Equal but different

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...