Seis my Ass
As my friend, mentor and colleague said so well in his Editor’s letter and managed to cut it down to less than 500 words let me cherish the moment and give you a bit more of insight to what is happening around us.
So there is a law that restricts live music to be allowed in open spaces. Wait a moment, this sounds a bit like a law made out of hot air, because live music is what, music played live by one or various musicians? There was a discussion years ago initiated by Discjockeys versus the Spanish SGAE (same happened in other European countries as well) stating that a reinterpretation of an existing track by mixing various ones together and modulating the sounds is exactly the same, so to say it is to be considered live music. The reason behind this discussion was to find out if and how Djs should or not pay money to the SGAE for ‚performing existing music’.
What has all this discussion brought to light? It might have very well paid off a bunch of lawyers but i don’t think that either artists or the SGAE gained a serious amount of money, as the reason for the SGAE to collect this money is for them to pay it back to the referring artists who produced the performed music – me personally i don’t know anyone who made money from ‚external public reproduction’, do you?
Sounds all gibberish to you? So how does a law sound that prohibits live music in public spaces? It’s like telling us to accept seismic surveys to kill our mammals or to stop breathing fresh air by being sprayed, or to put a tax on the sun – oh sorry that craze has come to an end – for now.
Going deeper into these new restrictions it really gets messy, the venues in the San José district might soon be obliged to install a limiter that regulates the volume to such extreme that it is literally impossible to have any decent music inside or outside. The limit for indoors would be 65 db – that is a bit more than a usual conversation between two persons – yes, TWO. So imagine a venue filled with people, only the noise they make would surpass this limit by far. Outdoors it gets even ‚better’, the limit here would be 55 db – as previously said nature itself can sometimes be a lot louder, if this is to be applied to a beach club the sea itself will be louder and the limiter will take off, leaving the venue with even less music. As they record the time the music is turned on and this recording can later be read out there is a fine for each time the limit is exceeded, so in case of the beach club who is to be fined, the sea?
Honestly, if this is to be applied it would be better to declare Ibiza a silent island where we all sit around in circles, put flowers in our hair and whisper „hallelujah“ on our way to enlightenment because music is not welcome anymore. And all this for the mere reason that the neighbours of those venues can find their well-deserved rest after a hard labour day working in the tourist sector. Well, probably there won’t be any more labour as this island depends on this exact same tourism, and to think that we could solely live of families and nature lovers is as reasonable as to say Munich should ban the Octoberfest or Rio de Janeiro the Carnival.
We all agree that there are too many people on the island and many venues do molest with their excessive music policy, but this black-or-white thinking is just so short-sighted and won’t do good to anybody. Obviously the clubs are spared from these restrictions and should be more than happy with those new laws as they might think this will bring the people back, ignoring the fact that their totally overpriced drink policy might be the reason for people to think twice before spending a fortune for a few drinks. By the way, did you know that by law all establishments now have to give out free drinking water if you ask for it? This law is not new but is to be applied by all venues as from this year onwards, be it a café, restaurant, bar or club. So if you are e. g. into clubbing but can not spend your hard-earned money in a few drinks you can have a decent dance and stay well-hydrated. Now that is a wise one for a change!
Another really crazy new law is the one that prohibits the copilot to be drunk, because he/she could interfere with the driver and cause an accident. Seriously, so now any drunk person has to go on the backseat – that would somehow make sense but what happens if four friends take a cab because they got drunk and do not want to drive a car themselves, which is obviously the right thing to do? Well, take two cabs then – problem solved. Somehow i got the feeling that all those laws are not made to educate us to become better citizens but to squeeze more money out of each one of us. Some of the circulation laws do make a lot of sense, e. g. if you get caught while throwing a fag out of the window you pay 200 Euros and get four points – fair enough as this damages our environment and is the cause of many fires.
Talking about drunk tourists, i recently read that Ryanair made a petition to Spain to not sell alcohol at the airports anymore in order to control their citizens avoiding incidents where whole flights have to be redirected to closer airports caused by mayhem on board. Why not doing an alcohol test at the gate for those who obviously had a few drinks too much, and refuse to take them on board if they surpass a certain limit? End of story, problem solved.
You might ask yourself why i called this article ‚seis my ass’ – well, let me explain it to you. As Andreas wrote in his Editor’s letter we once more face a serious threat to our nature with the project from ‚Med-Salt 2’ to explore the ground of the Mediterranean Sea (read more about it in our interview with Carlos Brava, technical coordinator of the Alianza Mar Blava) via seismic surveys using airguns to shoot air via high pressure into the deep sea, leaving all mammals and other creatures def and irritated with irreversible consequences. Seismic Surveys. Got it? We collected more than 35.000 signatures against this project and hope this one and all similar will be prohibited now and forever. The government of Ibiza already agreed on banning those surveys from our shores, now it is up to the Spanish government to once and for all put an end to this craze.
We the citizens can not accept any laws that limit our roots or destroy our future, and one of our basic roots is music, the universal language, the heartbeat of this island and a good part of its future. And sorry to say that but all kind of music was once created ‚live’, so this can undoubtedly not be the solution to a problem that is created out of fear to face the reality, a reality that is as obvious as it can be. Greed has never solved any problem, it is not a solution but a disease, one of the roots of evil itself. Why i say greed? Because the few places that really offer live music on Ibiza are definitely not the cause of this problem, it is the failure of the current politics deceiving us from a general virus that is threatening our society: the all-or-nothing attitude, an absolute way of thinking, treating the symptoms but not the cause, just as easy as to prohibit manifestations in order to silence the people and not having to listen to them.
There is always a solution for all, in fact there are no problems but solutions to anything, it is the wrong way to ignore anything that will sooner or later cause trouble to then simply prohibit it. The magic of this island is based on its diversity, the combination of our beautiful nature with stunning beaches and great landscapes, the infrastructure of the island offering so many choices on so many different levels, be it gastronomical, nocturnal and cultural, the international mix of people of all kind coming together to celebrate life in a peaceful way on a relatively small island is unique on the globe, and it is up to us to find the balance to preserve this magic so that all of us can have the time of our life.
p.s: if you ask yourself why am i wearing a gas mask then you should read our interview with UntalToni, creator of the cover of our first edition 2018 showing a young ‘payesa’ wearing a gas mask. Read the interview here.
