Club Dogo
Noi Siamo Il Club

Just as the workers' revolt is no longer in fashion, songwriting is now just a memory. We haven't forgotten Gaber; it's just that a Gaber would now be out of place. Even Guccini's latest albums, "Ritratti" and "Stagioni," have lost that political sheen that, according to some, characterized all the others. Sure, there are still portraits of Guevara and the open wound of Piazza Alimonda, but they aren't "Avvelenata," they aren't "La Locomotiva." And they aren't because it wouldn't make sense for them to be. Take the diptych "Stagioni," which, well, Guccini had shelved but had started writing long before the tracks on "Stagioni," and "Canzone per il Che": they're two portraits; on one side ("Canzone per il Che") it talks about a friendship, an ideal that time – and History, unfortunately – makes thinner, while on the other the defeat not of Ernesto but of an entire generation, of lost myths, etc., etc. Of course, there's still someone, but it's a different kind of songwriting, theatrical, ethnic. I think of Capossela, for example. Or to others. Yet politics permeate us, invade every single nook of daily life, and probably Italians have never been so in agreement on one point: that politics is a fraud, that parliamentarians, senators, party people, and whoever else should vacate the seats (there's a saying in my area. Hang them at night to save time during the day. The other day, I heard an old man say it while waiting for the barber to cut my hair.) It is therefore not a coincidence, for example, that Rodriguez recently chose to bring "Sin City" to the big screen, because never before is Marv, Miller's antihero par excellence, as necessary as he is paradigmatic: he is the workers' revolt that is no longer fashionable, he is the individual who must act alone to go against power.

Club Dogo is a bit like Marv and, beyond behavioral/ideological affinities, we can say with absolute certainty that Club Dogo, in the eighties, would not have brought home a single success story, if only because rap teaches us a different aesthetic from what we're used to (in this sense, it's very postmodern as a genre, given its ability to convey various elements – from cigarette brands to Van Gogh – into a single text, stuff that people like Barth, Jullier, Lyotard, etc., have spent their lives theorizing and realizing). I'm not an expert in rap and, to be honest, I wasn't interested until recently (and even now my interest is limited to Club Dogo and a book Wallace wrote about it). I find it a sociologically interesting phenomenon, and culturally too. First of all, because it's a more or less recent genre and very populous, so, like the cinema of attractions and narrative integration, there isn't yet a prescriptive grammar, the ground on which it moves is fertile with developments, experiments, etc. On the other hand, rap doesn’t even have a codified ontology. I mean, I could develop this review with very long paragraphs, text walls that make your eyes bleed and end them all with a word ending in -rto. Did I make a rhyme? Or: is a rhyme and a few beats all it takes for rap? How do you judge a well-done flow? Why is it necessary to close the rhymes? One day, someone will codify all of this – not me and not here, also because in recent days I have loved several people (nes, March Horses, etc.) on DeBaser and I know this is not the place to discuss the Dogo, much less the latest Dogo; yet, I find the latest Dogo much more interesting than the first, those of "Mi Fist," to be clear; after all, there are few places where one can talk about "Noi siamo il club," since even the fans hate one of the most interesting Italian songs of the last fifteen years, namely "Chissenefrega (In discoteca)," which I would like to return to. The point is that it is really difficult, even for someone like me (yes, I listen to a lot of stuff, I am curious, but in the end, I have few fixed ideas, and over time they are the only artists whose original CDs I have and keep on my iPod: De André, Nick Cave, Guccini, Gaber, Tom Waits, A Silver Mt. Zion, and little else), who grew up with bread and Guccini and who recognizes only one putative father, namely Nick Cave, to contain the Dogo as a spasmodic phenomenon or whatever one wants to call them. Take the Dogo discography and divide it in half chronologically. Then, listen to the albums. The first thing you notice is the game that Guè, Jake, and Joe play with themselves, or rather with themselves-as-Dogo; in fact, what emerges in the first three albums – roughly – is a volcanic outpouring of [open quotes] obstructionism [close quotes] and anger against power and solidarity towards the [open quotes] people of the streets [close quotes], while what emerges in the latter is, somehow, more self-referential ("You are not like us" could be used as a prototype of what I am saying), and in short, it's about self-celebration (note: by "self-celebration" I don't simply mean glorifying oneself, but also just the fact of talking about oneself, because the fact that one makes a song in which says one prefers Nike over Adidas is evidently placing one's footwear tastes on a different, almost transcendent level: if you sing something and record it, it means you consider it important, or at least interesting. For this reason, I speak of self-celebration, let's say "indirect self-celebration" so as not to confuse it). Now, these two different formats of discographic consciousness – let's call it that in the absence of better terms – could easily be read according to the classic Hegelian dialectic of thesis/antithesis, to which in the future – by the rigor of logic and mathematics, even by the next album – a synthesis should be added: it’s a monster that eats itself to recreate itself, or at least this is the best image I've made of the Dogo.

It would be wrong, having said that, to think of them as a band with an undefined background, without a common thread or something similar. So much so that the division into two different periods, however admissible, remains a convenient division as all subdivisions are. "Noi siamo il club," in this sense, opens with a track, "Cattivi esempi," which could very well have been placed in "Mi fist," just as "Che bello essere noi" contains tracks like "Anni zero" and "Qualcuno pagherà" (a gem, the latter), which theoretically should be excluded from these two albums according to the previously made division, but what matters is The blend, and as Hegel or whoever teaches the Aufhebung, that is, roughly, the thesis/antithesis transition, is not only a passage of overcoming but also of conservation, and it is therefore obvious that in the antithesis (in our case "Dogocrazia," "Che bello essere noi," "Noi siamo il club." By the way, notice how in these albums the we-Dogo element is predominant, and for this, I refer back to the division mentioned above) elements of the synthesis ("Mi fist," "Penna capitale," "Vile Denaro") remain. In a nutshell, "Cattivi esempi" is the track that couldn’t not have been made and contains in a nutshell what has just been said: fundamentally, it develops the theme of the generational conflict. Those who followed the face-to-face between the PD (Democratic Party) candidates running for the primaries will surely have noticed the Renzi/all-other discrepancy in response to the question of choosing the favorite historical figure, a question to which Bersani and Vendola gave Catholic answers, while Renzi opted for a fairly young Tunisian blogger, especially known among the young: you don't need three degrees to understand that, by now, the PD could not care less about not only the “faithful” voters (think of the former-PCI (Italian Communist Party) members, those of Rifondazione, etc., etc.), because they more or less already know they have their votes in their pocket, but even about ideas (as soon as Vendola said Cardinal Martini, my father exclaimed: "Really?!" half astonished and half depressed) and instead aim to garner those who are more uncertain, the Catholics indeed and the youth. Is there something wrong with all this? Absolutely not. Sure, someone could have thrown out a Gramsci, a Togliatti, or a Matteotti, since I believe none of these three can be defined as dangerous communists, but they didn’t mention any fascist hierarchs or mafiosi, so nothing to say. The problem arises when you notice that ideas are overshadowed by the eagerness to gain votes and, on the other hand, by the fact that much of the blame for all this, according to some, falls on us young people. Stereotype or not, we young people are considered idiots, lures, puppets, future-integrated-cases (if not, worse, future-unemployed), amoebas that do not have the strength to change anything: the only certainty is that there is something to change. The what is not important (now), what’s important is being aware that change is urgent and therefore something must have led to this state of affairs for which change is urgent, so it is glaringly obvious that, unfortunately or fortunately, young people have little to do with it, and that all this is the result of years and years of Christian Democratic governments, state mafia, always disheveled and never united leftists etc., etc.: "If I behave badly now, worse than a politician, it's because, brother, I already had bad examples as a child." In this text, there is just destruction, sinking, anger. It is the principle of anarchy, at least in its phase of Verwirrung, of confusion – the confusion of someone waking up from a dream and falling into reality ("I thought it was love but it was MDMA"); however, anarchy is not only de-struction but also co-struction, i.e., Ordnung, and what's very interesting is that about this Ordnung the Dogo say nothing: pedophile priests, metropolitan cities where it is impossible to live in "this lying country led by infamies and by policemen" etc. There is only the horror of the everyday, the discomfort and pettiness that a generation of neorealist directors or the Nouvelle Vague or earlier, with Vigo, etc., have tried to show and of which rap wants to be, in its way, genuine and sincere expression almost as if these rhymes were not those of the Dogo but of anyone who sings or listens to them (and in this case "Sangue blu" is the connective between the Dogo and the listeners of the Dogo), and therefore it no longer appears to be a mystery why rap is at the forefront in Italy only recently. The Ordnung, in this CD, but probably even in the heads of Jake, Guè, and Joe, does not exist, or rather it is not yet a problem because the primary issue is Verwirrung, and it's a matter of such primary importance that it doesn't admit any others.

Or at least, it seems. In fact, the Dogo have a solution, and it is a solution of Pascolian memory, which I consider the creative-commercial strength of the trio.

Some paragraphs earlier I mentioned "Chissenefrega (In discoteca)." It is the piece that made me discover them, or rather that led me to give them more than a random listen on YouTube. As a matter of fact, I knew the Dogo by reputation: I had a friend who adored them, but I was too wrapped up with post-rock (back then at its origins) to pay attention to them; now, now that the Paninicomics forum has closed and MSN Messenger has fallen out of use, I haven't heard from him since (by the way, Mad Goblin, if you’re still a Dogo fan (but even if you're not) and you're reading this review by chance or mistake, reach out: I'm writing it in large part for this, if not especially so), him, so that track, "Chissenefrega (In discoteca)," had a strange effect on me, a novice not only to the Dogo but even to rap, somewhere between nostalgia and I-don’t-know-what. On YouTube, furthermore, and snooping around here and there (forums, websites, etc.) it seems that no one has truly appreciated this track, and some even went as far as to insult the Dogo, of whom they claimed to be big fans. But what is "Chissenefrega" really about? The most logical answer to give, especially after having listened to it a couple of times, is: who cares (Chissenefrega). Yes, because the song is nothing more than self-celebration (direct), continuous glorification, etc., etc. Or at least, at first glance. What many do not understand is that "Chissenefrega" is a fundamental link in something called "Noi siamo il club," which ends with "Se tu fossi me," and it's basically impossible to evaluate that song without placing it in the context of the album, and in this sense "Chissenefrega," which develops the theme of self-celebration like "P.E.S." and "Erba del diavolo," although these two do it more subtly, that is, indirectly, is perhaps the keystone of the album, if not the best track – certainly the watershed. Of the lives of the Dogo, I don't know much, but from how they present themselves, it seems as if their youth was at least wild, lived a lot on the street, etc. Who would have said that those three would have signed with Universal? (There are a lot of songs on this theme; I limit myself to cite "Brucia ancora.") It's a matter of believing, of dreams coming true in a reality where dreaming is not allowed, the reality we talked about earlier, that of "Anni zero." And taking one's revenge. Here's the continuous self-glorification, the exorcising saying "We made it," because beneath that I-am-cool-because-I-made-it-successful, there's all this: and all this is a push, encouragement to fans to pursue their dreams, etc., etc. On the other hand, borrowing a phrase and extrapolating it from its context, "everything is possible in the zero years," from killings in prison by police hands to social revenge that, for some, can be represented by success.

Nonetheless, "Chissenefrega (In discoteca)" is not the true meaning of the album, or rather it is not its fulfillment as much as the link that connects the two parts, a watershed between the first part, indeed, that is the description of reality, and, in short, what has been said above, and the second, which, as anticipated, is the Pascolian nest.

I insisted a lot on the fact of the objectification of the moral, cultural, political, economic misery etc. we are in and the need for the sinking of this status quo and I also talked about the fact that the post-sinking isn’t so much a problem due to the gravity of the situation: the problem is that all this is only theory. We all know that, as much as it is talked about and as much as it is urgent and as many people want it, a revolution ("Vota MdR.: Movimento di Rivoluzione") will not arrive very soon and, if it ever does, it will be a slow and painful process; naturally, it is unthinkable that all this will be carried out, that manifestations are held, and that we become indignant without firm points, without a tomorrow clearly in mind or something that helps shrug of the burdens that we carry. And this something is what for Pascoli was the nest and for the Dogo is the club. Take "Tutto ciò che ho" or "Se tu fossi me": they are surprising tracks, and surprising because it is from pieces like those that one explains the enormous success of the Dogo, as well as their wonderful hold on the audience. Here the "club" is seen as a means of gathering in a world or in a country or in a society that disintegrates, that is, the club implies a feeling of being members, a feeling of being someone. Acquiring one's own individuality or recovering it. Call it the nest, call it family, call it a group of friends, or, like the Dogo, call it a club: whatever it is, what matters is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be the Dogo club to perform this function, but rather the relaunch – on the part of the Dogo – of an affective-social dimension that has rarely appeared in music (de André never touched it, Guccini a few times) and never – at least according to my knowledge – in such a blatant way, and what matters most is the awareness they have of it, the consciousness of knowing that there is nothing more important than this dimension, whether it is given by the girlfriend or by the family, by friends or by Totoro: someone.

Peace.