It was around march 1993 when The Happy Losers got knowledge of their
existence. Due to obscure and unknown reasons, one day these four clean
cut la's showed up in the basement of a instrument shop (heavy metal
gear, of course) and started to "practice" in a 3x3 room, surrounded by
long haired youngsters all dressed in leather and black and with throats
really soar from shouting to the army of darkness for assistance. In
this rather peculiar environment, the first songs flowed from their
instruments and funny enough... it was POP. Fortunately enough only a
few people were exposed to those "songs".
Before changing to a more familiar place, the actual location from which
the real songs come from, they roamed to a legendary shack that mutated
to the ROCK SOUL Studio, and gathering lots of confidence, recorded a
session which lead them to play in their first concert in the also
legendary Siroco Club. More a happening than a concert, they repeted it
till they earned enough dough to record something more decent and in a
more serios way.
The studio chosen was Green Drum. There they didn't only record their
first 4 track demo, but they got in touch with bands such as Los
Imposibles or The Stupid Baboons, who were the first in a great bunch of
frinds the band would make in the Pop universe!!.
The demo opened the doors to a totally unknown dimension: college
radios, magazines, fanzines, Clubs... and many people started to talk
abouth the four freaks that just landed in this strange underground
planet, taking note of how peculiar they were. Contemporary fanzines
such as The Reserve or Happy chose one song for their compilationsand
some critics started to show up in places like Spiral or Subterfuge,
leading to concerts in Barcelona and in the never forgotten Maravillas
Club.
Suddenly, Rock Indiana appeared. Although concerts were quite chaotic
and their image wasn't the expected (note that at that time lenses were
used by the 50% of the band... percentage that has increased to a
dangerous 75%), the bosses of the label were able to listen to the songs
behind the maheim, enjoy them and go a step further. They were invited
to appear in a New Wave compilation called "Anytime, Anywave". At that
point, the band chose a cover that clearly showed their brave
unconciousness (a distinctive label of their personality from then on):
The Man in the Corner Shop, by The Jam.
The felony was worth, appearing as one of the most interesting cuts in
the compilation. And not only that, since it opened the door for
recording an EP that came along with the fanzine Rock Indiana nº5. From
then on, radio stations started to talk about them, specially the
nationwide Radio 3.
The next step would be recording a second EP called OK with the
supervision of Miguel Angel Villanueva, and it led to be considered as a
"real band" in all pop forums. All their main features appeared at that
time: impossible harmonies, intelligent arrangements and their main
weapon: SONGS.
After touring a bit and making their name a familiar thing in the
"scene", they rapidly recorded an LP in the great Christmas of 1996 in
Rock Soul studio with the help of Carlos Torero and Ricardo del
Castillo, owners and ingeneers of the studio. The 14 cuts were called
Make'em Laugh which became a familiar frase in the rhumba nights held by
the band in those days, and was a spontaneuos way of defining the band
itself.
With a great deal of good critics in almost all radio and zine spaces,
the band boosted to unknown territories and started to be known not only
in Madrid and Spain, but started to get some International recognition,
with great reviws in such places as Amplifier Magazine and including
some original cuts in such prestigious compilations as the swedish Pop
Under the Surface Vol. II).
After two years of concerts, colaborations in various places, the band
was ready to record a second album. This time, the studio chosen was El
Jardín Parametrico. A millon complications appeared at that time due to
money restrictions, dates in the studio, goddess of the spanish "star
system", the schedules for recording, travels abroad and some other
complications we don't want to remember... but finally was ended and it
was released in April 2000, under the name of Apple Taste. The songs are
basically the same in structure, but now they are dressed more fancy,
with the help of a string quartet, pianos, oboes... and so the
arrangements are much more complicated, especially in the vocal section,
where 3 or more voices are always there, doing the unusual things you
would expect from them.
This second album was recieved even more enthusiasticly, and it really
took a national and international proyection. Inside Spain, they toured
for about two years playing in big festivals such as Festival
Internacional de Benicàssim or Socarrat in the summer of 2000. Abroad,
the key point of interes is Japan again, where they sell almost all the
vinyl copies of Apple Taste, and a song was included in the prestigious
Beikoku Ongaku 'zine (Under a song).
That same year they went all the way to L.A. to play in the
International Pop Overthrow (I.P.O.) and the bands tours the west coast
for the first time (playing in L.A. San Diego twice and Tijuana
-Mexico-). After a rather expectacular summer, the Losers decide to stop
playing for a little while and concentrate in their new LP. After a
whole year, it is ready, and thaks to Rock Indiana's contacts with The
Pyramidiacs, they get in touch with Michael Carpenter to ask him to be
the producer of the upcoming release. As the answer was yes, the band
and Michael spent two marvellous weeks with the result of Harry, Beardo,
Doc & Barry.

How does the story continues?... depends on you.

Milno brion (translated by Grandfather P.)


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