Archives for “Barcelona” tag

This is one of the few centrally located places open for live performances of emerging bands in Barcelona!

It was opened in 1992, the year of the Olympic games, big hotels and huge impersonal malls. Fortunately it was also understood that the bohemian mood was something that gave the city its popularity.

In order to play there, bands must pass the filter of the bar manager, a frenetic indie music fan who is quite aware of his roll as a gate keeper for bands that have to struggle their way into this fortified jungle of commercial mass. No wonder there was a comedian representing the country in an international music contest.

Either a jam session or a concert, there is live music every night, except for Tuesdays when they have theater performances and plays!

An excellent charcuterie and tapas bar in the heart of El Born district whose former owner realized, after running the bar for some time, that like a gynecologist, the sacrifice of working where others had fun was no life for him. Too much reading of ‘Fifty shades of grey’, perhaps. So he decided to sell and put up a hardware store for bondage games instead!

But the waiters, bartenders, butchers and regulars were not wiling to see how the atmosphere they had built would vanish and turn into the thorny subject of role games played within the confines of obsessive relationships. So some of them got together and bought the place from the BDSM renegade and managed to keep the soul of the bar within the satisfying boundaries of couples wishing to explore their imaginative limits by setting some sort of co-owned cooperative horizontal management economato.

This bar offers a variety of first quality tapas, salads, sausages and types of cheese, accompanied by a selection of Catalan wines. Its original flavors and friendly service would make the perfect sparking system for firing a long night together that would end up with breakfast on bed. 

The 2 fromages salad is big enough to fulfill two empty stomachs, but you must taste the typical Catalan bread n’ tomato.

Partying the whole night long just beginning the week might sounds quite irreverent, but it happens in.

And now that nasty Mondays are not free a new sprout has grown from his brother in arms, the crappy Tuesdays! More indie and Electro Pop though but still filthy.

Apolo is in the tiny and fragile border that separates mainstream clubs from the underground indie scenery, but still not that spoiled though.

Its one of the last icons alive in downtown Barcelona where you can ride undaunted music sessions, now that authorities consider a gambling den or lousy jointevery place where you can enjoy a sip of authentic bohemian mood.

Behold… the bar prices are not that indie though. Hence its better to go to one of those bars in the Gothic Quarter offering a happy hour until 22:00, stuff yourself with mojitos and then start marching in single file to Apolo around 23:30.

Try to be there before 00:00, because afterwards the line would go around the block.

Whoever wants to escape from the main room psychedelic Dance-Rock sessions: there is an alternative at La [2] de Apolo: electro & Fidget House with a Hip Hop flavor.

There’s the Canibal sound system on Wednesdays, Powder room on Thursdays, The Nitsa club everyday Friday and Saturday… and if a burlesque experience is what you are looking for: go to Taboo at 22:00 some Thursdays and Sundays (check schedule).

Summer is here and so are the frying pans of the streets as well as the metro and train grills… and so is Montjuic open air cinema!

Since politicians and bankers are not able to get their fancy seats up there, nor would they mingle with normal people anyway, the open air cinema at the Montjuic castle is dedicated to you and me, proletarian pedestrians gnawed by vermin.

The fresh air, the live music appetizer, the shorts films entree as well as the main dish movie are the pollution escapade providers. The perfect set up for a picnic with that spring break extravaganza salad recipe you learned while on a roll of hay, or the negroni chicken that seduced that tough fence you thought you would never be able to climb, or the malastrana pasta that gained you that always-a-charmer-never-a-partner reputation.

Sessions are every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 20:30 until the 7th of August.

This petite bar, modeled on a typical bar in pre-war Marseille, opened in 1947 and has hardly changed since.

It’s a cosy little, arty bar, about the size of a small living room, decked with paintings, sketches and prints layered with nicotine, offering chatter, laughter, Edith Piaf and French accordion music.

Ángel, the owner, serves his own labelled absinthe and pastis, good cold draught beer and a spread of French wines and spirits.

The bar hosts very intimate gigs – chanteueses and tango – there’s only just enough space for two or three slim performers. And there’s music, at around 22:30, most nights.

The clientele are a mix of the curious, the romantic, the lost, the knowing, the restless and the brave.

Go there, try it, it’s a one-off. If you’ve any romance in your soul I’m sure you’ll fall in love with the place.

Two members of the band, R.E.M. called in once to try the absinthe. It’s a popular haunt for local transvestites and prostitutes. It’s the sort of place I can imagine Jean Genet hanging out in.

It’s just around the corner from El Cangrejo.