Iñaki Domínguez Madrid
Madrid
Updated Monday, January 22, 2024-00:16
Oscar Mulero
is an internationally renowned DJ who began his career in clubs such as
New World
,
Over Drive
, although he had been DJing since the mid-80s. One of the legendary venues where his name exploded was
The Omën
, on
Fernández Street.
of the Rivers 59
.
A regular at his sessions was Jacobo.
«Omën was a place where I made the transition [to electronic music], because I came from pure rock culture.
I came from trying to get into Rock Ola and getting kicked out when I was 14 until I once managed to get in.
And then I started going to
Agapo
,
Louie Louie
,
Komitte
,
Sol
, etc.
In the mid-90s, electronic music began to gain great prominence among young people: «When I was already bored with the bars in Malasaña, a friend took me to a Valencia-type party and I said: "What is this?! This What is it?! The truth is that basically they weren't telling anything new, it was just another twist of pop culture, but they were telling it in a different way. And then I started going out to techno clubs and it was the time when the Omën opened.
Omën was the place where
Mulero and Yke
played after Overdrive [on Paseo de Extremadura] and it became a mythical place because it lasted very few years [it closed in 1995].
«When the Omën closes is when the party just goes wrong, it gets bad and clubs begin to open in the center of Madrid with more varied electronic options than techno, like Bali Hai, Midday, Kasbah, Nature and all that, but The Omën, although it was very bakala, was musically venerable.
In relation to Overdrive there is a well-known myth, Jacobo tells me: «It is said that they threw a guy from the amphitheater that was, like a floor above the dance floor, a kind of corrala.
There is even a song by a group that talks about it.
That is an urban myth, a black legend, I have heard it a thousand times.
Although I didn't even step on Overdrive.
Mulero, to the dishes at Ömen.EM
He asked Alejandro if there were any fights or bad vibes in the place.
«Although there were bad bakalas, the Omën had such musical power that nothing ever happened there, at least that I saw.
As far as I remember, nothing ever happened.
Yes, it was the time when people were becoming very dodgy, the gangs gave the kids their glasses and pens, the drug and door mafias, it was already very ugly, it lost all the freshness and good vibes of its origin of the route.
But, while all that stuff was rotting, there was no trouble at the Omën.
The Omën was a very serious topic.
With the laser and the sessions that were there, no one swung.
The bad guys were there, they went, but they didn't mess up as much as in other places.
After the closure of Omën, «Mulero left under the aka of
Dr Smoke
and got involved in other projects without ever leaving techno, to get away from [this world] a bit.
Mulero [with the Bakalas] was like the gypsies with Camarón.
The Bakalas would have brought their children so that Mulero could touch them.
It was one thing... And it is still one thing... But that world was very bad and I imagine that Mulero wanted to break away from that and he also started DJing like Dr Smoke, so that they wouldn't follow him.
Very shortly after closing the Omën I saw him playing
house
with a Hawaiian shirt at the
Morocco
, I suppose in a
House of devotion
[on calle del Marqués de Leganés, 7]».
What Jacobo tells me reminds me of a talk I had with a bakala in 2000. He told me: «The Mulero sessions are the best.
It's because he makes you levitate.
The Omën was “a serious topic,” Jacobo tells me over and over again.
By this he means that people went to listen to good music and dance.
There was an aesthetic-musical sophistication there.
The public went to the Omën to enjoy the experience on all levels, especially the musical one.
«Omën was when I entered electronics, techno, something very serious like that.
Musically the Omën was amazing.
I would come in and say, 'Fuck, fuck!'
And I was already older, because I am a bit of that frontier generation.
I'm from '68. We were too young at Rock Ola and a little older when the electronic explosion arrived.
There is no shortage of anecdotes about Omën: «At Omën Mulero he often mixed his music with Arabic sounds, a bit like in
MetalHammer
's
And One
, or he made very intense mixes that then the track would fall silent, they would start firing the laser. and there were some crazy highs and changes.
And at the most mystical moment there was one who always began to hit the large air conditioning tubes that pass through the track and began to shout: 'Amavissscaaaa!'
Like the soccer player of the time.
The Omën was to go down and eat pills, check so they wouldn't catch you smoking joints (that was almost a game with security when you could smoke but not joints) and start the session with music from Warp records or even ambient
starts
.
That was at twelve at night.
And it ended at six with an impressive spanking... At first Omën was dark music, more experimental techno, and in its later period more Psychedelic Trance.
I graduated there, because the place also sounded incredible.
The legendary group Ballet Mecánico did a live performance there, and in the most Trance era, Fred Tassy came down from the legendary Sala del Cel, in Gerona.
Inaki Dominguez
He is the author of
Macarras interseculares
, edited by Melusina, [you can buy the book here],
Macarrismo
, edited by Akal, [you can buy the book here] and
Macarras ibéricos
, edited by Akal, [you can buy the book here] and the
Latrue story of the Moco Panda
.
[you can buy the book here]