Tony García: Albums that are listened to and lived

"Look, this is a topic I've thought a lot about: I believe that, in reality, I haven't decided many of the important things in my life. They've just happened to me, and that's it. Many times I have reflected on some non-decision. In 2001, for example, I did a semester at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles, and I was tempted to stay there to try the American dream. I suppose this non-decision meant my life didn't change dramatically. I came back home and continued where I had left off. I suppose taking that exit on the highway would have put me in a very different place right now, doing very different things," reasons drummer, composer, and music activist, Tony García, at the bar, sipping a very watery American coffee, with the radio playing in the background.

He has arrived shortly before noon, after spending the morning "rehearsing, composing, and thinking about my things," a recent habit for someone who, until recently, was a confessed night owl. "Lately I'm discovering the charm of living in the morning," he reveals.

Born in Murcia "quite a while ago," Tony came to Barcelona in 2005 with the intention of staying and now considers himself an adopted Catalan.

"I came to study jazz at Taller de Músics. I had started at 14 playing in rock and garage bands, but it's been a long time since I focused exclusively on black sounds, which is what has always interested me. Jazz, funk, and, for some time now, hip hop. Ten years ago I invented Discos Redondos, a vinyl record store where I basically offer the music I like in the format I like. First it was a website and a street stall at record fairs, now it's a stable store located in Sant Antoni, in the space I have inside the Prole de Comte Borrell bookstore."

In addition to the store, Discos Redondos is also a small music label: "I release jazz records, made in Barcelona almost artisanally". After publishing two releases by the quintet of bassist and composer, Marco Boi, the next is the vibrant album by the OGB Trio + R project, in which the regular plays and composes, and which is currently in pre-sale phase.

Things that start at Norma Cómics

Coming to Barcelona is, possibly, the most important thought-out and orchestrated decision the parishioner has ever made in his life. "This idea got stuck in my head in 1991. They brought us on a school trip and took us to the Norma Cómics store. There I bought an illustration book by Manara, which I still keep, and even then I thought I wanted to live in this city. At that time I was a compulsive consumer of Cimoc, Zona 84, El Víbora and Métal Hurlant. Things like collecting records, selling them in a store or the label have emerged later, very naturally and very little thought out, when the time came."

All that cultural restlessness, Tony channels it through his music, his label and store, and also through another activity that is part of the purest grassroots cultural activism, the Gran Price Vinyl collective, together with Emma Tarragó. An idea "that arose to create a record fair for Sant Antoni, which did not have its own, and to pay tribute to the disappeared Gran Price venue, which was a very important stage in the countercultural movement of 1970s Barcelona. Within the program of activities of this fair we have always included exhibitions about Barcelona musicians, record presentations, concerts and things like that. We have always wanted it to be more than a mere sales event for collectors."

The collective, which is now collaborating with the Jazztrònica festival, returns in June to the Calàbria 66 center "to organize the first post-coronavirus edition of the Gran Price Vinyl Fest. We are very excited!" This is one more step "in that long-distance race, after all the crises and disappointments, that our generation has had to swallow, despite which we continue to undertake creation and dissemination projects with a certain joy, which is something to be proud of."

A city with its own voice

More than a concrete fact, what Tony loves about this Barcelona, where he decided so long ago that he wanted to come and live, "is that it has historically been capable of having its own scene, with its own voice, in the disciplines that interest me. Years ago, when you couldn't study jazz anywhere, here were the Taller de Músics and L'Aula del Liceu. When no one was continuously and stably publishing jazz made here, there was Fresh Sound with the New Talent series. And if you don't want to look back so far and are looking for younger initiatives, there are also a lot of examples, like the Say It Loud festival, the Deskomunal venue, or The Changes collective, with management models that make it possible for a local fabric of quality projects to continue developing."

"Barcelona has historically been capable of having its own scene, with its own voice, in the disciplines that interest me"

--- What always wins, and by a landslide, is our gastronomic offer. We have a menu, portions, tapas, sandwiches... an endless array of delicacies!

Tony García finishes his coffee and, after a very quick review of the available provisions, declares:

--- Let them be portions ---he laughs. I am a rational being.