Coal jukebox

Andrea Murgia was born in Carbonia in 1983 and has been writing about music since 2002, when he co-founded the short-lived magazine "Il cavo" with a few friends. From there, after earning a degree in musicology, he went on to write for a host of print magazines and webzines (Sentireascoltare, OndaRock, Rockerilla, All About Jazz U.S.A., Giornale della Musica, Breakfast Jumpers, Toylet Mag, Humans Vs Robots), worked for the festival "Ai confini tra Sardegna e jazz", and in 2018 ended up curating "Battiti" for Rai Radio 3.

In early October 2024 he released on YouTube the two-part documentary "Coal jukebox", backed with the official patronage of the Sardinia region. The two videos tell the story of Carbonia's alternative music scene: the first focuses on the Sixties and Seventies, the second on the Nineties and the 2000s. The Eighties were skipped, since the scene shrank considerably during that period and, while it didn't disappear entirely, it left behind too little documentation to support a documentary.

The narration by the many witnesses and figures of the era, marked by rigorous historical accuracy, is interspersed with a more fictionalized section in which local musician Francesco Peddoni and Murgia himself play themselves during the writing of the documentary's script. This part, however heartfelt for the author, can generate a bit of confusion, since at several points Peddoni, playing a radio announcer, introduces songs and artists that are then never actually heard.

This is, however, a forgivable flaw in a work that shows a great spirit of dedication to one's own land, a healthy pride in one's own context that sits at the exact opposite of parochialism or the worst kind of nationalism: the musicians portrayed, and Murgia most evidently among them, are proud to be children of that land and of the achievements they attained, while at the same time acknowledging that those achievements stemmed from influences injected from outside.

It's a pride that therefore celebrates itself while also celebrating the outsider and its integration into the local context, whether factual (the many immigrants from other parts of Italy who over time settled in Carbonia) or simply cultural (the arrival of music both from mainland Italy and from abroad).

Both episodes begin on a wave of enthusiasm and end in gloom: the first shows the beat and psychedelic-era bands, most of which remained amateur acts but were widely followed throughout the Sulcis area (Amici, Rivali, New Experience, Titti e i Kriss, Visi Pallidi, Metamorfosi, Mini Mini), a scene later decimated in the second half of the 1970s by the spread of heroin; the second focuses on the alternative rock that emerged from the underground circulation of punk, metal and grunge records (bands like Mab, Plasma Expander, Cue Lie, Flying Sebadas, Gabbia delle Pazze, M.I.L.F., Fratelli Detroit, Trauma, Zeta Orrù, G.M.G, Heart of Crystal, Hammamet, Skin Pazz, Alvaro Rizza, Antiruggine, Ciurma Skin, New Blood), a scene that went into decline around 2010 due to economic and generational shifts.

The peak was probably reached by Mab, who managed to go on tour with Franco Battiato and collaborate with him in the studio, playing on no fewer than three tracks of the album "The void" (2007).

After reaching the peak, the fall proves, unfortunately, inexorable: the finale shows a Carbonia in the grip of a full-blown employment crisis, depopulated, with fewer than 25,000 inhabitants (having once had at least double that during the golden years of the local Enel plant and the Portovesme industrial hub), devoid of venues to play in and of any significant cultural hubs, crossed by ghostly streets and promenades. And yet, just when the most funereal portrait seems complete, a small flicker of hope appears: if you want to know what it is, dive into this two-hour-and-twelve-minute journey, crafted with enough care to stir melancholy and nostalgia even in those who never lived through those situations.

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