reflections. Frank Bayer
Els Pets, real entrepreneurs
The major value of Els Pets is their ability to transform a defect into a virtue. At the beginning, they were not like those bands who spent their childhood studying music, and probably due to this lack of inborn skills, Els Pets has been able to develop showing us the natural evolution of a person whose concerns have changed at the same time his musical style was improving along the way.
Due to this evolution, Lluís Gavaldà, the main composer, has learned the task of being a good musician keeping the freshness of the first days when he composed Vespre. That is the reason why nowadays it is one of the most esteemed groups in the country, because while other musicians record a new cd to earn money of a tour filled with old melodies, the fans of Els Pets are not waiting for a song about condoms or a smelly fart, but instead want to hear dialogues about the tiny spaces of our soul where we keep our real world. So, we could point out the key of their success is that they are sensible men and, what is more, their followers recognise that.
To tell the truth, the way Constantí's band works is going to be useful to analyse in these times where all the new prophets lie about how easy it is to be an entrepreneur, and as consequence of that, a general manager of an enterprise someone set up because of a brilliant idea he or she had about a cool toilet. That's why it's important to defend the real entrepreneur following the figure of this catalan group who has spent its whole career trying to find a new colour for each album, sometimes getting it and anothers not, knowing that they could have done it better. Then, if we do no explain to students that being an entrepreneur does not mean to be an inspired artist who does not need to work, in order to come up with new ideas, we are leading them up a blind alley while they'll be blaming us for their failure. So, we should move away from all these preachers which use the word innovation because they don't understand reality, in other ways, they talk about change without having any understanding of what change is, or as my grandfather said, they worship change because they are unable to understand the truth that surrounds them. I'm just talking about Els Pets as an example of a band which could teach us how to be successful in our jobs. During these last months they have been touring to celebrate their thirty years with a set list of all their numbers and after being there I would like to give them the best praise that a band could have: I don't' want to be like a Rolling Stone, I want to be myself, singing l'Àrea petita and thinking that the future will always be better than the past.