Le Stelle Di Mario Schifano
Dedicato A...

Aside from a single for CBS, “E Il Mondo Va” (1968), the production of Le Stelle, brought together in the firmament of rock and experimental music by the “Italian Andy Warhol”, Mario Schifano, an underground spokesperson of a sort of pre-‘68 cursedness, consists of a single LP, published the previous year – the mythical ’67 of the Velvet Underground and the Doors in America, the Pink Floyd in England – under the supervision and thanks to the support of their psychedelic leader, who knows about sex and drugs mixed with mysticism (he was the lover of Anita Pallenberg, who, later, in that very mythical ’67, will rise to the “dishonor” of the news as the official partner of Keith Richards).

It is precisely alongside the young model that the artist born in Italian Libya makes his first trip to New York in 1962, and thus has the chance to meet the Father of Pop Art and Gerard Malanga (co-author, together with Victor Bockris, of the biography on Velvet Underground, “Uptight: The Velvet Underground Story”, translated into Italian as “Velvet. I Velvet Underground e la New York di Andy Warhol”), frequenting the Factory, which was just newly formed at the time.

Like his Master, Schifano was born a figurative artist in the 1950s, far from picturing himself as the manager of a rock group (considering, too, that until the early '60s, real rock bands do not exist since the scene is almost exclusively driven by soloists accompanied by instrumentalists who take a back seat, as evidenced by the names, such as “Bill Haley & His Comets”).
He is inspired by informal art, from which he absorbs abstractionism, entirely dogmatic as it falls within the alternative spirit of the time (the war had left its mark). At the end of the '50s, he frequents the Roman Caffè Rosati, frequented by people not exactly anonymous — or who, at least, would make a name for themselves later — like Pasolini, Moravia, and Fellini. Pallenberg, Roman by birth, not by chance gravitates around the bar, where she meets Schifano while just in her twenties.

Precisely in Schifano's first New York experience, one recognizes the Genesis of his interest (which is more than an interest) in nightlife and for a life tested and testing, divided between street and venues for “fallen angels” and “European children”.
An interesting anecdote: in Rome, Mario meets director Marco Ferreri and poet Giuseppe Ungaretti; to the latter, already in his eighties, he offers an evening at Peyote.
In London, he meets the Rolling Stones – and so, Pallenberg first becomes possessed by the satyr Brian Jones, then by the “smoker of paternal ashes.”
Psychedelia is in the air, spreading its seeds around, whetting the appetite of Anglo-American artists; Schifano is a "citizen of the world" and cannot help but be captivated by it.
In ’66-’67, thanks to the "consultation" of his friend Ettore Rosboch, as passionate about music as he is, he forms Le Stelle (Giandomenico Crescentini, ex-New Dada, on bass; Urbano Orlandi on guitar; Nello Marini on keyboards, and Sergio Cerra on drums). Live, the “happenings” are complemented by light shows of American (Velvet Underground) and English (Pink Floyd) origin – this does not detract from the originality of the "idea," which was absolutely necessary in Italy because it was a unique and never-to-be-repeated (extra)sensory experience. The music is heavily inspired by the aforementioned bands – not forgetting the Red Crayola, crazy Texans that Schifano surely knows.

The single legendary LP of Le Stelle di Mario Schifano, “Dedicato A” consists of six tracks: the first occupies the entire side A of the Vinyl and is named “Le ultime parole di Brandimante, dall’Orlando Furioso, ospite Peter Hartman e fine (da ascoltarsi con tv accesa, senza volume)”. A bizarre title for what may be the only psychedelic Suite in the history of Italian music. From the title alone, the Experience is proposed, not the simple and distracted enjoyment that, today more than ever, is a cancer for Culture and Art. Julian Cope, musician and musicologist, in his blog Head Hermitage, will say about the song in question: “Ettore Rosboch and Mario Schifano shamelessly decided that if they wanted to give the idea of having gone beyond everyone else, they could not afford to hide their masterpiece on the second side. No, this son of a bitch would become their opening statement.” Blues, echoes of medieval music, psychedelic rock, spoken word: all in the same stew.
The "songs" of the second side do not lack inventiveness, even though, apparently (only apparently), they do not rise to the same level of the previous Majesty. They share several affinities with the illustrious foreign bands, which could be cited ad infinitum; the most original and relevant "songs" are “Molto alto”, whose lyrics seem to allude to a tribal dance, “E dopo”, and “Intervallo”, where the vocal part is incomprehensible and thus has a sound, instrumental function.

Mario lifts himself from his "position," leaving Le Stelle to their fate – which means disbandment – after “Grande angolo, sogni e stelle”, an event at the Piper Club, dated December 28, 1967. It is known that stars are ephemeral: the four musicians "fade out." Schifano, after Anita, ends up in the arms of Marianne: Faithfull, another "die-hard fan" of the Stones.

Apart from Le Stelle, only another Italian band would record songs that can be considered psychedelic: the Chetro & Co. But that is another story.