Rainy Day
Rainy Day

THE REVIEW

If you want a bed of roses you have to learn to sleep with the thorns” (quote from I don't remember what, perhaps a movie)...

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Susanna, Kendra, the one-eyed man, the magic boy are the offspring of the paisley underground and come from groups like Dream Syndicate, Rain Parade, Three O’clock, Bangles. Here they all play together and listening to them is something that brings you back to life.

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If this is my awakening record, it's because the best way to wake up is to stay asleep. Imagine an angelic cover band paying homage to the most magical sixties and a handful of songs bought at a sale in a market that exists only in dreams. Then if cover records are often useless, well, here's the exception. Not because of amazing versions or anything, but for some mysterious quid made of good energy and clear light.

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Certain dazed eyes on certain twisted faces sometimes hint at a sugar soul, a melody that, when added with a hint of strangeness, flows as effortlessly as water. The One-eyed Man is no exception and between amusement parks and jingle jangles, he takes us to a field of flowers in the company of the most absent-minded among imaginary friends. And when the little choruses and the psychic keyboard close the circle, it's really too beautiful...

The magic boy floats instead between yin and yang: moon sun, light shadow, those things there. On one side it's a plunge into basic melancholy, think Neil Young. On the other, it's the sweetest madness, with a half-absurd guitar complicating a funny dangling melody, stuff that makes you unsure whether to say “shit” or laugh heartily...

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(Dream number one)

Kendra usually smiles little and only in black and white, but now her smile has all the colors of the dark, it must be the atmosphere of Bar Maria Stella, or maybe because she's ended up inside one of my dreams.

“I've run away from the music business,” she says, “and now I live in a cabin.” “And the music?”, I ask her. “What do you want me to say? I've become a half Nico and play the harmonium every night.” “Inside the cabin?” “Yes, inside the cabin.”

“But the Rainy Day record, the one that holds together spring and a season in hell, the one where you're partly in a field of flowers and partly in a melancholy that makes you fall asleep?” “Damn, man, you know how it works, right? If you want a bed of roses you have to learn to sleep with the thorns.” “And I imagine you're taking care of the thorns.” “Yes, I'm taking care of the thorns.” ...

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And now space for the “humble and high more than creature” present here, roughly secularized, in the glorious case of the girl next door. Her name is Susanna and she sings the songs of a crazy and sad goddess, that Nico whose voice stands between Cassandra and the Oracle of Delphi. And if you think a girl next door can have nothing to do with Nico, well, you're wrong. Because here night turns to day, winter to spring, and stars to needle points. A simple girl, after all, is already a microcosm of a goddess...

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(Dream number two)

Kendra tells me that the first time she entered the cabin it was so cold she had to wear all the sweaters she had, and soon after, the cats came to keep her company. I crack a smile, and right after, Kendra disappears.

In her place, an ugly old man materializes and shouts: “The bums have lost, Mr. Lebowski, the bums have lost!” “What?” “The bums have lost, tell that to your friend.” “Which friend?” “The one from before, Miss Kendra.”

An infinite time passes, no less than a quarter of an hour, no less than a thousand years.

Then the old man returns to the charge: “Do you have a job, Mr. Lebowski?”. The sentence hits me like a left hook.

From afar, indeed from very far away, I hear my voice saying: “I am not Mr. Lebosky, you are Mr. Lebosky, I am the dude, actually I am luludia...

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And anyway, yes, Mr. Lebowski, the bums have lost, and they're there at Bar Maria Stella fiddling with their holy shit, really good stuff, mind you, and it's really good precisely because they've lost. Ah, these guys are stuck with the sixties and have built a web of guitars to not end up tangled in ours. Look at them, they play asleep and if they don't surprise, it's only because they enchant...

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Ah, the artists covered are Nico, Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Beach Boys, Who, Big Star, Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix. Not bad, I'd say...