin American countries), unstoppable because, according Quimi, groups are young men and things "most want to work without consulting anyone." EPILOGUE
After the adventure of The Last of the row happened what seemed predictable: Manolo Garcia, voice and image of the group drew the public that was in a race that, musically, has not departed much of which gave him fame, but many of their products induce the listener to yawn. For his part, and predictably, Portet Quimi retreated to the Plain of Vic: he loved the sound design of the disks that eventually set up their own recording studio and has been recording a series of solo albums, sung in Catalan, which has tapped into a surreal, humorous vein he must think it is very indebted to Sisa but, at times, produce a flush of others and, like Manolo discs is not unusual sleep-inducing . This shows that their union was the chemistry that worked, the one that exploded in those first three albums on which gave the best of themselves.
Source: EFE EME
