Crack Pictures / Fotos de Crack

Pepe was responsible in Crack both for our little light equipment on stage and also for the sound system. He was with us almost from the very beginning, always ready to give us a hand with whatever was needed.

He was a friend of Mento since their early youth in Avilés, their home town, a near-by city in Asturias. He had played the keyboards with a couple of groups before he joined us, and he was familiar with the sound equipment what made him a perfect man for the job.

Last time I talked to him on the phone just recently he told he was still playing with a band in Avilés, but he was ready for retirement. The picture was taken shortly after Crack disbanded .

In the photo, Luis Fernández Soria(video in Spanish), one of the most prominent sound engineers in Spain (until his recent retirement) and Pepe, our own sound engineer, attentively following Luis' explanations as to how he though Crack should sound. Luis seemed to enjoy working with Crack, as its music was in many aspects quite different of other bands he had worked until then. His suggestions were always very interesting, and he was very helpful in getting some of the extra resources finally added to the record (the mellotron for example.)

I can't say exactly where and when this picture was taken. It was for sure during our summer tour in 1978 and most probably before one of our concerts in Leon.

The poster behind us was our band poster, the cheapest we could get at the time with our very limited resources: black and white and no images. As a matter of fact this was basically the same poster the old predecessors of Crack had been using for their own concerts.

Somewhere else we will give some details about this ancient Crack, with other members except for Vidal, and playing a totally different type of music.

If you get close enough and read the small sign over the poster you will see the word "Electroshock". At that time Mento proposed to change our name from simply Crack to "Crack Electroshock". He seemed to like the word and he though that including it in our name would fit perfectly with his idea that Crack's project was so special and unique in our country that it would provoke an impact so strong as an electroshock :-)

I was never too hot about using these two nouns in apposition and probably the others except for Mento felt the same way. I don't know how long we used this name but probably the idea was dropped very soon by everybody.

I have heard that in the US, and probably in the rest of English-speaking countries, girls are said to like to go pee together.

I am not sure this is the same in our Latin cultures with girls but I know that here in Spain there is a very popular, but also somewhat rude little phrase which goes "La picha española nunca mea sola" literally "a Spanish dick never pees alone" describing a very typical situation when a guy has the need to take a pee "I need to take a pee" and suddenly the whole group of friends happened to feel the same need.

At that point most probably someone would echo that little phrase "la picha española..." This picture was taken in the middle of nowhere, some of us in the van with the equipment, the rest in Vidal's small car, when we all felt that pressing need. Manolo's little son is probably wondering what the hell goes on with these adults!

We were surely on our way to our next concert somewhere in the region of Leon.

This one was taken in Madrid, in late winter/early spring 2009, the day we met again after more than 30 years.

I had seen Mento a couple of times in Gijón when I visited my parents in those 30 years, but other than that I had had no contact with my ex-band through all those years. I think it had been quite the same for the rest of us.

It was an email from Eduardo Salueña, a musicologist and also a prog rock musician and enthusiast, which set everything in motion: He was interested in knowing all sort of details about Crack and he was even considering the possibility of producing a DVD including our music as well as a booklet with a plenty of facts about Crack. He also talked about organising in Gijón some sort of tribute concert in which we would get together and play some of our tunes.

I got all my ex-colleagues telephones and told them about the project, and we all agreed that the first thing should be to get together and talk. And this is what we did that sunny spring day in Madrid: it just felt great to be together again!

We had met Cani (Encarnación González) a few months back when we were considering adding some backing vocals for the band. We were immediately delighted both by her singing but also by her sweet personality.

She had her own duo and collaborated with other musicians, still we agreed to meet again if finally we could produce and release "Si todo Hiciera Crack". So, the moment a date was fixed with the recording company we asked Cani if she could come to Madrid and help us with the vocals. All her vocals were prepared and rehearsed directly while on the spot in the studio.

This picture was taken a few months after Crack disbanded. As I said somewhere else some days before the album appeared in the shop windows, and we could hear it for a couple of weeks in some national radio stations I was the first to leave the band (such a stupid thing for which mainly Mento and I were responsible).

I also tell you in those lines how difficult it was for me to live without Crack: anger, shame, you name it. However I was never too far from Crack and looking at its evolution from the corner of my eye with mix feelings of envy, deception but also admiration: The band after me also sounded great.

Like I said, the band disbanded soon, and we soon forgot our differences (it's funny I even forgot very soon the reason of our quarrel) so that even though Crack would no longer exist as such we still did play together for some time.

But this is another story I will also tell you about somewhere else. In the picture from left to right, yours truly, Rafa and Mento after a concert with a different band.

As part of the very small budget the record company had assigned for the promotion of "Si todo hiciera Crack" on the last five days at the studio the Spanish national television channel (TVE) recorded a video for the program "Popgrama" with us playing "Descenso en el Maëlstrom" after a brief introduction about the group I was asked to make.

As it was and still is almost the standard with musical TV recordings this was not a live performance but just a playback over the actual studio recording on the previous days. This is is a snapshot extracted from that video with me playing the flute.

None of us had a copy of this video after its release on TVE and we had totally lost track of its existence until 12 years ago miraculously we got a copy of it through a friend. Since then, we have used this video helping us to promote the memory of this old Spanish prog rock group and its revival :-)

Vidal Antón was one of Crack's original members and also one of its founders. He had played with Viti Carrizo (who would later found Asturcón) in the old Crack where apparently Jorge Martínez had also played the guitar. Apart from playing the bass during the first year Vidal was always the handy man for whatever was needed with cables, microphones and the PA system.

This one was taken in San Francisco, Formentera, sometime in September 1978.

After our long first spring/summer tour when we played mostly in Asturias but also in other neighbouring regions, (Cantabria and León) we took a short break to recharge our batteries and we spent a week or so in Formentera.

For those who do not know the island, Formentera is a small Spanish Mediterranean island with the most gorgeous beaches you can find in Europe. Now it has become too expensive but at the time we were there it was just an idyllic place very much appreciated by musicians, all sort of artists and some hippies.

Maybe some you have heard the name in King Crimson's song "Formentera Lady" or in James Taylor's song "Carolina in in my mind" whose origin is told here by James himself.

Those days in Formentera remained unforgettable for both of us. We would spend our time in the beach (Formentera was a nudist area) sunbathing and swimming in perfect sky-blue waters or talking about our plans and imagining new tunes (I had taken along a mandolin that we would use for chords and melodies).

I don't know how, but we always made friends with locals everywhere we played.

First thing after arriving to the place where we would give a concert that night would be unloading the heavy sound system and then setting it up. This used to take us quite a while as it was ourselves who normally did the whole thing. Sometimes a friend would give us a hand with the unloading and later at night loading the whole stuff back into our van.

But this was also one of our main responsibilities and not less important than our actual playing. Setting up the PA system and the soundcheck part was sometimes particularly difficult. Once every thing sounded reasonably well we would have some free time before the concert started. If at a certain point it began to rain or it became windy we would try readjust the sound accordingly. I remember the part of loading back into the van, sometimes late at night when we were tired as a real pain in the ass. But if we were happy with the concert that night, with the sound, I mean, that heavy task was much easier.

Then very late at night we would still either drive back to Gijon or drive to another town for the next day concert.

This one was taken in the Audiofim studios in Madrid during the recording sessions of "Si todo Hiciera Crack". Most likely on the fifth and last day when everything else was ready. Mento and I used to work well together on all aspects concerning the band. We both had the time and will to push Crack forward and this is what we did all the time while we stayed together. We would contact radio stations and newspapers for promotion interviews, we would visit venue owners, and even organize ourselves some of them whenever it was possible. Ours was in this sense, I think, a very productive association. Maybe our personalities, which were also somehow complementary, were nevertheless too strong to be able to share this fantastic common project which was Crack. Such a shame!

Manolo on drums. The photo must have been taken sometime during our spring/summer tour in 1978.

Manolo's drumset looked quite impressive on stage with lots of extra percussive instruments apart from the traditional drums, cymbals, tom-toms and hi-hats. He had two very big symphonic gongs plus a xylophone, tambourines, chimes, etc.

All these instruments provided particular tone colours which enriched our music. There were short passages in our tunes where drum beats were not required but Manolo's intervention through one or another percussive was omnipresent.

For more details on Manolo's musical career see article here. (in Spanish)

This picture is part of a set taken in Madrid during a long weekend in spring when we got together, this time to refresh our musical memories from over 30 years back when Crack was active.

Like I say somewhere else, we had agreed on our reunion day two months earlier that each one of us should would work indivdualy on every line we had played when Crack was still active in 1979. Once we thought we were ready, we all met again in Madrid for a couple of practice sessions, but this time together.

It was fun and not as difficult as we might have thought as the beginning. I, for example, had not played my flute and guitar for decades but everything apparently was still in our heads and the rehearsal went quite fluidly. We were sounding quite decently.

When we all left for home after the weekend we agreed to get together again two months later in Gijón and so definitely completing there our preparation for our prospective next concerts. We did get together, at least some of us Gijón. However there was no reunion concert as planned and Crack would never play again together.

In the picture, Mento gives instructions on how to play a certain passage.

In late winter/early spring 1979 the band rented a little country house not too far form Gijón, our city, in an area called Quintueles.

Manolo, who was married had three kids and was living in a small apartment, Vidal also lived with his family and Mento lived also in an apartment his mother owned in Gijón. The rest of us needed accommodation and were always totally broke. Finding this little house with a more than reasonable rent in the country was a blessing.

We could share expenses (Rafa, Alex, Pepe and I) and at the same time we did not have to pay extra for a reaharsing room as there was already a very convenient room aside from the rest and perfect for us. For those of us living in the house we didn't have to take off our sleepers and pajamas to pick up our instruments at any time of the day.

When it was sunny on weekends when everyone was available for rehearsal we could even set up our equipment outside and try to play not too loud as not to disturb too much our neighbours. Those months in the house were both very productive from the point of view of musical ideas as very pleasant in general for all of us.

In the picture from left to right (Pepe, sitting, Alex standing, Manolo, Alberto, Rafa only partly visible and Mento. And of course then Mento's dog Gilda, the one he is caressing, and the litle puppy whose name I don't remember)

The Chapa label was founded in 1975 as a sub-lable of Zafiro, one of Spain's largest record companies.

Their early releases could be cataloged as hard-rock, classic-rock, or more specifically as "rock urbano" (urban rock), then progressively incorporating a series of groups whose music the company, mainly for promotion purposes, tagged as "rock con raices" (rock with roots).

Most of these groups could easily be considered simply as "rock andaluz" (andalusian rock) or as progressive rock groups with some andalusian influences. The music of Crack clearly did not fit into this pattern. However Chapa, who was looking for other Spanish groups outside Madrid (rock urbano) or Andalousia (andalusian rock) set their eyes in a few groups from other parts of the country and more specifically from Northern Spain.

Crack's music was not "rock with roots", "andalousian rock", or even Mediterranean rock (prog rock with jazz-rock influences with very interesting representatives mainly in Catalonia). Still, as the story goes, it seems they decided to sign us without even listening to our music.

Anyway, this was the picture selected by the company for promotion purposes. I confess I don't remember seeing this picture anywhere during the almost non-existent promotion campaign for the record. We did however receive a few copies. I think I have the last original.

Rafa in the foreground warming up and playing scales getting ready for a open-air rehearsal while Vidal inside the van sets up the sound.

This is the Ibanez he used to play before he got enough money to later on buy himself a Gibson. Also in the picture his Marshall amp which he could not later on use during the recording sessions I mention somewhere else.

The photo was taken in the garden outside our little house in Quintueles I mentioned above.

Most of us quit music as our main occupation only a few years after Crack. I moved to Majorca and progressively spent less and less time playing music. I refused the idea of spending the rest of my life playing in hotels for tourists.

However I still remember as very interesting the harmony lessons I took there at "El Centro de la Guitarra" (a great place for guitarist and musicians in general) from Pepe Milán a great guitarist who had recently come back from the Berklee College of Music and had a lot to teach us. Then I went back to Law school and well... to a life away from music.

Manolo, who had always earned his living mainly outside music kept playing in different bands until only very recently. Vidal and Alex lead a life on the same basis, they never left, music but they earn their living somewhere else.

Rafa played commercial music for a while with a reputed band from Asturias where the salary was pretty good, but he was not satisfied either with the type of life this would lead him to. As he has always been a musician, also interested in sound he thought a decent way to earn his living could be in the area of sound engineering.

And this is what he has done for the last 40 years. Always very close to music and sound, always practicing on his guitar, always listening to old and new guitar wizards.

As for Mento, well, he has been the only one of us who had not done anything else but projects related with music. I have always admired his perseverance, in good or bad times, giving up the possibility and getting more money maybe by getting involved in somebody else's project. The projects he has always been involved in have been his own projects. Sometimes humble as when he would give lectures on music in schools for kids and youngsters, sometimes creating new bands in new styles. Always finding resources, always been his own representative, always negotiating himself the conditions.

I see him as the best example of a self-made musician, a true prototype of an old-school musician. Throughout these years he has been the leader of so many projects!

He has even designed his own particular new old instrument, the asturian raviola, some sort of fussion between a rebec and a viola.

His latest projects have been related with celtic asturian traditional music. You can see video here of his group Gueta na Fonte and here another of a small ensemble of La orquesta céltica asturiana (he his the one playing the cello) In this picture you can see him in front of "La Orquest Céltica" playing the harp and ready to launch into a new tune.

When Crack finally disbanded only a few months after the release of our album Mento, Rafa and myself decided to stick together at least for a while with a new project, this time more oriented towards the commercial side and with no pretensions other than to get some money with live performances mainly in pubs.

This time it wasn't our own music, but we would just play jazzy or jazz-rock standards and eventually even some dancing stuff. The idea was to keep a low profile and spend some time just to wait and see how things would evolve.

Anyway, when Alex, shown here on the right side of the picture left, he moved to another city found a job driving ambulances, if I remember correctly, and kept playing music in his free time as I he would tell me later. Since then, I had totally lost track of him until 2009 when I phoned him and told him about our plans of a get-together in Madrid. It was great to talk him on the phone.

I remember a long conversation, probably over an hour, in which we spoke of the past and present and his work and his group...He was delighted with the idea of the revival projects for Crack but his work and family responsibilities kept him from travelling to Madrid and later restarting rehearsals God-knows where. I totally understood his position: I would have done exactly the same in his position. Fortunately those responsibilities were not so compelling for the rest of us, and we did not to stop our life to embark into a foolish project. Then at the end of October 2106 we got the news, our friend Álex had passed away: a hard blow for all of us.

Three years later I found this video on Yotube of Alex son playing "with him" Descenso en el Maëlstrom. I felt so moved, so happy and sad at the same time...

See more pictures of Crack here Ver más fotos de Crack aquí