Garage 442

On the ground floor of the Casa Comalat, the modernism of Avinguda Diagonal gives way to a dark and narrow room. Where the Garaje Hermético—a rock-pop bar with a legendary foosball table and comic strips—operated since 1984, Garage 442 opened in 2016 so that the same venue would not go out. The foosball table is no longer there. Neither is the comic book decor. The bar, the drinks, and a booth that, week by week, tells what is playing in Barcelona remained.

A bar-club on a sidewalk scale

The bet was not another industrial-capacity nightclub. On the edge of the Eixample with Gràcia, the venue presents itself as a bar-club: you enter to drink and end up on the dance floor. The room is one, intimate, of those in which a live performance by Rex the Dog fits without scenery and the audience squeezes between stools, LED screen, and a long bar. There is no multi-room venue. There is colored light, DJ in sight, and the density of a place designed to listen up close.

The booth that eats the stars

The official line prioritizes local projects and new artists, but the size has not prevented disproportionate visits. Phil Hartnoll from Orbital, The Hacker, Alexander Kowalski, Angel Molina, Alicia Carrera, Ylia, El Guincho, or Bad Gyal have passed through the booth. In 2018, Jarvis Cocker took the decks for Arcade Fire after their concert in the city and stretched the night until dawn. There have also been discreet sessions by Miss Kittin. In a club of this volume, the rare thing is not the big name: it is that it fits.

Electronics without a corset, from Wednesday to Saturday

House, electro, dark disco, techno, italo-disco, industrial EBM, and drum and bass coexist without a single line fixing the week. Bass music collectives like SUBconscious have made the venue one of their homes. There is vinyl, there are long sessions, and there is live music. The programming archive starts in September 2016 and the nights remain concentrated from Wednesday to Saturday, with club closing around 02:30 on weekdays and 03:00 on weekends. It is not an industrial estate after-party: it is a sidewalk venue, a step away from the Diagonal metro, where Barcelona electronics fit in a modernist basement.