Desde el jergón

Josele Santiago (Madrid, 1965) is one of the most distinctive voices in Spanish rock. As the frontman of Los Enemigos, and later as a solo artist, he has composed and sung, with his raspy voice imbued with both pain and joy, one of the most enduring songbooks in Spanish-language popular music. Desde el jergón (From the Stuffy Barrel) is a kind of memoir told through his most important songs, recounting, in a direct, sometimes raw, sometimes lyrical style, the unique journey of Los Enemigos and their vocalist, along with a number of unforgettable anecdotes from his youth and his time on the road. In the author's words, it offers "a subjective look at the heart of a band that has managed to showcase its stubbornness for four decades across a country that can't seem to shake off the label of precariousness." But this book is much more: it is the unique testimony of a key moment in underground culture, when, in the mid-eighties, a scene of groups, venues and fervent rock worshippers emerged in the traditional Madrid neighborhood of Malasaña and its surroundings, where rockers, mods, punks and other outcast species steeped in rock and other substances swarmed, living and dying in a very free and crazy era that will never return.