Steve Rogers Band
I duri non ballano

A few nights ago, while browsing through used vinyls for 5 euros sold by a hobbyist at a festivity in my city, my heart skipped a beat. Amidst an old Zucchero album and a second-rate Bennato, I stumbled upon I duri non ballano, the debut album of the Steve Rogers Band, dated 1986. Before starting to write something about this work, I must clarify: I'm not a Vasco-maniac. Like everyone from my generation, I listened to Vasco Rossi from Zocca as a young man; I'm 46 years old, so I intersected with Mr. Rossi's history during his (in my opinion) best period. Before the explosion of the early '90s, when he made small records full of provocation that fascinated the youth of that era. As a result, people also knew who the Steve Rogers Band was.

The group was to Vasco Rossi what, say, Stadio was to Lucio Dalla, or the Champagne Molotov was to Enrico Ruggeri. In short, they were the band that accompanied him live. They were formed in 1980 during the recording of Colpa d’Alfredo, filled with historical friends of the Emilian rocker, like the highly underrated Massimo Riva and Maurizio Solieri. Well. At a certain point in its history, the band decided to stand on its own. Thanks in part to Guido Elmi, Vasco Rossi's historical producer, who played percussion and keyboards on this 1986 debut. They took their name from Elmi, as Steve Rogers was his pseudonym in the music production field, and they gave it a shot. First, in 1981, with a 45 that went completely unnoticed, then in 1986 with this album. Vasco Rossi was already a small phenomenon, but still very limited in scope. More than anything, he was known for his run-ins with the law.

For them, brief success, tied only to a song, came the following year. They managed to create one of the Italian hit songs of the '80s, that "Alzati la gonna," which earned them the Telegatto award as Group of the Year in 1988. Those were different times; independent rock was a mirage, hardcore punk was niche. In Italy, mainstream rock music was what it was. Ups and downs for a couple of years, then dissolution. Massimo Riva would die in 1999; a tribute reunion occurred in 2006. This briefly summarizes the artistic path of the SRB (on the cover of this album, the name appears just like that, as an acronym without dots). This long preamble sets the historical period before discussing this album. I personally bought it, I believe, already on offer at the little record shop in my town a few months after its release. On cassette tape. Paying around 5,000 lire. Without too much conviction. I was already fed up with Vasco Rossi, let alone his band. It was somewhat amusing, starting with the cover.

The band, formed at the time not only by the aforementioned Solieri and Riva but also by Mimmo Caporeale, Daniele Tedeschi, Andrea Innesto, and Guido Elmi (though only four appear on the cover), dressed in incredibly flashy '80s style, with shoulder-padded jackets, sleeveless vests, sunglasses, and tough-guy looks. Well, the title is indeed I duri non ballano (Tough Guys Don't Dance). Released by CBS (again, different times, a major label producing debut artists), in four out of eight songs there's Vasco Rossi's signature; the other three are signed only by the other members, and the last one closing side A is an incredible version of the Eagles' "Desperado," with Italian lyrics that have nothing to do with those by Don Henley and Glenn Frey, renamed "Me ne vado" for phonetic similarity. Just for this, one might want to criticize the album harshly. But instead, today as then, I inexplicably like it. I surprisingly listened to it a lot back in the '80s, and I'm re-listening to it with immense pleasure today.

I realize today it's just a Proustian madeleine, reminding me of my adolescent rock days, transitioning from generic rock to more extreme metal as I'm approaching 50. Because the production is so '80s, polished just right, with the sax here and there as counterpoints, sleek guitars, catchy melodies that stick in your ears. A dash of reggae in the opening song, "Ok si," which was also the single, with lyrics more Vasco Rossi-like than ever (Ok, sure, tonight I'm with you, Ok, you'll see, tonight you'll die…and so on). Then follows mid-tempos and melody in "Senza un alibi" and "Femmina come te," the already mentioned "Me ne vado," a sort of ballad "C’è chi nasce donna," the driving "Questa sera rock'n'rool" (which would later title the live album a few years later), with lyrics that make you smile for their naïveté, the healthy naïveté of the '80s: "tonight we, more than ever, deal on our own after a lifetime of TV and VCRs," provincial misfits, basically. To end with another piece of melodic rock like "Ma non vedi" and the inevitable bittersweet final ballad "Sai qual è la verità"—all for just over half an hour of music.

What can I say? Back then, it sold a few thousand copies, which I believe mostly ended up like the one I found, in used record boxes. Today, it would be a moderate success; back then, a flop. I'll give it three stars for the memory mechanism I explained above. If you are an archeologist of Italian music, if you love the '80s (like the villain in Despicable Me 3), if you remember SRB only for their one-hit wonder "Alzati la gonna," give it a listen. It's obviously out of print, never having been released on CD, but you can find it all on YouTube, and you can spare half an hour to get an idea of how Italian rock sounded in the '80s, and also to hear once again the voice of Massimo Riva, one of the most underrated, unfortunate but also likable Italian musicians ever.