Rock and secret services

The popular story of the last fifty years has increasingly found to have a soundtrack sung and played by "bad teachers" invisible power. They are "bad teachers" who do not sing the praises of the prince, the poets are unable to adapt their rhymes to the mazes of barbed wire, are the musicians who choose not to mistake the sound of his instrument in the noise of war. Unable to force the music into a state border, unable to turn the volume up to see the outlines fade into silence: they always end up elsewhere, perhaps miles away, even when carried in a shoulder bag or backpack into a cassette or copied in more recent times, transformed into a sequence of binary ones and zeros to be reconstructed, listened, shared and spread again. As rightly observed in Franco Fabbri in "Listening taboo," often is a mistake to measure the "popularity" of a musician or a singer by counting the number of records sold.
Mimmo Franzinelli, historian of the twentieth century rock fan (see Volonta’ No 1-2/93 and reports of his books on the subject on A327) tells us this in his "Rock and intelligence" (ed. Bollati Hogarth Press, € 16.00) that without the contributions of people like Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Frank Zappa, Phil Ochs, Jimi Hendrix and others our life today would certainly be different, and probably worse. They were and are all musicians in the United States of America, the land of freedom, where they were born or had chosen to live. Yet they were (and are) all under attack, under police surveillance and bugged by the secret services because they are considered a threat to national security, victims of machinations and lies built to impose silence, dragged into court and in prison for writing , singing and inspiring "obscenity". I note that they sang of peace, brotherhood, love.

Joan Baez con Bob Dylan

A wise fundamentally political very documented and rich in references, the book reads smoothly but leaves him a certain uneasiness and bitterness: it's like to hear confirmation in writing of the unpleasant feelings that you had for some time. In here I found all the reasons that had driven me as a kid to look for those songs without being aware of it, I well remember how I drew that thirst for freedom that could not be extinguished, as those words attracted me to sharp choices one by one as I would not have known and could have chosen. And the sounds, well, those sounds so new and strange to the ear of the boy who I was.

John Lennon

The great test

The Arbegarbe and Eugene Chadbourne. Together. How strange. The former are a group of Friuli rather reluctant to get involved (see A268): they have self-produced and released four CDs on their own hybrid of rock / electric folk one better than the other in fifteen years of activity and have always been very interested but very little to promote them, they sound strange and bizarre and unpredictable because they listen to almost anything and are influenced by almost everything, they just go around and only in situations that interest them, are clearly enamored of the margins and of areas compared to those margins are over. Eugene you should already know if you like wandering through areas inaccessible to listen to other music: One of the first things shot here in Italy is that 'Environment for Sextet "(also with Andrea Centazzo, Tom Cora and John Zorn), who had stunned disgusted me and the vast majority of my classmates when we were still all taken with the punk of the Clash and the Sex Pistols.
He then played everywhere, bringing his guitar and a crooked bulky footage from concert halls to the occupied social centers the most unlikely places, continuously around America and Europe and Eastern Europe when it was still beyond the wall. Eugene is no stranger to bizarre collaborations, to say the peasants are in the midst of the German festival dedicated to Frank Zappa and celebrate Fats Waller with pianist Aki Takase.

Arbegarbe con Eugene Chadbourne

I said how strange, at first, but no: in retrospect is not at all strange that Arbegarbe and Eugene may have something in common, so it's just that their love for the strange and that they taste so deliciously polemical make it work well together. At their concert in Pagnacco (Udine) on February 7 last year they seemed to stand in front of a well-established show, the Friuli region to learn the parts of the American so well to the point of teaching some forgotten step.

Eugene Chadbourne

The CD "The great test (self, distr. Www.venusdischi.com Venus) the testimony of that concert with almost no reharsal (they had debuted a day or two before at the theater Honey Trieste, rumor has it that they did together only a quick test). The evening started well, continued well and finished even better, the place packed with people just as people are forced to stay out of it was satisfied the blasts of music coming out of the door left open. Not really a "usual" concert of Arbegarbe with special guest, not really a concert with Eugene Chadbourne backing a local band. Maybe you could tell the best concert as a surprise to the evening degenerated into a total frenzy even without chemical additives or alcohol. How to tell the smiles and excitement of the musicians and, indeed, the public? On this platform of success is everything, especially a great joy broke out in celebration of the music as horizontal exchange of experiences and friendship. Playing is another word to meet, learn and grow. Playing is another word for love.
Contact: therefore, there is some 'uncertainty. The CD is indicated www.arbegarbe.com  but at the time of writing (mid July) the site appears to be under construction. Networking the Arbegarbe still find them on myspace at www.myspace.com/arbegarbe .
The site is www.eugenechadbourne.com for Eugene.

Marco Pandin
stella_nera@tin.it

Translation and summary by Enrico Massetti (Web site on "The other Fabrizio de Andre")

“Duemila papaveri rossi” 2 cd with book The two cds include 37 songs by Fabrizio de André interpreted by musicians and independent groups. An iniziative to support "A" by the Edizioni stella*nera. One copy 15 euro For more info and online purchase click here

Paola Sabbatani e Roberto Bartoli “Non posso riposare” cd+dvd One cd and one dvd, twelve songs to listen to and a documentary by Mario Bartoli & Giangiacomo De Stefano (Va.C.A. Vari Cervelli Associati). A co-production Editrice Bruno Alpini, Aparte and stella*nera. One copy cd+dvd 15 euro For more info and online purchase click here