Rosendo

In the form of Rock Urbano (known in English as Urban Rock), Spain has one of the most badass forms of mainstream rock & roll ever created. The basic idea is one so simple you’ll wonder why it never caught on anywhere else. You take the sky scraping scale and volume of early seventies hard rock and combine it with the lyrics of early punk rock, telling gritty and sometimes shocking stories of social injustice and life on the streets. Like I said, pretty godamn badass, and Rosendo Mercado has been the Joe Strummer of this particular movement since forming Ñu in 1974 and going on to define the Rock Urbano movement in his second band Leño in 1978. To this day he’s still performing live as a solo act, his shows stripped down to nothing but the bare essentials. It’s just him, a bassist, a drummer, a Fender Strat and as many amps as can fit on stage turned up as loud as they can go. Today, a Rosendo show could be the blueprint for rock & roll bands the world over seeking to strip away all the gimmicks that surround modern rock. It is a stripped down show but it never feels barren, and it always feels like exactly what’s needed. When it comes down to it, when you’ve got these riffs, these songs and one of the last true firebrands left in Rock music as a whole, that’s all that’s needed. Highly recommended.