None of them looked like good Catholics.

Source here.

For all the pervasive global influence of Anglo-American popular culture, its distinctive regional variants around the world are always worth bearing in mind.

In my rash coverage of punk, I’ve expanded to the GDR and China. Now I’m grateful to a recent Guardian article for opening my ears to La Movida Madrileña punk movement in Madrid, also broadening my Iberian horizons beyond flamenco and fado (here, and this sequel)—for more on Spanish punk, click here; for punk in Portugal, see e.g. here.

Franco had been dead for a while before those he repressed in Spain felt brave enough to celebrate in public. The dictator’s four-decade rule did not neatly expire in 1975, when he died. The country was still being effectively run by soldiers and priests when a ragged lineup of young punks staged a free concert at Madrid Polytechnic on 9 February 1980. Forty years later, that night is remembered as the event that launched La Movida Madrileña, a countercultural eruption in the city during the country’s volatile “transition” to democracy.

In Spain the Sex Pistols’ “fascist regime” had a more visceral connotation. As punk pioneer Servando Carballar recalls,

people forget just how long the practices of church-sanctioned military rule persisted after Franco. Homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1979. Spanish women, including Carballar’s bandmate and future wife Marta Cervera (aka Arcoiris), had long been subject to a patrician curfew, which made most streets and bars an entirely male domain by 9pm. The country’s Civil Guard could still break up any gathering of more than three people, and detain anyone whose clothes, hair, or face gave them the flimsiest pretext under the prevailing law of “dangerousness and social rehabilitation”.

Notable bands included Aviador Dro and His Specialised Workers, Los Secretos, La Banda Trapera del Río, and Parálisis Permanente. Here’s the all-female band Vulpes, reminiscent of The Slits, with their soon-to-be-banned Me gusta ser una zorra (“I like being a slut”), a cover of The Stooges’ I wanna be your dog (1969!):

Another female singer was Alaska—who appears as lesbian rocker Bom in Pedro Almodóvar’s debut film Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón (1980). Here’s a trailer:

Today, Madrid is run by a rightwing coalition who refer to that period, if at all, as a brief spell of leftist decadence.

To complement my post on French slang, I also learn of Spanish cheli, which adopts words from the underworld—such as cutre, “seedy in a good way”, perhaps “edgy”.