banned from the empire

Captain Kirk strikes back!

2012-01-30T04:50:00.000-08:00

Spizz is a key character in the Punk/New Wave scenario of the late 70s/early 80s. Starting with his roots in the Glam era, he was (and still is) an oblique actor of the movement of the British Punk explosion and beyond. Fast and hyperactive, Spizz took a new name for almost every new release, and topped the newborn indie chart back in early 1980 with his classic single "Where's Captain Kirk?". Spizz's output, polarized by the taken incarnation (Spizzenergi, Spizzoil, Athetico Spizz 80, Spizzles) has always been led by a driving creative boost, with a poppy edge and a constant look to the future. Spizz's work passes through masterpieces of the New Wave era (Soldier Soldier), Punk rock classics ("Where's Captain Kirk") and Spizzological cover versions ("The Model" by Kraftwerk). I am old enough to remember them first time around but now they're still touring around somewhere... welcome back captain Kirk!

Back to the martian men!

2011-04-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Comsat Angels took their name from a JG Ballard story and titled their first EP Red Planet. But anyone expecting science-fiction lyrics about spaceships and supernovas would do well to look in a musical galaxy far, far away; listening to their first demos (aka England Demos), it's the dystopian realist strain of SF that informs the Comsat Angels. That's not radiation on the cover of their first LP,Waiting for a Miracle, it's the blurry cityscape of the band's hometown of Sheffield. And that's not giddy teenage kicks making the photo blurry; it's despondency in the face of existential futility. The band cites another science fiction tale in the song "On the Beach," but it has no need for the novel's post-apocalyptic narrative: the world of the Comsat Angels is already a bleak and hostile wasteland. Not only were the Comsat Angels as grim as any of their peers, they were as great, too. But in the 26 years since Waiting for a Miraclethey've been relegated to obscure cult status, overlooked even by Simon Reynolds. At any rate, the timing may be slightly off again, as the retro-postpunk wave seems to have crested, but the Comsat Angels at their best transcended trends and flew the genre coop, traveling on their heavenly wings straight for greatness and anyway...

Into the streetlife parade.

2011-03-30T06:43:00.000-07:00

If The Jam were largely accepted by the new mods but they were essentially a (post)punk band, Secret Affair were loved and adored as "the mod band". They became the spearhead band of the mod revival and surfed its success.Time For Action, Secret Affair's debut single became mod's anthem and reached 13 in the UK charts. Then Ian Page became spokesman for the mod revivalists etc... Maybe because of his total alignment to Mod subsequent Affairs singles never topped Time For Action's (mod)erate success. This is probably why Mods had made more enemies than friends especially in the newspapers & magazines. And Two-tone was the new mod. Oh but what an album was their first one. Great songs, big tunes, fantastic, enthusiatic playing... but it wasn't enough. Their return was even better and "Behind closed doors" is one of my all time favourites! I completely disagree with people sayng that their second album was not as good as Glory Boys, also if it failed to set the tills kerchinging and only spent four weeks in the LP chart. Then came tensions in the band but also another great album too "Business As Usual", incredibily deleted after only 11,000 copies.... Barely three months later, unable to shake off the mod-revivalist tag, Secret Affair split... 25 years later as all the makers of passionate music for passionate people, they are not forgotten... still gigging together with their gabicci's cardigans and parka with their name on it... long live The Secret Affair!

Going underground

2011-03-22T07:21:00.000-07:00

Underground Arrows were figureheads of the italian Mod Revival scene of 1973/87, which still enjoys a minor cult following in our country. As far as the mainstream music press – and media in general – was concerned, the 1979 mod revival fizzled out in a matter of months, but nothing could have been further from the truth. It returned to the underground from whence it came, but it also thrived, particularly in the north in the UK, and in small but dedicated scenes around the world. Here, I enclude a collection from one such outfit, Italy’s Underground Arrows. The Italian mod scene was strong, with bands such as Statuto, Kickstart, The Coys and Lager but, in their decade-long existence, The Underground Arrows proved to be one of the best. The Jam influence was there, of course, but The Underground Arrows were surprisingly eclectic, even if most of their influences fall loosely within mod parameters. They also had a very 2-Tone feel, sort of Specials-meet- Madness, and an (un)original Hammond-driven 60s-style mod. Don't forget they were the first italian mod band to play uk in 1986, two shows in London together with Four by Arts, another italian legendary mod oriented combo. Hear the Arrows playing their best tracks and look further for their new material!!!

There's a place with a name

2011-03-13T06:36:00.000-07:00

There was something about The House of Love... Back in 1987, they were the indie music’s hottest property they had just defined the original Creation sound. They were originally signed to Alan McGee’s label at a time when Noel Gallagher and crew were still in diapers. But then something changed, maybe the mirage of mainstream career, maybe the infinite ego of their singer Guy Chadwick... I really don't know... History said that the following year, the band left Creation – run by Alan McGee, who was also managing them – for Fontana, in a £400,000 deal, and the future looked so bright. But it wasn't...They could have been bigger than The Smiths, they could have been more fascinating than The Jesus & Marychain, they could have been... but they weren't. You know there is no justice in music biz. But i'm still in love with their melodic shimmering songs- "a sophisticated multi-layering of guitars ascending to lyrics that observe life with an alternate vulnerable and world-weary eye". An epiphany of sound that justapoxes a wall of feedback against lush vocal harmonies. But no shoegazing, no Madchester, no Bloody Valentines or Sonic Youth guitar echoes, thanks. Just great songs with a unique atmosphere. Haear them playing live at the Paradiso in 1990... there were something about them and it still remains...

Between Holiday & Garland...

2011-02-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

"...Rumours have been dripping down from Scotland about a diverse horde of determined post Skids / S. Minds / Scars groups all ready to shift our attention. Positive Noise, Altered Images, JosefK, Orange Juice . . . the newest rumours centred around The Associates, who it seems were refining the vision of 'Station To Station', who it seems had a singer who sang like that particular Bowie. He wasn't copying, that's how he really sang - from deep inside, neo-operatically (...) The Associates have things in common with Magazine worth talking about. That European feel for a start, which basically stems from their liberating remoteness from standard r'n'r influences: the logic and out of the blue maturity of their sound: a Kurt Weill caught up with John Barry cabaret tension: and a respect for the irrational. Billy Mackenzie is vocally reminiscent of Bowie: but Bowie has never sung with so much delightful range and subtlety, never really had to. Mackenzie's soul singing is in the pained, proud tradition of Holiday and Garland. He'd be comfortable and do a great job singing 'Windmills Of My Mind' (he almost does on 'Even Dogs In The Wild'). An artist at communication, he takes intense care over enunciation - the shape of words and the space between them. His vocals are either a folly or something very special: I reckon a little of the former, a lot of the latter.The Associates sound is somewhere between evocative Cure and dramatic Magazine: a passionate cabaret soul music, a fulfillment of the European white dance music Bowie was flirting with back then. It is a fabulist (as opposed to surrealist) entertainment vitiated by a cool sense of art. Don't look for message or moral - the songs affect a dreamlike incompleteness but are not unprincipled or uncaring. They develop an account of the various mechanisms by which people remain trapped in boredom, abstraction, essence. With Mackenzie's obsessive flamboyance, the invariably plangent melodies, the richly fragmented detail of the songs, The Associates are undoubtedly theatrical. But their sense of theatre is natural, even profound, not the usual pop flash-trivia. The Associates are real performers"... Paul Morley (NME) 1980

Baby you're out of time ...

2011-02-05T06:08:00.000-08:00

Rarely has a band been blessed by italian musical magazines as Out of Time in the middle eighties. The group sprouted from Bra (a little town not so far from Turin) that even more than the major towns was a kind of fertile Paisley Underground territor at the time. This movement heralded the return of guitars to rock 'n' roll and sixties sounds offered a more musically proficient complement to the town's rising punk scene. Their idols were bands like The Long Ryders & The Dream Syndicate. It might seem quaint looking back now, but Out of Time and their peers were a revelation at the middle of that decade – a period still reeling from Italian disco or wave-gothic trends, the emerging prominence of the studio producer, and the diminution of the guitar. But the sound of the Rickenbacker re-emerged in music scenes across Europe in those years, including the Paisley Underground and later the garage revival groups. Out of Time were definetly a real power pop band altoght often influenced by the jangly guitar sound of the Byrds and by the Rolling Stones sogwriting as they also added touches of Gram Parsons and Buffalo Springfield to their music. The group's breakthrough debut & only lp, "Stories we can tell", is arguably a little masterpiece as well as its best marriage of italian post punk and the Byrds/Parsons influences. It has incredibily never been re-edited in 25 years! I think that rarely had roots music felt so interesting in Italy, or had punk music felt so melodic or fleshed out in our scene. History says that the band did not survive to their debut album which incredibily failed to generate any interest in public. Out of time split up soon after the following years, after supporting the Dream Syndicate & Hoodoo Gurus in their first unforgattable italian tours. I still remember their great performance jamming with Steve Wynn at Collegno's Certosa in 1985 (or it was 86?), but it was more or less a century ago! No one seems to remember them nowaydays altough they re-created a quite derivative kind of sound that anticipated part of the '90s italian alt-rock scene... Don't forget them!!!

If you wanna smile (and trying to sing like Frankie L.)

2011-01-28T07:40:00.000-08:00

Peter Astor was born to be a superstar but he wasn't. As Abe Smith he began playing guitars in Colchester, England, in the sixties. Later he formed The Loft, the band which released a few interesting singles for Creation records before splitting up in 1985. Then came The Weather Prophets, definitely the most underappreciated Creation band ever! Maybe just because they were one of the least heralded bands to record for Creation in the '80s, maybe because they jumped to the short-lived Creation-fed/Warner Bros.-financed Elevation imprint, or maybe because they didn't overflow with flash like the Primals or mess with heads like My Bloody Valentine. They just played their straightforward indie pop songs with a minimum of fuss and left the scene, doomed to be forgotten and undervalued. Chief songwriter/vocalist Pete Astor wrote and played at a same level as Lloyd Cole and Edwyn Collins and those were great songs... So Peter really has a stunning back catalogue for those eager to indulge and of his later stuff, the Wisdom of Harry is worth diving around on-line to find. Please take a listen again to the prophets playng germany in the late eighties and enjoy once more the wonderful jangly sound of the lost decade.

The kangaroos postcard

2011-01-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

Glasgow like Brisbane? The legend says that Mc Lennan and Forster took a train to Glasgow in a frozen 1980 March morning and David Mac Clymont, the OJ's bass player, was there at the station waiting for them. As far as I remember they were in Scotland to do an audition for Postcard Records which ended up being the I Need Two Heads single. Steven Daly was credited with drums in the sessions and someone said that "edwyn our hero" was also around the studio providing some guitars and cymbals... It was a legendary session anyway as Mc Lennan still remembers: "It was a great time. They were our age, they did not take music too seriously but it was the only thing they were interested in!". This was the story, the Go Betweens played also a pair of dates in Scotland with Orange Juice & Josef K and they finally fell in love with the city crowd. But now we all know that there were no Scottish folow up and the label itself soon lost its indie identity. Soon the kagaroos went back to London searching for a new contract and time deserved a quite luminous future for them. In the same days, Orange Juice signed to Polydor for their debut album, becaming a mere shadow of their former glory. But we like to imagine the two bands gigging together in front of an enthusiastic audience for once managed to dance to a group. The start and the finish of the Glasgow scene.

Distance fades between us

2011-01-11T02:48:00.000-08:00

Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys emerged, initially in early outfits such as The Id, but devoting increasingly more time to their experimental work as VCLXI - essentially the prototype Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Their debut gig at Eric's Club in 1978 - and the subsequent release of Electricity - changed everything. OMD moved forward as a pop engine through a mighty catalogue of electropop classics but this was another story. There are some recordings, (not so) rare & precious, that still sounds as they could eventually be... an original band that launched their own unique style of catchy electronic melodies, in a quite inspired experimental vein, far enough from their maestro Gary Numan. Back then, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark might have seemed somewhat unwise, but the obvious commercial appeal of their music provoked enough interest that it eventually led to Factory Record's supremo Tony Wilson offering them the chance to cut their debut single 'Electricity' on the Factory label. Tony probably listened to the tapes I enclude here, perfectly capturing their infectious blend of melody and melancholia thru the sound of distant synthetizers. No punks or dope, no guitars & drums...take a step back to 1978 where those tracks were probably recorded and have a good listen!!!

Before & after digital synthesisers

2010-12-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

So this is new roma(nce)? I know that we talked about them in a recent post about the new italian scene, but they are so great that we absolutely wanna make them bigger than they actually are letting you know better their music. I'm talking about Ancien Regime, the capital band that sounds exactly like Duran Duran & Omitd in their heydays, mixing stunning melodies with cold drum machines in a Kraftwerk style! Now that all their Mannequin records went so soon out of print, you absolutely have to listen to their wonderful 12" vinyl split debut, shared with the american postpunkers Led er est... just 4 tracks but really memorable! Hope they will make more great music soon, but for the moment, please support them and do not miss their future gigs here in Italy or everywhere else... they will be famous soon!!!

http://www.myspace.com/ancienregimeband

from Liverpool to Papua

2010-12-04T03:53:00.000-08:00

China Crisis were founded in Liverpool, England by Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon. Eddie and Gary first met at St Kevin’s school in Kirkby. The two started working together in 1979 after leaving school.China Crisis debuted in 1981 with the single "African and White", then followed another single "Scream down at me" in 1982. Both these releases were on a small Liverpool independent label, Inevitable Records (.Inevitable recs – label ran from 4 Rutland Rd & formed in 1978 by Pete Fulwell (who ran Eric's) & Jerry Lewis (Amazon studios). 1st rel was to be Freedom Fighters by Dalek I Love You, but they signed to another label, so Inevitable wasn't officially launched until Dec79. Had numerous Indie & Chart hits with Wah! Heat, Modern Eon, Dead Or Alive, Faction. Pete left in May81 & set up Eternal Recs leaving Jerry to continue.) The band was then signed by Virgin Records who re-released "African and White", which then became a minor UK hit, reaching number 45 in the singles chart.The debut album "Difficult shapes and passive rhythms, Some people think it's fun to entertain" surfaced in late 1982 and hit the number 21 spot in November. times changed so fast and theen they started recordings overproduced tracks following the ghost of success. But I prefer to remember them in their heydays when they recorded also some interesting Peel sessions where you can hear the pure & genuine sound they had in their beginnings, a real pleasure for your ears!

North Marine Drivers

2010-11-26T02:42:00.000-08:00

October 1982, from the Mark Sinclair archive, Tracy speaking about the "Distant Shore" mood:

"A Distant Shore' wasn't intended as an LP at all, I sent some songs down from Hull to Cherry red and they decided to put them out. It felt right at that length because all the songs were written in a compact space of time just after I'd gone up to Hull. "I felt it ended there. It sounds corny, but I'd said all I had to say I couldn't have written more songs just to pad it out. I left the songs in chronological order as well so to me it flows really well because I know exactly what each song was about and what was happening. Part of a continuing experience. And then it just ends. It seems really right." "I'm riding on the crest of a wave from the things I've done before. So I suppose the good publicity and chart ratings it has got is due to people thinking 'let's see what Tracey's solo album is like'. "All sorts of strange people like the Marine Girls. We get lots of peculiar letters, We started all those 'sea' connotations and there was nothing meant by it but people asked if we're obsessed by the sea and do we eat fish for breakfast? It's quite annoying actually. We get sent shells. Little kids send up letters about their trips to the seaside." "A distant shore is quite thoughtful I suppose. People say they relax to it but I can't relax to it at all. I play it and it puts me all on edge! The music is relaxing but the lyrics certainly aren't. I'd hate it to be thought of as background music.""Actually my granddad's got this new cassette recorder, he doesn't know how to work it but I send tapes of everything that I do and he jigs about. They're very proud. To them someone they know making a record, let alone someone they're related to, is incredible. They can't believe it. To them, only famous people make records." Those were the days!!!

nervous breakdown - italian wave 81-85

2010-11-16T02:06:00.000-08:00

"...At the beginning of the 80s, the “Italian model” boomed as it had never done before: this was true for art and culture, but also for people’s customs and everyday life. After leaving behind the bitterest and most nihilist phase of Punk, at that time and at that moment, a number of musical bands looked for new forms of expression and made their activities known everywhere in Italy: Gaz Nevada, Litfiba, CCCP, Denovo, Diaframma, Neon, Underground Life, Bisca, Pankow, Gang, Violet Eves, Rinf, Moda, Monuments, Art Fleury, Kirlian Camera, Detonazione, Timoria, Frigidaire, Tango, Afterhours and many more. Many of these bands do keep their art alive and kicking, and are still the best representatives of the Italian independent music production (Giovanni Lindo Ferretti, Piero Pelù/Litfiba, Afterhours, Gang, Ustmamò, Bisca, Marlene Kuntz), in the same way as many young people of that generation do play an important role in the artistic launching of new musical bands and the organisation of musical events (Alberto Pirelli, Indipendente Produzioni, Alex Fabbro, etc.). Crollo Nervoso is a compilation cd and a journey based on fragments, thoughts, considerations and stories on the most creative and non-conformist years of the 80s. Federico Guglielmi, the modfather of italian post punk lead you thru this journey that is mainly focused on completely unknown musical bands, but. A kaleidoscopic “trendy” fauna who was able to fill up those years – which seemed to be empty and superficial – with innovative and exciting experiences and contents..." You can find the original cd/dvd edition of Crollo Nervoso on Spittle Records at their site at www.spittlerecords.it or simply listen to my "hypotethical volume 2" made just for yor pleasure!!!

The mile of miracles

2010-10-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

The original Harem Scarem slowly emerged from Melbourne's mid-80's indie scene, but, it could be argued, were closer in sound to classic Australian blues-rock from a decade before (Dingoes, Coloured Balls, Chain, Rose Tattoo etc.). Their sound was infused with a heady mix of punk spirit and Stax soul that also made them contemporaries of the likes of The Gun Club and the better known Beasts Of Bourbon. Harem Scarem first appeared on the Melbourne Psychobilly compilation “Asleep at the Wheel”. They soon developed (via the “Dogman” EP and some key line-up changes) into a powerhouse live act, where Christopher Marshall's extraordinary, passionate vocals combined with Charlie Marshall's stonesy guitar. The band were renowned for their dynamic blend of punk, blues and soul and ignited many a local stage in the 1980s. With a loyal following and upward trajectory of critical and popular acclaim they disbanded way too soon in 1987 when the brothers finally stop fighting one against the other. The Melbourne scene of the 80s embraced a wide range of music, but it was rare for a band to actually create their own genre with the panache that Harem Scarem did. Their first album, Pilgrim’s Progress, was originally released in 1986, and is a steaming chunk of urban blues from the Yarra delta. A little too hard blues for me but it surely kicks down the barroom door from the outset, with ‘Last Stand Man’, a bragging boast and challenge to any woman within earshot, followed by ‘Miracle Mile’, a great song, which makes it clear drinks are on the house. Then Harem Scarem pushed theirselves a little too hard, the fragile equilibrium of the brothers gave way, and they finally took our separate paths. But it was not the end, not for me... anyway, Chris the guitarist returned to academia while Charlie kept the name of Harem Scarem and went on to make one more album under that title. And so they reinvented themselves and came out their masterpiece called "Lo & Behold", strongly influenced by the Replacements and the american paisley underground groups. This is Lo & Behold, a strong lean rock album, full of great songs devoted to the americana style and to the the Aussie eighties sound, a bit remind me of Died Pretty and a bit also the boss Bruce, what a mixture!

'Till the last bullet!

2010-10-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

It was the 26th of may, in the year 1986... i was there at The Big Club in Turin waiting to see the first italian appearance of the Reid Brothers, aka The Jesus & Marychain, the last british "ready to use" phenomenon in pop music. What a night it was, with tons of dark & goth people with their Robert Smith's t shirts, heavy rimmel & black nails. But me and my friends were not ready for what happened next when suddenly came the ghost of the greatest band on earth, The Clash and gave a fist straight in our white mascara faces! The Gang came on stage that night supporting J&MC and it was incredible, an italian band that sounded exactly like our punk maestros. The band played with a lot of power and anger setting the audience on fire. What a an impact they had on the crowd with their rockabilly haircuts and red bandannas. Based on the excitement of the crowd and the group’s intensity, the Gang did not come across as a mere opening act, they were pure r'n'roll! They came from Marche, one of our reddest land and they know how to fight for their rights and for their music, no matter if someone came before them . They were amazing in their songs and in their Clashist poses and I could'nt believe that they were even better that their original inspiration. Early punk-era cuts like “Night in jails” and obvious concert closer “I Fought the Law” were been honed by the band, with an original garage-born buzz replaced by the wallop of a confident, practiced band. Never seen anything like this in Italy... so they were not just simple clones, time will prove that they could play as an international great band... soon they will leave those White Riot style just to meet an artistic evolution similar to the Strummer-Jones band, close to the real rock and roll and reggae and soul spirit of Sandinista. Then came a collaboration with Billy "MyGod" Bragg and the caribbean reggae echoes, then came the folk ballads and their masterpiece "Le radici e le ali", equally distant from their uk models as from the italian traditional "cantautori style". But I wanna come back to that night at the Big Club just because that was the moment we all understood what really matters in music, the roots and the spirit of 76, not the passing fashions . An attitude or a way of life, not a style. Once again my friends, Libre El Salvador, Libre El Salvador!!!

The child's players

2010-10-12T03:01:00.000-07:00

Modern Eon were from Liverpool in the North West of England. They were a part of the "New Liverpool Scene" that sprang up in 1979-1980 around 'Eric's Club'. Their music defies the routine by occasionally adding odd analog electronics and saxophone. The vocals are bathed in reverb and delivered with smooth eloquence, barely intelligible.Definite influences from Joy Division and Echo & the Bunnymen can be heard. Their music is moody, melodic and always leaves a certain mysterious impression. At times a harshness bursts through. "I see our songs as simple reflections, there's no answers there! I'm not pretending I have any answers. I don't think I'm any different from other people, so I make these observations, they might be able to relate to them in the same way. I think it must be said, some of them are doomy though! I just have to write the way the mood takes me and inevitably I sometimes fell down." -said once Alix, their leader/singer/composer…Their records buzzes, hums, and pulsates its way into the listener's dream world - creating a mystical place in your subconscious…Each song is an act of love which climaxes and envelopes itself in the oblivion of ecstasy. -- Record Mirror 1981

Sorry for the delay - The new italian wave scene!

2010-10-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

The end of cold wars

25 years late, not so much after all "... but at last, a new phenomenon. For three years now, Italian club nights like London Loves in Milan and Rome's Fish n Chips have been bringing the post-punk and industrial sounds of London's East End to Italian audiences, playing the same records and bringing the same bands - Hatcham Social, Neils Children, Ipso Facto, Electricity In Our Homes, These New Puritans - to Italian fans, and gathering the country's like-minded youth under the banner of the alternative. Now the reaction is imminent: a new wave of Italian groups is trying its luck in London, returning to its musical roots in a foreign city, with its own singular sound. As with the London groups, musical styles and fashions vary wildly. European Coldwave is a frequent reference: Soviet Soviet(myspace.com/sovietsoviet) and General Decay(myspace.com/generaldk) both employ the leaping basslines and chiming guitars of groups like Siglo XX and Asylum Party, but also take chilly atmospheric notes from their European predecessors' original influences (mostly Joy Division). Too Young To Love(myspace.com/tooyoungtolove) are cryptic and symbolic, a smoke-wreathed enigma of a band: a unique blend of unsettling percussive rhythms and hazy melody draped in austere Grauzone-style synthesizers; they are to release their debut EP on Trouble Records (home to An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump) later in the year.Death in Plains (myspace.com/deathinplains) is a one-man electronic project, brilliantly warping childlike synthpop melodies with distorted industrial percussion and already attracting attention from London's DiscError Recordings and photographer Dean Chalkley. MeanwhileDance for Burgess (myspace.com/danceforburgess) push their pop-inflected blend of Josef K and The Cure towards psychedelia - they've recorded with KASMs' Rory Attwell, and played with The Horrors and S.C.U.M at last year's Isle of Wight Festival..." And what about hte fabtastic Newclear Waves, hailing from Rome, exploring droned out electro pop territories, with less technology and more heart than many predecessors... they certainly remaind me of synth maestros like Kraftwerk, Robert Rental or even Cabaret Voltaire but they sound authentically new (& old) at the same time, dark & beautiful, even dreamy. They really have great cold & minimal tracks with their KR55 drums, a pretty tune & a distant mechanical voice... minimal wave from at its best. Let me spend the last words for my favourite band, Ancien Regime, half Duran Duran & half OMitD, "...a new wave band from Rome, Italy, formed in 2006, as a project conceived by Valerio Bulla (vocals and bass) and Gino Maglio (drums). In 2007 Angelo Stoikidis (guitar) joined the band and helped the project in approaching its real identity. To get the ultimate shape of sound, in 2008 Domenico Migliaccio (drums), drummer of well known roman bands like Bedtime for Charlie and Sadside Project, took the place of Gino Maglio, who, from then on, would handle the synth. The band’s sound incorporates influences from ’80s dark wave music and modern indie-alternative rock..." i believe the future belong to them but how can I be sure and "...the only question is this: will their homeland will embrace them as vigorously as the starved alternative London scene is currently doing? Is Italy itself ready for the new wave, or will it make an impact only where the ground has already been broken by its British predecessors?..."

For records, downloads and infos:

http://www.mannequinmailorder.com/

http://bluetvset.blogspot.com/

That was the way

2010-09-29T02:37:00.000-07:00

Art Boulevard, a group from Bergamo Italy, in my opinion, one of the best of the entire post 85 new wave/post punk italian scene. They mixed with success their strong dark influences with the new tendency to psychedelia & garage revival. Just 2 years of activity but a lot of great tunes and an unforgettable ep called "Favourite toy". It was 1987 then nothing else... According to the notes of their recent Spittle Retrospective cd that you must absolutely buy from them ("...Art Boulevard, born in 1985 in Bergamo (northern Italy), immediately stood out from the pack for their aesthetic and existential attraction to post-punk combined with a musical vision that was straight out of the late sixties: “rock as art” and not merely as an urgent expression of adolescent rebellion. The CD is a complete retrospective of all their songs, including their “The Favorite Toy” EP (which got rave reviews at the time, but like the great majority of Italian releases, disappeared into obscurity), their two cassettes and their songs from the “Arezzo Wave” and “Pluto” compilations. In the 1990s Art Boulevard, now a trio with a drum machine and the name “Orange Party”, changed sound and identity…but that’s another story"...

In bizarre recordings

2010-09-15T04:20:00.000-07:00

Naked Lunch started in 1979, with the aim to create electronic music influenced by Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, and Ultravox. During the hedonistic days the band joined up with Stevo who promoted many of their early gigs. In 1980 they were of the moment and hovered on the fringes of success alongside 'Futurist Chart' bands B-Movie, Fad Gadget, DAF etc. The song called Horror shock Horror only comes on the original vinyl LP record TERPSICHORE COMPILATION MINIMAL SYNTH 81. Rabies/Slipping Again is a classic period-piece single and collectors item. Their song La Femme appeared on the legendary Some Bizzare compilation album released 1981 which also included B-Movie, and the then unestablished Depeche Mode, Blancmange, The The, Soft Cell, etc. The band were short-lived but it has recently been stated that Naked Lunch have reformed and are recording new material!

Others acrylic afternoons

2010-09-06T04:02:00.000-07:00

The naughtiest girl was a monitor, what a strange name for a pop group!

I loved this ultra obscure band since I bought their first strange-cover ep in London, guess it was 1981. That songs were more or less punky little synth tune with fist-pumping riffs, definitely uber-geeky, catchy, and amazing. The NGWAM were one of Sheffields finest Synth-Wave-Band of the early eighties. Mellow and synthesizery of course with original vocals. Music obviously sounded a bit like early Human League tangled in a knot with David Bowie and drowned with tears of OMitD too. I guess it's fair to say a lot of bands starting using synthesizers in 1980 but these folks weren't afraid to pick up the ball and run with it. It's not really synth-pop though, it's too...melancholy for that I think. Just pure feelings and moods for the upcoming summer-times. As a bit of trivia, the band would lend equipment to budding brit-pop act Pulp, enabling them to cut their first recordings. Please take a listen to the pure beauty of their tracks and if you're lookin' for a contemporary reference point, you might wanna imagine Ariel Pink going full-on new wave! Off-kilter, breezy tunes filled with analog synthesizers, drum machines and strings too! A must!

Sound of the past

2010-07-23T05:40:00.000-07:00

Pavia, Northern Italy, 1981. — From the ashes of Doctor Mabuse, protagonists of incendiary concerts of which no trace remains, came Dark Tales. Authors of three demotapes, they also appeared on numerous compilations of the period, including the now beyond rare “First Relation.” Distorted vocals, futuristic sounding keyboards and clean sounding guitars. All inserted in a new wave atmosphere made less sinister by a tight rhythm section always at the forefront, but never obsessive. Then in 1985, the end, due to exhaustion, lack of funding, and stupidity of those who were there, but refused to understand.

Listen & enjoy their great mini "Living out" and buy their fantastic reissue cd on Spittle records.

Spanish Johnny & the prunes

2010-07-15T02:54:00.000-07:00

“To properly understand the Virgin Prunes you’d have to go and live in Dublin for at least ten years. You’d have to experience the overpowering narrow-mindedness of the place at first hand - the pernicious maintenance of jaded and hypocritical religious morals, the smothering claustrophobia… It’s a society built on mind-bending paradoxes and guilt-ridden inhibitions… it’s crazy to think that, in a town where it’s easier to buy a slice of dope than 20 Rothmans, it’s a criminal offence to obtain contraceptives! The Church still has its stranglehold, and is effectively more powerful than the government… sin is still a far more powerful deterrent than any mere judicial system, and guilt is mightier than the sword. Beginning to get the picture? To understand why the Prunes can’t operate in half-measures - why they have to deal in extremes just to survive.”

Helen Fitzgerald in “Dressed to Kill”, an interview with the Virgin Prunes in Sounds, 11 December 1982.

(Re-post) Future in the past

2010-07-12T01:02:00.000-07:00

Back to r'n'r now. Italian mod band Four by art had a solid reputation in the eighties for their memorable live performances but most of their recordings in the studio - the "ST" (1985) mlp & "Everybody's an artist with" (1986) an year later always on Electric Eye Records - like so many 80s bands, didn't compare. Their first ep was memorable to me and it still shines however as a jingle jangle gem of 60s influenced beat pop. "My mind in four sight" has been written in their early days when they wore mod shirts, sported bowl haircuts and were pretty much unknown outside of their home region of Lombardia. Garage mod bands weren't exactly falling over themselves in the mid 80s but they used the Paisley Underground template well adding their own touch of modernisms. They were definetly a psychedelic dance band (Claudio Sorge once called it "sixties garage party") when the forgettable 80s were infested with awful synth bands and perm haired metal puffs from America. They recently reformed and have some more fun travelling Italy with their shows but that's another story and I don't know who's really interested now. This was 1983 and they wished it could be 1969 again!

Equal but different

2010-06-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

Blasting into the post-punk consciousness with a tremendous debut album, the Au Pairs, fronted by lesbian-feminist Lesley Woods, played brittle, dissonant, guitar-based rock that shared political and musical kinship with the Mekons and (especially) the Gang of Four. The music was danceable, imbued with an almost petulant irony, and for a while, very hip and well-liked by critics. Unlike many bands of the day, however, the Au Pairs (at least initially) backed it up with searing, confrontational songs celebrating sexuality from a woman's perspective. Also, they took swipes at the conservative political climate sweeping England after Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister. Occasionally, Woods' commitments to sexual and social politics made her sound inflexible, doctrinaire, and hectoring (especially on their OK second album). But, at first blush, the Au Pairs were a mighty intimidating proposition, able to take on so much and deliver great music in the process. After a desultory live album in 1983 (Live in Berlin), the band split up, and Woods and her bandmates have maintained a low profile. ~ John Dougan

Tapes from darkness

2010-06-20T01:21:00.000-07:00

Neon is not a common name for italian post punk lovers. Born in Florence, the cradle of peninsula's wave, they were probably the first important post punk gothic band in our country and they are still nowadays one of the most active band in 80's Italian new wave time, still marking Italian rock history. The band, which was born first as a duo at the end of the 70's in Florence's undeground culture, soon stands out for its Kraftwerk and new wave icons' synth, which made their style a unique 80's cultural dream's specimen, together with newromantic and post punk tought of bands like Joy Division, Ultravox and Human League. In 1980, the band got off to an electronic start with the single "Information of death", and later, through several line up changes, it achieves to synthetize a mix of obsessive electro sounds, obscure athmospheres and quite original pop melodies which take shapes in later works like "Tapes of darkness" (1981), "Obsession" (1982), "My blues is you" (1983), "Dark Age" (1984); in 1985 "Rituals" sanctioned Neon as the best Italian new wave band of that year. Excellent studio productions and intense live activities has brought Neon to be one of the few icons belonging to alternative 80's Italian music scene.Marcello Michelotti's band, following a different direction from their well known hometown friends Litfiba, choosed a difficult electronic and experimental sound instead of easy rock'n'punk tunes. Their impressive abilty to combine dark and powerful sound gave us some of the best pages of italian wave. In late 2005 a cd box containing Neon's first vynil works has reissued: "Boxed", and it allowed audience to appreciate more and more quartet's emotional fund, innovative power and mainly showed its heritage into the international electro - wave scene. In 2008 two other cd issues: Oscillator, the first Neon concert back in 1979 in Florence and Memories, the best of Neon 1980-1986. In 2009 their first album "Rituals" was released in cd with 3 bonus tracks. The band is in activity, live and preparing a new cd album. Long live Neon!

Survivors

2010-06-15T02:04:00.000-07:00

Before The Psychedelic Furs and The Bunnymen came the Wasted Youth. They were an original early 1980s band from London, completetely devoted to the the Peter Perret sound mixed with a decadent taste inspired by Brian Ferry. They sounded quite original for the times, blended early Goth and post-punk with dark acoustic strains of the sort associated with Nick Drake and Syd Barrett but also with Black Sabbath! The line-up of the band was Ken Scott (vocals & guitar), Rocco Barker (guitar), Nick Nicole (synth), Darren Murphy (bass) and Andy Scott (drums). Their records were released through Bridgehouse Records, a label set up by the bassplayer's father in the pub he owned in Canning Town. Wasted Youth emerged from the remnants of mid 70's Heavy Rock band Warrior, fronted by Ken Scott. They disbanded anyway in 1982 after one fantastic album (Wild and wandering) and a bunch of precious singles. There were several posthumous releases and some rare tracks too. Rocco Barker was later in Flesh For Lulu and now he's a tv star!!!

Marlene on the wall

2010-06-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

Never loved the nineties, never loved grunge, never loved post rock... but i would like to make a special post today for my friends Marlene Kuntz with their unique mixture of existential post noise-rock. They are from Cuneo a little Piedmont province, and they were founded around 1990 by the guitarist Riccardo Tesio and the drums player Luca Bergia. The singer and guitarist Cristiano Godano, who previously sang in the broken up Jack on Fire, immediately joins the band and became their leader. They come to the final in the rock contest "Rock targato Italia" in 1993 and Gianni Maroccolo notices them. Their first album, "Catartica", released in May 1994, is one of the best italian post rock album ever. This album contains most of the "classics" of the band, which their public still wants to listen to during their concerts nowadays. Marlene were (are) a real class act and their public still adore them after more than 20 years, a rare example of coherence and musical convinction. They never went to Sanremo Italian Festival and you will not see them very often on tv. But they are very famos nowadays, still playing a sophisticated style of dark and brooding music, a little bit influenced by grunge but also devoted to the italian traditional idea of post punk music. They have been on the music scene for around 20 years and they surely deserve their premiere place in our poor rock history. If you enjoy well-constructed hypnotyc songs a la Radiohead played with panache then they are worth a listen!

English as a second language

2010-05-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

The Names were a great Post-Punk band from Brussels (Belgium), formed in 1978 around bassist and songwriter Michel Smordynia. After local gigs as The Passengers, they changed their name in time for their debut single, Spectators of Life, released by WEA in 1979 to test the market for home-grown new wave music. Being signed by famous Manchester label Factory Records early in 1980 helped the band to achieve a strong reputation both in Belgium and abroad. The single "Nightshift" marked the beginning of their collaboration with Martin Hannett, the producer of Joy Division, with whom the band were to record an album ("Swimming") and two more singles ("Calcutta" and "The Astronaut"). Those were their heydays as you can hear in some tracks recorded from some 1979-1981 Belgian radio concerts, features stand-out tracks Nothing To Fear, Memories and a version of the classic Factory single Nightshift. While a show from Oostakker from summer 1980 includes Questions And Answers, Other Enquiries and I Wish I Could Speak Your Language. Superb material which echoes other keyboard-led groups of that era such as Magazine and Simple Minds. The Names recently made their return on stage (with new drummer Laurent Loddewijckx) during a Factory Night event at Plan K, in Brussels, in december of 2007. A live DVD, "Nightshift", was released in 2008 by LTM. The new studio album, "Monsters Next Door", came out this April on Str8line Records.

dream florence dream

2010-05-24T05:31:00.000-07:00

There was life after Diaframma & Litfiba in Florence and there were bands more or less important there in the late eighties. Nicola Vannini's Soul Hunters were amongst the best, with an interesting album and a pair of singles too. Once Nicola sang in Diaframma but the egemony of Federico Fiumani was impossible to contrast in the same band. So he formed a new combo and mad some interesting music too. It's a real pleasure to hear those atmospheres of The Cure or The Sisters of Mercy, revamping it into the classic florence wave style once again, in a peculiar sound and sophisticated tracks. Their music reflected the mood and tones of that times and opened to middle european influences too. Between pop, rock and dark tones there was an intersection, which The Soul Hunters claimed for themselves and fill with heart and life.

Grandsons of dungeon

2010-05-16T06:06:00.000-07:00

The Triffids were with no doubt an essential part in the soundtrack to my adolescence. I first heard of them while briefly living in London, where they arrived in the long hot summer of 1984, with great hopes and the immense talent of their "so inspired singer" David McComb. I was a common teen at the time and never really share my italian friends taste in music. But London was something different and NME was a good guide for a post punk boy! Like many others at the time, I used to devour the musical newspapers voraciously and that summer they announced the Triffids as "the group who will save rock music" once again... I was there waiting for them and, after reading NME, I immediately went out trying to find all their records... so I finally found a wonderful copy of their fantastic debut mini lp "Treeless plain" that I discovered in the Notting Hill Records & Tapes Exchange discount department, downstairs in the basement. The Triffids finally came over Uk, "arriving in London with a wad of cash they’d saved up and 5 return plane tickets scheduled to expire by Christmas". They began by playing gigs with the The Go-Betweens and and soon supporting Echo and the Bunnymen. At first, it was something about their look that intrigued me a lot. They looked like they had just been plucked from the australian desert, shell - shocked and a little under nourished. From this point on they never looked back to the the wide open roads. Then a word about their singer, my singer. His sound deep, soft and sensual transmited such good feelings in my body and my head! With his voice, David finally took me to a better world! A major influence on the group's sound was surely their geographical location, coming from Perth, the world’s most isolated city on the west coast of Australia, facing a cold ocean and backing onto a huge, empty desert. The isolation infused The Triffids' work with a feeling of emptiness and loneliness. I was living thousands of miles away from them but, hearing their music, I felt exactly the same as I was there in Australia, in my adolescent dreams. Their most Australian-sounding album, the wonderful sophomore album Born Sandy Devotional came some months after. The rest of the story is well known. In Belgium, Holland, Germany, France and particularly Scandinavia, the Triffids became big business. The fickle European rock press devoured the unusual sounds and intriguing lyrics that captured Australia's intimidating landscape and in Belgium, they played to 70,000 fans. From Calenture to the Black Swan in pretty short order I bought later all their realses and I was equally captivated, never dissatisfied. They were all well received, but the success wasn't overwhelming, which inevitably disappointed the band members to the point where they soon after dissolved. According to my idol David, as he wrote ..." In 1986 we found ourselves at last on the holy mount of bigtime Oz rock as part of the infamous Australian Made bachannalia. Time was even found for a quick fling in America in 1989, but by this stage of the decade it was obvious to most coolheaded observers that a beautiful era was at an end. The last Australian shows were in late 1989, and the final Triffids entertainment booking was, appropriately, in front of a few miserably frozen stragglers in a snow resort in Jindabyne. Well, actually it was Canberra ANU, but let's not spoil a good ending"... The day David died, just a few days short of his 37th birthday, I felt like a part of my adolescent self died at that moment too, forever. As someone else's wrote, "I never knew David, but felt I had grown with him somehow". Please celebrate him once again buying the soon to be finally realised deluxe box set "Come Ride With Me ... Wide Open Road" and listening to their old Blah Blah Blah 1985 Radio session...

The friend I had was a passionate friend...

2010-05-03T01:00:00.000-07:00

..." Soon or later it had to happen. The painfully predictable way in which rock scenarios repeat themselves certainly belies the once optimistic image of a dangerous, freewheeling medium constantly expanding like some parallel universe journeying to dimensions never seen or heard before. A thriving primal musical milieu began to flower on Mathew Street, Liverpool, circa 1977. From the ego shattered breakdown of the portentously named Crucial Three, a band that never made it out of sitting room let alone the garage, crawled Ian "Mac" McCulloch (Echo And The Bunnymen), Pete Wylie (Wah! Heat) and Julian Cope (Teardrop Explodes). The bands' early singles on Zoo and Inevitable were acclaimed and it dawned that here was another much needed opportunity to write on and help manufacture a phenomenon - The Liverpool Scene, The New Merseybeat, and so the labels linger on. Once the buzz had filtered onto the discreet pages of the Sunday glossies, there came a need for the final ingredient: a ritual sacrifice. The Teardrops released their debut album "Kilimanjaro", which embraced pop in favour of their formative experimentation. It also included their past singles and, although excellent in parts, veered towards the bland by virtue of its unifomiity. It was a golden opportunity for the big put down. The knives were drawn and suddenly it's et tu, buddy. Couple this with Julian Cope's propensity to unashamedly air the band's internal and external rivalries like the dirty washing from the northwest's other soap box fantasy, "Coronation Street," and you find an incestuously, inward looking menage a trois that looks like imploding under the weight of its own negativities. While the critical backlash aimed at the Teardrops' debut album, flawed as it is, seems more than a little unfair, the way the Teadrops have become the eye of a bitchy whirlwind of jealousies, slander and cynical asides is hardly surprising when you realise that the band is fuelled on in-fighting and hatred. "Yes, I must say I don't like Dave. He gets a pretty dubious character sometimes." This is Julian Cope talking about his keyboard player and producer Dave Balfe, a man who frequently works with great effect with the other great Zoo controller Bill Drummond under the collective title of The Chameleons. "He just plays a good role in the band that's all," he continues, "but we often fight, and I mean physically. I usually win because he's a bit of a wiinp ... not that I'm a fighting person though." Speaking as if he'd just snorted an entire week's supply of speed, the Teardrops' mainman continued his explanation on polemics as a means to creativity in the romantic setting of the Ali Kebab House somewhere near their north London rehearsal studios. "Dave is just one of the most extreme characters I've ever met. Sometimes he gets me so knotted up inside .. but then again that's good because it keeps me pushing; you know, right there." Hardly the kind of thing you expect from a man who writes predominantly love songs, and very good ones too, and confesses to a long-running affair with the metaphysical poets like Donne and Marvell. Turning, momentarily from aggression to what he calls the "alternative society" of Liverpool, he had this to say: "It's become the hip thing to deny that there's a Liverpool scene but there is. "It hasn't been exaggerated by the press in fact. It is a very cliquey place, very insular. We all meet in the same places and despise each other jokingly. One thing though, there's certainly not a Liverpool sound." , As if to amplify this point he goes on to point cut that he considers the Bunnymen to have become too dirge like - "they've lost their original fragility" and Wah! Heat are accused of being "too heavy and ponderous." Much of the emotion on the album revolves, not unnaturally, around girls, apart from occasional tracks like "Went Crazy" and "Books". The latter is the only song without the lyric printed on the inner sleeve and it's not without significance that it was written with former partner, Mac McCulloch. Like their friends/enemies (you choose) the Bunnymen, they received more than their share of flak for signing with a big label rather than an independent. Julian's answer to those "rootsier than thou" critics is typically uncompromising and pragmatic. "Oh that's all shit . , . I don't think there's anything called selling out these days. We recorded the album first and then took it to Phonogram. There was never any doubt I always wanted us to go with a big label." By throwing in their lot with Phonogram they will also have the financial backing to make their current Daktari tour more than just a slog round the halls promoting the album. Eschewing camo chic - "We're heavily inyo army gear, I've got 17 pairs of army pants all hanging up and we've even got a jeep" in favour of nouveau naturalism. "Our backdrop is like a huge zebraskin" the band will also be using the unusually talented road crew that helped make the Bunnymen tour so visually powerful. As the consciously Love inspired horn section is central to the album's ambience there will be two trumpet players on stage with the band. It seems a crucial tour in many ways. The white light seems to be shining on them harder than any other time in their history. After raising so many hopes, they've committed the fatal sin of disappointing the self-righteous upholders of street credibility, not to mention one particular rock journalist currently conducting a personal campaign of character assassination in their home town. You might like to have known what the other members of the band thought about this tale of back stabbing and tribal warfare, but according to the garrulous Julian there was no point asking them. "I usually do the interviews because I’m the only one with anything to say really. Like Alan just spends most of his time thinking, and Gary (the band's drummer) never says anything. "I can usually speak for them better. Dave would just start pissing you off ... it sounds like a really horrible band, doesn't it?" Ian Pye

Reproduced from Melody Maker, 18^th October 1980.

Listen to The Teardrop Explodes playing live at Eric's in 1979

For a soldier...

2010-04-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Founded in 1982 in Perugia as a quartet, with musicians coming from previous experiences, Aidons la Norvege made their live debut with a three-piece line-up (Francesco Frondini-vocals-sax-synth, Augusto Croce-guitar, Massimo Rossi-bass) and a rhythm machine. The name of the group comes from an anti-Nazi poster issued in France in 1940 to protest against the invasion of Norway. In 1983, the line-up became stable with new drummer Alessandro Costantini. The group played in many Italian cities, and in 1985, along with their fellows Militia they were able to play a german mini-tour, with two dates in Tübingen and one at the legendary K.O.B. in Berlin. In the same year the band signed a deal with an independent record label from Tuscany, Spittle Records, to release a 12-inch mini-LP. The record, self-produced and financed by the group, came out in 1986 for a Spittle subsidiary, called Label Service, with the title La sfida. It was a 12-inch with four tracks in the typical style of the group, a dark-inspired new wave sound with Italian lyrics. At the end of 1986 drummer Alessandro Costantini quit the group, replaced by Francesco Pauselli, with which Aidons La Norvege kept on playing live, even supporting, in 1987 edition of the Rockin' Umbria festival, the Irish group That Petrol Emotion. The group broke up in March 1988, following a concert at Hiroshima Mon Amour in Turin. In the following years there were many attempts of reforming the original line-up, but all of them were unsuccessful. They recently played together again altought someone says it's no more time of post punk...

Songs about infidelity

2010-04-19T01:33:00.000-07:00

This reminiscence was submitted by Switchboard fan Y.B. Blinky.

The Human Switchboard was the second new wave/alternative/underground whatev band I ever saw live. The first one having been the Wombats, who played ahead of you at the first WRUW Studio Arama in the Mather Memorial Courtyard that was my very first show. It was 1981 and I was 17 and had just graduated high school. I ended up almost married to the Wombats' lead guitarist, but that's another story entirely. Me and my best high school friend were both at the WRUW show because we were music geeks with no social lives and had gotten into listening to Lars Harper's D.O.P.E. radio show every Saturday night, and calling up him and Larry Collins and generally being little Catholic fangirls, although we of course didn't see it that way and thought we were being very mature and hip. We basically had to browbeat my mom into driving us over to the show cuz she was very dubious about all this band stuff, but I was going to college at Case that fall anyway, so what could she do.So we got there really early and sat in the yard and looked at people's outfits and watched the soundchecks. I believe it was during your soundcheck that the mother of the bride and matron of honor from the wedding going on in Mather Chapel came onstage and started to raise hell about the noise. After that got worked out, my next memory is when you guys played a song with obscenities (I think this was "Book on Looks" where Bob sang "I don't care if your baby sucks, I dunno if she knows how to fuck" or something like that) and I was all like Oh no, I hope my mom isn't listening to the live broadcast because I'll catch hell when I get home! Not to worry, I learned later that her hearing and ability to discern lyrics was so bad she couldn't tell when people were swearing in radio songs. But I was totally worried about it at the time. We didn't get to see too many bands - I know we saw all of the Wombats set and all of your set and then there was some other band that we might have seen part of the set of, when my mom showed up and told us it was time to go home and basically hauled us away making a big fuss because she thought some of the chicks at the show were dressed too slutty. After that show, I went out and bought "Who's Landing in My Hangar?" It was one of the first records I picked up on Coventry after I was living at Case and could walk down Mayfield and get there easily. Besides listening to the record and playing it on my radio show on WRUW when I got one, I also read all the notes on the sleeve and went down to the library and checked out "Twisted Kicks" and read it, because it was mentioned on the album cover. I wanted to be cool like all you guys. I thought Bob in his sunglasses was like, the epitome of cool. I also remember one time walking back from Coventry I went around the corner and Myrna was standing in some apartment yard talking to somebody (dunno if she lived there or was visiting) and I was all like "Wow, that's Myrna from the Human Switchboard! I saw Myrna! Cool!" I didn't go up and say hi because I was too shy and anyway I thought of band people, even local band people, like rockstars then and figured they wouldn't want to be bothered with the likes of me so I was just cool about it. I did get to say hi to Bob a couple times when he was visiting Lars on his radio show. Bob and Lars together were like dangerous aging frat boys, humorous and sinister. I saw the Human Switchboard play a couple more times but not too many. In 1981-82 I didn't drive, didn't have access to a car, and for part of the year I was underage because they raised the drinking age in Ohio. The next year I started going with Johnny Wombat who drove me to all the shows I wanted to see for about the next five years, but by then it seemed like the Human Switchboard wasn't playing out as much. Lars moved away and I took over his radio show, which made me happy and sad at the same time. When I graduated I moved to Maryland and I used to see copies of Bob's "After Words" album (I think that's what it was called) in the marked-down alternative bin of the local record store, along with Death of Samantha's albums, and that was very weird, like seeing your past life flashing before your eyes, because five or six years is a lot when you're only 23. Sometimes over the years I have heard or read in the paper stuff about one or the other Human Switchboard member, and it always takes me right back to being 17 and on the verge of An Exciting New World with college and new bands and all. I still remember a lot of the songs and I have never figured out what's being sung on "Refrigerator Door" that sounds like "Mareechko Baby" but it's kind of cool leaving that a mystery so I have never tried too hard to find out. Well that's my silly little Human Switchboard story. Hope you enjoyed it .Thanks for the music.

Niagara Falls on a tightrope

2010-04-13T06:32:00.000-07:00

Artery was one of the bands that sprung up in 1978 and they developed a large following in Sheffield. The quartet was originally called "The" but they opted very soon for a change. Mark Gouldthorpe, the singer, was their leader. Very expressive in his perfomance as Jarvis Cocker of Pulp used to follow them around in those Sheffield lost nights. He describes their gigs as "electric and generating mild hysteria". Their first single was the acerb 'Mother Moon' in 1979. The following one was surely more fascinating and it was a double ep called "Unbalanced" on the Aardvark indie label. That time, the band released a double-pack single and I guess it was on May of 1980. I remember that "skin heads alike" cover and the package, featuring two studio songs and a second 7" consisting of four others poorly recorded at the Rotherham Arts Centre. Years later, they will re-record the title track from this ep in a new brand wonderful version: a masterpiece, a fantastic song with a killer bassline, and lovely spooky nocturnal vibe to the tune.. It will reamain, in my personal opinion, one of the best track ever from the post punk years! They released also 3 studio albums, including the mini-album, 'Oceans', in 1982 but they never saw a bit of success. Their final studio album, 'The Second Coming', was released in 1985 but the sound was even heavier than before, nihilistic, and pretty hard for most people to take. John Peel was very keen on Artery and had them in his studio twice for interesting sessions. The band had UK press features (NME, Melody Maker, Sounds) and had a following in Japan and Europe - notably Italy (me!!!), where they toured in 1984 to a fanatical (?!) response. Artery split in 1985 between the general indifference. Simon Hinkler was also involved with early Pulp and later became a member of the Mission UK. Now they recently reformed and they obviously look like pensioneers more than angry young men...“I happened to say to a friend of mine that if I was the man who walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, I would have fallen off halfway across just to prove I could fall off. So with a sardonic smile, he said I was unbalanced.”

who the hell makes those?

2010-04-06T04:30:00.000-07:00

The history is well known ...The Sound formed in South London in 1979, shortly after a band called the Outsiders dissolved. It isn't a very well-distributed fact, but the Outsiders' 1977 LP Calling on Youth was the first self-released British punk LP, issued roughly four months after Buzzcocks' infamous Spiral Scratch 7". Guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Adrian Borland led the Outsiders though a couple of other releases, but the band sputtered out three years after their 1976 formation. Bassist Graham Bailey (aka Graham Green), who had joined the band in time for their final recordings, followed Borland into the new group with a drummer named Michael Dudley and a saxophonist/clarinetist/keyboardist named Bi Marshall.The Sound made their first recordings in the living room of the Borland family home, with Adrian's supportive father Bob acting as recording engineer. As demonstrated on Propaganda, a posthumous release from 1999 that collects these sessions, the band was gradually -- not so drastically and suddenly -- leaving the Stooges/Velvets axis and applying touches that would be developed into something all their own. Then came the important years and masterpieces as Jeopardy and From the Lion's Mouth, between five stars reviews and general indifference from the public ensued. When someone ask about post punk at its best, those are two albums that matter. Darker days followed, good records after all but it was not the same as the golden years. Adrian Borland himself continued in music, releasing with the band another batch of under-appreciated records and as a solo artist he had an interesting career too. Then on April 26, 1999, the man took his own life and this time critics were all agree that The Sound were not given the recognition they deserved... Well, I have here in my hands my own precious vinyl copy of Jeopardy - autographed by Adrian, one night after a great gig in Turin at Studio 2. He was a simple man, he loved to meet fans and talking with them about those times of empty wallets and little hopes... rest in peace Adrian!

(Re-post)In the ghetto

2010-04-05T03:57:00.000-07:00

Statuto were (and still are) the best mod band coming from italy since the eighties. Yes, there were also other groups as the great Underground Arrows and some minor bands too but Oskar Giammarinaro and his mod friends from piazza Statuto in Turin, survived thru the years although official all things mod had gone. The Eighties showed a different side to the Mod scene and for Statuto, to be Mod was a lifestyle choice to reflect in their music. Their first recordings were great, a must for every italian post punk fan, the singles "Io dio" & "Ghetto" and their album "Vacanze" (1988) for the newborn Toast Records. But the record I've loved more - by far - is the mini "Senza di lei", where their sound developed a little more and musical skills progressed, including a wonderful organ cameo by James Taylor of JTQ. Underproduced sounds of course and DIY package with a Two-tone attitude... but everything here is excellent!

To prove what life is all about

2010-03-25T07:52:00.000-07:00

I guess it was 1979, I was on my holiday study/vacation, spending monotonous time in Torquay, attending english language courses all day long. Fortunately, we could go out in the evening and it was really wonderful for teenagers like us talking a walk downtown, going to discover record shops with vinyl & goodies we never saw in italy. Punk rock was all around but apart for some mohicans in the central square, I didn't know much about it. There was some kind of agitation that summer there because the Stiff Little Fingers were going to play soon in town and it was a real event there. Still I dunno how it could happen but me, a 14 years old spotty italian kid, well I was there in that venue that night and it was exactly just as a punk gig should be; no seating, walls painted dark, the whole place smelling of sweat, beer and cigarettes and a lot of terrible people (a lot of skins that i never saw before!) jumping around and screaming and fighting. That gig can´t be compared to any other I have been to and it changed my life! It was a mix of joy and terror, the second more than the first, but I discovered a new world made of dirty leather jackets, exploding guitars and, of course, Stiff Little Fingers! They were too great for me & I gotta say now that theirs is simply the definiton of music I wanna hear forever... The Fingers' approach to the punk music was surely powerful, but limited; what distinguishes them was their incredible sound. The song structures were sophisticated and the band played like punks, which means without a lot of skill but with a lot of spirit. They weren't faking it. They had meaning, and a message too. Years later, they also refused to keep forcing themselves of the punk straightjacket of their early music, but tried hard to evolve as a band. Unfortunately they couldn't... Fantastic songs anyway that was linked to their Northern Irish origins and the politics of the time. My mum used to hate them when coming back in Italy, I used to play Hanx at full volume in my room with a tennis racket in my arms as a guitar. I've been Jack Burns so many times from that night in Torquay...fucking happy days folks...

Allison don't run anymore (re-post)

2010-03-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

Looking again at the golden eighties, it's sincerely hard to distinguish what was and what was not post-punk in Italy.And it's not easy anyway to know when post-punk ends and indie-rock/alternative-rock begins all over the world... here in Italy the situation is even more difficult because we usually lived the influences of a musical movement no less than a pair of years later. Amerigo Verardi's Allison Run were a sort of late paisley underground band, just few years after the sixties revival garage explosion and only some years before the new british pop "flower-power" interest. Their first ep "All those cats in the kitchen" (on Mantra records) is still considered one of the best example of indie wave record in Italy during the end of the eighties. Like jangle pop bands, Allison Run looked at the paisley underground as an inspiration, revived the clean, chiming textures of folk rock, but they had a more psychedelic bent to their sound. In their brief career they had achieved large critical success even outside Italy and virtually no commercial success although they published on Voxx records their self titled mini album in 1988. A more mature lp "God was completely deaf" will follow in 1989 but the audience soon declined in the late '80s, the new psychedelic italian scene almost disappeared and Amerigo band too. For a complete discography please take a look at their drummer Mimo Rash site while listening to their wonderful debut and some bonus stuff too.

Acute memories

2010-03-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

The Lines began their existance in the late seventies with two scrappy DIY post-punk singles with a slight whiff of '60s pop influence a la early Soft Boys/Monochrome Set. Later, the renewed line up of the band improved their rhythm section simultaneously tightened up, locking into the grooves with more intensity, and loosened, opening up beyond straight rock beats into funk and R&B undercurrents. At the same time, the guitars started taking on more of a textural, atmospheric disposition. From there, The Lines grew by leaps and bounds. Over the course of the next recordings from late 1980 to '81, they dove into the deep end of of the pool, turning out bewitching tracks awash with funk rhythms, ambient textures, and avant-dub production techniques, sometimes abandoning traditional song form entirely in favor of exotic sonic tableaux. Ultimately, it's the kind of stuff anyone from Tortoise to the Rapture might have claimed as influential... please buy their remastered cd editions full of tracks, sessions and demos!

Butterflies rock

2010-03-16T05:04:00.000-07:00

Girls at our best! "...Possibly the finest early eighties band never to have a chart single and they split up before having any real success. They all come from the Leeds Area and the first glimmer was SOS, formed in '77 with guitarist James Alan and bassist Gerard Swift.Tthen taking refuge reality in art school, Alan met Judy. Well, convent schoolgirl from posh Wetherby that she was, she joined the group regardless (what's known as a rash decision) and SOS turned into the Butterflies. Several months after the Butterflies had ceased to exist Rough Trade heard a tape of a song called "Warm Girls", loved it and offered to back its release on the band's (would be) own label, Record Records. Renaming themselves after a line of their lucky song, they became Girls At Our Best!, sold 7,000 and hit the independent charts, then did again with "Politics". Finally they acquired a drummer (absent from the interview) and a deal with Happy Birthday, who are small enough for "Pleasure" to be their first album. IT'S QUITE clear that the most instantly distinctive Girl is the girl, Judy. Her voice soaring above what James describes as the band "oi-ing away" is high, pure - and jolly. Like a Girl Guide singing pop. Girls At our Best! split in 1982 after the joint departure of bassist Terry (Gerard Swift) and drummer Titch (Carl Harper). Their last release was the 'Pleasure' album, which came out in October 1982 [Wrong Fred, 1981], but they've since been remembered by 'Peel Sessions (17.2.81)' which was released on the Strange Fruit label during 1987..." Beautiful people, excellent music.

( Re- Post) This was the modern world

2010-03-12T01:38:00.000-08:00

Torino 1981-1983

The Blind Alley were a beat-mod band from Torino, with only one single published by Shirak Records in 1983. They were actvive since years before, close to the new born mod scene of Turin. The central figure of the band was the singer-composer Gigi Restagno, one of the most influencial charachter of the new wave scene in town at the time, later with Defear & other minor projects. The boy who played drums was my classroom friend Marco Ciari- later with Party Kids & Fratelli di Soledad - and still I remember those days when he came to school with the demo tapes of his band, or live recordings that sounded horrible... but it was really fun. Blind Alley were a great live band anyway, with not much of originality but with lot of young energy mixed with taste & style. Also they used to cover "live" great songs like Stiff Little Fingers "Wait and see" and "Safe European Home" by The Clash and they were finally punker than mod-ish when they played on stage. This is my personal homage to this forgotten band of the eighties, a collection of tracks from my vinyls and from the net. As for the Blue Vomit stuff, recently remastered (?!) on cd by SOA Records, I hope that one day my old friend Marco will find the way to realize a retrospective collection of his band... ciao Marco!

Forgotten days

2010-03-10T08:29:00.000-08:00

Don't know much about the group i'm going to resume now. They were called "Colour Moves" and I suppose they probably came from the Milan area. They had a rare and mostly unknown seven inch untitked "Trees" distributed by Supporti Fonografici, historical records shop based in Milano, Italy. What I relly know is that their song "Forgotten days" is a real classic and one of the best tracks of every italian wave compilation. I love this song. The atmosphere here goes from synthpop to darkwave and back again, always marked by dark shades & a sense of emotion. Their sound takes place in that band in which are declared the references to Defear with an eye to Death in Venice and Carillon del Dolore and in general to darkwave scene of the ‘80s conjugated with the sounds of synth pop that in that period invaded our frontiers. Don't know exactly if Colour Moves has been in the Italian alternative scene since the middle eighties or earlier but I remember that during those years, thanks to their great demo releases - also on alternative fanzine compilation like "zero zero"_ they became a sort of legend. I really hope that someone will soon or later give us more infos on them!

Where flamingoes flew

2010-03-07T03:51:00.000-08:00

GO FLAMINGO! was an Italian new wave band formed in Ferrara, Italy, in autumn 1982, not exactly the place from where you've expected to come from a post punk band. Three songs by GF! were soon included in the 12'' LP "A White Chance" (White Studio Recordings, 1985), released at the same time they won the contest "Indipendenti 84", a compilation produced by Oderso Rubini (Fare Musica Records). After this (un)success, they started increasing their live gigs, since the release of the debut miniLP "Go Flamingo!" (Fare Musica, 1986). Unfortunately, this (un)popularity was destined to decrease in a while. Half mod & half darkwave, they had an original mix of sound, full of energy & passion and a very gifted vocalist too. Though in recent years, the band started performing again occasionally, for the joy of their old (as well as new) nostalgic fans, after their last release on cd "In The Dark" – Anthology 1983/86 (No Tyme Records, 2004), a compilation remastered by Nicola Compagnini, including all the tracks that were released on vinyl and the first demos of the band too. I'm still searching for this damned cd!!!

At the end of an era

2010-03-05T03:19:00.000-08:00

I got into the voodoo with Mexican Radio and that was not a rare thing in the eighties. But then my favourite dj Alberto Campo began playing "Can't Make Love" on his radio program called "Evening star" and after hearing that unique and mesmerizing sound beat a couple of times, I went out with my vespa and bought the vinyl from "Rock'n'folk" - the best record shop in my hometown Turin at the time. Wov has been one my favorite band of all time ever since. That was in the fall of 1980, when I was a mod oriented teen with an original musical taste. The only thing that disturbed me was that Wov were no MODS at all... Anyway, I bought the album soon after and was totally stunned. I had never heard anything like it. Song after song I sat just staring into space, dreaming of lost weekends spent travelling thru desert highways, from the san diego valley to the canyons. I've been there some years later and those songs still echoed in my mind. Wall of Voodoo were magic and Richard Mazda was their studio guide, producing some of the best recording of the eighties. Stan and the boys were able to create massive visuals throughtout the songs and the Call of the west album was even better than everything heard before. When Stan left the band I was really shocked. It was simply the end of an era...

Look back in anger

2010-03-02T03:24:00.000-08:00

Intelligence Dept was an Italian New Wave band from Ferrara (Italy) who formed in 1982, during one of the most fertile year for the post punk sound in our country. There were lot of synths & programming machines all around Europe at the time but there was also a new sound incoming from the last singular adventures of Robert Smith & Bernard Albrecht. Their influence was terrific here in Italy, more than the Beatles in the sixties, more than the Zeppelin in the eighties... The coldwave movement spreaded his influence from Northern Europe, where maestros like Isolation Ward from Belgium & Siglo XX from France defined a new deeply emotional music. It was not so strange to find these middle-european influences in our provinces also because that particular style was a winning sound in the well known italian discos, the only places where the poor italians boys could eventually go and enjoy some music. Suzanna Zaghi's Intellingence Dept played together for five years with not much of a success but this is a common story... Anyway, they recorded & distribuited by themselves three interesting demo-tapes: "Sleeping City" (1984), "The Big Trouble (1985) & the more mature "Intelligence Dept" (1987), but they never had the possibility to record their own album. Three songs of "Sleeping City" were included in the 12" LP "A White Chance" (1985) & one out of these songs, "Anger Inside", was also contained in a compilation on cassette published by Fare Musica (an Italian quite famous music magazine). It seems that Mannequin records will soon realize a post humous compilation by the band during this year. Wait for it!

In the echoes of time

2010-02-24T05:44:00.000-08:00

Vision were a 1980s band from rotherham/sheffield and their lifespan stretched 7 years from 1981-1988. First started out as Spiral Vision in 1981 and with 3 main different line ups and personnel, all hinged around Andy Beaumont (keyboardist). Richard Jobson of the Skids cousin Ivor Hillman was singer then before he left to form My Pierrot Dolls. At that time they were on MVM/PRT RECORDS. A pair of years before, as Spiral Vision they released an EP in 1982 (Dance Macabre) , finally changing their name to Vision and releasing their biggest dance anthem Lucifers Friend. During this happy period, Vision had a certain success here in Italy, toured extensively around here, Germany, Belgium and also Canada in 1983. I remember also their appearence on the Italian version of Top of the Pops (discoring) performing Lucifers friend... they seemed so young and unsecure... In their long lifetime, the band released singles on 12inch and 7inch formats but due to problems never managed to release the album Insight on MVM Records. History reports that Russell Bonnell - vocalist of the band - unfortunately passed away in 2000. Taste their great electronic wave music through their wonderful album that never was!

Via dei Bardi, Florence

2010-02-22T06:23:00.000-08:00

In middle eighties journalists & papers couldn't believe to their eyes and to their ears. After years of waiting, Italy finally founded its post punk definitive band, Litfiba from Florence. The band was born there, two steps from Via dei Bardi and it was more or less 1980. The early line-up consisted of 4 members Federico Renzulli (nicknamed Ghigo) on guitars and lead vocals, Gianni Maroccolo on bass, Sandro Dotta on lead guitar - left the band after a few weeks - and Francesco Calamai on drums. Antonio Aiazzi on keyboards and Piero Pelù on vocals joined the band shortly after. As you can understand, punk and new-wave were a huge influence over the band's early songs, which for the initial brief period had also English lyrics. But Piero couldn't really sing in any other language but italian. And so it was, from the band’s first recordings (a 5 track EP titled Guerra 1982), and one year later a 7' single, "Luna/La preda". Those were their best recordings, together with a bunch of demos that never saw the light in the official discography. Oh yes, there was also their celebrated first full-length album, Desaparecido in 1985, the great EP Transea (1986) and the second full-length 17 RE, that someone still considering the best italian rock album ever and a third good album ("3"). Later those years, the band's evolution, under the guide of their singer Piero Pelù, led them to a sort of "mainstreem italian hard rock" a formula that gave them money and success but no artistic value at all. I still remember them playing in an obscure club dowtown Florence in 1981 and I can't forget the end of the show with Piero in a pub with us trying to convince the prettiest girl around to have a night meeting with him. At the end they went out hand in hand while me and my 2 friends, coming back to San Casciano Val di Pesa with no girls in our car, were just thinking to leave studies and consider seriously the possibility of beeing soon rock stars...

Young but not so stupid

2010-02-20T07:04:00.000-08:00

What a sad day that was... 19 January 1985. Edwyn Collins announced that Orange Juice had split, whilst on stage at the London Brixton Academy for a Miners' benefit gig. Their time was gone, just five years after all, not so much if you think of the Rolling Stones and other rock dinosaurs. Orange Juice was so important for the post punk scene as the Stones for mainstream rock music and there's no doubt aboput it. How I loved their first years, when Steve Daily & James Kirk were still jangling their guitars and Falling & laughing was the best unknown pop song around.. this was the time when Edwyn's boys offered us some of the last century's most quixotic and luminous pop moments. They had raccoon hats, they wore their fringe like Roger McGuinns and, most of all, they wrote songs of real happiness, breathtaking tunes, hopeless bus-stops and bars romanticism....a s someone said years ago, "there were few bands more human than the OJs... they had the courage to fail. They wanted to be The Velvet Underground, they wanted to be The Delfonics, they wanted to be Sly Stone and the Buzzcocks all at the same time, and they were prepared to make fools of themselves in the attempt. According to their detractors, this is precisely what they did, but why waste time on the grouses and churls when there are songs as good... did I say good? Songs as life-changingly fantastic as 'A Sad Lament', 'Falling And Laughing', 'Consolation Prize' and 'The Artisans' ... There's really not much more to say. Except that the "shoo shoo shoo shoo doo"s in 'In A Nutshell' say nearly everything there is to say in the confines of a pop song. And that... oh, don't start me off. We'll be here all night"...

Sing this song that says yeah yeah yeah!

2010-02-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

Five Or Six was part of the early-1980s British post-punk scene, expanding upon the lessons learned from the likes of Joy Division and the Fall in the late '70s. With an interesting debut single (Another reason) produced by Kevin Coyne and some other obscure recordings later, they gradually developed their world of punk-inspired energy, avant-garde conceptualism, and arty experimental leanings. Atmospherics & electronics mix with dub-inspired soundscapes and edgy, skeletal rock for a singular, captivating sonic experience. Not so original and completely underrated at the time, Five or Six were just one of many bands who popped up on the post-punk landscape of England in the early 80's and managed to sneak a few records out before going off to forming Spring Heel Jack in the 90's. The palette from which they worked was pretty similar to a lot of U.K. post-punkers at the time (Wire, Can, Beefheart, etc.) but it was Five or Six's wide-eyed way of mixing the bitter with the sweet such as on "You, The Night and The Music" that made them stick out from the oh-so-serious young men of the Ian Curtis generation. Please sing their songs forever...

Amsterdam boulevard

2010-02-04T03:23:00.000-08:00

The Italian independent post punk scene in the 80’s was greatly influenced by the uk maestro joy division, bauhaus & cure amongst the others. Two cities specifically provided bands to the new scene: Turin with Carmody, Defear & Monuments and Florence, the very true center of the new born italian cold wave movement. Diaframma started in the city of Arno as an idea of Federico Fiumani. The band grew up around his magnetic figure of composer/guitarist/poet and his inspirate, violent and visionary attitude. It'a out of any doubt that they had a great impact on the young italian independent scene in the early eighties. In addition, unlike their town mates Litfiba, they were more influenced by decadent and romantic artist as well punk rock and new wave. As a matter of fact, when they released their first single "Pioggia" on Italian records (it was 1981 I guess...), they stood like a sore thumb within the italian lazy scene, having already developed some sort of a personal style, heavly influenced by english bands but in some way devoted to italian artistic idols of the seventies, the so called "Cantautori" scene. Their first recordings , all sung in italian, raised great interest locally, including radios and labels, especially in the Florence area where Contempo Records was just moving its first steps. They were exactly the kinfd of band that all the italian new wavers (those kind of dark dressed boy were called "nerini") dreamed to be a part of. Then other great singles came after, the wonderful Altrove ep for example, and finally the long awaited debut album at the end of 1984. "Siberia" is still considered the italian new wave masterpiece and no matters what happened the years after: Diaframma will be always be identified with that cold wave sound they first created in Siberia. The story tells us that in spite of the enthusiastic response of the few post punk fans and the efforts of and passion of journalists and producers like Alberto Campo, Federico Guglielmi and Claudio Sorge, Diaframma were virtually ignorated by the most important italian media and the band was suffering from what they thought was an unmerited lack of consideration. Only Federico survived these troubled years. But soon they reached the status of cult band they will never leave! Today Federico is still singing with this moniker Diaframma and notoriously, he more than once turned down very lucrative major labels' deals in order to preserve his artistic independence and maintain band's integrity. Listening to his latest album, I don't know exacly what kind of integrity he's still talking about but his attitude surely makes him a sort of a hero in the underground Italian scene.

Worlds of Jayne

2010-02-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

Well, we were the Eric's (famous Liverpool club) band and everyone hated us because we were dead cocky and dead mouthy. If you walked into Eric's, there was a little platform, and that was our table. Obviously like all our mates we'd come from gay clubs. Before Eric's opened, gay clubs were the only ones that would let us in, because of the way we looked. We'd kind of been into dance music in gay clubs, so we brought that with us, and it was a very bitchy scene. People like Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope were quite young in terms, they're only the same age as Holly and Paul (Rutherford), but we'd been very isolated from our working class background, whereas they'd come straight from it; we were probably a little bit more sophisticated in the way we were looking at life. We were all cynical, we'd been around more, we'd all left home at 14 and kind of got into the same books and the same records. We'd already been well into Warhol and Lou Reed, and we'd sort of got into the New York alternative subculture, and modelled our little scene on that, really. So it separated us a bit from the others, also because all the boys in our gang were gay. So they all really hated us and they formed an anti-Big in Japan society. They got a petition together, and when they had 2,000 names on it we had to split up. Then they got t-shirts with my face printed on them, so they'd all walk around in t-shirts with my face on them, getting everyone to sign these petitions, which we all signed because we were into it you know. "He's got my face on his chest, he fuckin' hates me, I love it!" (laughs) So it was very antagonistic. They were into things like Jack Kerouac, quite dry things. We were just into "camping out" and having a laugh. It was two separate scenes, and then they started to play instruments and wanted to be in bands, which is why they hated us so much to begin with, because we were doing it and they were sort of just coming up. You know I have said that when I saw the first Bunnymen gig at Eric's, when they just had a drum machine, it was the best thing I'd ever seen. You know I did think they were brilliant. In later years we became friends, but it was very antagonistic in the beginning. All through the 80's, Ian and Julian would slag me in the music papers at every opportunity, because that's what they felt they had to do. It was the most competitive I've ever seen in the Liverpool music scene at that time, and it was quite odd because I was the only girl really there at that time, there weren't that many girls around doing things at that point... We miss your music and your creativity Jayne!

Losing their religion

2010-01-23T07:50:00.000-08:00

Coming from Udine, a city in the northeast of Italy, Detonazione formed in the land of frozen winters and desolate summers. They started as a sextet with great jazzy influences, just like some years before them Area's Demetrio Stratos, a radical anti-system group they wre in some kind devoted to. In their first gigs they had an original unique approach that remid me of the later well known CCCP style, and Detonazione were considered soon one of the best example of the so called art wave in Italy. They had immediately a single out in 1983, thanks to their fan Marco Pandin, a Rockerilla journalist with a genuine passion for alternative punk. And this was their masterpiece, "Sorvegliare e Punire", a title taken from a Foucalt book. The record still sounds like a fist in your face, an ensemble of angular sounds and difficult rythms. Someone called them "politically uncorrect songs for an utopistic punk adventure". Detonazione were close to the young italian hardcore scene but they founded hard to identify them with that style or to have musical connection with, since they did not sound punk at all! So, these sort of Italian Scritti Politti did not have lot of fortune and visibility, as you can easily argue, although they sold more than 2.000 copies of the single, stll one of the most rare and appreciated item for the italian post punk collectors. The great difficulties of the independent circuit caused them lot of problems to whom they could'nt survive a lot. No gigs, no radio airplay, no record contract and finally...no future. In 1984 the new born Tunnel records realised their musical testament, the mini album "Riflessi conseguenti", a bunch of unfinished and incomplete intentions, but still a good one. There were also appereances in compilations and a posthumous record called "Ultimi pezzi" but the time expired very very fast for them.... Don't forget them anyway, because a good attitude is sometime much more better than a good song!

Only time will tell...

2010-01-21T01:25:00.000-08:00

..."The question here is not whether the group has talent, but what it intends to do with its obvious skill. This Athens, Georgia-based quartet has a sharp, unfailing grasp on `60s garage rock-anyone with a fondness for the form can sink into the atmospheric, 12-string strums and Merseybeat harmonies with a relieved sigh of familiarity and give thanks that the style is alive and well. As with other young undiscovered (by the masses) but appreciated (by the critics) bands like the Fleshtones and the Bongos, R.E.M. holds tight to a tradition of mid-tempo, slightly psychedelic songs that would feel equally at home in another Nuggets or pop/rock collection, and the production stresses that simple, almost tinny sound that `60s rock vets grew up on. So what next? The lyrics only drift through in fragments, so it’s hard to tell if R.E.M. is using the classic mode to say anything new. Only time-and perhaps a lyric sheet-will tell. For the moment, however, these 1980-81 demos cassette is well worth it for anyone who thinks great rock died with the coming of the 16-track studio"...

Listening to Radio Edna

2010-01-16T05:40:00.000-08:00

For years I hoped to find another band just like the Smiths, perfectly knowing that it was a kind of illusion. Amongst the best groups that sounded alike, I like to remember Ian H. band called "Bradford", coming from Blackburn (!?). They had great singles out in the beginning ("Gatlin' gun" & In Liverpool" were my favourites!) and an interesting compilation album on Midnite Records France. Later they began recording for Stephen Street's Foundation Label but the magic of the first years seemed soon to be lost. Morrissey himself loved the band and he also recorded his own version of "Skin Storm" as a bside. ".... Ian H, once Bradford’s frontman, says that the reason the band folded had nothing to do with Morrissey. “In a word, the reason was ‘Madchester’. Bradford, in some respects, were Britpop five or so years too early. We were five Northern working-class lads with skinhead crops, the odd Fred Perry, Docs, Harrington, Levi 501s and red tab jackets in the wardrobe, singing about a Greed And Pleasant (sic) Land etc. All completely out of step with the baggy/dancey/ravey Manchester which, of course, became legendary. We had lots of press, but while we scraped into the indie Top 10 on several occasions, we didn’t (to use the bean-counting parlance of the modern record companies) ‘shift enough units’. Sire dropped us in America and that’s you, mate – three years of indie fun then back on the dole. Did Morrissey help? A resounding yes. We’ll be forever grateful and flattered by the attention. I still have ‘silly notes’ he sent me and postcards, plus the accolade of a major icon recording Skin Storm, a song I wrote. However, I never received a penny in royalties from record sales or publishing for the substantial sales of this track. So if anyone can help out with this on a no-win, no-fee basis, get in touch (ianhodgson@123mail.org).” Ian H, now with a band called Acoustic Uprising, adds that he still has contact with other Bradford members. “Cherry Red were planning the re-release of a 20-year-old album of ours in April and we were all at bass-player Jos’s house discussing it. Some virtual jousting commenced but legal/ownership issues put the kibosh on things.” From MOJO # 189, August 2009

Lovers of today

2010-01-13T09:03:00.000-08:00

Formed in early 1984 in Manchester... separated in late 1986. Played all the venues - The Boardwalk, The Venue, Corbières, The Polytechnic, The University, The Gallery, The International. Had a good following and some really positive reviews in NME, City Life. Released a single, had interest from Virgin and London Records... but the Warehouse Party and Rave age were just beginning.... and Manchester was soon to become Madchester... Influences? is too easily confused with "what music i listen too and like" - it shouldn't be. Martin Tivnan, songwriter, always spoke of Ian McCulloch as a major influence - in terms of melody and song structure. BAWL were big on melody and creating an easy to listen to sound, without falling into a MOTR category. Being in Manchester in the 70s and 80s there were lots of bands citing the same names (doors, velvet underground, joy division, the fall....).... but BAWL were perhaps more influenced by the Cabaret sound (Frank Sinatra,Vic Damone) and the pop sound of Edwyn Collins and Orange Juice. A big band sound without the big band set-up. One reviewer wrote "The Blow Monkeys meets Frank Sinatra" - almost right..!! You can make up your own mind!

Hard bananas

2010-01-13T05:14:00.000-08:00

Back in the days of the first italian wave Bologna was the centre of the world, you can ask the Scritti Politti for further informations. Around the university, underground culture and alternative music rised just in front of the barricades where the students fighted for their rights.. New sounds came out from the frequence of Radio Alice, the first true Free Radio in Italy. The "toosoonforgotten" Roberto's Terzani Windopen were one of the best bands around at the time, too polite for the harpo's underground aspirations, too punkish for the major labels that wished they could go soon to the Sanremo Festival. "We were idealistic idiots" said Roberto some years ago in a letter he wrote to his old fans... don't know if they could have been bigger than the Beatles (or the Pooh, here in Italy...) but they remained a great example of musical integrity, real "...street rockers, with their anthem “Sei in banana dura” and the sleazy “La testa”... Windopen founder Roberto Terzani later joined Litfiba as a bass player when Gianni Maroccolo left the band, in 1990 and he still have a great site where you can have details about his own personal history with the band. In other case, no doubt that Windopen were a real classic of the first italian wave as you can hear in their wonderful anthem "Windopen Rock" or in their outrageos "Strazzami i Maroni". Enjoy to their sound and please, send me a digital recording of their first harpo's tape because mine is damaged!!!

The alternative Tate gallery

2010-01-11T07:21:00.000-08:00

For years, just four years to be unforgettable... this was the story of The Smiths, "the only band that really matters" (The Clash will understand...) I said for years to all my friends. From those old Tate recordings (Dear John?) to the Strangeways misuranderstandings, it was all too brief. Almost any British band that picked up a guitar in the '80s and banished synthesizers from its sound was influenced by the Smiths, a quartet that favored street clothes to haute couture and played ringing, hook-rich songs sung by the always eccentric and outspoken vocalist. And God, what kind of songs, easy but complex, sorta many-hued instrumental tracks topped by Morrissey's wordy, sexually disorented poetry for struggling adolescents. I'm "still ill" nowadays and me only but I continue to see the band's influence as "enormous", in every other band I listen to. The '90s Britpop movement grew from the Smiths, and bands that upend traditional notions about gender and sexuality -- Suede, Antony and the Johnsons, Bloc Party, Of Montreal, the Magnetic Fields -- come from the same place. Then came the Moz adventures, but it was just a pantomime of the past, while my "guitarhero" Johnny wandered around for years ( and he's still wandering somewhere) with no apparent direction home. I can't really say how much I miss them, they were a part of my life and those were the days, if not the best, probably the most important... I was a young student at the time and it was around 1983... it's difficult to imagine intense young students making it through university without these songs. Hopefully they'll never have to...

The headhunters & the angels

2009-12-30T02:31:00.000-08:00

Like most followers of the band, the first Comsat's track I heard was Independence Day. The song hit me immediately - I loved the tension in the arrangement - and I've always been a sucker for harmonics in a song. The bands first album Waiting For A Miracle was a critical, if not commercial, success. It would always be like this. Instead of dancing on the city streets, the great British public stayed at home. Their loss, I guess. 1981 heralded the release of the second Comsat Angels album, Sleep No More - a much darker release. The band toured with Siouxsie & The Banshees and, at the end of the year, they took part in a co-headlining tour with U2. Much has been said about Steve Fellows guitar style influencing U2's The Edge - one is now a multi-millionaire and one isn't. Ain't that always the way. Later came other albums, sometimes great ones, sometimes mediocre.But I will always have a place in my heart for them. A lot of bands stick to what they perceive to be their winning formula - and if they do move on, they often take two steps back and attempt to recapture what made them tick in the first place. The Comsat Angels remained true to their spirit to the bitter end. Enjoy some of their rarest demos and taste once again the essence of the post punk.

A baby with a rope

2009-12-28T02:01:00.000-08:00

Baciamibartali cames into existence in june 1981 with Tarcisio Lancioni (voice), Francesco Guidobaldi (bass), Ido Borsini (guitar) and Carlo Iura (drums). In April 1982 they recorded their first LP (Baciamibartali / Winter Light) for their own label Sequence Records. Robert Clark replaced Ido on guitar and produced the record. In 1984 with Stefano Mengascini on keyboards they recorded a three songs 12" EP for Contempo Records (The Mournful Gloom). In 1992 Carlo and Francesco Pirro, with the help of Robert Clark on guitar and production, realized a 12 songs CD (Grey Sunset) for PH Records (NOT) distribuited by Contempo International. In 1993 the mexican label Opcion Sonica included a Grey Sunset song (Mother Rust) in the compilation Contemporock93. In the beginning of 1995 the band was dissolved. On Christmas 1997 Carlo put together outtakes, demos and live material for the very last Baciamibartali record (Postuma). Please listen those old vinyl versions plus some demos and go fast as you can in your favourite cd point and get the unmissable remastered versions of Baciamibartali’s “The Mournful Gloom” 12” vinyl and the “Baciamibartali / Winter Light” split 12” vinyl originally released between 1982 and 1984.

They walked into the wind

2009-12-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

Every decade seems to have a written and imagined sense of itself: the BBC’s recent Your ’80s survey corralled people’s memories of the decade, the quotes said it all. Like this one: “The ’80s was full of colour and everything was big, the music was more ‘electric’ sounding – every band based their sound on numerous keyboards and all the boy bands had floppy fringes. Men carried huge fat diaries which resembled a handbag. There was Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Human League, Wham!, Frankie, Stock, Aitken and Waterman... big hair, puffball skirts, shoulder pads, Dallas, Dynasty, The A-Team and the Falklands. Around 1985 the country seemed to turn a corner almost overnight; twentysomethings in Porsches wearing flash suits; money everywhere…”

But there was none of that for The Loft, or any other band lurking in the shadows of the zeitgeist; of Thatcher, the City, the mobiles like bricks, etc. The party was taking place on the other side of town, not in Lewisham but in the City, the mythical Square Mile, where we would read and hear about characters like those that would eventually people. Look at the picture of these guys as they peer out of their cold kitchen with the hollow eyes and longing that always belong to the marginalised, the outsiders. The bar fires, the cracked glass windows, the skip furniture, amps and guitars, records piled against the walls are all there in one of the many drafty rooms out of shot. These people are underneath the times; building a myth of their present, one that went largely unnoticed by the decade that spawned them. In the words my demi-god Janice Long, ... it was 1984 and I had moved to London to do my own show on Radio One and it had its perks. I had been used to searching out music via word of mouth and music press and gigs but all of a sudden records were being sent to me. There was a lot of crap but worth going through for the gem, the one I couldn't wait to get in to the studio and play. "Why Does The Rain" is one of the best tracks I have ever checked out and still include it in my top ten tracks of all time. God,I must have driven everyone mad. I played it to death on the radio and inmy flat. I was asked to pick my 'bands who are going to be big' for the BBC's Oxford Road Show, 80s TV show with scaffolding and dodgy presenters. I chose The Loft and we spent an afternoon on Primrose Hill filming "Up The Hill And Down The Slope". Yes... up Primrose Hill and down the Primrose Slope. And then the bastards split up... This was the brief & essential story of one of the best bands coming out from the eighties.

viridanse

2009-12-26T02:28:00.000-08:00

This a kind of xmas gift, a rare old boot by the wonderful Alessandria's boys Viridanse. They played a lot in 1984 and maybe that was their best year. Giovanni Pastrone and the band recorded only two albums, both great and forgotten, "Benvenuto Cellini" (1984) & "Mediterranea" (1985) on Contempo Records. Their style is well described in the fundamental & now apparently dead "Il golpe e l'uva" blog: ...their guitar-based darkwave style owes much to Joy Division, though it turns down the band's trademark funeral feeling into a more voluptuous sound delving on Meditterranean influences and melodic arabesques. The singer's emphatic vocals, very typical of Italian darkwave, and the wannabe cerebral lyrics may sound quite disturbing, but the mood of the album is original and peculiar, slightly resembling to a Mediterranean version of Japan's "Tin Drum". Apart from the forced comparisons, Viridanse's convoluted basslines were much probably influenced by Mick Karn's legendary style. Most tracks are dominated by the fine and sharp-sounding intrications of the two guitars and all of them are pervaded by a hedonistic, decadent mood which is, as a matter of fact, the album's most accomplished element...Anyway, it seems to me that they sounded more poppier in the studio recordings than alive on stage. So I've decided to let you hear these tracks from an old show in their hometown... welcome back again Viridanse!

Monuments of Turin

2009-12-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

Another great Torino band, born from the ashes of a now legendary new wave movement that started with Teknospray in the late seventies. ... MONUMENTS came into being in January 1981 when Mauro Tavella and Andrea Costa pooled their artistic experiences. From the outset they produced exclusively synthesised music, following the natural evolution in electronic music from that created in the early days using monophonic synthesisers to the latest virtual sounds generated with the aid of computers. Up until 1986, they took their music halfway round Europe, performing on stage in France, Germany, Spain and, of course, Italy, while continuing their studio work. From 1987 onwards, they focused exclusively on music for the theatre, radio and independent cinema, writing music for the opening sequences of TV programmes for some of the most important Italian TV companies as well as sound tracks for documentaries. After a creative break in which both members went off to work on their own projects, Costa and Tavella returned to the Monuments project in 2007, changing their name to “Monuments II” (a homage to Amon Dull)... but that's another story and I still prefer listening to their great 1984 album "Age"...

The cinema show

2009-12-17T00:50:00.000-08:00

In the fall of 1979, ex 'Berlin' members Simon Brighton (guitar) and Terry Welbourn (bass) got together with 'Stress' musicians, Colin Hopkirk (vocals) and Nick Green (drummer), to form the first of many Sinking Ships incarnations.In 1980, this line-up went onto record two tracks, "Third World" & "Weight Loss", for a local New Wave compilation, 'Household Shocks'. Released: Summer 1980. Label: STARK LPCO1. Soon after this release, vocalist Colin Hopkirk departed the band and Terry Welbourn took up the lead vox along with his bass duties.The now 3 piece band were building a solid reputation live with gigs supporting The Psychedelic Furs, the Modettes, Spizz Energi and other big name indies.In the Spring of 1980, the band went back into the studio to record a 7" Double 'A' side, vinyl single released as a Stark Products/Dead Good Records joint effort (November 1980. DEAD 14 / STARK 2). The two tracks recorded were 'The Cinema Clock' & 'Strangers' (published by Dead Good Tunes / Street Corner Music Ltd). Critics were quick to talk up the band including plays on John Peel's Radio 1 show and many favourable reviews;John Gill from the New Musical Express wrote in the November 29th 1980 issue:"You can laugh all you like, but I swear this lot sound like early (censored). Spindly, clanking found noises give way to finger lickin'/finger clickin' bass and steamy metronomic drums. It trundles along and goes flying over the edge, retaining stable altitude just lke those classic Liebezeit/Czukay rhythm departures of yore. Smart."The Ships had written two indie classics with journos and radio stations agreeing alike.Alarmingly, the band chose to increase their numbers from 3 to five then to six, with the addition of keyboards, synths and saxophone. Confusing their growing army of fans, this then turned out to be a 'relatively bad move'. Bar the notable live performance at 'Sleaford Rock 80' plus a well received London debut at the original 'Marquee Club' in Wardour Street, the Ships were sinking in a deluge - arguably of their own making.In late 1980 they went back into the studio to record tracks for a six-track 12" set for release in January 1981 which never saw the light of day thanks to their label joining forces with 'Stevo' to form Some Bizarre records and all things Soft Cell...etc...Tired and embittered, the band shrank back down to the 3-piece lineup and tried once again to rediscover the magic with a 7" vinyl single released on the 'Recession' label, April 1981 with the tracks, 'Dream' & 'After the Rain - Live' published by Express Songs / Leeds Music Ltd.Sadly, the 80's had moved on, electronics and New Romantics were taking over the world of music - rock n roll seemed doomed. The Sinking Ships original line-up split, with some of the members moving out of Lincoln to London with just Terry Welbourn left to pick up the flotsam.During the 80's Terry continued to play live under 'The Sinking Ships' name with numerous lineups adding guitars and drums. There have been no further record releases since 'Dream'.Now in the decade of 2000, what do we see? A resurgence in interest in the original Sinking Ships, an American metal band who also go under the Sinking Ships moniker, and yet, the band members play on in numerous seperate projects. Where are they now?

Self portrait

2009-12-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

Self Control was a 'concept' more than a group, set up in 1977 by Mancunian Dermot O'Keeffe (Dok). With a fluid line-up (and for a time, a fluid name - Total Control, Lack Of Control etc), Self Control were different almost every time they played or rehearsed. They released an eponymous, and now very rare album in 1981. The audio samples from this page are from a live performance at Islington's Hope & Anchor on 19th May 1979 where the line-up was Dok on vocals and guitar and James Dutton (now of Motion Records) on guitar, drum machine and backing vocals. They are joined on one song (on guitar) by Bernie Doyle and by someone else who's name they can't remember. [Actually we think it was Russell - Ed] This was the third week of a one month residency supporting the ill-fated Local Operator who, a month later, were supported at West Hampstead's Raiway Hotel by U2 playing their first (?) gig in the UK, the next week by the Cure playing their first (?) gig in London. At these Hope & Anchor performance Self Control would begin by playing 20 minutes of taped BBC Light Orchestra music while people came in. Then the tape would be switched off and the drum machine switched on and left to play for 10 minutes. Happy days.

The ethnic box

2009-11-25T01:18:00.000-08:00

My dear old friend Davide (Bassino) was a good tennis player when he was sixteen and we had some really great matches in the late seventies. He also had a post punk group some years later. Although they never played live they had some notoriety around town. Out of the tennis courts, Davide was a real wild child as I remember him while jumping on stage singing in the Jim Kerr microphone, before being badly beaten by the bodyguards... We were at the Torino Palasport in 1985 (or it was 1984?) and post punk was all around. You know it's kind of funny, I recently saw an article where someone called Chromagain "one of the greatest italian synth-wave group ever". Can't honestly believe it, since they didn't find a contract in those days and they soon disappeared between the general disinterest... They left us just one great album titled "Any colour you like" (1986) on Supporti Fonografici. Luca Pastore (bass, guitars, synth) Silvio Ferrero (synths) & Davide Bassino (vocals) played a great synth wave post punk, in the vein of Monuments and Carmody. To be sincere I didn't like so much their records at the time, they seemed to much danceable and not dark enough for my taste. Now I realized that "Any colour you like" was a great record! A lot of blogs have celebrated them recently and there is also a new track by them on Danza Meccanica - Italian Synth Wave 1982 - 1987, a great compilation you can't really miss on Mannequin Records. I saw Davide again last year, he is still a good tennis player and we'll surely have some more matches this year, after 25 years from our last one...

Persuaders in the rain

2009-11-24T00:01:00.000-08:00

Led by Andrew Jarman (vocally something of a David Byrne student), this London quartet drifts between arty synth-dance and lightly played mood music. Using dinky electronic percussion rather than a drummer in the early days, the enigmatic group's records alternately wax chilly, funky, humorless and clever.

Ministry's Al Jourgensen remixed "Ladder Jack" and "House" for the eponymous American 12-inch, a four-song sampling of the band's pre-Comrades 45s. Both of those remixes also appear on 'Taste', a 1980-'87 singles compilation that presents an absurdly bloodless trashing of Lou Reed's "Rock&Roll" and adds two previously unreleased items, including an awfully strange cover of John Fogerty's "Run Through the Jungle. "Fielding a solid five-man lineup, APHOS comes out of the woods on the obviously commercial England in the Rain. Unlike its previous unpredictable self-indulgences, the band now reveals a clear-cut focus: the half-dozen peppy songs are all standard stylish modern dance rock that compares favorably to Wang Chung and that whole post-Ultravox ilk. If Jarman weren't such a duff singer, these attractively produced tracks might be really appealing. [Ira Robbins] http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=a_popular_history_of_signs . Here them playing live at Amsterdam Melkweg in 1980.

New Europeans

2009-11-19T07:27:00.000-08:00

According to the official band biographer John Darling, The Psychedelic Furs came together in England's emerging punk scene in 1977, where they were initially called "RKO," then "Radio." They then vacillated between calling themselves "The Europeans" and "The Psychedelic Furs," playing gigs under both names before permanently settling on the latter. The band initially consisted of Richard Butler (vocals), Tim Butler (bass guitar), Duncan Kilburn (saxophone), Paul Wilson (drums) and Roger Morris (guitars). By 1979, this line up had expanded to a sextet with Vince Ely replacing Wilson on drums and John Ashton being added on guitar. Back to these days of post punk fervor, there is an interesting cassette tape, sometimes called "Contract Demos" or either "Stinkie Winkies Studio Demos 1979". This rough material recently circulated between fans. The tape in question has various instrumentals including an amazing early version of 'Forever Now'. Also has John Ashton's vocal debut (?!) and other sharp songs complete with sounds of breaking plates on the floor and voices from the corridor. The best thing there is probably a great unknown track called 'Girl' one of the best examples of the earlier Furs' style, a unique post punk wall of sound. And this is why I loved them so. Hey Richard, now that it's time for a reunion album, more "back to basics" approach please!

Where it all began...

2009-11-18T01:04:00.000-08:00

Italy's answer to punk-rock?

Italy's version of post punk?

But it was just 1978 guys!!!

In the late seventies, Bologna was the centre of the italian punk wave movement and there were a lot of interesting and original groups around the town (skiantos, windopen etc.). Gaznevada, formerly Centro d'urlo Metropolitano, were probably the best, turned towards a mixture of vibrant tension, dark/noir atmospheres and stereotypes of punk-rock. As Luca Frazzi wrote “Sandy Banana (or Billy Blade, if you prefer), Robert Squibb, Andy Droid, Bat Matic, Nico Gamma and Johnny Tramonta took the Italian Rock scene and gave it an inside-out. From the brightness of their wrongness , these tracks infect like a dirty razor on the pale flesh of a child”. Or, in the words of Nico Gamma, “That was the sound of my generation, there it was, it existed and I-we found it. But what it was, that stuff had a name? yes, it had: it was PUNKROCK! But what punk meant? It meant what we already were, existentially, and we didn’t know how to interpret, but we felt since long in our viscera” Gianluca Galliani (alias Nico Gamma). Enjoy my old cracking vinyl copy of their first single Blue tv set/Nevadagaz...nothing better came after...

The preacher of New England

2009-11-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

All have been said about him.

(...) Felt were essentially one man, Lawrence. Just Lawrence, no surname was ever given. He apparently insisted all Felt albums had an even number of tracks and destroyed any out-takes. So, a slight eccentric as all best genius types seem to be. Given that at least one of these records I've reviewed has an odd number of tracks - this may just be part of the legend! His sometimes baffling behaviour ultimately led to Felt never quite being accepted within the mainstream. They officially formed during 1980 in Birmingham, England. History says that there was a pre-Felt band called Versatile News but I'm not sure about Lawrence really involved there. Felt really started with "Index" and they soon signed for Cherry Red records with classically trained guitarist Maurice Deebank in tow. They later moved to Creation Records, Maurice left, Martin Duffy ( future Primal Scream keyboard man ) joined. They released ten albums and ten singles in ten years (...) , in my opinion, a bunch of masterpieces. There are also interesting Andy Kershaw & Janice Long sessions but that's another story...They wrote some of the best pop songs ever and the wondrous guitar solo during the last 5 minutes of Riding on the Equator is still a good reason to live this life...

Kafka in Edinburgh

2009-11-04T04:16:00.001-08:00

Josef K performing live at George Square 1979

Josef K are one of my all time favourite group. Of course I've loved Orange Juice too and Postcard Records remains one of the best label ever. But Josef K had a magic and sinister appeal to me. Angular and noisy, excellent in fusing post-punk guitars with funk and disco rhythms, in terms of their lyrics and image Josef K were always far more downbeat and austere than the other bands of their time. And they were never to have Orange Juice's commercial success. But god they were really strong and unique, as you can hear in their live recordings more than the studio ones. "Here you get the fullest sense of the band at their most serrated and angular, engaged in an always engaging struggle to break out of their post-punk chrysalis" (Uncut, 4/02). "Josef K must have been a great group to watch, sounding both primitive and vital whilst eschewing the amateurish playing of most punk bands. The dextrous guitar playing involved is really something special - a shame their time together was so brief" (Leonard's Lair, 2001). We'll never forget them!

American giants

2009-10-28T03:25:00.001-07:00

by Adam Potkay

(...) In the summer of 1980 a specter was haunting America, the specter of Young Marble Giants. I remember reading a Village Voice article which reported that "downtown trendies are already talking about Young Marble Giants as the Next Big Thing." This may seem unbelievable to you, but only because hindsight is 20/20. On the face of things, YMG put out ore record Colossal Youth and broke up. (Coincidentally, the Feelies --a kind of American YMG -- put out Crazy Rhythms in the same year.) But ironically, the ace Voice reporter was right. YMG were, in spirit if not in fact, the NEXT BIG THING. Their sensibility, if not their songs, ruled the 1980s. The ironically-titled Young Marble Giants (one can hardly imagine a less gigantic-sounding band) represented something totally new: a celebration of totally private experience. Lead singer Alison Statton possessed a quaint sense, from the start, that "we live as we dream, alone," only she wasn't complaining. She took this as a creative premise. In contrast to the GOF, YMG sung about applying for bank loans, eating noddemix, thinking about old boyfriends. In contrast to the GOF's shout and call, Alison Statton just kinda mumbles. She doesn't sing to you. Listening to her sing is like overhearing your sister singing in the shower when she thinks no one is home. Like the early Feelies, YMG have undramatic lyrics (which obliquely reflect their quiet lives), delivered in a talky, uninspired voice, self-effacingly buried in a mix dominated by "quirky" and soulless rhythm. Which isn't to imply that either band is dumb about what they're up to: both the Feelies and YMG carried their alienated premises to high art through sheer nervous sensibility and a deadpan sense of humor.But unfortunately, it's hard to create compelling music from a glorification of tedium -- hence, the YMG spinoff groups, the Gist and Weekend, are more often than not just plain tedious. Though they're never as boring as nine-tenths of all the pop bands who have, wittingly or unwittingly, adhered to the YMG aesthetic (and believe me, Hoboken and Athens alone have produced quite a number of them).In the dawn of the 1980s, Young Marble Giants were, indeed, in ways unforeseeable to them or that Village Voice reviewer, the Next Big Thing. And their disbanded lives are only a logical extension of the choices they made early on: working in small woolen shops or whatever in Wales, unable to believe they once made a record that changed at least a few lives. It was so long ago, and such a private thing. (...) Please listen to their Keystone show, it was only 30 years ago...

When kites flew high

2009-10-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

In the early 1980s, English band the Modern Art were one of the pioneering D.I.Y. cassette bands, a psychedelic rock group formed by Gary Ramon, later that decade in the "almost famous" Sun Dial outfit. They recorded several releases for their independent record label Color Record as well as regularly appearing in many fanzines and they were also often featured in the mainstream music papers with favourable reviews in Melody Maker, Sounds and NME. Modern Art had a loose lineup that never played gigs but did see the release of a pair of posthumous collection studio albums and a number of very interesting self-produced cassettes. Ramon disbanded the group out of a desire "to make a more live-sounding group that could go out and play". Many Modern Art members subsequently joined Ramon in various incarnations of his new band, Sun Dial but I've always loved their first works, a mixture of post punk, psychedelia and even C86 influences. In their brief history, The Modern Art produced a lot of cassette material, most of which has never been heard. A good example is their beautiful 1982 self released cassette Underwater Kites (Color Records, October 1982).

The return of the painter men

2009-10-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

It was about 1987 and my favourite record shop in Turin -with not a lot of originality called "Rock'n'Folk"- had a new strange vinyl in the storefront. It was really strange one, a splash of colours with a monster emerging from a red apple sea! "Peter Sellers and the Hollywood Party" was written on it but we had no other informations at the time. No it wasn't a soundtrack, the music inside was fascinating too, half acoustic via Patti Smith meet Syd Barret, half psychedelic like some paisley american stuff of the time... maybe only a renewed formula of italian folk-rock with echoes of psychedelia and strange imageries, said someone on the magazines at the time. I did not care a lot about the musical press and I fell immediately in love with that sound... those distant guitars and that peculiar voice. The leader and writer of the band, Magick (?!), best known with his original name Stefano Ghittoni, has nowadays a good status as dj & producer, with a glorious past of musician (Dining Rooms etc...). It seems that he doesn't like to talk a lot about this old project and that's a pity because there are no official informations or site about the band and no digital recordings available except for a single track (Chaotic shampoo) on a 1986 Glass Records compilation (50.000 Glass fans can't be wrong). I remember also an interesting side project to PS&HP, a band called "The Subterranean Dining Rooms", more bluesy and introspective with a lo-fidelity attitude. Someone said there was a movement around, some kind of a second wave of italian psychedelia and yes, there were bands (Vegetable men, Screaming floor, No strange etc.), brilliant compilations (The return of the tambourine men! & Oracolo for example) and a mysterious record label called Crazy Mannequin... but it last only for a while and this Milan-based totally underrated group soon disbanded after a second inspired album ('To Make a Romance Out of Swiftness'') with a video version too! Please take a listen, this was the lost adventure of the painter men...

Memories of Suzie Wong

2009-10-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

It was a real pleasure to see recently a new interest in one of the best italian band of the eighties, Giancarlo Onorato's Underground Life from Monza, close to Milan. It was about 1978 when they started listening to their british idols Ultravox and Giancarlo soon became one of the first "JohnFoxx wannabelike fellow". In the beginning there was only a strong and genuine enthusiam then came the songs and God, they were great! There was a time when it wasn't so easy to be a post punk band in Italy (postpunk what?) and Underground Life were probably one of the first and the best for many years. Still I remember listening to the Flash radio station in my hometown Turin, with the voice of Alberto Campo speaking of a "new wave" movement in his programme called Evening star (later Puzzle). Thanks to Alberto for his work and his passion. The story told us that they never had a minimum of fame and success and this was (and is?) the music biz in Italy in those years. Giancarlo now is having a decent solo career and he's a good writer too. What remains now are a bunch of recordings from my old vinyl copies and you will probably smile at their "english as a second language" sound. But there were great songs with lot of heart, tears, rage and nostalgia... this was the italian post punk at its best and no one better came after...

Listen for your pleasure at "La Primula Rossa", a compilation of early recordings by Underground Life. Enjoy it!

lato A
BLACK-OUT! da "noncurance" 1979
DESOLATION BOULEVARD
da "fiori del male" 1980
KILLER da "fiori del male" 1980
NUOVE IMMAGINI da "cross" 1981
DECADENCE da "cross" 1981

lato B
GROPIUS VILLAGE da "the fox" 1983
FUOCO NELLA CITTA' DI GHIACCIO
da "fuoco nella città di ghiaccio" 1985
UCCIDIAMO IL LAVORO DI MASSA
da "filosofia dell'aria" 1987
GLASS HOUSE
da "gloria mundis" 1988
SILENCE 1990