Litfiba's "tamarrock"

From standard-bearers of Italian new wave to Italian forerunners of Latin rock with blues undertones. The over-forty-year artistic journey of Litfiba has seen many turning points, but the one that came at the turn of the 80s and 90s is the most significant. From carriers of a refined, niche musical formula, the Florentine band turned "tamarra" (brash and populist); from a niche brand guaranteeing top-shelf quality, they became a mainstream phenomenon, which for a certain period actually worked out well for them.

After the schism

As the "hedonistic" decade drew to a close — a decade that was anything but a pursuit of pleasure for its own sake as far as Litfiba were concerned — Piero Pelù's band was still virtually unknown to the general public. "Litfiba 3", their third studio album and the closing chapter of the so-called Trilogia del potere, hinted at some openings in that direction (just think of a catchy single like "Tex"), but in terms of popularity they were still essentially stuck at negligible numbers, confined to a niche. Within the group there was talk of signing with a foreign major label, with Island seeming like the most concrete possibility, but in the end they chose the policy of small steps at a time, opting to stay anchored to the domestic scene while awaiting developments.

Internal disagreements, some of them heated, are nothing new within Litfiba's camp; in truth, after nearly a decade of uninterrupted work together, the band had been torn apart by internal strife that ended up undermining its very structure, to the point that in the spring of 1989 the so-called "schism" began. Bassist Gianni Maroccolo and keyboardist Antonio Aiazzi left the legal company that owned the band's name, the first step toward a diaspora that would soon also include the departures of drummer Ringo De Palma, who would die of a heroin overdose on 1 June 1990, and keyboardist Francesco Magnelli, both of whom, along with Maroccolo, would go on to join Cccp – Fedeli alla Linea (Aiazzi, on the other hand, would stay with Litfiba, but in the hybrid role of outside collaborator).

Thus, of the original line-up, practically only Pelù and Renzulli remained, joined by a new bassist, Roberto Terzani, and a new drummer, Daniele Trambusti, the latter flanked in the percussion department by another new entry, Candelo Cabezas. Nonetheless, from this point on the band effectively became a duo both de jure and de facto, with every decision, artistic or otherwise, legally resting with the vocalist and the guitarist.

The first fruit of this new phase was a shift toward a more rock-oriented style. Freshly reshuffled, the band dove back into the studio at the start of summer 1990. The two captains had already written a couple of new songs, "El Diablo" and "Proibito", which within a few weeks were joined by the other six tracks making up the first full-length record of the new era (songs the band actually debuted live in the very last stretch of the old era, during the final two dates of the Pirata Tour). "El Diablo" is the first chapter of the Tetralogy of the Elements – starting, appropriately, with fire – the informal name by which the band's fourth-to-seventh albums would come to be known, much as had happened with the preceding trio of records.

The album was released on 23 November 1990 on Cgd, a Milan-based label active for more than forty years, which in 1989 had been bought by Warner. While the lead single for foreign markets was "Il Volo", in Italy the launch was entrusted to the title track, a song rooted in the hard&heavy tradition but filtered through a Mediterranean sensibility, one that would go on to serve as a model not only for Italian bands like Negrita and Timoria, but also abroad, as in the case of Spain's Heroes del Silencio, not for nothing nicknamed "the Spanish Litfiba" by Italian commentators. The track is tough and marked by classic-rock touches recalling Ennio Morricone (already present in some of the more western-tinged passages of "Litfiba 3") and, above all, the cursed rock imagery of the Doors (the 60s-style organ evokes "Light My Fire") and the Rolling Stones (the title and the conga-driven rhythmic carpet wink at "Sympathy For The Devil"). It's accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek bullfighting-themed video, just as hilarious as the videos for the following two singles: "Gioconda", which stages a fake wedding (shot in a deconsecrated church on the shores of Lake Como) starring a "reluctant" Pelù, and "Proibito", set in a Catholic school, with the band members playing troublemaking schoolboys in smocks.

"El Diablo" would have the merit of opening the doors to success for the band: 400,000 copies sold in a year and a half and a sudden surge in popularity, but the underlying logic of the record seems more geared toward testing the waters ahead of what would come next. Every one of the eight tracks, all extremely accessible and shorn of the rough edges of the past, has single potential. Our heroes' class remains intact, but the cunning that coats everything, that good-naturedly sly, winking, allusive attitude running through every groove, makes it fairly clear where Piero and Ghigo intend to go. At heart, their gaze is turned toward the 1970s of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, with broad detours across the ocean toward the Mississippi Delta but also into the more country/folk heartland of the Stars and Stripes ("Siamo umani").

The alternation between tracks built on killer riffs and tight rhythms on one hand, and skin-flaying ballads on the other, betrays the duo's ambitions, further confirmed by the disappearance of the gypsy violins and accordions that had lent the earlier work so much Balkan folk flavor, as well as by the scaling-back of the new wave imprint of Aiazzi's keyboards. It's a world swept away by Renzulli, who, now free of any restraint, can finally do exactly as he pleases and indulge in his beloved guitar solos, sharing the spotlight with the histrionic vocalist, who for his part lets loose with eccentric, lascivious vocal flourishes.

What remains is the political commitment, traces of which can be found in the environmentalism of "Woda-Woda" and in the — admittedly loose — social critique of "Ragazzo". "El Diablo" in fact reveals another trait typical of 1990s Litfiba: an anti-political, somewhat apathetic stance — quite different from the fearless, almost engagé commitment of the 80s — which in some ways foreshadows grillismo.

The tour supporting the album kicked off on 11 January 1991 in Cuneo, also took in dates abroad (Switzerland, Belgium and France) and culminated with the Gallarate (Milan) show on 20 September. A video record of it survives in the VHS "El Diablo Tour", featuring footage from the 22 January date in Cesena. Then, in March 1992, came the band's first official compilation, "Sogno ribelle", largely made up of songs from their 80s repertoire re-imagined according to the group's new stylistic paradigm (two of them are live versions), plus two songs from "El Diablo" (the title track, also recorded live, and "Proibito"), the studio version of "Cangaceiro" (previously only released live) and the previously unreleased "Linea d'ombra".

Invectives from bad boys

But the bad boys were already looking ahead to a new studio album. A villa in Ansedonia, in the province of Grosseto, provided the backdrop for the new recordings. But peace and quiet were nowhere to be found: the new sound comes across right away as far more aggressive and jagged, just as the political references in the lyrics are notably more direct and pointed. Amid verbal outbursts and blunt sonic jabs, the result is a dark, angry mood bordering on resentment. Piero and Ghigo opted for a rhythm section overhaul, dropping Trambusti (deemed too straightforward) and Cabezas (too Latin) in favor of a drummer with a heavy metal background, Franco Caforio (ex-Death SS). The band's focus on the new material is also reflected in the fact that they played only a handful of shows that calendar year, choosing instead to concentrate on what they sensed would be a pivotal chapter in their career.

Indeed, with "Terremoto" the air feels different — beneficially toxic, one might say. The softness of "El Diablo" gives way to venom. This record, the second installment of the Tetralogy (here, obviously, the element being honored is earth), is far more feral: Litfiba are now genuinely pissed off. In this sense, their fifth album is perhaps their boldest since "17 Re", and certainly the most abrasive, disturbed and uncomfortable record of their 90s output, not least because it's set against the backdrop of an Italy gripped by the Tangentopoli scandal, the collapse of the First Republic, mafia massacres (the opener "Dimmi il nome" opens, tellingly, with the sound of a jaw harp), and the shadowy international financial machinations plotted over the heads of ordinary people. Piero and Ghigo cast themselves as tribunes of the people, rock's own Masaniellos, populism years ahead of populism itself. Their call for revolution is as violent as the fist depicted on the cover, looming beneath the band's new logo, which echoes the distinctive one used by Metallica.

"Maudit", the lead single, complete with a video in the style of U2's "Zoo TV", is the manifesto of this new direction. Renzulli is towering, and Pelù — arguably confirming himself as the greatest frontman in Italian rock history — becomes a raging beast, an outcast cursing into the wind, unleashing all his hatred and damning those crooked white-collar puppet-masters. The overall mood is bleak, disillusioned, seething with contempt. The stance is militant, almost vigilante-like. Litfiba once again prove the Italian tendency to import musical styles from abroad, since "Terremoto" stands as a brilliant (and rare) example of an Italian grunge record, made, paradoxically, by the very same people who a decade earlier had translated the unease of Joy Division into the language of Dante.

Once again, it's Aiazzi's keyboards that best register the shift: the epic wave-style sonic cathedrals give way to sixties-style organs in the vein of Procol Harum. But among the band's guiding lights are also the Nomadi, whose leader Augusto Daolio died in October 1992 right while Litfiba were working on "Terremoto" (they dedicated the aforementioned "Sotto il vulcano" to the late singer, if for no other reason than that they learned of his death on the very day they were recording the track).

The new pieces carry the contemporary flavor of Seattle rock. The propulsive "Fata Morgana" and the impassioned anti-conscription anthem "Prima Guardia" both start out slow before unfurling in all their splendor; but the evergreen north star of heavy metal is also present, sanctified by the growl of "Dinosauro" as well as by the guitar-hero pyrotechnics of "Soldi" and "Il mistero di Giulia". Despite its minimal spirit, "Terremoto" is a record with plenty of hands on deck. Renzulli's six-string is joined by Federico Poggipollini's rhythm guitar, alongside Terzani's bass and the aforementioned Aiazzi; and here and there DJ Style's scratching and Harish Powar's sitar also make an appearance.

The "Terremoto" tour, kicking off on 10 February in Cannes, would prove to be one of the most important of the career of a band now in better shape than ever. The staging of the show was far more sophisticated, not only musically but visually too, with a highly refined use of lighting that forced the band into more rigid setlists, though no less charged with electricity for it. Renzulli himself would later describe this period as one of the group's most energized and inspired, a genuine moment of grace.

It wasn't part of the tour in the strict sense, but in its own way it was a crucial date: May 1st in Rome, for the traditional Concertone in Piazza San Giovanni. Pelù took over the stage (and the eye of the RAI cameras), first burning a copy of the newspaper il Messaggero on stage, then going after the "host" of the occasion, Pope John Paul II ("You don't know shit about sex and all that", he told him, referring to the pontiff's statements on the use of condoms). And that's not all: during a backstage interview with reporter Vincenzo Mollica, he slipped a condom right onto the journalist's own microphone, leaving him utterly stunned.

The promotion of "Terremoto" also relied on the release of further singles: "Sotto il vulcano", a tribute to Mexican culture which, like Italy's, is bound up with earthquakes and volcanic phenomena, and "Prima Guardia", accompanied by a video shot in Morocco, were respectively the second and third singles taken from the album.

Epilogue

The tour wrapped up on September 12th at the Festa de l'Unità in Reggio Emilia, and five months later came the live album "Colpo di Coda", recorded at the Bologna show on September 5th (featuring two unreleased tracks, "A denti stretti" and "Africa", the latter recorded live but dating back to the "El Diablo" sessions), marking the band's move from Cgd/Warner to Emi Italiana.

Here, though, we'll stop our account of Litfiba's nineties incarnation at the point that, in this writer's opinion, is most worth dwelling on. Not that the following album, "Spirito", a much softer work with world-music leanings, doesn't deserve a mention, but a line from one of its best-known songs somehow serves as the manifesto for a further transition: that "piacere a tanta gente è una gabbia seducente" ("pleasing so many people is a seductive cage"), from "Lo spettacolo", is in a sense a statement of intent ahead of another shift — a less obvious one, perhaps, but one that would lead the band to their ultimate sell-out, the glossy, TV-friendly, pop-leaning version of "Mondi sommersi" and "Infinito", chasing the approval of the telly-addicted masses, far beyond the circle of rock'n'roll fans.

The most unbridled ambition rarely pays off in terms of happiness; if anything, it can breed a perpetual dissatisfaction, laced with the kind of acid reflux that poisons the air around you and everyone else's too. It's no coincidence that it was precisely the album dedicated to water that sparked the verbal mudslinging between Pelù and Renzulli, which would eventually lead to their definitive split — later healed by the 2010 reunion. But that's another story.

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