Enzo Maolucci
Barbari e Bar

Enzo Maolucci "Barbarians and Bars" (1978). If it's true, and if Area said it, it must have been true, that in 1978 the gods leave and the angry ones remain, together with the angry ones we also find the barbarians. And who are they? They are:

"Those with long hair and an earring and the soul in the sleeping bag? No, the barbarians are... are... are the kings of pinball 7635432 without tilting and there they go pounding the soft machine to orgasm. The Barbarians are those who kill because of one less dose, or some heroic devilry, or because, in the historical compromise they feel constrained. The barbarians are those who tell the truth, say true (obvious) things..."

In 1978 Enzo Maolucci is a 32-year-old barbarian, graduated with a thesis on the Beatles and with a first LP "L'industria dell'obbligo" behind him. I don't think he would be offended if he were defined as an angry communist rocker singer-songwriter. Or at least these four little words can help those who don't know him to get an idea of the character. Maolucci is a singer-songwriter because he writes lyrics and music, Maolucci is a rocker because "to sing you just need to open your mouth, to scream you instead need breath, the exploding liver, the blaring music." That he is communist and angry, well, you'll notice right away.

 

The album tells, in a handful of songs, the atmosphere of Turin in the years of lead through the bars and their regulars, the Barbarians indeed. Bar Elena, where "My little 'coke' wasn't there. You sold me a bit of light herb.", or Vasco's bar, a refuge where "the decadent is now decayed" and you can meet "the director who has stopped making underground films" rather than the "best minds of generations who spat on banks and hospitals, full of raging drugs and sick of being social workers, they marry sad and banal." All trapped inside a "Turin that is not New York" divided among those who kill, those who kill themselves, and those who get killed. The only escape for our Barbarian is a desperate gesture, an action that frees him from his chains. Hence "A Day as a Lion," a brutal listing of rages finally vented, or the incredible "Who Stopped Stockhausen" in which the author talks about when he interrupted a concert by the great German maestro.

Angry attempts not to come out defeated by days marked by ruthless clocks and deafening and annoying noises, from the cursed trilling of the morning to the police siren. Days where "the first reaction against the day is a curse" with the awareness that one's personal story has reached the end of the line, because: "it is time for papers in order and to join the party. In London in ’60, in Paris ’68, and at the bar, you've ended up." An important record, lucid like few, cruel like none.

Track List: "Turin that is not New York," "At Bar Elena," "A Day as a Lion," "Who Stopped Stockhausen?", "The Barbarian Ulises," "At Vasco's Bar"... And thank you very much "Barbarians and Bars."