Summer makes it difficult to coordinate agendas. It’s holiday, it’s town parties… There’s always something. At last, however, we have made an appointment with a warm and cloudy Tuesday. We got together in a car and there we went the two, photographer and journalist, to the Amute district of Hondarribia. We've stepped in front. There is, before our eyes, the Psilocybene. It also draws attention from the outside: the black color of the walls, the white of the rounded windows and the neon ‘P’ rose that they have recently placed at the entrance. The one that was a school in the early twentieth century, became the reference center of music lovers of Bidasoa.

When we have crossed the front door, Ortzi Alonso awaits us. Tap the battery in the Marmoka group. Although he was not one of his creators, he met closely the early years of Psilocybe. It was founded in 1993 as a rock band association of Hondarribia. If they knew how to look for him, they called him in honor of the mongia that can be found in Jaizkibel. Alonso met the association who, in addition to fighting for the rehearsal venues, organized concerts at the gaztetxe de Saindua. “I noticed those who played the battery at the concerts, and there I felt like they were.” In 1997 it was definitively established as a member of the association: the group of friends met and the older members were approached to ask if they could use the premises. The answer was yes. They left their keys and they did the first test there.

Full Group Wall

Alonso has brought us a beer and with it he has taken us to the test rooms that Psilocyb has managed for twenty-five years. There are currently three classrooms equipped with all the necessary equipment. In total, there are eighteen groups, distributed in batches. All three rooms are attached by a hallway. In its white walls are written the names of all the groups that have had the house Psilocybe, thanks to the work done by the artist Judas Arrieta. Some are already underway: Marmoka, Velozet, The Arritmic’s, Elektropatxaranga, Sacco, Deskode… However, many other names remember a past that those who lived those times will not forget: Pinbol, Sornato Bele, Lif, Blood Seekers, Beti Mugan, Dut… The latter is the one that has most aroused Alonso among all those who have stepped on Psilocybe. “The earth was shaking and the walls were shaking as well. If you were in the adjoining place, you could not rehearse with them.”

The singer of the group Velozet, Mikel Tife, has come to the town looking at the names on the wall. This is a young man of a few years, who later entered Psilocybe, where he married Alonso. His cousins played in the Lif group, and the joy of seeing how well they were having awakened his desire to be a music group. “I was here for the first time in a Life essay, and I remember that day I had my first beer.” In 2002 he founded the OCT group with some friends and it was then that he became a member of the association. Alonso and he remember this time with a point of nostalgia: they bought the drink and were going to see the essays of another group; or they went to the premises without having the essay to join anyone else and create music. Alonso says they are now rarer. “It’s a pity: now we’re all more individualistic in general. But not only here, but also in society. We greet the neighbor less and less.”

Milestone 2008: big wager

We left the rehearsal rooms behind and went back to the other side of the building. There are the bar, the office, the studio and a pink room with capacity for 200 people. It's not too small or too big. “Moderate,” says Tife, large enough to host a multi-stage concert and small enough to feel the audience on the surface. With a chair in each one, we sat down to look at another time that was a milestone for the association. In 1999 they lost permission to organise concerts at the gaztetxe Saindua, and for several years there was no room for concerts in Hondarribia. In view of the above, and given that the rest of the test room building was empty, the association decided to propose the installation to the City Hall. From there came the project that left the entire building in the hands of the association, and then they began to shape what today is Psilocybenea.

The building, which is currently preserved, was inaugurated in 2008. Since then, many local and international groups have passed through the Psilocybenea room. What Alonso most remembers is the concert offered by the Americans Helmet in the Plaza de la Música. Tifé, for his part, is reminded of the one offered by the orchestra man Bob Log III. For several members, the room has been a place to learn how to do the technical work, and the recording studio has also been squeezed out. For example, Luz de Putas, Tifer's former band, recorded one of his albums there.

But the new opportunities joined the new concerns of the partnership, which radically changed the way we organized. “The management of test rooms is easy, but the bar, the room, the studio… is much more work.” Responsibilities were distributed, working groups were formed, and this is how they are held ten years later. Each music group pays a fee of EUR 120 per year, enabling them to meet the most basic expenses. There are also partners who do not have a group, but they do have partners, because they want to continue to support the project.

Need for relief

We followed the conversation without moving from the room. Without asking us, they tell us: The relay is a subject that is repeated a lot among Psilocybe veterans. Or, in other words, lack of relief. A lot of people have gone through there, and Tife has confessed that if it lasts for many years, it is a job that he can burn. It believes, however, that it is cyclical. “Now, on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary, for example, we are renewed and eager, and new groups have joined us.” He realizes that the audience is getting older and older, but he attributes it to the kind of music that he shows up. Psilocybe was born as a rock band association, but over these twenty-five years, music groups of all kinds have passed through there. It says that it should remain so in the future: “If people came in who like trap music, they could program their own music, but I, if I wanted to, couldn’t. I don’t know the groups.”

Alonso does not entirely agree. He believes that rock itself can be sufficiently diverse, and that the room itself has its own character very linked to this type of music, which is maintained, except for exceptions. However, it wants to further open the partnership, as they need “new energy” for the project to move forward. Although he is not well aware of this, he feels that the process being carried out for this purpose in the Astra de Gernika is exemplary.

Concerts and beer to celebrate

Although the whole year is special, the month of August has been chosen for the celebration of the anniversary. As expected, the concerts will be the main protagonists of the day. Yes, they will not come to Psilocybenea's appointment, because they want to take the work of the association out into the street, but to different points of Hondarribia. Alonso and Tife, both ensembles will play with their team on August 25, a big day in which the grand final will be played. Marmoka and Velozet will operate in Gernikako Arbola Square next to Capsula, Belako and Disco Bambino. They have also produced their own beer to mark the anniversary, in cooperation with the producer Bidassoa Basque Brewery. It will be presented at the end of July, and from then on, in addition to the mongia and society, Psilocybe will also join the beer.

Once the tertulia is over, it is now the turn of the photos. As easy as posing, they have continued to teach the site and have taken us to the circular room that is the backstage and the radio. The walls that have known dozens of groups and many other anecdotes are full of posters with scheduled concerts in Psilocybe, and a striking pink color. There would be no room for more, if it were not because those of this last year have been put on the roof. There is room there. For a minimum period of 25 years.