Mariani
Perpetuum Mobile

America, folks! The vast continent, a fertile land for musical growth, has been (and still is) an impressive source of talent, where commercial success often depends on more or less fortunate life choices. Instinct, for a musician, has always played a pivotal role in directing one's energies and potential to climb the peaks of Olympus, beyond intrinsic qualities, and even more so in shaping and determining an artist's style.

Channeling and organizing creative energy demands subjectivity in timing and method, but is it conceivable for a plant to thrive without ideal conditions and climates, evolving over time? I don't think so, but this futile generalist theory is immediately debunked when we talk about an "innate talent" like Eric Johnson from Austin, Texas, at the tender age of just sixteen, in what is described as one of the most surprising hard-blues experiences across the American landscape: "Mariani," with its only album "Perpetuum Mobile" from 1970. A classic power trio with southern roots, featuring drummer Vince Mariani (from whom the band takes its name) who auditioned for Hendrix’s Experience, and bassist Jay Podolnick. The genre is hard rock with a blues cut and pronounced psychedelic tendencies. A strong Californian wind blows over the Texas desert, and this wind is called "Blue Cheer" (a variant of LSD); there's no denying it, but the bright star of the precocious talent Eric Johnson shines brilliantly in the Texan sky. The nostalgic reference to the San Francisco group and its guitarist Leigh Stephens is obligatory, not only for the Latinism of the debut titles ("Perpetuum Mobile/ "Vincebus Eruptum") but also for the violent barrage of notes unleashed in the sudden flourishes of solo sequences. Johnson was the most Clapton-like of the Hendrixian guitarists, at least at the start of his career, before becoming faithful only to himself.

His youthful hand furiously caressed the neck of his "Strato" with no hesitation, and his fingers, (like ballerina feet on a hot stage), quickly titillated the strings on the fretboard, in comparison to the illustrious "Slowhand". Meanwhile, at times, an effect-laden echo from the colorful shifts of "Divine" Hendrix reverberated between the sun-drenched canyons of the deep south, like flocks of migratory birds heading towards lush destinations. Not by coincidence, the most Hendrixian guitarist on the American continent goes by the name of Frank Marino, a true Canadian. "Perpetuum Mobile" represents a junction for that anarchic, hard, and angry experience of the "Wild Angels" on the run, starting from Detroit on Lake Michigan, reaching Chicago, and speeding down the "Mother Road" with the mythical "Route 66" to Los Angeles, not before descending to the arid deserts of Southern Texas. Essentially, from the Stooges, MC5, to Mariani, to Blue Cheer and Other Half. This Southern counter-culture experience has nothing to do with those migrations of the "American Dream" reinterpreted by the dreamy Californian hippie gatherings (Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver); it resembles more that dramatic awareness of the Velvet Underground, which from the alienating metropolitan self-torture opts instead for the wild and liberating cry of live performances. Velvet Underground will lay the foundations for the claustrophobic evolution of music, which in its evolution will come to identify with the sounding eco-monsters (sonant) of post-industrial archaeology, while the Stooges (stage diving), the MC5, will develop that crowd-bathing attitude, extolling "freedom" and "escape" into the unknown. The sound will become heavy, dense, and warm, rich in emotional connotations, birthing a genre that in the Southern interpretation will be enriched with melodic propulsion compared to other regions. This character will also be conveyed by its "soul" origins. The journey, starting from the lakes, will lead to the spectral mirages of the scorching sun, of desolate desert spaces, masterfully described by Ry Cooder in "Paris, Texas," in 1985. A drive for rebellion and power revenge in "swigs of spit venom" on bourgeois society, these reasons will irreversibly evolve towards "nothingness".

Texas with Austin will be an irrevocable stop, but also a "temporal place" (The 13th Floor Elevators) of this fascinating, yet absurd artistic-philosophical adventure called "psychedelia." This wave will be partially subdued by Jonny Winter and ZZ Top, eventually flowing into the delta of heavy rock, a sort of pop paradise with a hyperbolic cathartic effect, where the primordial and spontaneous animalistic impulses embodied by hard rock, shriveled like "cracks of the desert crust", will make way for the sonic gigantism and scenic "wonder" of metal showcases. The "baroque" apotheosis of sound, emptied of psychic content and primordial archaism, inherent in the first ideal mature hard rock manifesto (Cream: "Disraeli Gears"/ Blue Cheer "Vincebus Eruptum"), will take its place by the late '70s.

"Perpetuum Mobile," on the other hand, retains the hardness transmitted from hard rock origins, diluting the sound with the right acid, in situational changes, in the reverb of the voice, and in the guitar feedback, to guide the listener to bear the sound weight with minimal effort, a sort of very open perceptual antigravitation. This record is a "stream of consciousness," which from the Claptonian blues "Lord, I Just Can’t help Myself" to the Hendrixian "Things Are Changing," flows unstoppable on the river of memories. But one thing is certain, it places at its center the astonishing technical skill of its young guitarist. Always keep his age in mind as you listen to pieces like "Searching For A New Dimension", "Re-Birth Day" or "The Unknown Path" and the long "Euphoria", these reveal the amazing versatility of Eric Johnson. But how good is this "Southern boy"! Just think we have to wait until 1981 to find an album signed with his name, "Eric Johnson", guys, remember this name. Consider that he's been awarded six consecutive times as "best guitarist of the year" by American critics. Watching some of his videos, you'll realize how technically gifted he is, his ease of approach to the instrument, and the staggering virtuosity.

Today, his guitar no longer conveys the emotions of the past; the premises are missing and "the oars have been pulled into the boat", but it is enough to place this extraordinary guitarist in the top twenty spots of that rock Olympus, so dear to us all.