Chancellor: historical past of the temple of heavy metallic that was silenced with a wall of disgrace | Culture | EUROtoday

Anyone who skilled it can know what it is about: you went down some stairs and there was an enormous display screen projecting a video of Iron Maiden (to say one of many classics) performing The Trooper and lots of of heavies on the dance flooring shaking their hair with their imaginary guitar, give it a strive, taking part in plucks. Some confirmed a ability that as we speak would triumph in virality. Some wonderful lights and even smoke rising from the edges. The Canciller room, the Canci, the Disney World of rockers. You took line 5 of the Madrid metro to El Carmen, a cease at a grocery store to top off on liters (glass containers) and, with the final sip, you reached the door, at Alcalde López Casero, quantity 15. Admission: “500 pesetas with a ball.” Buses arrived from many elements of Spain: rockers attracted by a nightclub that hosted 176 live shows in its eleven years of existence (from 1984 to 1995). But the get together ended badly. A triple alliance took down the Chancellor: the residents of the constructing who lived above it, a district councilor whose tastes had been removed from rock and the priest of the native parish. A narrative with numerous the Spain of then, which is considerably much like that of now, and with an unworthy wall that’s among the many nice municipal nonsense of the capital. A documentary, Chancellor. The temple of rock (with common screenings and dialogue on the finish of the screening), now tells the main points of what occurred.

Juan Antonio Rodríguez, proprietor of Canciller, is 78 years outdated as we speak. He and his nephew, Sócrates Pérez, 65 years outdated, supervisor of the nightclub, serve EL PAÍS in a small workplace that they nonetheless have on the central Montera road in Madrid. They are actually retired and use this house to archive paperwork and reminiscences from the time. Posters, photographs and lots of live performance tickets grasp on the partitions: Saxon, Nina Hagen, Black Crowes, Extremoduro, Obús, Ramones, Iron Maiden… They all carried out at Canciller.

30 years have handed because the disappearance of the venue and Antonio (as everybody is aware of Juan Antonio) nonetheless will get emotional when he remembers the episodes that led to the closure of the venue: “The heavies were marginalized in the institutions. They were ignored. Not even in the big media. And that made my blood boil. Over the years, many of our clients have been doctors, businessmen or judges. What we wanted with Canciller was to offer the heavy a place with the best, to give it love, the latest news in videos, proper sound… And it was also a business, of course. But it seems that some powerful people did not like this and they persecuted us until they destroyed us.”

Vicente Martín Terán has directed the documentary with one intention: “To vindicate the determine of Chancellor, who was forgotten within the face of Rock-Ola. Chancellor lasted greater than twice so long as Rock-Ola, he had extra capability [1.800 personas por las 700 del local de la Movida] and extra vital live shows had been held. Chancellor was an important cultural reference in Spain that was not valued sufficient,” he says by telephone.

Rodríguez nonetheless retains his Extremaduran accent (he was born in Zalamea de la Serena, Badajoz) regardless of having lived in Madrid for a few years. His mother and father, farmers, fathered seven kids. Rodríguez arrived within the capital when he was 16, within the mid-sixties. He started working as a bellhop at Banco Peninsular. “At school I wasn’t interested in playing soccer like all the kids. I preferred to listen to Los Brincos, Los Canarios, Lone Star and especially Los Bravos. They drove me crazy,” he says, exuding from the primary second a self-confidence and a present for those who are a part of his success as a businessman of nightlife venues. Already on the age of 20 and whereas retaining his job on the financial institution, he entered the music enterprise via nightclubs. He opened one in Loeches (east of Madrid) referred to as Lucky Star; With the cash he acquired he began working in Vicálvaro (Madrid), the place he lived. He managed venues like Yedra, Tucán… He began organizing live shows in these golf equipment. First Manolo Otero, El Fary… Then rock bands like Asfalto.

Until he took over Barrabás, a nightclub that the bullfighter Antonio Chenel transferred to him. Antoñete. Rodríguez’s rock profession started in Barrabás. With Franco lifeless, on the finish of the seventies rock bands emerged in each neighborhood. “We came into contact with Javier Gálvez, manager and concert promoter. He was instrumental in starting to program rock in Barrabás,” says Sócrates, who was already working with his uncle. Performing in Barrabás became an aspiration. Asfalto, Leño, Cucharada, Mermelada, Block, Mezquita… also Los Chichos, Los Chunguitos, Bordón 4… “The heavies loved the lyrics about the marginality of the rumbas,” they say. Soon the capacity of Barrabás (located in the town center) Vicálvaro), of about 1,200, was too small. They needed something larger and more central and Canciller appeared, with capacity for 1,800 people.

“When we took it, it had been closed for several years. It was called Club Canciller and they scheduled dances with orchestras, parties. We cleaned it up, we put in the light towers, a brutal sound system… We were clear that it had to be something spectacular. Our goal was for people to be on the floor like at a concert and watching the video screen,” says Sócrates Pérez. They bought a satellite dish and recorded videos for MTV, which, at that time, (Canciller was inaugurated on December 22, 1984) was bustling with hard rock and the so-called hair rock (strong melodic rock performed by musicians with bouffant hair: Bon Jovi, Europe, Mötley Crüe). Canciller crystallized into a special social club, a meeting place for rockers beyond concerts. “We did more business with the nightclub than with the concerts,” the house owners level out.

They organized parties: the carnival party, the terror party, the San Isidro party, the boss’s birthday party (Antonio)… Anything to keep business busy. They served hamburgers, dogs, fries… They played table football and pinball machines. You entered there at 10 at night and left, after a glorious night of rock, at 6 in the morning. Young people came from the outskirts of Madrid: Entrevías, Aluche, Carabanchel, San Blas, Vallecas… In the documentary, several women leave their testimony: “I needed to replicate that, regardless of the celebrity of heavy music as an unique motion for males, there have been additionally many followers. They informed me that that they had by no means felt uncomfortable or violated in Canciller. On the opposite. Some even defined that that they had skilled the discomfort in pop or posh golf equipment,” says the director.

The owners point out that they were strict with drugs. If they saw any signs of dealing, they acted and expelled those involved. “Of course, when there were concerts, we didn’t even go into the dressing rooms. There the musicians did what they wanted,” Antonio points out with a smile. About 60 people worked, including waiters, security, management, entertainers… 7,000 customers passed by on a weekend. In the documentary, members of Barón Rojo, Obús, Ñu, Asfalto, Topo, Sangre Azul, Sobredosis, Pánzer speak… They all point out the excellence of the place, “the great sound” and that they did not come just to play, but rather considered themselves clients. “A perfect room to play rock,” says Armando de Castro, guitarist of Barón Rojo. Live albums were recorded there such as There is no crazy person, of Ñu, the My friends are alive, Top.

And then everything fell apart. Antonio: “There was no downside with the noise, however the neighbors did not just like the pints of the heavies. They allied themselves with the councilor of the Ciudad Lineal district [Jorge Barbadillo, del PP] and with Father Ortal Benito, from the Virgen del Coro parish, subsequent to the Chancellor. And they sunk us.” The neighbors met in the church to study strategies. On September 6, 1993, the room was closed by municipal order with a list of deficiencies: expansion of equipment such as an ice machine, game machines and sound installation… The owners defend themselves: “They needed to tickle us. The licenses of all of the nightclubs in Madrid had develop into out of date. Imagine, our license stated that music needed to be produced by jukeboxes. What they did was cling to no matter it took to close us down.”

“There was no type of noise problem. Basically, what was annoying were people’s looks,” says the director of the documentary. “For me the closure was unfair and a chore, because they took away a meeting place where good music was heard. But for my mother and other older people who lived in the area it was a relief. Canciller opened a little more than 40 years ago. For the veteran neighbors of the time, seeing gangs of long-haired boys dressed in bullet belts and jackets printed with the image of a demonic Ozzy Osbourne was not a dish of good taste. They lived a little scared.” A neighbor of the property told Telemadrid in 1994: “I have to tell my friends to accompany me to my apartment because I’m afraid to go alone.”

The unprecedented fact was that, by municipal order, a brick wall was built that occupied the entire door. The owners appealed the closure and the judge agreed with them based on the report of the inspectors, who thoroughly reviewed the room and saw no reason for the closure. They could now open. The problem: the wall. “It seems that a part of the wall was on municipal land, on public roads. It belonged to the City Council, and we needed to begin one other dispute. That’s how Machiavellian every little thing was,” says the manager. The block of bricks covered the Chancellor’s entrance for 535 days. When it was thrown, the heavies took souvenir bricks.

“A number of days after the wall fell, the councilman gave us one other inspection. He persecuted us. He needed to shut us once more, as a result of he hated the heavies,” concedes Rodríguez, who was paying 1,300,000 pesetas in non-refundable funds (800,000 for the rent of the premises alone) while the Chancellor remained closed. Here tears come to his eyes: “A municipal secretary informed me: ‘Antonio, cease combating, there’s an settlement between the councilor and the neighbors to shut the room. Don’t spend any more cash and power, for their very own good.’ Jorge Barbadillo, the PP councilor of Ciudad Lineal, was convicted in 2011 of misappropriation of public funds within the administration of the Campo de las Unidas. The sentence sentenced him to at least one 12 months and 6 months in jail and two years of disqualification from public workplace, in keeping with EL PAÍS.

After a 12 months and a half with the nightclub closed, the general public had gotten used to it and moved to different venues: Canciller misplaced lots of his clientele. It coincided with the decline of heavy music within the nineties. “Between those two things and the persecution of the councilman, I no longer had the strength. I gave up and we decided to leave it. I will die with this pain,” says Antonio Rodríguez. Chancellor closed on May 21, 1995, after eleven years. They already had Canciller II up and operating within the San Blas neighborhood, a venue that functioned at full capability as a live performance venue, however didn’t have that magic of the primary Canciller as a gathering place for rockers whatever the recitals. This sequel to Canciller closed in 1998 with 166 live shows held.

Rodríguez by no means left his job on the financial institution: he grew to become a senior supervisor at BBV, till he retired. Today he remembers how within the eighties he left the financial institution department together with his tie and took it off within the taxi on the way in which to the Chancellor in order to not conflict with the rockers. Currently, that free music house that was the Chancellor is occupied by a grocery store. The parish stays intact.