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From The Desk Of The Posies: Cafe Iruña Bilbao

Solid States is the Posies’ first new collection since 2010’s Blood/Candy, and the circumstances surrounding its conception couldn’t have been more different than those of its predecessor. First and foremost were the double-gut-punch deaths of two longtime band members: drummer Darius Minwalla in 2015, and bassist Joe Skyward earlier this year. There was also a divorce and a remarriage for Jon Auer, who, like Ken Stringfellow, now lives in France. Life-changing events aside, the Posies are back with yet another great album. Stringfellow and Auer will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week.

Cafe

Stringfellow: When the bleak parade of mid-highway rest stops, band-grafitti-encrusted dressing rooms, triangle-shaped sandwiches of dubious origin, etc., starts to grind, this place usually saves the tour. We have ended many a night in Bilbao here. For us, it’s the most culturally significant spot in the city; the “hey, my aluminum cinnamon bun is coming apart” museum is very nice, but we in the band tend to consume our cultural artifacts directly … the way to know a town is via its menus. So, this place. “Iruña” is the Basque name for the Navarran city of Pamplona. The interior design is belle epoque via Andalucia (and largely unchanged since the place opened in 1903). Don’t know what it all means, but we love the results. The waiters here are old school—they take their job seriously, and dress up for it: black & white, bow ties. And then it’s all about the pinxos. Pinxos are typically Basque, it’s roughly equivalent to tapas that you find further south; but almost always served on a piece of bread. Some of them are fanciful assemblies of ingredients, some are as simple as a slice of ham. At Cafe Iruña, the pinxos are exquisite and, for some reason, cheap. Spain in general is so incredibly cheap for food and wine, esp. when coming from France, where we spend much of our time, as to seem improbable as a business model. I’ve spent an entire day in a Spanish bar, having breakfast, lunch, wine and coffee, and had the bill be less than 10 Euros. At Cafe Iruña, it’s difficult to absorb enough pinxos and fino (fino is gorgeous dry sherry; again there’s Andalusian sub theme to this place) to rack up a bill larger than €20. The human stomach can only take so much. Unless you’re the Posies. At one point the four of us inhaled so much food and wine that the bill was more than €100. At a certain point, the waiter, impressed, simply refused to charge us further. It’s like when you eat the 72-ounce steak in Texas.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. On weekend nights, in a corner of the cafe situated so he can sell though a window to the street as well as to patrons inside, there’s a guy who just grills brochettes. Lightly curried lamb skewers. At no point is the line to access this guy’s wares less than 40 deep. They are that good.

Oh, by the way: When we played Bilbao this time, it was a Tuesday. So we missed it! It was closed by the time the show was over. So I’m writing this for therapeutic reasons.