From the minute you step over the threshold at Pikes, you feel a strong sense of heritage. Honouring history has always been important to us – the adage that to get to where you’re going, you need to remember where you came from, has always seemed apt. Recently, Ibiza bade farewell to someone who played a pivotal part in the island’s cultural development; someone whose deep and lasting impact on dance music culture is still talked about and felt to this day; most importantly, someone who has been a dear friend to many of the Pikes team members (along with our guests) for decades. The trailblazing father of the Balearic Beat, Alfredo Fiorito, passed away on December 24, 2024, and we think it’s only fitting to take the time to honour his history, pay respect to his legacy and express our gratitude for his friendship… and, of course, his music. Vale, Alfredo…
Born in Argentina in 1953, Alfredo was always passionate about music – he worked as a music journalist for his family’s newspaper and promoted rock and roll concerts in his spare time. In 1976, feeling the political repression of his homeland, Alfredo decided to seek a new beginning on the other side of the world and made his way by boat to Europe alongside many other like-minded creatives and intellectuals, ultimately finding his way onto a ferry headed for the Mediterranean island of Ibiza – just two years later, like Alfredo, Tony Pike would take that same ferry journey and start a new life. Alfredo would often say that he didn’t expect much from Ibiza upon sailing into the port, but that the hippie atmosphere, the authentic sense of freedom and the compassion and acceptance of the Ibicenco people allowed him to instantly feel at home.
“We lived in houses without electricity or running water, there were no telephones, video, nothing,” he told on-island magazine White Ibiza in an interview about his connection to the island. “There was a television in a bar with just two channels but other than that there was no type of communication. People just knew each other by their first names – many people came here for a new beginning and the Ibicencos were very welcoming, as long as we respected the island.” Wanting to distance himself from his former life and journalism career, Alfredo took on a collection of random jobs to make ends meet, from painting houses and working in markets to running an independent fashion store. Eventually, one fateful day in 1982, he began work as a bartender in Ibiza’s port, in a little bar called Be Bop, where he discovered his next calling in the form of two turntables, a mixer and a collection of old records…
For Alfredo, the mixer was a revelation, showing him a new way to experience music. Completely self-taught, he experimented regularly in the bar to the delight of his patrons and soon realised this wasn’t just a side hustle – through DJing, he could use music to make a living. He began curating his own eclectic selection of international records to add to the mix and decided to throw his own party – dubbed ‘Impossible’ – in Amnesia in 1983. While the party was a hit, Alfredo would have to bide his time for another year (moving to Formentera to work in a bar in the meantime) until the owners offered him a full-time position. Side note: It was this exact same year that a fresh-faced George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley checked into Pikes to shoot the iconic Wham! Club Tropicana film clip. Legend has it that after the shoot wrapped at Pikes, Tony took George to Amnesia, where he danced euphorically to Alfredo’s unique sounds well into the next day. Eyewitness Ulises Braun – another Ibiza nightlife icon of the era, who ran a bars inside Amnesia – told The Guardian: “George Michael was hanging out at my bar and did his first ecstasy pill after he filmed the video for Club Tropicana at Pikes. It seems like yesterday, him singing to me right in front of my face.” We’ll always be left wondering if Alfredo knew who was in his audience was at the time…
“We had a terrible sound system and there was absolutely nobody in the club,” Alfredo told White Ibiza of his beginnings at Amnesia. “Pacha and KU were the biggest clubs on the island and they were playing disco. People would go out to Pacha until 3am, then onto KU. Amnesia was an alternative, but there was just no clientele. But then casually, in the middle of summer, I started to play some music while the club was closed and I was waiting to get paid. It just worked!” People starting popping in from KU (across the road), first a handful, the next day 100 and a few days later 500. It seemed that good news travelled fast. “We had to open the club after 6am and it was like an after-hours,” Alfredo said, blissfully unaware at the time that he was at the very centre of Ibiza’s musical revolution. “People would pass by on their way home and I had to really concentrate on keeping them there with the music. I was really happy to be there, just making people dance.”
Now, if you’re a bit of a dance music aficionado, or a lover of Ibiza culture, chances are you know what’s coming next – it’s an oft-told story that accurately credits Alfredo with developing the ‘Balearic Beat’ and leading to the subsequent ‘summer of love’ and the birth of the rave scene and acid house culture in the UK. To cut a very long story short, four young Brits – DJs Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker – came to Ibiza for a holiday and found themselves swiftly falling under Alfredo’s musical spell, emulating his style when they returned home to great success. Alfredo was known to be a bit miffed about the new generation simply copying him – although it did prove that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. “I wasn’t thinking to create an industry or a new style of music,” Alfredo told Test Pressing. “When people talk to me about ‘Balearic’ music, I say it was a marketing thing. I had been playing my music and trying to get that dancefloor working. I blurred the division between black and white music, between concert music and disco music. I put it all together.”
Unsuspecting clubbers on the Amnesia dancefloor had no idea what was coming next when Alfredo would hit the decks, as he’d take them on a genre-defying journey that would encompass anything and everything from European pop, Italian disco and psychedelic rock to reggae, Argentinean rock, new wave and early house music, as he explained in his White Ibiza interview. “I was playing pop, rock, soul, South American music, Italian, French, TV and film soundtracks, Flamenco, salsa – everything! Amnesia broke down the barriers between the English crowds, who were looked down upon at the time, and the rest of the island. The integration and interaction at Amnesia was so important.”
Ulises Braun reflects on the time. “People like Paul Oakenfold would be watching Alfredo like he was a god,” he told The Guardian. “When Alfredo stopped the music, people started to scream: ‘Alfredo! Alfredo!’ He was the only man, he played seven days a week, for six or seven months at a time. It was a special club, a madness house. Some people would come and look and just run away. The people and the music made it. You’d get a young guy talking to an old person – and listening to each other. There were no sexy women showing their bum. Well, there was, but they’d be in the middle of the dancefloor. Everybody was part of the place.” Tony Pike was there, entertaining guests like Grace Jones and Spandau Ballet in Amnesia, night after night, dancing to Alfredo’s beat.
Good things do indeed come to an end, and as the decade – a decade in which he’d been named DJ Mag’s DJ of the Decade – came to a close, so too did Alfredo’s Amnesia residency and he began to play for other clubs, around the island and around the world. As the 90s dawned, another new wave of music lovers and partygoers flocked to the island – among them, IRG founder and CEO of Pikes, Andy McKay. Back then, Andy and his brother Mike, had come to Ibiza to ride the Balearic wave and promote their own parties (which went on to become the renowned Manumission at Privilege), and Andy was concerned he’d “missed the party” now Alfredo and a generation of influential Ibiza DJs had moved on – history tells us otherwise!
“We’d just arrived and wanted to do a night to celebrate the ‘old DJs’ at that time, so we created an event called Spirit of 88 at the old KU in 1994,” Andy remembers. “We booked Alfredo, DJ Pippi, José Padilla and Phil Mison, among others, and it was really nice to get them all together. That was the start of it all… and since then, Alfredo has always DJed with us in some place or party or another, every year, from Manumission and the milennium to Pikes, even last year.” Andy recalls spending the turn of the century with Alfredo – a vividly Balearic memory he’ll never forget. “We did the final sunset of the millenium in Ibiza,” he says. “We rented out Es Boldado, the restaurant on the cliff opposite Es Vedrá, for a small number of people. There were around 100 people, and we were all sitting there drinking Café Caleta, expecting the world to end, and Alfredo was DJing as the sun set and it was absolutely magical. His set was just… wow.” Obviously life (and the world!) carried on post Y2K and so too did Alfredo’s legacy of embracing his his artistic freedom behind the DJ booth.
A long-standing resident at Manumission at Privilege (the former KU), Alfredo would oscillate from the main room to the toilet DJ booth, surprising clubbers with his eclectic sets, always playing the final set of the night (or morning, as the case may have been). “Alfredo always played the sunrise,” says Andy. “His style was to perfect it, so he didn’t come in every week and play something completely different. His set simply evolved. He was just there to play the perfect sunrise, as the light came in through those glass walls at the back… it was utterly magical. A lot of times, I’d be in the office, clearing up at the end of the party and we’d just listen to his set – it was always amazing.” Following the sunrise, Alfredo would join the hordes of clubbers and head across to Playa d’en Bossa for the after-party, Carry On at Space, where he’d entertain the loyal troops on the terrace with euphoric, happy sunshiney sounds that would traverse all the emotions you feel after 20 hours of non-stop partying.
Around the same time, Alfredo discovered a new musical lease on life as he started to play back to back with his son, Jaime Fiorito, at Space, an experiment that led to the creation of The Heritage Project, a collaboration born from the idea of sharing two generations of knowledge and perspectives, uniting nostalgia with modernity and a true nod to the island’s rich musical heritage. “I learned a lot from Jaime,” Alfredo told White Ibiza. “It’s easy to lose contact with the younger generations and he showed me a new way to listen to music – many times – and to appreciate sounds and trends and even ways of mixing. I wasn’t born with a computer in my hand so for me, switching from vinyl to digital was hard!” The duo toured the globe as The Heritage, from the far reaches of Tokyo to the legendary Berghain in Berlin and back to the island again, where they brought the project to Pikes (which, at the time was called Ibiza Rocks House at Pikes) in 2012.
Starting by the pool, they’d spin downtempo and eclectic beats, before going into Freddies after dark with more of a 4/4-inspired approach. Over the years, both Alfredo and Jaime graced our decks many times, from their own events as The Heritage Project to joining our Homies, taking part in The Beat Hotel’s annual events and teaming up with Flash for their Island Heroes event. As time passed by, Alfredo’s serious demeanour behind the decks would often bely the uptempo beats coming out of his speakers. His piercing blue-eyed gaze through wire-framed glasses, the considered way he’d take time to select the perfect track, cigarette always balanced in one hand, and assuredly mix it in just at the right time, always connected to the energy of the crowd, knowing exactly what to play to suit the mood, be it pop, hip-hop, house or techno. Many decades had passed since that first fateful night he discovered the mixer, but Alfredo’s commitment to the music never wavered.
“One of the things that evolved with Alfredo as he got older, and became a real feature of his character, was that cheeky, knowing smile he had, with the little glint in his eyes. You knew exactly when he liked something,” says Andy McKay. “You could really see that spark, almost like childlike excitement, or a little moment of childish rebellion, right until the end.” Alfredo continued to DJ at Pikes in recent years, often unannounced, to the joy of our guests and many of our special guest DJs who’d make a point of taking time out to enjoy his spontaneous and eclectic sets. “That Balearic spirit from Alfredo’s early years still exists,” continues Andy. “But it’s incredibly rare these days – you can’t just ‘decide’ to be a Balearic DJ. How magical, back in those moments, that the audience gave Alfredo the permission – that they allowed him the opportunity – to play such an eclectic selection. So much of what Ibiza is now, came from Alfredo back in Amnesia. He really was the first.”
As Alfredo’s health began to decline in recent years, he retreated from the spotlight and sadly, passed away on Christmas Eve. In the days that followed, Jaime and his sister Lola hosted a beautiful farewell for Alfredo at Sa Trinxa, on Alfreso’s favourite beach of Las Salinas, where they were joined by friends and family in honouring their father’s legacy through music, love and laughter – a community celebration that evoked the essence of Alfredo’s early days in Ibiza, as people from all walks of life, from all over the world, united on Balearic shores, leaving their worries behind and simply getting lost in the music – even if it was just for one night.
Adiós Alfredo. Thank you for everything. Gracias por la música…
