Negu Gorriak

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Negu Gorriak (Basque for "Red Winters" or "Harsh Winters") is an underground European rock group. Their musical style combines rock, hip-hop, and reggae. It is impossible, however, to separate the band from its political ideology and its identification with the Basque Country and its language (Euskara).

Contents 1 Members 2 History 3 Discography 4 Links 5 External links

Members

• Fermin Muguruza Lead Singer
• Iñigo Muguruza Guitarist
• Kaki Arkarazo Guitarist
• Mikel Anestesia Bassist since Gure Jarrera
• Mikel Bap Drummer since Gure Jarrera

History

Negu Gorriak is born after the ska group Kortatu was disbanded in the most popular point of its career in order to avoid creative settlement. The influences from Os Resentidos, old school rappers, Public Enemy, NWA and Shinehead are very clear in their eponymic record where the drums are sequenced and the sampler becomes very present.

In 1991 two new members will become part of the group: Mikel Anestesia and Mikel Bap, incrementing considerably the quality and depth of music of the band. In that year they also created Esan Ozenki (say it out loud, in Basque), their own record label. Published in 1991, Gure Jarrera would make Negu Gorriak both famous (as the most solid group of the Basque music rock scene) and infamous (for the song Ustelkeria, which will lead to them to court).

The band's next output (Gora Herria) would be an EP with covers and dub music remixes with the collaboration of their friend Manu Chao. This can be consider a "bridge work" that separates Negu Gorriak early efforts and their 1993 Borreroak Baditu Milaka Aurpegi (The hangman is the man of the thousand faces, a verse from to writer Bernardo Atxaga), perhaps the best record of their career. In it the guitars grow angry, and the lyrics become more poetic and somewhat less political; feelings take over and there are clears notes of frustration and pain. Musically, the record moves from hip hop to punk to ska and rock with extreme naturality.

The tour following Borreroak Baditu Milaka Aurpegi created a big expectation and received a deserved press coverage. At the end of it Hipokrisiari Stop! (Stop Hypocrisy!) their only live album would be published.

The above mentioned song Ustelkeria is about a Guardia Civil (Spain) coronel, Enrique Rodríguez Galindo. The lyrics comment news accusing him of selling stolen cocaine in order to obtain money for the terrorist group GAL. In 1993 the Coronel sued the band, which was condemned to deliver Rodríguez Galindo 15 million pesetas. There would be appeals and other process in order to avoid paying the amount of money, which could lead into giving all the music rights and the record label to Rodríguez Galindo. The band then created a campaign Hitz Egin (Speak!) that consisted in the publishing a limited edition of an EP, Ustelkeria, and a tour. Several artists showed their solidarity with Negu Gorriak's cause, sharing the view that the veredict attacked the right to freedom of speech.

One year later Ideia Zabaldu (Spread the Idea) was released. The influence of long visits to Latin America (and the Zapatista revolution) and the birth of Fermin Muguruza's son is not small. The band has grown mature and child mortality in the third world and AIDS are very present both in the lyrics and also in the tone of the recording. Not so angry and aggressive, Idea Zabaldu would be their last recording with original songs.

Salam Agur would be Negu Gorriak's last album. In it they decided to salute their friends and music influences by covering some of their favourite songs. Influential artists covered were BAP!!, Otis Redding, The Who, Macka B, Minor Threat, Bob Marley, Public Enemy, The Clash, Redskins, Poison Idea, Errobi, Dead Kennedys, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Anestesia and NWA. Once again, as it happened with Kortatu they decided to disband the group in order to avoid creative settling.

The band would get together three more times for three farewell concerts. Those were also celebration shows, for the court had taken away the charges and there would not be, after all, any settlement for Rodríguez Galindo.

In 2005, the group decided to sell a DVD + CD with all the videos + video of the 3 last concerts, where they played in front of 30,000 people. Up to now, is the last release they made.

Negu Gorriak are widely accepted as the most influencial basque group in the 90´s, as the band that evolved the Radical Basque Rock in a more complex, mature rock style which had not the need of punk influences. They mixed their basque traditional roots with influences from latin culture and hip-hop, and that extremely effective combination between the well known and the new tendencies gave them the category of a myth in Basque Country.

Discography

• Negu Gorriak (1990)
• Gure Jarrera (1991)
• Gora Herria (1991)
• Borreroak Baditu Milaka Aurpegi (1993)
• Hipokrisiari Stop! Bilbo 93-X-30 (1994)
• Ideia Zabaldu (1995)
• Ustelkeria (1996)
• Salam, agur (1996)
• 1990-2001 (DVD + Live CD) (2005)

Links

• Basque music

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