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Rating: Every now and then, I find myself thinking «Wow, what a stroke of luck I had!».
Take music, for example: wow, what a stroke of luck I had to be born in 1971, so I could consciously live through the eighties, Husker Du and Violent Femmes, Dream Syndicate and the Feelies, Giant Sand and Died Pretty, the farewell of the Clash and the rebirth of the Ramones...
And listen to the first stirrings from the Italian underground, which are encapsulated here, in the two volumes of «Eighties Colours» dated 1985 and 1987, masterminded by a Claudio Sorge, a trinitarian figure, mentor of the Electric Eye label, the Rockerilla monthly, and the Lost Trails fanzine.
It's true that the alternative Italian rock might not have begun exactly in these grooves, since there were already scattered signs of life (Not Moving above all), but the scene itself was indeed born and consolidated with «Eighties Colours».
It's best to first clear up the misconception of «Eighties Colours» being the manifesto of the tricolor garage revival: not true for the style, because, as the title announces, all the colors of 1980s Italian music (and there are many and they are vibrant) are mixed in these records; more true for the attitude, which is for everyone that of groups with one foot in the recording studio and the other still in the basement.
The Sick Rose, for instance, would go on to become the standard-bearers of international garage-punk with the release of «Get Along Girl» and «Faces», but the «Do You Live In A Jail» that kicks off the album shows them raw and abrasive as if they were grappling with a demo, and it’s a tasty appetizer of what’s to come.
Though Sick Rose actually debuted with a split shared with their compatriots Out Of Time, and they're also included here. To further demonstrate the varied coloring of «Italia ‘80» rock, consider Sick Rose and Out Of Time, side by side in the recording studio: on one hand, Texas 1966-style garage punk filtered through the beat emotion of the Crawdaddys; on the other, a splendid jingle jangle suspended between the Byrds dealing with any piece by Mr. Zimmerman and R.E.M. from «Murmur», resulting in the delight that is «Have You Seen The Light Tonight».
In between, there are the Party Kidz: their «Nothin' Changes» is heart-stopping, frantically blending beat and mod and featuring choruses (hey whoo ho ho ho, hey whoo ho ho ho) that drive you wild, and those who didn’t hear them at the time cannot understand, but even today they make quite an impression.
Following them, and calming the waters, are the dreamlike psychedelia of No Strange (still around, with «Cristalli Sognanti» just released, great!) and the unsettling sounds of Double Deck Five.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, here you get a four-sided vinyl-long treasure hunt: and this is just the end of the first!
Because then side B begins, and it’s total delirium: one after the other, Technicolour Dream and Birdmen Of Alkatraz, one after the other «Vinyl Solution» and «Song For The Convict Charlie»: the former is simply the greatest psycho-garage song produced that decade outside the United States; the latter is the one that convinced Greg Shaw to offer the Birdmen a spot in «Battle Of The Garages». Two immense groups, laying the groundwork for the continental neo-psychedelic movement, seeds from which formations like Pale Dawn, Magic Potion, and Steeplejack would bloom. And here comes an automatic wow...
And we end up unleashing ourselves to the rhythm of Four By Art and Pression X, on the same wavelength as Party Kidz, just with stronger mod accents the former and garage the latter; and even in this case, those who have never shouted at the top of their lungs «And now I know I failed to fall / And now I know I failed to fall in love» cannot understand the state of excitement that this hundred grams of vinyl stirs in you. Today, however, the kids just got lucky because there's a Pinhead pointing out these immense masterpieces on DeBaser and some soulful characters linking them online.
The finale is entrusted to Paul Chain who guides everyone back to the territories of No Strange and Double Deck Five, leaving an indelible sensation: what remains in your hands is a record to be listened to endlessly, with the awareness that these ten groups and these ten tracks have started to write an important story that will last for a long time...
And here ends side B and «Eighties Colours».
Until volume 2!
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