Thirty years of psychedelic oddities

LleidaAntoni Gorgues was still living at home with his parents when he decided to make a radical change in his life. He was 24 years old and had been working as an accountant for a company in Lleida for some time when, in 1996, he decided to leave it all behind to dedicate himself to his great passion: music. Exactly thirty years ago, from his teenage bedroom, he founded Guerssen, an exclusive label now known for reissuing psychedelic rarities. "It all started with few resources, simply with a lot of enthusiasm and little knowledge," recalls Gorgues himself, who is now immersed in the commemorative events, which have kicked off with the release of a collection of fifteen limited and numbered singles, featuring garage, psychedelic, and other sounds and bands. freakbeat and hard rock, mainly from the sixties, with some surprises from the eighties such as the two singles featuring the earliest demos by Los Negativos, never before released on vinyl. On March 28th, the Morera Museum in Lleida will host a talk about the history of Guerssen, featuring Antoni Gorgues himself along with some of his collaborators: Álex Carretero, Marc Argenter (the label's designer), and journalist Àlex Oró. Following the talk, the documentary will be screened. The Negatives: Graduated from Underground (Víctor Carrey, 2024) on the history of the group. Also at the Museu Morera, a small exhibition on the history of Guerssen will be on display, featuring records and memorabilia. Finally, the Café del Teatro will host a performance by Los Negativos with a lineup that includes two founding members of the band, Carles Estrada and Robert Grima, along with a string section, performing the entire album. Kaleidoscopic Piknik as never before.

"We simply wanted to make records, which is what we loved, and we often took the easy way out," recalls Gorgues about their beginnings, "it still took me a few years to get my first paycheck." Despite the initial precariousness, Guerssen has released 800 records throughout its thirty-year history. "We always have between thirty and forty projects going on at the same time," says the label's founder.

Guerssen is a label that identifies as alternative, seeking out the reissue of unique records. They call them rarities, within the genres of psychedelia, garage, sixties pop, hard rock, folk, progressive rock… The big commercial producers and record labels are not direct competition. It's a label that has found its own niche market in these rarities. "Even now, quite a few young people are still showing interest in this kind of music," says Gorgues, "and are even buying records." Vinyl is still going strong. After a drop in sales in the mid-nineties, this format has been growing and has regained the interest of music lovers.