Windopen
Sei In Banana Dura

I remember that in late 1994, I was already in the first year of high school and was starting to take an active interest in rock and its various offshoots. I bought the entire series of audiocassettes attached to Repubblica, entitled – if memory serves – “Italia del Rock”: in that autumn, I discovered musical worlds that were completely unknown to me, such as the late ’60s beat rock of the Giganti and the Corvi, the ’70s prog of Area, Garybaldi, Banco and PFM, Osanna and Delirium, Rovescio della Medaglia and Balletto di Bronzo, the alternative songwriting of early Bennato, the New Wave of Diaframma and Litfiba, the first electro funk elaborations of Bisca and company, and so on…

Among all the tracks I listened to at the time, the one I remember most fondly is, however, “Sei in banana dura” by the Windopen, a Bologna-based band active between the late ’70s and early ’80s, which disappeared over the years due to their proud refusal to leave the independent scene and to record albums with major labels, known to some for being the first professional band of that Roberto Terzani who, in the ’90s, would worthily replace Gianni Maroccolo as the bassist of the Litfiba during their rock transition.

Released as a single and perhaps included in some now-untraceable anthology of the time, “Sei in banana dura” deserves to be remembered on this site for the inimitable way in which it describes the spirit of the times in which it was recorded, years when the city of Bologna was suspended between political engagement and withdrawal, between cultural centrality and tragedies that marked the history of Italy, such as the tragic bombing at the train station on 2.8.1980.

In this, the piece by the Windopen, akin to certain tracks by the Skiantos, recovers the sounds of a raw rock with almost punk emphasis, supported by an effective rhythm section, a compelling guitar, and explosive brass, in a mad progression that excellently conveys, amidst metropolitan slang, nonsense, and allusions, the discomfort and chaos of those years, almost like a sarcastic and disoriented smile from someone who is young but already feels themselves growing up, understanding that nothing will ever be the same as before.

Epochal.