At the helm of La Banda Trapera del Río, Morfi Grei, alias of Miguel Ángel Sánchez, was the spit that Spanish rock & roll was screaming for in the face, when punk began to timidly emerge from the national musical underground.
That's why, seeing him appear at the Bar in the morning, just as No te entiendo, a track included in the band's second album, Guante de guillotina, plays on the radio, feels like a mirage. "Leave it on," he asks, "let it keep us company. And get me a Vichy with a slice of lemon."
--- How are you here at this hour?
"Those of us who are getting older are already early risers," replies the singer, composer, and one of the spiritual fathers of Catalan punk, who confesses to having been, in his youth, "a bird, a vulture, a rat... a nocturnal cockroach." He laughs lucidly, disdaining an ego that, paraphrasing his friend Antonio Miró, "can kill more than drugs and alcoholism" and teasing life. All this despite health problems that include two bypasses in his femoral arteries and an imminent liver transplant operation, "from which I would love to come out alive," he proclaims, before praising the "brutal team that will operate on me in Bellvitge, in such hands I believe I will get through this."
Excited to be finishing La Banda Trapera del Río's farewell tour, the regular is clear that it's time for a final stop: "The time has come to say stop. La Trapera is a mythical group, a black legend. It shouldn't be handled anymore, like Edgar Allan Poe's novels or Baudelaire's poems." In parallel, he has just released an album with his new band, La Ley de Morfi, "in which I am going to pour all my creativity and all my lyrics and urban and street literature."
The crux is in the lyrics
"The main turning point of my life is when I saw Lou Reed at the Palau dels Esports de Montjuïc to present the album Sally can't dance, thanks to promoter Gay Mercader. I was fifteen years old and Lou had just done his glorious Rock & roll animal. I used to tell myself that Spanish rock & roll was missing something. That there were good musicians, but something was wrong. And it was clear: it was the lyrics, it lacked urban poets. And that was Lou Reed in New York. So I wanted to be the same for Cornellà and Barcelona, with lyrics like Ciutat podrida, Curriqui de barrio, or Venid a las cloacas." He sips his water and continues, "and I want to emphasize that that vital turning point, that enormous concert that made me realize the importance of lyrics in rock & roll, took place here, in Barcelona. That this city is non-stop."
La Banda Trapera del Río emerged in the second half of the 70s, in the transition, at times subtle and at times hurricane-like, between counterculture and subculture, in that no man's land moment that, in Catalonia, grips people between the death of the dictator and the arrival of Pujol. In December 1977, they headlined the first punk festival held in the state, at the Casino de l'Aliança del Poblenou and, a year later, they debuted with the EP La regla, which offended and angered those it was meant to offend and anger.
"I am only proud of La Banda Trapera del Río. I have had other bands, other projects, other songs, but La Trapera is my favorite... or maybe I should say the left one!" In 2010, Daniel Arasanz and Jaime Gonzalo wrote and directed a powerful documentary about the history of the group, the acclaimed Venid a las cloacas, and new generations discovered the necessary, incorruptible legacy of Morfi and his band.
Barcelona: beyond the postcard and a love story
"Although people think I'm very much from Cornellà, where I was born, the truth is I'm very much from Barcelona. And I'll tell you one thing, Barcelona is not just Raval, Las Ramblas, or Paseo de Gracia. This city is also Poblenou, Nou Barris, Poble Sec… And it's very, very big." The singer loves the city, of which he only abhors its political class. "What happens is that we have something in our favor. Think that they have tried to sink it again and again. Whether it's the sociatas, whether it's nationalism, whether it's the chiripitifláuticos… but Barcelona is Barcelona. It resists. It endures. Even that phantasmagorical city during the pandemic, with empty streets, even that Barcelona, I love it."
The regular instantly closes his eyes and recalls what was perhaps his happiest time in the city, back in the 90s. "I was coming out of a detox clinic, a private center for the rich where I was recovering in terms of work and getting back to relating to people. And I went to live in a millionaire's penthouse on Calle Casanova. One night, when I was going to a concert of a very cheesy 60s band called Los Albas, I ran into a beautiful transsexual, who was prostituting herself in the area. She tried to pick me up and I obviously said no, but we talked and, in the end, we ended up going to that concert together where we had a great time. Then, we ended up falling in love. What happened is that she wanted to continue prostituting herself, so it couldn't be. Who knows how it would have ended. The thing is, it was a very beautiful story," he declaims, now with his eyes open, his gaze lost at some imprecise point on the Bar's bottle rack.
--- What is a very beautiful story is the one customers have with our gastronomic offer. We have everything for a good lunch. Combination platters, portions, sandwiches, menu… All delicious.
Morfi Grei doesn't lose his smile, as his retina abandons the scattered glow of memory and replaces it with the concrete sparkle of the here and now.
--- Portion, absolutely, ---he declares, while what was once his band continues to play in the background, singing to Barcelona with all the soul, brutal and truthful, of its underground.