In un unica direzione

Questo post è in Italiano, tanto gli stranieri non capirebbero mai quanto sono grandi i Diaframma e che straordinario autore è Federico Fiumani... E noi? Siamo sicuri che in questo paese l'abbiano capito tutti? Ma perchè non lo dicono mai al telegiornale e non lo scrivono nemmeno sui quotidiani? Ma Mollica aspetta che Federico muoia per farne un servizio di condoglianze? Io era un pò che volevo scrivere un post in italiano e proprio dei Diaframma volevo parlare, perchè loro sono stati la migliore espressione post punk della musica italiana dell'ultimo trentennio. E i giornalisti nostrani? Quelli più titolati sono ancora fermi a Siberia e pensano ancora che in quella buffa cover band fiorentina dei New Order si canti col vocione anni 80 di Nicola Vannini... ma Luzzato Fegiz ha mai ascoltato Anni Luce o Il ritorno dei desideri? E Mara Maionchi ha mai sentito le parole di Latitante, l'assolo di Vaiano o il controcanto di Manca l'acqua? Hanno mai capito, qui come all'estero, che noi abbiamo un grandissimo autore di musica pop(olare) che fa una pippa a tutti i cantautori impegnati degli anni 70, ai loro epigoni degli anni 80, ai sanremini degli anni 90 e agli scippatori di idee altrui degli ultimi 15 anni? Federico siede a destra di Lucio Battisti, al tavolo con Degre e il grande Faber, proprio di fronte a Rino Gaetano ed Ivan Graziani. E la sua chitarra non verrà da Manchester ma graffia ancora, come graffiava quella dei Clash e le sue canzoni scavano profondo come quelle dei suoi(nostri) miti e anche la sua voce si è fatta più calda ed espressiva. Io i Diaframma me li porto addosso oramai da una vita, proprio come Fiumani portava  "Elena, come un vestito, in un giorno qualunque". Classici o derivativi, moderni o innovativi, sempre attuali comunque. E i giovani-i giovani? Qualcuno ha spiegato loro chi è Federico Fiumani? Anche se mio figlio di 7 anni ancora non ci capisce molto, "ascolta sempre quel suono che sembra arrivare da lontano" ed ogni tanto me lo ritrovo che canta "Libra", come un piccolo Jack Frusciante uscito dal gruppo... ed è questa la mia gioia, la mia piccola rivincita di papà sul passato ingrato e sui One Direction che riempono gli stadi. Abbatti il futuro se non ti appartiene!

Diaframma Live:
Con i Litfiba, 10 maggio 1985 - Teatro Tenda Roma - Siberia/Amsterdam
Con Nicola Vannini - Auditorium Flog Reunion 31/1/1993 - Ceremony/Illusione Ottica/Siberia
Tenax Reunion 24 febbraio 2002 - Ultimo boulevard, Elena, Siberia, Tre volte lacrime, Caldo

What we ask for...

From the Paul Lester biography "Damaged Goods": 

"...It could reasonably be argued that, among certain rock musicians, especially the ones who formed in the wake of the late Seventies post punk era, Gang of Four mean as much as the Velvet Underground did to a previous generation. They may not have sold that many records, but they sold to the right people: everyone who heard them went right out and formed a band. In Britain they pioneered the idea of the white rock band getting funky, making it possible for everyone form A Certain Ratio to Franz Ferdinand to make their dance music, their funk noir, their death disco. and in America, where they possibly mean even more and had an even greater impacty, Gang of Four are the third most influential punk period rock band after The Sex Pistols and The Clash, paving the way for hordes of funked up metal bands: Rage against the Machine, Korn, Limp Bizkit and the rest would, as one journalist recently put it, "be inimagginable without the territory that GOF feralessy staked out in a bold, visionary stance that few bands could have been taken".Back in the time of bands like the Gang of Four it seemed easier to find music that was as inspired. And they still sound great, brilliant as ever... If only there could be music like this nowadays...

For your listening pleasure:

Gang of Four "The 78 demos, live in Zagreb 1981 & KEXP 2011 Sessions"

The banshees design

from their site:
Style Sindrome began to play in Rome in 1980, inspired by the new wave and post-punk music scene pioneered in the United Kingdom by such giants as Joy Division, The Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Anna and Stefano came from TM Spa, a rock band that had been among the winner of the First Italian Rock Festival in 1980, whereas Giorgio had been part of Electroshock, a well known Italian rock band in the late ’70s. When Massimo and Raimondo joined in, the band emerged with the final line-up. The music of Style Syndrome is characterized by an unconventional and well-balanced mixture of dark sensibility and psychedelia, as well as an evocative alchemy of sounds which creates a rarefied atmosphere. The band self-produced a couple of demo tapes in the years ’81 and 82. In 1982 RAI produced a videoclip featuring Style Sindrome for the show “Mister Fantasy”.Later on in the same year, Style Sindrome participated with the track “Waving in the dark” to the compilation “Gathered”, edited by Rockerilla and released by Electric Eye Record. Recently restored, “A mysterious design” cd collects 7 original tracks from the band’s two self-produced demo tapes recorded in Rome in the years ’81 and ’82, which had largely remained unreleased and gone lost over the years.  After a 30 years absence, Style Sindrome returned also on stage with a memorable concert in Rome (Init) on 9th November 2012, in which they celebrated with an enthusiastic audience their long-awaited reunion.

New Year Special - The legend of gaznevada!

Gaznevada represented "the real & only new thing in Italy" in the last 40 years. For those who still do not know anything about them, it was more or less 1979... after the unfamous Bologna Rock Contests they signed a contract with the indie label "Italian records" formerly Harpo’s Music, hosting the likes of Skiantos, Windopen, Sorella maldestra, Luti Chroma, Confusional Quartet, The Stupid Set etc.  They worked with this company until 1984. Their sound was strongly influenced by Contortions, Ramones, Velvet Underground, Talking heads and Brian Eno. They had songs, irony & rage. No need to say more. When nowadays I listen to their "Pornovisione" track from their first Harpo's demos I still believe they're incredible! Imagine that in those years they were playing live in clubs and italian rock contests between melodic bands like I Cugini di Campagna & Homo Sapiens (!!!), more or less the best bands in Italy at the time. They vrtually had no public at the time. But their underground legend grew and Gaznevada became the first post punk cult band with fans all over Italy. Then the sound of the band changed to be too commercial and they lost soon their real identity... but this is another story. Gaznevada's absolute legendary and classic live tapes are very rare nowadays. This my gift for the new year, two old rotten recordings that incredibly survived the time as their legend...

Persuaders in the rain

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.

Kafka in Edinburgh

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

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...