“I've made everybody dance to the best music”

An interview that was published again

The weekly Informe Político, of Ciudad Bolívar, devoted page 10 of its issue No. 128 —the one for the week of 18 to 24 September 2023— to saying goodbye to Marco Indriago. It did not do it with an obituary, but with a gesture of the trade: reissuing the interview it had made with him more than twelve years earlier, when its author worked at the daily El Progreso and kept a section of conversations with the personalities of Bolívar society. The byline is that of licenciado Hernán Martínez (CNP 17.517), with photographs by Hernán Martínez Jr.

The kicker says it all about the tone: “Así recordamos al DJ Marco Indriago” (“This is how we remember DJ Marco Indriago”). And the headline is a phrase of his own, the one that sums up an entire life behind two turntables: “He puesto a bailar a todo el mundo con la mejor música” (“I've made everybody dance to the best music”).

«I like it when the dance floor is full and people enjoy that moment»

— Marco Indriago

February 1980: the night Roseland sparked the idea

In the interview, Indriago places the origin precisely. His beginnings were with young men who also leaned toward music and toward the sound of the minitecas of the 80s and 90s; among them was Lino Bosio. They came together to put up the first minitecas in the area, made of turntables, acetates and sounds that —in his words— caused hilarity among the young people of that time.

The spark came from elsewhere. He tells that the idea was born one night, at a party, when they heard one of the first minitecas in town: Roseland. That was the source of inspiration. Out of it came the Miniteca Scooby Doo, created —he says himself— in February 1980.

«We were a few young people who set out to innovate and be creative»

— Marco Indriago, on the birth of Scooby Doo

“The impediment is not physical, it is mental”

There is a part of the conversation the newspaper does not dodge. Indriago admits that, by those turns of fate, he had an accident that left him disabled; and that even with all that disadvantage he faced what fell to him with reflection and wisdom, drawing strength to overcome it in the most positive way and taking on his career in music with attitude.

He uses the interview to leave a message aimed at those who are left crippled, young or adult: that the first thing is to overcome it, and that afterward one has to accept that the impediment is not physical but mental.

The photograph that opens this article is from that period: he can be seen raising a trophy from his chair, behind the turntables and surrounded by his people. He won from there.

The best in the country's Southeast

The newspaper also records the place his own people gave him: he is considered by music lovers the best DJ in the country's Southeast. And asked why the music of the past does not lose currency while today's styles die fast, his answer points to listening: people back then felt the music, they hummed the songs.

What moved him was simpler and harder to come by: the floor full and people enjoying the moment.

What remains

Marco Indriago died in 2023. The miniteca he founded that February of 1980 did not switch off with the eighties: Scooby Doo is still out on the street as Scooby Doo Discplay, its name now lettered on light screens, setting up in halls of Ciudad Bolívar such as the Laja Real Club.

In the MiniTK Archive we keep his entry as a discjockey and that of Scooby Doo. Both are still incomplete: the miniteca is missing its image from the eighties, and of him almost everything is missing that only those who saw him mix can tell. If you have photographs, recordings or memories of him, this is the place to leave them.

In pictures

Archive photograph of Marco Indriago · CMTK Archive

Links

• Marco Indriago's entry in “Un Mixshow, Un Nombre”
• Entry for the Miniteca Scooby Doo
• Entry for the Miniteca Roseland, the one that inspired them