Los Pasos

Artist: Los Pasos

LP: 7" single

Song: "Te Quiero Porque Te Quiero"
[ listen ]

It was my last full day in Barcelona and I was feeling melancholy. I'd rented a bike at Ajo Bike the day before so I could be swept away on a bike ride with some new Spanish friends. 

[ My Barcelona Bike ]

We rode for miles up the coast to lay on a much-less-crowded beach than the ones that are located in the heart of downtown Barcelona. 

[ My Barcelona Beach ]

We didn't get back from the beach until after 7:30pm, and since the bike shop closed at 7, I had to cram my bike into my bedroom and then still had it to use the next day. One of my favorite Spanish adventures was riding my bike alone through the early-morning cobblestone streets of downtown Barcelona. I rode to a little shop and bought some candy to take back to my colleagues at work, and also visited the post office so I could send off some postcards I'd written over the course of my vacation. The post office in Barcelona is way fancier than the one in my neighborhood back home.

[ Barcelona Post Office — Outside & Inside ]

Later that evening, it was finally time to visit the last and final record store of my trip to Spain, though it was actually a store I'd already tried going to a few days before. According to the sign on the door during my first visit, the vacation was over at 10,000 Records and they would be open from 5-8pm that evening. Of course they didn't open at 5pm, so I walked around the block. They were open when I got back at 5:15, and in I went. 

I poked around in the LP bins for a bit and found a fairly outrageous 12" single worth keeping, but then I found a group of bins full of singles tucked into the corner and, since my time was limited, I turned my focus there. A friendly fellow was running the place that evening, and he had set up a little listening station on the counter by where he was standing. I picked up a bundle of singles (nearly 10,000 I'm sure), wondering all the while how on earth I was going to get all the records I'd purchased onto the plane without paying a number of substantial bribes. (I managed somehow, of course—thank god for the heavy-duty frozen-food shopping bag I picked up in Schenectady back in 2016.) 

One of the 10,000 Records I found is this 1969 release by Los Pasos, a Spanish band that was only around from 1966 to 1972. You can read about Los Pasos on Wikipedia in Spanish and English, where their style is characterized as a delicate balance of vocal games and instrumental predominance. 

[ Los Pasos]

[ 10,000 Records — Barcelona, Spain ]