Umberto Palazzo - Is Life Easy?

Umberto Palazzo is one of the most upstanding and consistent figures in recent Italian music history. After tying his name to the birth of Massimo Volume, he went on to lead the fine project Il Santo Niente.

Today, juggling parallel musical projects, a thriving career as a DJ and the artistic direction of Wake Up, he's about to release his first solo album. We take the opportunity to retrace his professional journey together, in a long and refreshingly candid interview.

I'd like to start by going back over the key stages of your artistic path, right from your first steps.

I started out in Vasto, in the province of Chieti, in 1981, founding a post-punk band called Aut Aut. I was the guitarist and composer.

A couple of years later I went to study in Bologna.

I answered an ad placed by Amerigo Verardi and we put together a band.

A project of his that after a while turned into Allison Run: I played bass with them.

In the meantime I was also playing bass and guitar with Federico Ferrari's Ugly Things.

In the early '90s I founded Massimo Volume, who were my band for three years.

I played guitar and sang - it was the first band in which I had a role as singer. I left the band three months before the recording of "Stanze", the first official MV album (Umberto does however appear in full on an earlier four-track demo, two songs sung by him and two by Emidio Clementi, ed.).

In September 1993 I founded Santo Niente, with whom I still play today.

Since 2007 there's been a parallel project called El Santo Nada.

My first solo album will come out in September 2011.

In the early '80s you were in Bristol, a real melting pot of races and influences, learning English and closely observing what was happening across the Channel.

A lucky coincidence: my aunt was married to an Englishman, and I spent a summer with them to learn English. It was much better than the usual package tour.

My aunt and uncle worked in a factory, and my cousin and I had plenty of time to wander around the city. That's how I got to know English working-class suburban life.

What atmosphere did you sense observing the early days of a scene that, within ten years, would prove to be one of the most fertile, spawning one of the last great musical revolutions: trip hop?

What people listened to was reggae and post-punk: trip hop is their logical consequence.

In 1981 those two genres were in full bloom.

Then you went back to drown in Italy's chronic provincialism, but with much clearer ideas...

"Drowning" is the right word, it's exactly the feeling I had.

I'd been following punk and post-punk since 1977, and I already had it in mind to form a band like Joy Division, but of course the hands-on experience turned out to be something else entirely.

I came back with a suitcase full of records and stripped of a lot of typically Italian preconceptions about music.

What I do today is still based on those experiences.

Then came the time of Aut Aut...

In 1981 I founded Aut Aut with three friends.

Our reference points were: Joy Division, Siouxsie And The Banshees, Echo And The Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Bauhaus, Cabaret Voltaire, Tuxedomoon, Talking Heads, Devo, Contortions, and pre-"Pornography" Cure.

These reference points might seem obvious today, but back then we didn't know anyone around here who listened to or played our kind of music.

To meet people like us we had to travel many kilometres, and the fact that we dressed strangely certainly didn't help our social relationships.

Today punk and the various urban tribes are a TV phenomenon, just another form of conformity, but back then we were simply freaks. Outcasts.

The police would stop me regularly even when I was just walking around.

Then came Bologna, and Allison Run...

At eighteen, as soon as I could, I moved to Bologna, which for me was the mythical city.

There was the Clash concert in Piazza Maggiore, there were Gaznevada and Italian Records (I loved "Sick Soundtrack", for me the best Italian new wave record).

At Parco Nord I saw the Talking Heads concert on the "Remain In Light" tour.

Also, I was left-wing, and in Bologna I saw a civilized, forward-thinking city.

It was civilized and forward-thinking, but it was — and still is — also small and provincial, with the petty and increasingly joyless dynamics of any Italian provincial town.

I found myself playing with other out-of-towners like me, and I was lucky enough to soon meet the great Amerigo Verardi: together we founded Allison Run.

Musically speaking, Amerigo was more mature than me — more mature and talented than anyone else of our generation: I learned an enormous amount from him.

It was a moment of extraordinary vitality for Bologna: the occupations, the ideologies, the cultural exchanges among politically engaged students coming from all over Italy.

I imagine a lot of drugs and a lot of sex too.

Those of us who, like me, were studying in Rome in those years saw Bologna as the only truly stimulating hub in Italy for a young university student.

There was never much integration between the students and the local Bolognese kids — there was a huge divide, and to be honest, most Bolognese people could barely stand the students. On top of that, mixed bands were fairly rare.

There was a scene made up of out-of-town bands and a scene made up of Bolognese bands.

Allison Run, Massimo Volume and Santo Niente were out-of-town bands. Ugly Things were a mixed band, one of the few.

Sex, sure, definitely, but drugs ruined everything.

In my opinion, Bologna died after the first rave wave — which I actually enjoyed quite a bit, just as I didn't turn my nose up at certain drugs.

The rise of punkabbestia as the dominant breed switched off every last light of creativity, and the “grassa / dotta / laida / sazia / disperata” became the "junkie town", the city-symbol of youthful collapse, a mecca of fucking self-destructive hedonism from which nothing good can easily come.

Creativity and being ketamine-wasted don't really go hand in hand.

After those years came a cosmic void and the total loss of values and points of reference for young Italians.

Television has corrupted Italy, flattening the collective imagination into a landscape of tits, asses, chiseled abs, redone eyebrows and money.

Television has sanctified prostitution, wiping out individual dignity and independence, and all in all it's succeeded quite easily in this: Italians, even those who think of themselves as independent and alternative, are essentially conformists.

It's no coincidence that "Il conformista", Bertolucci's film, is the work that best captures the vicious cowardice of Italians, and that Elio Petri's "Todo Modo" perfectly describes the mechanisms of power in our society.

Also for this reason, despite being masterpieces, these films are almost entirely forgotten today.

Who were your main musical idols back then?

After post-punk I rediscovered sixties and seventies rock, blues, jazz.

So Beatles, Syd Barrett, Rolling Stones, John Coltrane, Robert Johnson.

Then, toward the end of the eighties, my attention was captured by the American alternative scene, and I threw myself body and soul into Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr, Jane's Addiction, Pixies, Fugazi, Nirvana, Melvins, Big Black, Black Flag, Helmet, Squirrel Bait, Butthole Surfers and so on.

Now we reach the important chapter with Mimì, Vittoria and Cecio: Massimo Volume are born, and you're their first real ideologue...

Yes, the idea of putting Mimì, my former flatmate, in front of a microphone to declaim his own poems over backing tracks I put together was mine.

Cecio was the third man.

Vittoria arrived a bit later.

I came up with the band's name myself.

A demo comes out that will make history, but the toy breaks soon after.

On a personal level, they behaved very badly.

At a certain point they decided to go in a different direction.

A choice that, if you like, was also legitimate and artistically valid - having Mimì as the sole singer and softening the sound and the content.

Except they "forgot" to tell me about it.

Instead of loyalty, fairness and dignity, they chose subterfuge and lies.

How would Massimo Volume have sounded if Umberto Palazzo had stayed in the band?

Shall we do a Marvel Comics-style "What if..."?

What can I say, except that things go the way they're meant to go?

But if you're keen, I can imagine a couple of transitional scenarios.

Let's suppose that Mimì and Vittoria, instead of plotting behind my back and mobbing me, had decided to confront me and tell me openly that they'd agreed Mimì would be the sole singer of Massimo Volume, while asking me to stay on for the good of the project.

At that point, the alternatives would have been as follows:

A) I tell them where to go and stop them from using the songs and the band's name (in reality I could have done that anyway, but I didn't). Massimo Volume, under that name and with that repertoire, would have died right there, forcing everyone - not just me - to start again from scratch.

B) I accept the situation, stay on to make the first album, "Stanze", then start my own project because I need to express my creativity, which no longer has room to breathe in the band.

Leaving fiction aside and returning to reality, looking back today I can clearly see how incompatible we were from day one. I need to experiment and keep changing constantly. As an artist, I feel it's my duty to make disorienting, unpredictable choices.

For me, the beauty lies in not knowing where I'm headed, while they've monolithically repeated the same formula for twenty years - a formula they found together with me, and one that, from that very day, they decided never to depart from again.

Sure, in terms of communicating with audiences and critics, that works far better than my own tendency to discard things and waver, but if one day I were praised for having made exactly what everyone expected of me, I'd feel like a failed artist, a finished artist.

After the Massimo Volume experience you lived through the unrepeatable golden age of the Italian independent scene as a leading figure, and with Santo Niente you ended up signed to Consorzio Produttori Indipendenti.

In March 1993 I found myself without a band and without a repertoire, because I'd spent three years working on the never-released second Allison Run album, and another three years on what would eventually become "Stanze".

I only had one song, "Elvira", and a few sketches: the music for "Il Pappone", the feedback of "L'aborigeno" and the lyrics of "Storia breve", which would later become the famous "tasteless cut-up drawn from Cronaca Vera", as Emidio described it in the band's biography.

At that point I didn't even know if I'd keep playing, so I went to the United States for a couple of months, half-intending to stay there.

I spent the whole time travelling on my own, and it was a wonderful, very lucky trip.

I saw some amazing shows (for instance P.J. Harvey, with Radiohead and Gallon Drunk as support, at Lollapalooza in 1993), and the urge to play came back to me.

Once back in Italy, within three months I'd written most of "La vita è facile", which later became Santo Niente's debut.

I wrote it in Vasto, not in Bologna.

With Cristiano Marcelli and Fabio Petrelli I brought Santo Niente to life and made a nine-track demo, but at a certain point the money ran out.

Since up-and-coming CSI were playing in town, I thought I'd try my luck and hand a copy of the demo to Gianni Maroccolo.

I didn't know about the Consorzio yet, but I knew he was a producer.

It worked out well.

I know you don't look back on the Nineties with any particular nostalgia, but tell us an anecdote or two from those years.

I'm not a nostalgic person in general, and I always live in the present.

Nostalgia is a very harmful thing, dwelling on the past does you absolutely no good.

I think the most rock'n'roll thing we did in the '90s was when the bouncers at Cencio's in Prato beat me up and chased us in their car.

We were crazy and did a ton of stupid things, but we had a great time and, above all, we survived.

How were your relationships with the other artists on Consorzio?

Who were the most genuine?

Who were the most stimulating?

The relationships were good.

Obviously there were Marlene Kuntz, up on their own little cloud, while everyone else barely got by.

Marco L. Lega was stimulating - the producer of Marlene's first three albums and of "La vita è facile": if we're being honest, he was the real architect of the sound of those records.

One of the most important mentors I've ever met in my life, he completely revolutionized the way I think about music, but I've since lost all contact with him.

Giorgio Canali and Teho Teardo were stimulating, and they're still points of reference for me today.

A few years after Santo Niente, el Santo Nada came along...

That happened much later; first there was a Pescara phase of Santo Niente, with a completely renewed lineup.

That phase gave birth to "Il Fiore dell'agave", in my opinion by far Santo Niente's best album.

Unfortunately, since it wasn't released by a major label, it ended up somewhat underrated.

In Pescara I met Alessio D'Onofrio, with whom I've now been playing for over ten years - the greatest guitarist I've ever played with, and someone with whom I share a wordless musical understanding. El Santo Nada was essentially born out of our musical interplay, and it's pure guitar music.

In the band we brought together all our musical influences from every era: surf, country, psychedelia, Morricone, the Italian music of Sixties film soundtracks, something Balkan and something Mexican, even post-rock if you like.

The main guitarist of the project is Alessio, who's a much better player than me.

For work reasons he had to leave Santo Niente, and now the two bands only have two members in common: Christian Carano and me.

The rest of Santo Nada is Alberto La Torre and Fabrizio Crecchio.

The rest of Santo Niente is made up of three quarters of Death Matra For Lazarus, that is Tonino Bosco, Federico Sergente and Lorenzo Conti: young, but already very experienced.

Tonino and Federico, as the rhythm section of Zippo, already have four or five European tours under their belt.

Tell us about your other musical projects that brought you up to the first decade of the new millennium.

One thing I'm particularly proud of is having put together an anthology of Abruzzo rock titled "Quello che facciamo è segreto", a double CD with thirty tracks and an accompanying magazine.

It's a work we made possible thanks to the magazine Mente Locale, the label Ecam and the wine merchant Marcello Zaccagnini, a rare case of artistic patronage in our day and age.

Then there was the wonderful collaboration with Damo Suzuki and Julie's Haircut, which I hope to repeat sooner or later.

I've got another project in the drawer, about 70 percent finished, but I'd rather not give anything away just yet.

After thirty years of career, your debut as a solo artist is finally about to be released. How did you get here, and why did you decide to use your own name only now?

In general I like working as part of a group, I'm a "team player" and I believe a band, a real band, is always more than the sum of its parts.

This time it couldn't be a band album because I made it almost entirely on my own, but it's not like I'd never thought about it before.

While we were putting together the Santo Nada album, I started recording home demos for the future, and almost without realizing it, the thing turned into an album.

It was made in parallel with "Tuco", and it lives in the same imaginative world.

It will be called "Canzoni della notte e della controra": I think it's my best record so far.

It will come out in September on Disco Dada.

Who plays on the album alongside you?

Sandra Ippoliti sings on three tracks, Tying Tiffany on one, and Luca D'Alberto played violectra on "Café Chantant".

I recovered a drum track played by Gianluca Schiavon back in the nineties from a DAT.

Everything else is played by me.

Did you handle the production yourself?

Yes. I'm also the sound engineer, and the studio is my home studio.

How have the dynamics of your compositional process evolved over time?

There's no set rule: the compositional process is always different, and always a mystery.

I never know where I'll end up next: the music arrives, you hear it in your head, and you just have to be alert enough to catch it when the moment comes, and then play it.

Just as schizophrenics hear voices in their heads, certain musicians hear music: it's not a process you can control.

Studying harmony helped me enormously: now I can put a name to the moods and intervals that come into my mind, instead of having to proceed by trial and error.

I go more confidently straight to the note I need.

Sung lyrics always come after the music.

Spoken ones, sometimes, come before.

I imagine a tour is planned to support the album — how are you thinking of putting together the setlist?

Honestly, I don't have the faintest idea yet.

I'm putting together the new lineup and the new Santo Niente record, and it's completely absorbed me.

I imagine that at some point I'll be forced to set up a third band, and I think it'll be El Santo Nada, or part of it, helping me out.

"Generazioni", a tribute to Santo Niente, is coming out right now. How did the idea come about?

The idea is Marco Gargiulo's, a twenty-year-old who runs the Magmusic website. It's a pure act of love on his part towards my music. And I had no role other than that of the flattered author and listener. I had no contact with the artists while they were selecting and preparing the tracks, and I tried not to listen to any previews so I could enjoy the record as a whole only once it was finished.

When I finally received the preview, I was struck by the variety of genres: it goes from the psych prog of Zippo and Veracrash to the electro pop of Tying Tiffany and Nevica su 4.0, from the shoegaze of Lilies On Mars to the sonic post-punk of Luminal, from the dark industrial of Spiral69 and Marigold to the psychedelic stoner of Kitsch & Micol Martinez.

Naturally, Italian alternative rock of the Nineties school is well represented, thanks to contributions from Giorgio Canali, Simona Gretchen with la Mela and Newton, Ilenia Volpe (accompanied by Canali and Steve Dal Col of Frigidaire Tango), Motel 20099, Devocka, CFF e il Nomade Venerabile, and Katrina Saviors.

I noticed a constant: there's always a somewhat dark streak and a touch of post-punk running through pretty much every track, which is, after all, the ultimate root of Santo Niente.

What struck me and made me particularly happy was the fact that "Generazioni" stands out as a record with a very strong female presence. There are twenty singers on the record (for sixteen tracks), and no fewer than nine of them are women.

What does it feel like, mid-career, to be the subject of a tribute?

It's an extremely gratifying thing, almost too much so. By nature I'm not very expansive, and this tribute is like receiving an overly generous compliment that makes you blush. It brings out a bit of an old shyness in me. I like to think the songs I've written can't be all that bad if, twenty years on, people still want to listen to them, and even sing them. Some of the tracks are actually older than Marco Gargiulo, the mastermind behind the project.

Amerigo Verardi, who co-founded Allison Run with you in Bologna, has earned boundless fame among the younger generation for producing the first two Baustelle records. What do you think of this far-sighted move of his?

I think what Amerigo does is much better than what Baustelle do, and that Baustelle were better when they worked with Amerigo, who is one of those artists who deserves a lot more.

Now let's talk about the main productions you've worked on…

I limit myself to producing or co-producing my own records.

I don't think I could be a producer, I have some rather too radical ideas about how to make a record, ideas that work great for me, but I doubt they could be applied to other bands.

Let me give you an example: if a band is capable of playing live, in my opinion the record should be made, if possible, entirely live in the studio, and each track should be recorded no more than twice, because that's the only way to capture the band's vitality.

That's how we made "Il fiore dell'agave" and "Tuco".

It's all a matter of the beauty of the interplay and the rightness of the spirit of the performance, but generally bands aren't very interested in that.

When I have to work on arrangements I prefer the less obvious solutions, and between two options I always go for the stranger, less predictable one, and that's not a very popular approach either.

Umberto, besides being a musician, you're also a successful DJ. Tell us how this passion came about, and what criteria you use to choose your selections.

Basically I'm a party animal: I've always loved going out dancing, and I started DJing because I didn't like other DJs, and rather than complain I started throwing parties that I myself would enjoy.

Luckily what I do is enjoyed by a lot of other people too.

My selections are based on dancing.

The setlist, which isn't fixed because I always improvise, first and foremost has to make me dance, and I always dance when I'm behind the decks.

Dancing is movement, and a track works if it's able to create movement.

Every single track has to be good, it has to have drive, and it has to be a logical consequence of the previous track, otherwise it breaks your stride.

Whoever's on the dance floor should be dragged along by the music, not have to drag themselves through it.

A good DJ's first duty is to keep the energy on the dance floor constantly at its peak.

So, dealing with fairly large crowds, I can't always play what I'd like to.

Yesterday I happened to be spinning records in a venue where the only real requirement was to provide a backdrop for people's drinks at the bar, even though the sound system was pretty powerful, and I got to put together a selection that included "Third Uncle" by Brian Eno, "Spiders" by Wilco, "Non-Alignment Pact" by Pere Ubu, and "I Will Dare" by the Replacements.

Those are beautiful tracks, and great to dance to as well, but they wouldn't work in a venue with four hundred people, at least not in Pescara, because they're too tricky and known by too few people.

Basically, the crowd, even the alternative-minded crowd, dances to songs they know or whose rhythmic development they can anticipate, and there's no point being romantic about it: when you've been hired to get people dancing, either you get them dancing or you go home.

A simple truth about success is that you can't be better than the audience you're playing to.

These days you earn a lot more spinning records than playing live…

At the lower end that's true, but only because a band has to split the earnings.

But if I play solo I earn more than with a DJ set — actually, there's more demand for DJ sets than for concerts, because we live in a country that doesn't particularly love live music. You can tell because during a concert a lot of people talk, get distracted, which means they're not listening, and often they couldn't care less about the show. I also organize the concerts at the venue where I DJ, and there are plenty of people who show up late specifically to avoid seeing the concert, even when it's free, even when it's really good.

I've been aware of this for years, but I still can't stop being shocked by this cultural refusal to pay attention, which afflicts even a lot of people who think they have sophisticated musical taste.

Guitar chapter: which models have marked your career, and which are you most attached to?

My favorite is the old semi-acoustic Fender Starcaster, its Wide Range pickups have a wonderful sound.

But the live instruments par excellence are the various Telecasters.

For the "expert advice" segment: a good pedal set to recommend to anyone looking to play some solid noise/shoegaze.

They're polar-opposite genres.

For shoegaze I'd recommend the Electro Harmonix Memory Man and Small Stone.

Noise is made with distortion pedals, and I've got three on my board: the Rat, the Boss Metal Zone (one of the few with a parametric EQ), and the Marshall Drive Master.

I only use the Big Muff on bass.

Umberto, which records, Italian and foreign, have struck you most over the past few months?

This year I decided not to do the charts, since I always end up missing something essential anyway. Talking about new releases (even though most of what I listen to is old), among Italian ones I've been listening a lot to Pan Del Diavolo and Teho Teardo's soundtracks.

I've started following Antonio Gramentieri's work very closely, both for his Sacri Cuori project and for his collaborations with Hugo Race and other greats.

I liked "Fatalist" a lot, and in the end it's a record made in Romagna by an Italian team. I really liked "BKO" by Dirtmusic, and I've been listening to a lot of world music, with particular attention to Malian music and Sublime Frequencies releases.

Then Swans, Brian Eno, John Grant, Giant Sand, Chemical Brothers, Deerhunter, Deer Tick and so on. I'm an omnivore.

The name of a band you'd like to be part of today.

The Rolling Stones circa 1971, so I could go to parties with Keith Richards.

In all these years, has it ever crossed your mind to think, "I should just write a hit and pitch it to some mainstream pop artist"?

No.

I've noticed you're putting real dedication into meticulously collecting articles published by the foreign press about Italian musicians.

Any thoughts?

There's a lot of interest in the foreign press towards Italian bands, but it's notable that the ones most celebrated within our own borders are almost entirely absent.

This month alone, Uncut has reviewed three Italian artists: Robert Miles (who made an album with Robert Fripp), Banjo Or Freakout and Mamuthones.

The most highly regarded abroad are Morricone, Vinicio Capossela and Zu.

Morricone is a case apart, in a league entirely of his own.

These days you live in Pescara, a provincial city, though hardly a backwater.

There you're in charge of the artistic direction of Wake Up.

Tell us about this other professional experience of yours.

I don't have big budgets, so I have to try to catch a band while it's still on the rise.

I've booked a good number of the names who are now most famous, but back when they were just starting out.

At Wake Up I put on Marta Sui Tubi, Le Luci Della Centrale Elettrica, Bugo, Offlaga Disco Pax, Paolo Benvegnù, Brunori SAS, Zen Circus, Pan del Diavolo and many, many others.

I've organized more than two hundred concerts, always without charging admission.

Giorgio Canali and Federico Fiumani show up almost every year.

That said, I have a special place in my heart for Italian bands that I consider world-class, but who struggle to break out of their niche here at home.

The first three names that come to mind are Guano Padano, Lilies On Mars and Julie's Haircut.

The foreign artists I'm proudest of having brought to play at Wake Up are Steve Shelley and Damo Suzuki

By the way, I saw that Massimo Volume played there last December 9th.

What criteria do you use to put together the concert schedule?

Based on what I like and what the venue can afford.

Wait: did I just say I like Massimo Volume?

So you've got a nice outlet for the best bands flooding you with demos.

How many do you get?

Do you listen to them all?

Does it happen often that you decide to get in touch with someone?

Or to recommend someone.

I get a frightening amount of demos, and if it's a CD I always listen to at least some of it. Unfortunately, whoever sends me a link doesn't stand much chance, because I get dozens of emails a day, I always have a ton of work to do, and I almost always forget about it.

Anyway, self-produced CDs today have more interesting material than a few years ago.

In light of all these activities, is Umberto Palazzo able to make a living from his art today?

Not from art, absolutely not, but from music yes, because I'm a skilled technician in quite a few roles, and a good DJ.

I have to stir things up a bit, but I know you won't mind at all.

Which Italian artists do you genuinely respect?

There are actually loads of them.

I specialize in booking Italian concerts, and it's a job I do with a fan's enthusiasm.

It'd be quicker to list who's never played Wake Up.

What do you think of Manuel Agnelli as a figure?

That he's never played Wake Up . . . though I did invite him.

Manuel is definitely the central figure of Italian rock in recent years.

I admire his talent and his willpower, but I'm not a fan of his music.

As an attitude, I think it leans too much toward classic rock.

I like classic rock, but only if it's truly classic, in the temporal sense too.

But do you acknowledge that he's become a kind of demigod, worshipped in an almost mystical/religious way by hordes of fans?

Uncritical fan worship generally fills me with immense sadness.

I'm too punk on the inside not to be immune to it, instinctively skeptical.

I find scenes of collective hysteria embarrassing, and I've resigned myself to watching the concerts I truly love with thirty other people.

He's done a lot for the "scene", don't you think? I'm thinking of Tora! Tora!, but also the more recent project "Il paese è reale".

I don't think so.

As far as I'm concerned, he's done nothing.

It's a joke, but let me explain: he's done something for a very small part of the scene, which has reaped huge benefits from his backing.

For bands outside his circle, honestly that part of the scene is something pretty cumbersome, and the groups belonging to it aren't always better than the others.

And what do you make of Cristiano Godano?

This obsession of his with chasing artistic merit at all costs has led him, over time, to put out increasingly less interesting albums.

And increasingly less electric.

I used to like Marlene Kuntz: their live shows were incredible.

I think they've ended up a bit trapped in a role, and they're struggling to break out of it.

Right now I find a figure like Francesco Bianconi more stimulating: through cultured citationism he pursues beauty, crafting a refined pop built on lyrics that are never trite and melodies that kill.

For me, within the realm of intelligent, auteur-driven Italian pop, Dario Brunori is a thousand times better.

What I can't stand about Bianconi is his being "post-modern," what you call citationism. I hate post-modernism.

I like Giorgio Canali and I like Giancarlo Frigieri, but for me the best with lyrics is Vinicio Capossela, who makes words do incredible things.

But he finds himself in a strange position: he's not mainstream, because the mainstream hates him, and he's not considered alternative either, since he doesn't exclusively use contemporary Anglo-American idioms.

I'd also like to hear your personal take on Giovanni Lindo Ferretti's "conversion."

I'm a Buddhist. I converted too, but to ideas far more open than his, which frankly I loathe.

Yet you've kept a great relationship with Giorgio Canali.

Thankfully he exists. He should be an example for everyone.

And what about Paolo Benvegnù?

Critics are crazy about him...

Paolo is a great artist. He's an all-round talent, but having too much talent in this country can be a problem.

The band of the moment is definitely Verdena...

Yes. Good, worthy of respect, but their music doesn't do anything for me.

Finally, a bit of politics is only fitting: there's an anti-Berlusconi mobilization underway right now - how do you think it'll end?

It'll end with us finding out, once we finally manage to get rid of him, about some insane financial messes that are being kept hidden today for propaganda reasons.

The tragic thing is that the more time goes by, the more our economy - meaning our wellbeing and the future of us and our descendants - gets eroded from within.

His downfall will be an extremely tough moment, and managing the transition will be incredibly difficult, assuming we even manage to stop the plundering, which is fair to doubt.

Will this country have the strength to get back on its feet?

In the short term I don't think so, and in the long term, as John Maynard Keynes said, we'll all be dead.

(photo by Sebastiano Bongi Toma - Il Ramingo)

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