Goat Girl
Below The Waste

Lulù on a trip with Pennazzi, a road movie between "how we were," "lost illusions," and who-knows-what.

At the meeting point outside my house, we look at each other and burst out laughing, we look like two guys escaping from some retirement home for artists. Me, aside from the tangled hair, I'm almost okay, but he looks like a cross between a pirate and a film extra.

Sure, there's still quite a bit of glory in Pennazzi, his hair insists on being flowing, his agitated eyes keep darting around, his demeanor is always swift and confident. I, on the other hand, show more noticeable signs—the face is now skeletal and I've got such dark circles, it's crazy. "What happened, beautiful Lulù, did you leave the bird inside a milking machine?" "The bird? What bird?" "Good thing you always have that stupid look, I mean poet-like look." "Ahaha, Penna, I can't fool you, I know, but if I used the bird a few times, it's because I'm up in the clouds."

Whatever the case, now we're off, ten minutes outside of Imola and we can breathe again, we've got this damned Apennine of the poor in our blood. In the car, we play our battle record, which is the live album by the Doors, and we get excited by that sound that's half cabaret and half wild blues. And then, damn, listen to the organ tremble and split you in two, listen to how Morrison holds the audience in his grip: tension, screams, silence, and god knows what. "Damn shaman," Penna says, laughing. "Illusionist of my boots," I reply. "If we had been chicks, we would have given it up to this bastard in spades, right?" "If we had been chicks, we would have been groupies, dear Penna."

"Listen, beautiful Lulù, have you heard the latest from the goats?" "No, how is it?" "Crap, a kind of half-wave sluggishness when it's good, a whine that makes your balls drop for the rest. Plus, they've gone all brainy and put bird chirping and refrigerator noise into this slop." "From how you describe it, I might end up liking it." "Of course, idiot as you are, you'll definitely like it." Yes, I know, the jump from Jim to the goat girls is at least quantum, but Penna and I do occasionally listen to some new records. Only, for him, the new stuff is things like King Hanna, Allah-Las, or the Goat Girl’s first album—wonderful things, but with slightly old-fashioned coordinates. Whereas for me, it's known I like the weird stuff, I love the hum of the refrigerator and I'm crazy about bird chirping.

"These groups," Penna continues, "are all the same; they make a good record, then they water down the next one like the innkeeper of the Magnaccioni, come on the goats, the first one was beautiful, but the second was already like a spritz broth and every time someone orders a spritz, I feel like punching them." There it is, it's not the first time we return to the second Goat Girl album, which is watered down, yes, but it's also a marvel. A pop kaleidoscope that makes your day, you know those things with the window down and the sun in the glass? You know, Everything but the Girl amidst the colors, the crash course in psych-something and all those synths for happy nostalgia? "Okay, okay, it's nice and it flows pleasantly," says Penna, "but I want the sauce, I want the meat."

And anyway, both he and I have a crush on Lottie, the Goat singer—after all, it's our kind, a sweet teacher with a super smile. In my case, it's since "I'm putting a small apple in my pocket" that I've been like this with the girls. The first time I saw Lottie's super smile was on YouTube, imagine the brief silence before shooting the riff of "Viper Fish," with her looking at the other guitarist and her little face turning into an Osram light bulb in an instant. And then that riff, let’s not even talk about it, a sort of almost rockabilly twang, a sharp hit and go. But that was still the first album period, about twenty unripe and prickly songs, a perfect mix of late-seventies witchcraft and nonchalant punkitude, with a rather political verve, as the goats, it seems, are those who want to change the world.

Meanwhile, Penna makes me listen to the few pieces he likes from the new album, and of course, they are the ones with more drive. There's one where the girls sing like possessed and the synths shoot a bomb like Suicide. "Lottie wrote this drunk, she wanted to put a ton of crap in it." The piece finishes exploding in the parking lot of Bar Maria Stella and Astolfo, the owner, greets us with: "Oh, apocalypse knights, tell me, what the hell are you listening to?"

Then, in front of a rustic aperitif, we continue the goat conversation. "So, Penna, do these ballads you mentioned really suck?" "There are a couple of nice ones, one heartbreak and one that feels like a dream, the dream one even has a video, where the girls close their eyes, nestle close, imagine a tight close-up of their little faces, Lottie even has pimples. You know I hate videos, for me, they're like the devil, like a curse, but this one is really beautiful, sweet sweet stuff, it almost seemed like a kind of black and white Hanging Rock." "Penna, pull yourself together, you're becoming poetic and, with the melancholy you've got, it's not the right time…" The rest of the day, you can imagine.

Oh, on the way back we listened to Janis… ….

(Since the album has already been reviewed by Penna, I'll leave just a note). Get rid of all the colors, only black and white ballads, Play something sad, throw out the psychic trash. Play something absurd, these are the world's assaults. Pain and hope hold together, the worst day of your life may actually be the best. I imagine all the instruments on the ground at the end of the rite: flutes, violins, and whatever else, not exactly a rock arsenal. Finally, the interludes to catch one's breath, the slightly pretentious avant-garde touches, the bursts of nineties rock. (And if Pennazzi read these last lines, god only knows how much he would mock me) Trallallà...