puntiniCAZpuntini

Really beautiful! Especially the destination... poor Ricky. Well, he kind of deserved it :D

I agree with you: I think he never responded both because, in the end, 80% of Demetrio's topics revolve around things concerning him and his friends, so Bertoncelli couldn't really say "that's not true" because he wasn't there; at most, Demetrio could have been called out by Giulio or Patrizio. And also because, even on the remaining 20%, such as "maybe this is missing from your collection?" and "I can tell you that these elements are not enough, since they vary the language, culture, and basic structure. Perhaps you agree too," being someone who had been established in the music scene for a long time, he knew very well that he was going up against a massive pain in the ass like Demetrio, and this would drag on for years with citations in concerts, interviews, songs... a real pain in the neck. It would have all ended up as a spitting contest, and Bertoncelli had a gentlemanly reputation to uphold, unlike Demetrio, who was loved precisely because he was a massive pain in the ass. Therefore, the more Demetrio spat, the more his fans—jerks like me—would have praised him, while if Ricky did it, his buttoned-up fans would have responded by calling Ricky a child. It was very wise of Ricky to let it go.

Ah Ajeje, perhaps you know: is Ricky still alive? A long time ago I read one of his love letters to Ligabue and since that day, after labeling him as a poor jerk, I haven't heard anything about him anymore.

But in fact I didn't say he hates them, I said he spouts bullshit. Damn, according to him everything that came out after '72 is derivative here and there, "they must have certainly listened to this and that"... useless up, too similar down... and yet singer-songwriters are always fine. That pisses me off, if the instrumental is derivative, then the singer-songwriters are derivative too. He's almost as much of an idiot as Scaruffi, almost, huh.

Ajeje, those two are also my favorites, that response from Stratos is wonderful precisely because it is directed at Bertoncelli. If it were aimed at the last jerk who joined the editorial team of Tutto, I wouldn't have liked it because it would be filled with arrogance towards someone who can't reply. But damn, Ricky Bertoncelli, not just any jerk, and he treats him like the last fool to arrive... all of this is beautiful, Motherfuckertothemax, life lessons inspired by the philosophy of: "I’ve found out what to do in life... be a pain in the ass," or the best one: "Live and Be a Nuisance."

Di Nervi Scoperti is mentioned in the little book of the Crac! reprint, I think, or maybe it's in the biography on Patrizio's site, I can't remember. I have the little book from Crac! at home; maybe one day, when I connect from home and if I remember, I'll scan it and put it online. However, Patrizio's site is linked in the dedicated space under the review, so you can check it out if you want; there are lots of funny anecdotes from their various escapades. You might have noticed they would easily tell off even "gurus" like Bertoncelli (who is indeed a poor jerk, but still remains a "guru" of the Italian music scene), so just imagine what they said and did with "minor" journalists :D. Anyway, aside from the crap he spouts about technical/instrumental music, Bertoncelli has written beautiful things about De André and Bob Dylan; he's a bit like you with your tastes— the singer-songwriter drives him (did he? Is Ricky still alive?) crazy.

DEMETRIO CONCLUDES: 8. He scolds the White Elephant by saying that it "abuses Middle Eastern sound signals." Aside from the evident geographical confusion, there is no abuse happening here, since the aforementioned "sound signals" belong to me by right, tradition, and culture, and automatically belong to the Area, as we work as a group. Us! In this review of "Crac!" you accuse our second album of paranoia, but don't confuse that paranoia with our genuine anger that spills over into provocation. Area draws inspiration from reality: in "Caution" there were reflections of the Brescia bombing and the shadow of Ulrike Meinhof, in "Crac!" there is the dimension of joy and revolution with liberated Greece, Portugal, and Vietnam. This is our world, "but maybe for you the world is still flat" (Odessa 1920). //////// Finished. There is no record of any response from the poor jerk, perhaps he realized he was a poor jerk, and he started and turned to the Sex Pistols :D

DEMETRIUS CONTINUES: 4. You advise us to “enhance the timbre with a saxophone (a small sin of foreignness!) which would take many weights off Fariselli's shoulders and make Tofani's synthesizer chatter less.” The musical aestheticism (see coloring the timbre with a saxophone) has been surpassed. The aesthetic logorrhea of the Solo Musician who takes the weight off another does not interest us. As for Tofani's synthesizer, which you think should chatter less, it has only been used once! (see the introduction of Implosion). You see, it's Fariselli's synthesizer (ARP) that is doing the talking, and quite well too. 5. Regarding Area 5 that “dramatically fails” in boredom and hysteria, it's not even worth discussing, given your presumption in wanting to judge two musicians of the caliber of Hildago and Marchetti. 6. “The malevolent shadow of Cecil Taylor” seems overshadowed to me by Condon Nancarrow. Perhaps it's missing from your record collection? 7. “The syncopated scream of Mahavishnu”: if for you using the same brand of instruments and having the same technical mastery signifies an identity of “syncopated scream,” I can tell you that these elements are not enough, given that they vary language, culture, and underlying structure. You might even agree.

DEMETRIO RESPONDS: Dear Bertoncelli, collector of records or Nurse of Pop? It’s up to you. My response isn’t just a reply to your review of “Crac!” but a caption regarding the technical-musical, conceptual, and political aspects, meant to pull you, even if just for a moment, out of your musical narcolepsy. Let’s go point by point:
1. Where you quote “my machine gun is a double bass that spits in your face,” wrong! We don’t spit in people’s faces like your friend Zappa did, we shoot.
2. “Demetrio Stratos continues to chase sobs and freedom, oppressed by rigid structures.”
a). What you call sobs are harmonic trills with vibrato and timbral changes featuring passages of 4th, 5th, and 7th over the fundamental, sometimes played in a chromatic scale.
b). As for chasing freedom, I inform you that I’ve reached it a while ago (one just has to take the trouble to listen attentively to the record to realize it), and for that matter, the voice is always in a dialectical relationship with the other instruments and is the result of a precise initial project by the group (are these your rigid structures?).
3. You reproach us for “the obsession with rhythms”: but here we disagree on terminology; for us, the obsession is that 4/4 current which Area have widely surpassed, reaching the breaking point of rhythmic elasticity with 11/16 and 33/16, multi-composite rhythms unknown to your musical exoticism.

THE POOR BASTARD CONTINUES: How to overcome the mistake? Perhaps one should yield to a more cynical inspiration, perhaps one should agree with the stubborn and fascinating pianism of Nervi Scoperti or the mysterious rhythms of Megalopoli: at the same time making the material more elastic, breaking the obsession with rhythms, coloring the timbre with a saxophone that would lift many weights off Fariselli's shoulders and make Tofani's synthesizer chatter less. Nevertheless, there remains the happy hand of many instruments, the desire to burn skin with meanings that are not easily consumable but very interesting: even if at the bottom of it all, Area 5, a "musical gesture" by Hildago and Marchetti, which should constitute the core of this awareness, fails spectacularly in boredom and hysteria. The best pieces are the ones already mentioned, with the malevolent shadow of a certain Cecil Taylor and the syncopated scream of the Mahavishnu Orchestra: Implosion stands one step below, due to a certain clumsiness of the explained themes, like the initial Elefante Bianco, which abuses "Middle Eastern acoustic signals." Gioia e Rivoluzione plays with bittersweet lyrics, measuring for the first time the "beauty" of the guitar ballad: and La Mela di Odessa brings the situation to a glorious close, smiling at an easy musical theme with a mischievous parable, full of undertones and cultural fragments marked 1920.