“Two Brothers from Toscal, a Santa Cruz de Tenerife district (Canary Islands), who were saddened by the steady drip of musicians who leave the Islands to carve a future out there”.
This way the Rodriguez brothers define themselves, as cultural entrepreneurs and activists of the cause of cannabis in the Canary Islands. Music, marijuana and social activism merge into the project of this noble people. We spoke with one of them, Thailo, regarding their present and possible future.
Thai Fresh has several ongoing issues: in the first place, the recording studio and the online radio, but the grow shop is also very important for you, and also the cannabis smoker’s club. How all it started?
We started with the activism on cannabis, but we have always been aware that in Canary Islands there are very talented and innovative musicians, who find troubles to succeed, since there is no infrastructure around here to their development.
At first they were separate concepts, the grow shop would has his own path, as well as the recording studio, until we glimpse a possible crossroad between reggae and cannabis activism, and we thought we could create a little awareness on the issue of cannabis through music.
Hablemos sobre el estudio. Para vosotros es muy importante subrayar que vuestra prioridad es, ante todo, apoyar a los grupos locales, por delante de intereses económicos.
Sí, nuestra apuesta por la música es social. Gracias a las ventas del grow shop, podemos mantener unas tarifas para el estudio más reducidas de lo normal. La hora de grabación suele costar en la actualidad entre 50 y 70 euros y nosotros la cobramos a 20 euros, que se invierten en pagar al técnico de sonido y otros gastos. No hay beneficios en nuestras producciones musicales: tenemos claro que nuestra infraestructura está concebida para ayudar a la gente.
Nuestra idea original es ser colaboradores y no lucrarnos con la música. El estudio puede estar operativo unas 240 horas al mes, y de ésas, unas 120 aproximadamente, es decir, la mitad, están dedicadas a apadrinar producciones propias de músicos de Canarias. Ni siquiera nos centramos en un género o estilo musical concreto; todos los artistas con dificultades para promocionar su obra son bienvenidos en Thai Fresh. Ya que ni el gobierno local ni el estado central apoya a los grupos, hemos decidido hacerlo nosotros.
Let’s talk about the recording studio. For you it is very important to emphasize that the priority of the studio is supporting local groups, ahead of economic interests.
Yes, our commitment to music is social. Thanks to grow shop sales, we can keep lower taxes for the studio. Standart recording time these days is usually between 50 and 70 euros and we only charge 20 euros to our clients, an amount that is invested just for paying the sound engineer and other expenses. There are no real benefits in our music productions: we are pretty sure that our estructure is designed to help people.
Our original idea was to be partners and not get profit from music. The studio may be operating about 240 hours a month, and of those, about 120 or so, are devoted to sponsor productions for Canary musicians. We don’t even focus on a specific musical genre or style, all artists suffering difficulties to promote their work are welcome here at Thai Fresh. Since neither local government nor central state supports bands, we decided to do it ourselves.
The grow shop you own in Tenerife is called El rincón de la cosa buena (Good Stuff Corner). How did you approach to this bussiness project?
Actually, the grow shop is not meant to be a lucrative project. It should not be. For us, the grow shop is the most visible input for our cannabis claims. It is a social showcase for this cause of the normalization of cannabis; an open-public meeting point where citizens interested in cannabis can acquire specialized products and receive information and advice.
A key aspect of the grow shop is our decision to specialize in organic farming. Everything we offer here is Eco. Therefore, we greatly appreciate products such as Organik fertilizers.
There are two main ideological backbone for El rincón de La cosa buena: on the one hand, cannabis activism that can help to transform the law, on the other, a deep consciousness on ecological issues.
The Smoker’s Club was founded recently. How have you encouraged to take it out and what are the goals?
The cannabis Smoker’s Clubs actually exist throughout many areas in Spain, so it seemed imperative to bring this concept to the Islands. Jose, a friend from La Hamaca, help us. La Hamaca is a 300 partners Smoker’s Club from Barcelona. We started with the club in November 2009, and after several meetings, we approve inner rules. We even have a social meeting club.
The concept with the club is keep it small, no more than 20 to 30 members. If more people are interested in the area, they should create new clubs. This way, with a network or association of clubs, we give more visibility to the cause of cannabis.
