AEROLINEAS FEDERALES “Hasta el final y más allá... Maquetas 1983-1993”

There were few national groups in the second half of the eighties that were as big and as successful as AEROLINEAS FEDERALES. Their choruses are extremely catchy, their carefee attitude and youthful melodies got a huge public hooked on them, and made their five studio albums sell thousands of copies. Songs like “No Me Beses En Los Labios”, “Soy Una Punk”, “Sólo Quiero Divertirme”, “Alegra La Cara”, “No Sé Ligar”, “Hop Hop”, or their fun versions of “Summer Nights” from the movie “Grease” and “Video Killed The Radio Star” by THE BUGGLES, respectively re-titled “Vacaciones” and “Mi Video No Tiene Mando A Distancia”, now form a part of the history of Spanish pop and have clearly been influential to bands like VACACIONES, L-KAN, JUNIPER MOON and LOS FRESONES REBELDES.

Well, if we announced a few days ago that the band of Silvino Díaz,Miguel Costas (who was also a founding member of SINIESTRO TOTAL),Luis Santamarina,Rosa Costas andCoral Alonso are getting back together for a series of concerts in 2011 and 2012, there’s more news now with Elefant Records’ release of a CD and a double-10” pink-colored vinyl, with some of the demos recorded by the group from Vigo. The demos are from the period from 1983 – 1993, practically the whole of the group’s lifespan. And, this album will kick off a new collection from Elefant Records that will be called “Recuerdos Que Olvidé” (Memories I Forgot), and it will give us previously unreleased material and demos from some of the most important national pop groups.

This compilation of songs goes beyond a complete documenting of a band; it’s an album for fans, because it captures the punk-pop spirit that AEROLÍNEAS FEDERALES flaunted throughout their career in all its freshness and immediacy. Silvinohimself says so in the album’s introduction: “Es en estas grabaciones caseras donde, pensamos, se recoge el espíritu más auténtico del grupo y la esencia más genuina de la voluntad que movió su existencia. Nos pareció buena idea situar al grupo en un contexto parecido al de nuestros comienzos, es decir, que fuera percibido como lo que siempre fue, un grupo independiente en el sentido que el concepto tenía en aquella época, do it yourself. El hecho de que fueran canciones de maquetas hacía el proyecto más coherente y creíble para concebirlo de esa manera” (It’s on these home-made recordings where, we believe, the group’s most authentic spirit is shown, and the most genuine essence of the will that brought about its existence. It seemed like a good idea to situate the group in a context similar to our beginnings, which is to say, that would be perceived as it always was, an independent group in the sense that the concept was, even in that era, DIY. The fact that they were demo songs made the project even more coherent and credible to conceive it this way).

With two well-differentiated periods, “Hasta El Final Y Más Allá...” has some of the group’s first recordings, as well as an 8-song demo that should have been part of their sixth album and that never got released. These last songs are distributed on side-A and side-AA: “No Me Robes El Corazón”, “El Atracador”, “Locas Por Ti” (this is the version of THE REVILLOS, the group that AEROLÍNEAS FEDERALES have always declared themselves devout fans of), “Todo Va A Cambiar”, “No Todo Es Lo Que Parece”, “¡Oh Qué Calor!”, “Quiero Jamón” and “No Tengo Dinero”. With the exception of the last four songs, which were released in Gallego for the children’s program Xabarín Club, all the other songs are previously unreleased. They are demos with marvellous sound quality, on which we can enjoy the best of the band’s essence, somewhere between punk-pop and rock ‘n roll, with tremendously addictive, catchy melodies, resounding guitars and an openly “Ramones” spirit which convinces us that, if they had been released then, songs like “No Me Robes El Corazón” and “No Todo Es Lo Que Parece” would have become reference points in their repertoire.

Side-F features a demo that was recorded in the Universidad Popular de Vigo and recovered by Nino Martínez, the man who produced their first albums, and which was surely what convinced Servando Carballar, founder of the DRO label, to sign them. Here, we have two previously unreleased songs, “Vete Al Carajo” and “Yo No Tengo Amigos”, as well as 4 original versions of four songs that were later released in different versions on studio albums. “Sólo Quiero Divertirme” and “Ahora Soy Feliz” were released on their great eponymous first album and two B-sides, “Soy Fea” from the 1986 single “Ahora Soy Feliz” and the version of LIO’s song, “Trou De Memoire”, from the 1987 single “Oh Qué Pena Me Das”. These songs maintain an absolutely speedy pop spirit, since they coincided with Coral’sand Rosa’s arrival in the group, and with the successive change in sound.

And finally, side-FF has the songs from two different demos. One of them was in the possession of Miguel Costas himself, and it reflects live takes in a rehearsal space, of some of the group’s classic songs like, “Soy Una Punk”, “No Sé Ligar” and “No Me Beses En Los Labios”, in different formats than the ones they were finally released in. In addition to this, the previously unreleased  “La Isla” was recovered; the song was part of the band’s repertoire for a long time.

The last two songs, the oldest ones, are taken from the very first demo in 1983, which the group sent to Jesús Ordovás at Diario Pop, from when the band had a more purely punk sound, back when the band members were only Miguel, Luis and Silvino. “El Aeroplano” and “Aerolíneas Federales” (yes, we finally get to hear the song that gave the group its name) have a marked touch of JOY DIVISION, THE BUZZCOCKS, UNDERTONES and THE CLASH, darker than the music that would follow. It is an incredible document that helps us understand the important turn the group took with the arrival of the “Aerolinettes”.

This is, definitively, an imperative album, full of timeless, unquestionable hits. The album works as a document that reflects the essence and evolution of a key group in the history of Spanish pop, and as the perfect collection of solid, danceable, adolescent and savagely fun songs. As they were, and as they are, AEROLINEAS FEDERALES.

DOUBLE LP 10” [Pink Colour Vinyl] [Limited Edition] / CD DIGIPAK

The vinyl includes a free digital MP3 download [320 kbps]

TRACKLIST:01. No Todo Es Lo Que Parece 02. No Me Robes El Corazón 03. El Atracador 04. ¡Oh Qué Calor! 05. Locas Por Ti (Motorbike Beat) 06. Quiero Jamón 07. Todo Va A Cambiar 08. No Tengo Dinero 09. Ahora Soy Feliz 10. Vete Al Carajo 11. Sólo Quiero Divertirme 12. Trou De Memoire 13. Yo No Tengo Amigos 14. Soy Fea 15. Soy Una Punk 16. No Sé Ligar 17. No Me Beses En Los Labios 18. La Isla 19. El Aeroplano 20. Aerolíneas Federales

Artwork: Luis Calvo [Elefant Design]