pippocalippo

I only saw the second episode of the miniseries about the late Rino. I found it utterly disconcerting: was poor Rino really like that? Or did the jokers who created this ridiculous trifle (the protagonist's resemblance to RG, where was it, in his shoes?) want us to understand that he was a kind of half-schizophrenic being driven mad by alcohol? I met Rino when I was a child, in S.Benedetto del Tronto, singing at the Arena Sirena, a simple outdoor cinema, while the Great Stars (Dalla, De Gregori, Rettore, and her great friend Bertè filled the stadiums; it was the summer of 1978, and within a few days I also saw: the Rockets, the silver-headed spatial punks, at the peak of their European popularity, and the rough New Trolls, wonderful), I was saying I met Rino who was with two beautiful tall girls (they seemed like giants to me, as I was 10-11 years old) in the little place in front of the Arena, a small playground with an outdoor pizzeria, not the Hilton, folks, and I approached them and he started joking with me (I remember his Roman accent), and in the end, amused, he paid for my pizza, a big plate pizza that I ate walking home—it was already midnight, I was at the Luna-Park nearby. It was such a long time ago, my memory is minimal, and it's that of a child; but mine is the memory of a Series B singer (in the sweetest and most positive sense possible and without offense) who was witty and very likeable. In his time, there were the Sacred Monsters, from Battisti to Dalla, passing through Baglioni and various humanity, he came after; oh, it’s normal, maybe if he hadn’t died in '81, he would have become an immense star too, but that’s not how it went. Now, out of the blue, after about 25 years of total oblivion, or almost, the market has decided to make him the Legend Rino Gaetano. Another lemon to be squeezed (posthumously)... I want to remember him as I met him and recall nostalgically 'Stoccolma,' casually heard from a little radio on Medium Waves, as a child. We shouldn't care at all about his private life, especially when it's twisted in that way, in the most depressing fiction of recent years. Even if it has nothing to do with it, much better Giorè in the guise of Riina, more believable...

analoguesound: from certain expressions maybe I'm wrong, you seem to me to be from Bari, but that doesn't matter. Once, talking with someone who knew Prog from the early 70s well, he said to me: ‘If bands like Banco DMS, Jumbo, Garybaldi, etc. had had the big English or American labels and all the money they had for production and recording studios that Americans and English had, our bands would have shat themselves a thousand times over compared to the various Pink Floyd and their ilk. I would have loved to see (hear) The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd made in the Fonit Cetra studios where instead our New Trolls were forced, all trenette al pesto and rock'n'roll... And yet I (I've always said and I always will say) wouldn’t trade 30 seconds of UT for the entire works of the Pink Floyd. Not because I’m Italian... For example, I discovered (thanks to the Internet) fabulous things from Germany, from Brazil ('Criaturas das Noite') and also from the former socialist republics of Eastern Europe. I've always viewed the veneration of Anglo-American Holy Monsters with suspicion, then one day in 1998 I listened to ‘Lucky Man’ by ELP and discovered I was right... I would like to write for another 100 lines but I'm hot and I'm going to bed.

The cover should be interpreted like this: here it comes... at 300 km/h... the Bear of Italian pop, crashing through everything and everyone, and aiming solely for the top of the Superclassifiche... may the best survive!!!

One single great regret: who knows how the third Battisti would have been, after Mogol and Panella.
Dead.
End of everything.
His very unique voice survives, for many like me, like that of an uncle, a family friend...

We're back to the usual: I still read that De Gregori is the best of the best of the best, that before him there was only Jesus Christ, and De Andrè is immense. What a drag... The only masterpiece by De Gregori for me is the album Niente da Capire and Rimmel, but only 3-4 songs (I detest the sappy Buonanotte fiorellino). As for De Andrè, I really like Creuza de mà, even though I'm not at all from Genoa. The rest of De Andrè, in my opinion, is just a pedantic transposition of Brassens... About my fellow citizen Ivan Graziani, with whom I've also spoken several times, I can say that he was truly an antidiva, he seemed like the postman stopping to chat with you, he certainly didn't pose as a vate, on the other hand he was a rocker, not a philosopher like our Sicilian. I met Rino Gaetano when I was a kid, at the pizzeria dell'Arena Sirena in San Benedetto Del Tronto, in 1978 or maybe 1979, and we joked a bit together, in the end, he even treated me to a pizza. He was a tall, skinny guy like a nail, he seemed enormous to me, obviously, and he was with two beautiful girls; I don't know if they were the same ones on the cover of his last LP. Another antidiva, another who didn’t pose as a vate, even though pretending to be a Poet is not yet a crime... Conte: which one of the two? Here the game gets tough: it makes no sense to talk about Paolo Conte if you don't know at least superficially Giorgio Conte...

Danilo hit the mark.
Loving music in all its genres without preconceived notions.
Then, tastes are tastes.
Well done, Danilo.

otherwise soon it will come out that Zero invented the symphony and Dolby Surround too... of course, guys... and who invented stereophony and the Compact Disc? But him, no?! Then, between one discovery and another, did he also have time for a hookup?

If something is enjoyable, it is enjoyable. On the other hand, who said that 'Art is the highest expression of the Worship of the Useless'?

antoniodeste, may it never happen to you on the Pausini, or others of the same (most respectable) kind.
However, I wrote that it could happen...
And if it happens, it happens.
But let's try not to let it happen, let's be careful...;-)

The only song by De André that I like is Creuza de Ma, because it's the only one that doesn't use that chanting style he was known for. Knowing a bit of French music (just a bit), it seems to me that Georges Brassens (of whom I don't see reviews on DeBaser, but we know the French here in Italy, except for rare and ridiculous exceptions, have never really made it big in the last 30 years) sang in De André's style long before the Ligurian. But when we talk about Brassens and De André, with R Zero, we're operating on other levels. Even if gods don't exist, (even gods can be wrong).