Las Chicas Del Un, Dos, Tres

Artist: Las Chicas Del Un, Dos, Tres

LP: 7" single

Song: "Un, Dos, Tres...Responda Otra Vez"
[ listen ]

I did finally make it to Vinil Vintage, also on Carrer de Ramón y Cajal. It's a good and messy little store with a lot of vintage vinil to dig through, but I only ended up leaving with seven singles and a copy of Throwing Muses' "The Real Ramona" LP on 4AD (CAD 1002), which was something I was hoping I'd find on my trip to Europe. Seven singles may sound like a lot, but I'd just picked up 25 at the previous store, so I hope you appreciate my exercise in self-control. 

When I saw the cover of this 1972 single by Las Chicas Del Un, Dos, Tres it hardly mattered that there was no listening station on which to give it a spin. I would have bought it with no record inside! These Chicas didn't actually form a music group, from what I can gather, but were actually contestants (or stewardesses?) on some sort of Spanish TV beauty pageant that ran in the '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s. This single is from the premiere season of the show, and it was evidently N. Ibáñez Serrador who decided to set these lovely ladies to music. The girls were always easy to recognize by their huge glasses of pasta, and many of them went on to make a hole in the television star system. Actress Victoria Abril got her start as one of Las Chicas Del Un, Dos, Tres! You can read more about Las Chicas and their television show in an awkwardly translated online article here.

[ Las Chicas Del Un, Dos, Tres ]

[ Vinil Vintage — Barcelona, Spain ]

Formula V

Artist: Formula V

LP: 7" single

Song: "Loco, Casi Loco"
[ listen ]

After spending a couple of hours in awe while roaming in and around what I'm sure is one of the most magnificent churches on the planet... 

...with a guided audio tour provided by a lovely woman named Maria...

 

  
...I discovered my cell phone was dead from taking too many pictures. I figured "first things first," so I got some ice cream. I then set out with my photo-copied Google maps and no modern technological navigation device in hopes of making my way through a large and unfamiliar city to find some record stores. My maps weren't actually so bad, and I was able to locate Disco 100 on Carrer de l'Escovial. It's one of several record stores in the northern section of the city, near La Sagrada Familia.

[ Disco 100 — Barcelona, Spain ]

The thrill of finding this retail needle in an ancient haystack of a city was slightly diminished when it turned out they only sold new vinyl and CDs. Undaunted, I went in search of Carrer de Ramón y Cajal, the street a few blocks away where I hoped to find Vinil Vintage. A store with a name like that simply must sell used vinyl, right? I managed to find Ramón y Cajal, and as I strolled its narrow sidewalk, I passed by a small and neat-looking shop with some groovy music wafting through its open door. 

The place was called Novecento Música i Llibres and it's fantastic! Not only do they peddle Llibres, but they've got lots of bins of used Música too! By the time I finished rummaging, I ended up with a big stack of interesting-looking 45s (I tended to focus on singles on this trip, since they're easier to carry back on the plane and because if you end up with a dud you only have to suffer through two songs instead of twelve). The friendly proprietor offered to play records for me to help me reduce my risk. 

I was especially curious about a group called Formula V, since I'd found six singles by them there. They looked pretty nifty, but you never can be sure. I didn't want to buy all six and then have them end up sounding like The Everly Brothers, but I didn't want to buy only one and then later discover they're dynamite! Knowing me, I'd end up booking a flight back to Barcelona to pick up the other five.

The fellow at the store suddenly had to dash off to tend to a family emergency, but not before playing Formula V's "Loco, Casi Loco" for me, which immediately made me dump all six of the group's records into my 'must have' pile. It's Spanish '60s candy pop! (Though this single is actually from 1974.) I snatched up all other Formula V singles I found in the bins of Barcelona, and I think I ended up with nine. You can read a little about the group here and find their official website here.  

Formula V on YouTube:

[ "Ahora Sé Que Me Quieres" ]

 [ Novecento Música i Llibres — Barcelona, Spain ]

Mystic

Artist: Mystic

LP: 7" single

Song: "Disco Love Affair"
[ listen ]

The next morning I stopped in at Wah Wah Records, which turned out to be right next door to Discos Edison's, where I'd been the night before. Wah Wah is a terrific little shop packed to the gills with music. They've got an excellent selection of used disco-funk-R&B 45s, so I focused my attention there for the 90 minutes I had before heading out to my 2pm guided audio tour of La Sagrada Familia. 

I pulled quite a few gems out of their bins, including this "Disco Love Affair" from 1977. (What other type of love affair is there?) There's not much info about Mystic on the web, and Discogs shows only one other single from the group—a futuristic one also released in 1977. I evidently had the 'auto focus' feature turned off when I snapped my pics of Wah Wah, but you still get the idea.

[ Wah Wah Records — Barcelona, Spain ]

Henry Stephen

Artist: Henry Stephen

LP: 7" single

Song: "O Quizas Simplemente Le Regale Una Rosa"
[ listen ]

A week ago today I was in Barcelona, Spain! Some good friends had been invited to house-sit for some good friends of theirs at their L'Auberge Espagnole for the entire month of August. They, in turn, invited me to make my first pilgrimage to Spain to spend a few weeks with them. The trip was absolutely fantastic! And you bet I visited a bunch of record stores while I was there. 

The first one I checked out, on the evening of my arrival, was Discos Edison's. It's located just a few blocks from where I was staying in El Raval neighborhood of Barcelona. Edison's is a long and narrow store with lots of bins and piles of discos, way more than I was able to dig through in the 90 minutes before they closed. But I did find a couple of keepers, including this lovely 1969 single from Venezuelan singer Henry Stephen, who was once a member of Los Impala. You can read about him here. The cover of my copy features some sort of printing error, where one of the colors ended up slightly askew, giving it a 3D-without-wearing-the-proper-glasses appeal. I came across more copies of this same single at other stores and they had printed correctly, but that just made me feel like my copy was somehow special and unique.

[ Discos Edison's — Barcelona, Spain ]