"Having made many bad decisions and having been unfair to many people thinking I was fair, in the long run I have been able to realize my dreams, I keep good friends from all my eras and I have recovered some friendships that seemed lost forever," reasons Joaquín Felipe, who takes a moment of silence to sip his coffee and pour the contents of the Vichy bottle into the glass with ice and lemon, before concluding: "All of this is still absurd."
Musician and composer and one of the most singular, expert and, to a certain extent, influential minds in the Spanish pop scene of recent years, he arrived at the Bar in the middle of the morning, although he could have done so much later or much earlier. "I wake up early and I'm a night owl, both things. Old people sleep less."
--- Should I leave the radio on?
--- Yes, go ahead, I do almost everything with the radio on.
"I am a lucky guy, I love life and everything it offers, I have lost many opportunities and taken advantage of many others," acknowledges the regular, who defines himself as "a hopeless music addict." It all started with the Beatles, whom he discovered as a child and who underpinned a future with an omnipresent soundtrack. Then came adolescence. "In 1978 I discovered The Jam" and thus were born, first, a band project called Freddy y los Perrys and, later, Los Canguros, a mythical mod formation in which the future chef, Sergi Arola, would play, and which bequeathed a few demos that the Barcelona label BCore would compile on the album Un salto adelante, in 2013.
Then came 1988. "That's when I discovered My Bloody Valentine and Aventuras de Kirlian. These and The Jam and The Beatles have brought about radical changes in my life and friends, depending on whether they understood that music or not," explains the musician, unable to hide the enthusiasm that those musical intelligences still ignite in him deep inside.
Dreams that come true
After Los Canguros dissolved, a few years had to pass before Felipe returned to the scene, first with Los Bretones and, shortly after, in the mid-90s, leading a very personal musical project, Pepito Sex. In parallel, he founded Los Fresones Rebeldes, which no one took as more than a joke, but which, already in their debut alone, filled the Sala Màgic and soon after created a school with dozens of other bands seeking that clean and naive pop sound with a total absence of any rock influence. "I thought it was impossible to ever have a successful music group, even shortly before it happened. The same thing would happen to me when I met my wife and, together, we formed a large family. It was another wish I had never thought would come true." And, speaking of dreams come true, here's another: "that Juan de Pablos would play my demo on his show two days in a row."
From then on, Felipe has been involved in various projects, from the delicate French sixties pop band, Les Très Bien Ensemble, to the successful Cola Jet Set or TCR, which are the natural continuations of Los Fresones Rebeldes who now, years after their dissolution and after various events such as the death of singer Inés Bayo, return "with a new single to be released in June and concerts in sight in Spain and Mexico."
--- I didn't think you would come back after all this time!
--- Before last summer I also thought I wouldn't get on a stage again, but seeing the singer Fleur live, at the Gambeat Weekend, the fever returned.
The measure of all cities
"In 1988 I signed an indefinite rental contract, with which I will be able to live in the center of the city I love until I die," explains the musician, who considers himself "very fortunate to have been born and to live in Barcelona, which for me is the measure of all cities." Having worked as a messenger in the times before the public examinations with which he won a permanent position at the Diputación, he knows well the nooks and crannies of a city that he still likes to explore on his scooter, "with Boy about town by The Jam playing in my head."
Annoyed by Colau's Barcelona, he asks for "a fast and well-connected city. Pollution was already going down and it's not solved with traffic jams at all hours by stealing lanes where no one walks. If I wanted to live in the countryside, I would go live in the countryside." But none of that prevents him from loving the city and associating it with exquisite memories, like a certain time, in the 80s, when he and the late pop artist, Ringo Julián, went to the Rompeolas. "There were spectacular waves and one almost swept us away. We took refuge in the restaurant at the tip and there we saw that, every time someone came to see the waves, they warned all the regulars to laugh when they broke over them," he recalls with a mixture of tenderness and melancholy for sensations that now only live in memory.
--- What is no laughing matter, and since we are talking about restaurants, is the gastronomic offer that characterizes us. We have everything: sandwiches, menu, tapas, combined dishes. Everything exquisite.
Joaquín Felipe smiles, then, at the prospect of a good delicacy and of continuing to accompany it with a good conversation about music and the infinite meanders of his beloved Pop Culture. And, after thinking about it for a moment, he speaks:
--- If it's good, it's indifferent to me. Of course, as long as it's savory, because of diabetes.