THE BALLAD OF COFFEE NEGRE (Paul Law)
The more intimate bar in the neighborhood of the Sagrada Família missing closure. The current owner is not interested
20 years ago I moved to the neighborhood of the Sagrada Família. I studied art history and then I felt privileged to live next to the temple itself modernist Gaudi, watch it grow day a day to spend every morning on the way to the subway. My love affair with the Holy Family did not last. Over time, began to seem more interesting lift, near the temple, a replica amassing thousands of photographs that tourists from around the world do every day. At last I thought her fate would be better, once finished, dynamite and start again. After I stopped looking.
were happy years. No money, no future, but with all the time in the world. Overcome the disillusionment of the Sagrada Familia, I learned to appreciate the Eixample neighborhood had nothing direct. My universe, in fact, was limited to the kiosk, the breakfast bar, market, to the square of the lake where hundreds of gulls flying with its distinctive face of bad milk.
As I see it now, this was a perfect world. But he lacked a bar. It is true that the bars of all types were counted in tens. And I spent the dead hours with one coffee and a book or newspaper entire afternoons sitting in one of them, carefully chosen according to my mood. There was one, however, which never entered. A dark bar, twilight inhabited by shadows from another time playing dominoes. As if time had stopped and only the portrait of Dorian Gray imperceptible show the decrepitude of the passing hours. One day, the black bar and did not open its neighborhood doors and forgot.
was eight years later, 1994, in a particularly dark night, or so it seemed, when Jordan, Magic and Luigi penetrated, flashlight in hand, in the old bar Negre. I remembered his childhood Jordi was what seemed to him a huge marble bar and glass siphon that served the elderly and Enric Negre, great-great uncle. The wine bar was in the twenties and then, during the Republic and after the war, had arrived in Barcelona some renown, going to the Bulls in the Monumental, for their appetizers, especially the clams seasoned with a secret sauce . Moreover, at that bar is plotted an anarchist attacks against leaders of the regime, which resulted in the ambush and shooting of an official car at the intersection of Valencia, Marina. But that night the bar appeared in the eyes of Jordan, Magic and Luigi almost eerie, covered the ground with the bones of dead rats, the marble tables and comfortable wooden chairs stacked in the warehouse. What united the three friends were your musical tastes and a conception of life tied to rock and roll, a love story things, such as black bar, and a special talent to create good atmosphere around him. Thus came the black coffee and red and black shows. And there was the music, the Rolling Stones, especially, and also Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Van Morrison, Miles Davis, BB King, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Chuck Berry, Gram Parsons, Ry Cooder, Bob Marley ... The three men listed as one passes the rosary, adding, between the English groups, Kiko Veneno, Burning, Pata Negra, The Smiths. "We are a classic bar, 'they say now behind the marble bar to bar them, and Victor Baldellou, redecorated the walls painted in a border distinctly hippy. Black Coffee was just the bar that was missing from Sagrada Familia.
The bar, from the beginning, was a success. People who went there again and taking friends, who also returned with more friends. Today is a bar called the Barcelona nightlife. Began also to make presentations and, especially, concerts, even though the place is a tube. Bison have played there, Alan Bike, Fair, Cesc, Craufish, Dincremea, Smoking Stones, Montanya Els, Jose (Blue Finger), Jordi Soto, José Raúl, Olaf, Julio Lobos, Miguel Figueroa, Alfonso Herrera, Carlitos, Carlos Domingo, Silvia Zaragoza, Maika, and Joan Martí. People acting for free, or almost, for the pleasure of being in a local environment.
Since it opened, and until I left the neighborhood, I was a regular customer. Then I come back whenever I could. But a few days ago I called to tell me it closed. The current owner did not want to expose another argument that you throw. No increase in rent or purchase option, nothing. A change of activity and out. The Holy Family loses one of its great landmarks.
On Saturday 16 February saw the farewell party. They played many of the musicians who have gone over the history of black coffee. Behind the bar were Jordan, Magic and Luigi, and Silvia and David. The bar was packed and it was a sad farewell.
Even the local police refused to interrupt the party, which lasted well beyond closing time. At five in the morning broke the sound table. And at nine o'clock Jordi Chains, Dalmases and Luis Gisbert Magí cast forever close to a bar with history. A long story, dear. Unrepeatable.
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