Carlo Massarini

On the occasion of his new book “Vivo dal vivo 2010-2023”, I caught up with Carlo Massarini, one of the most authoritative and respected Italian music journalists. The interview lets us retrace “Mr. Fantasy”'s career from several angles, not forgetting the fine work carried out by the journalist behind the scenes: his first-hand accounts of live shows, accompanied by the striking photographs he took himself, take us back to an era when the passion for music knew no boundaries.

Good afternoon Carlo! It's a real pleasure to meet you. I'd like to start with a few words about "Vivo dal vivo 2010-2023", your new book. I was pleasantly struck both by the depth of analysis and by your way of narrating the event as if reporting live. I've never read "Dear Mr. Fantasy", but people speak very highly of it, so I'll get around to it sooner or later. For now, I'll let you introduce yourself, so we can get "to the heart" of your work.

Thank you, good writing matters a great deal to me. I think the photos tell part of the story, but of course they're only an image, however iconic. The written part is the added value: "Vivo dal Vivo" is written as if it were the very same evening, even though many of the concerts were later reconstructed, because in reality, while you're taking photos, you don't fully register a lot of the details, the intensity of it all. The QR code at the end of each piece exists precisely for that, to convey the same experience I had. My writing is direct, very empathetic, I try to bring the reader inside the concert. I tried to capture the emotion of that particular night. We all know that the language available to Italian music journalism is a bit limited compared to American English, because we lack the terms, because Americans keep inventing neologisms — in English you can take any noun and turn it into a verb. Our language is a bit more restrictive, in short. But I tried to do my best. I belong to the generation that wrote. I've written a lot. I still have a stack of diaries I've kept since I was younger. I've always written a great deal, and of course writing and reading help you write a little better. It's also a natural gift, like photography, if you like. I never went to school for any of it, neither writing nor photography, nothing. I don't even read instructions, I ask friends or my kids to show me how things work. I have a certain resistance to methodical learning, but I think I managed to bring people into the worlds that music, in turn, brought me into, because that's the whole point of going to see live music. Every artist takes you into their own world, which can be a fun world, or a very intense one, there are a thousand different worlds. But when it works, when, as Vasco says in the introduction, "you manage to take the audience by the hand and make them believe anything is possible", or at least make them believe they're in another world, another dimension, in contact with something different from the ordinary. As you'll have seen, there are stadiums, there's Circo Massimo, there are small clubs like in the Lee Scratch Perry gig, there are countless concerts at the Auditorium in Rome, especially in summer. I think it's an approach that's in a sense three-dimensional: you can look at the photos, you can read and let yourself be drawn in, and then, if you want, you can click the QR code that takes you to YouTube and lets you relive the concert in a way similar to how I experienced it, giving you a fairly precise reference point for that particular night. So I think it makes for quite an engaging read. Of course, if you only stop at the pictures...

Reading "Vivo dal vivo", I appreciated your almost contagious enthusiasm for experiencing music, especially live. Alongside rock dinosaurs (I'm thinking of Van Der Graaf Generator, or "your" Steve Winwood), there are dozens of reports on major contemporary artists, such as Lana Del Rey. Your passion seems to have no limits, which is a rather rare thing to come across, even among people my age...

That's a great observation! As I wrote in the introduction, my approach was partly professional and partly that of a fan. It's a trait of mine, I can't help it, that's just how I am, I love all music. Wherever there's a sound, wherever there's a rhythm, it somehow gets to me. Naturally, these 120 concerts are a curated selection — I actually saw a lot more, at least 160. I told the story of the best ones, my favourites. I've always had a great passion for music, ever since I was a kid, when I bought my first 45s by Gianni Morandi and Rita Pavone, then came the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and nothing was ever the same again. Then music became my job. I've always thought of my role as a kind of medium between music and people, so I like discovering new things, even though my taste isn't extreme, I don't like things that are too niche, let's say I have an advanced mainstream taste. I tend to see the mainstream a little before it arrives, I discover things a few years ahead of when they become famous — Lana Del Rey is a good example. Of course, if I'd been American, that wouldn't have seemed so unusual, but living in Italy I think I've had a knack for spotting things early. That said, I don't actually like niches, I don't like extremes, and I don't particularly care for some genres that instead thrive on OndaRock, like indie-rock. Hip-hop never really drew me in much either: the secret with music is identifying with the notes, and above all with the lyrics, and I certainly can't do that with gangsta rap — I was born in Rome! I do appreciate A Tribe Called Quest, though, and in general that jazzy, very musical strain of rap from the Nineties, or even early Kanye West. Coming back to live shows, every concert puts you face to face with a person who, in that moment, can become a channel connecting you to the absolute. I think of Bob Marley, of Eugenio Finardi, but also of other artists who found a place in this book, like Antony and the Johnsons, Leonard Cohen, Benjamin Clementine: all these artists have a soul that somehow manages to connect, and in doing so, brings the audience along into transcendence, creating a sort of magic. In a way, certain artists come across as true shamans...

How many differences are there, if any, between a live show from the Seventies and a concert today?

Simply put: it's a whole other world compared to today. Back then, musicians were sailing through "uncharted" territory, with no maps to guide them. They loved venturing into the unknown. Back then, if you made two albums that sounded alike — take Guccini, for example — Bertoncelli would call you out on it! Critics tore you apart back then. Variety was essential. Now it's almost the opposite: if you tried to record two very different albums, your management wouldn't let you. Take David Bowie as an example. With every record he changed persona, changed the music, always something very different. Today's music is very mixed, very hybrid. Contemporary musicians meet, collaborate with one another, and it's often genuinely hard to pin down a genre, because genres are no longer pure, everything is blended with something else, with a rhythm or a melody borrowed from another artistic world entirely. Music today really is very different from the Seventies. The visual side, too, has changed in incredible ways. A lot of music today is pure entertainment — not that it wasn't the case in the past too, to be clear, but the sonic exploration isn't what it used to be. When I think of the great rock bands, or of Tina Turner and James Brown, as well as Prince, those artists were born with the very idea of putting on entertainment. Lighting — the so-called light design — is completely different: if you look, in the other book, at the live shows by Ten Years After, Jethro Tull, King Crimson, in most Seventies concerts there were only four spotlights on stage, and even the follow spot (the front light) was rarely used. Often there were only side lights, which had a much weaker effect and were far dimmer than today's lighting.

In short, it was much less convenient to take photos, because the colours were always more or less the same. Red was terrible for the film stock of the time, and shutter speed was also much slower. I remember the photo of Robert Fripp in the first book, sitting on his stool (as he's remained in memory), shot at a fifteenth of a second — now you'd never go below a 125th. It makes a huge difference, now you can shoot almost in the dark. But the whole world has changed completely. In the past, cinema was expensive and concerts were cheap, now it's the opposite: fewer people go to the cinema, so ticket prices have become laughably low, while today everyone wants to go to concerts; on top of that, you have to consider that artists no longer make money from records, so for some shows you practically need to take out a mortgage... and you have no idea how much tickets cost in the United States! It really is a different world, 50 years have gone by, and technology, after all, has changed almost everything, and has certainly shifted the whole perspective on the world of music.

For someone who grew up musically in the Seventies, how much do you think the ideology of that period shaped your way of feeling music, and consequently your way of listening to the world?

I've never been particularly political or ideological, unlike many of my peers I wasn't especially interested in the political side of music, even though of course I recognised its presence and importance. Italian music of the Seventies is an essentially ideological music: from Gaber to Guccini, through De André and Venditti, and also my friend Finardi, that movement was built on strong ideological drives that in some way had to answer to their fans, to their "shareholders", as a friend of mine calls them. Music back then was seen as socially committed: so much so that when "Puppet without strings" by Edoardo Bennato came out in 1978, along with Venditti's "Sotto il segno dei pesci" and Lucio Dalla's "Com'è profondo il mare", certain patterns broke down, and there was a return to the "personal". In Italian singer-songwriter music of that period, as in society as a whole, "the personal was political", it was music with a strictly ideological profile. I grew up with that music and it's probably still the best that's ever been produced in Italy, but it had an edge that was quite limiting. In that period there was also other "political" or ideological music, for instance from the Global South. Or Black American music: black music is the music of struggle and liberation for Black people against segregation, against racial laws, against a whole series of restrictions and injustices that Black people had to overcome, often painfully and sometimes even at the cost of blood. I recognised that, I felt an instinctive sympathy, I was on their side, but of course it was a reality far removed from mine, as I said. It's easier to stay attached to something you identify with than to something distant from you. Over the years that quality of commitment gradually faded, and now music is entertainment, even if often of a high calibre. It can still be about sonic exploration, look at Radiohead, just to name a contemporary band. There are still diehards, like Billy Bragg or Graham Nash, there are still those who, in some way or at some level, still engage in political music. U2 have a similar approach, even though they're global stars, but meanwhile music has become something else, it's pure entertainment. Sure, some have kept exploring sonically, but without that underlying need to satisfy a precise ideological purpose. As you can see, the book features the three great African divas of the moment, namely Oumou Sangaré, Fatoumata Diawara and Angélique Kidjo, and they are artists who instead make a point of stressing the importance of African women's emancipation. Fatoumata says "when African women become emancipated, our continent will rise", and that's profoundly true: the role of women in Africa is very limited, in large part even subjugated, partly because Islam — the majority religion across much of Africa — is hardly the religion that most encourages an active, assertive role for women, and traditions do the rest, especially tribal traditions. Is that political? Yes, it's social politics, human politics if you will, so certainly some female artists (and some male ones too) have kept alive the desire to talk about human rights, about politics. Black music in general is interesting: it's always in some way physical, fun, danceable, but also about liberation and transcendence. You dance and listen to a language you don't understand, even though you can sense that the lyrics come straight from the battlefield, that's their hallmark. Some music can still be political, but it might also be very danceable, a lot of fun.

In "Vivo dal vivo" you write about a Kraftwerk show. In the Seventies there was strong scepticism towards music's more electronic leanings. My hunch is that scepticism was "generational". Over the decades, has your view of a band like Kraftwerk, and of electronic music in general, changed?

I have to say I started out with fairly "white" tastes, but over time I became increasingly drawn to warmer tones and to Blacker music. That said, sure, there were Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Popol Vuh — whom I liked a lot because they were more spacey and more melodic — I also liked Amon Düül, a completely unhinged band, but they weren't my favourite kind of music. As for Kraftwerk specifically, I recognise their enormous historical importance. In my opinion, they're truly the band that has influenced the music of the last 50 years the most. After the Beatles came Kraftwerk as a global influence, because from them stems dance music, EDM, but also a certain kind of experimental music, or ambient... it's no coincidence that a genius like Bowie, ever the pioneer that he was, used images from Dalí's "Un Chien Andalou" and Kraftwerk's music to open the shows of his "Thin White Duke Tour" in 1976, even before he went to Berlin to do what he did there. He was also deeply influenced by Tangerine Dream and Neu!. I always think you have to look at music three-dimensionally, you need to know the roots to understand the present and to imagine the future, and objectively, looking back over the last 50-60 years, I have to say the influence of that music was far greater than anyone could have imagined at the time. Back then, progressive rock was all the rage, but prog bands essentially stayed anchored to that era: they're wonderful snapshots of that time — think of Genesis — but Kraftwerk truly saw the future.

One thing that stands out, looking at the names of the artists you selected for your book, is that quite a few bands who debuted in the Eighties are missing. Or rather, only a handful appear. Why do you think that is?

My approach is fairly eclectic, but always fairly sunny. I've never loved gothic music, post-punk, dark music. Maybe reggae is an exception, I like Lee Scratch Perry because, for instance, he turns dub into something more mysterious, darker, but in rock I've never loved things that are too shadowy, if I can put it that way. I never really loved all that music back then, and I don't particularly seek it out now either. Certainly, the Eighties produced some genuinely good things, but for me it was mainly Talking Heads and Peter Gabriel. I was definitely much more drawn to American taste in that period, English new wave was never really my cup of tea. That said, in this book I did write about a lot of world music, which as a genre has become more established in more recent times. If you list all the African, Caribbean and Brazilian artists, they make up a good chunk of the book!

A few evenings ago, I rewatched several episodes of "Mr. Fantasy" on the Raiplay platform. I noticed some absolutely astonishing footage, certainly unheard-of for its time: in some episodes you moved effortlessly from The Residents to Tuxedomoon, while the screen showed Carmelo Bene's antics in his Pinocchio. "What an unrepeatable moment" I thought to myself...

Yes, in some ways it really was an unrepeatable moment. We were clearly interested in showcasing culturally cross-cutting material, but that's always been the stylistic hallmark of my radio shows too, I've always mixed everything together, haven't I? It was a very particular period and we were determined to capture the novelties of the time, it was a great moment for image-based culture, in fact it was the dawn of the age of the image, and bands like Tuxedomoon were, in any case, on the frontier of the first form of video art. It really was the early days, then all sorts of things happened and digital technology changed the game completely. The idea behind Mister Fantasy was to show the most interesting things, and the most interesting things were often niche, the most experimental things. But over time these things would have been lost... because nobody today would go back and listen to Tuxedomoon, right? Afterwards, a lot happened precisely in electronic music: from the synth-pop of Soft Cell and Depeche Mode to all the electronic music from other English bands. The whole point of "Mr. Fantasy" was to put on something that would open people's minds. We were showing the new potential of video-music. I've always kept in mind that people needed to be given the tools to make sense of what was happening, and "Mr. Fantasy", in its own way, did the same thing; it offered keys to interpreting a society that was changing: we were moving from the written word to the image. It was a very long journey. At that precise moment in history, certain things needed to be shown: for example, Memphis ties were a gateway to the new postmodern architecture that was emerging in those years through people like Mendini or Sottsass, architects who were inventing a new aesthetic. "Mr. Fantasy" presented itself as a very aesthetic programme. I've always placed great value on aesthetics, which is why the show was so avant-garde. Of course, times have changed, and so has the vocabulary. I'm proudly a boomer, in the sense that I carry my own stylistic hallmark with me and I've never let go of it, I sail on, stubbornly and against the current, as the poet would say. It's no coincidence that the only social network I use is Facebook, I don't live on the others. I'm very glad you were struck by certain elements of that show, because it means you agree with me that television today, while very playful and entertaining, has unfortunately also become too obsessed with gossip, lacking that capacity for analysis and that desire to inform people about trends. Today the political wave is so overwhelming that all information gets funnelled into it, while the public is obsessed with gossip and social media. In the end, what's completely missing is a cultural approach that is conscious and enlightened. What's missing is the ability to be cross-cutting the way we were on "Mr. Fantasy", or the way I was at certain points on Rai 5, for instance with "Ghiaccio Bollente". My through-line was connecting musicians with contemporary painting, with sculpture, with the performing arts... in general, what's missing today are guides — and I don't mean algorithms — and also the ability to connect the dots, to connect different worlds. When we talked about Bowie, there was an interest in telling people about Burroughs, who had invented the cut-up technique, there was a desire to discover Andy Warhol's world, we wanted to understand Dalí and, on the other hand, Kraftwerk... different worlds that somehow connected with one another.

Do you think all that's missing is the will to connect these worlds?

A few days ago I gave an interview for a newspaper. The journalist asked me who I thought my television heir was. The instinctive answer would be someone like Alessandro Cattelan – not the sculptor, but the former MTV host. Actually, I feel much closer to Alberto Angela, or to Baricco when he talks about opera or classical music. I feel closer to them because in some way they have a transversal view of reality, and they connect certain arts with what can also be everyday social life, or history – Alessandro Barbero, for instance, is another one I feel close to, precisely for his ability to narrate the world in a transversal way. If I were given the chance to make a music programme again, I wouldn't necessarily make one based only on music; I'd like to connect music with lots of other things, because in reality everything comes from the same palette – they're just different circumstances and historical moments, but reality is called the contemporary world, and music is its soundtrack.

Do you have any anecdotes to share about the shows, or about the artists you wrote about in the book, that for some reason you left out or chose not to write? 

No, I write whatever I like. Every now and then someone tells me, "ah, you're paid off by the record labels!" and I reply, "I wish" – my bank account would probably be better off. It's normal to have friendships, sympathies... sure, if my big brother Eugenio Finardi recorded a record that wasn't particularly brilliant, I wouldn't tear him apart, let's be clear – in all likelihood I'd point out a few things to him, but I wouldn't be nasty about it. You know what the problem is? Nowadays nobody says a record is bad. I'm thinking of the latest album by Maneskin: it's bad, can we say that? Honestly, at first they even struck me as a very interesting phenomenon – an Italian band so famous abroad, even in America! But if someone makes a bad record, that's just how it is, no hard feelings. The same goes for trappers: they all make the same music, the songs always have the same chords, Finardi was saying as much just yesterday, and, I mean, anyone who understands music can see that genre is very limited. Nowadays knowing about music doesn't count anymore. Being good at making music doesn't count anymore; what matters is getting clicks – it's a different job, a different playing field. Go and see a Jan Garbarek concert! A whole world unfolds before your eyes! Now try going to a Travis Scott concert. That's not music, even though it is an interesting social phenomenon. But music is something else entirely.

You burned through two of my questions, but if it's any comfort, I'm not much into trap music either, despite my surname...

I was heavily insulted because of Maneskin, even though I supported them at first. But they soon became just a product of a multinational management company. And I'd say they can manage just fine on their own, they don't need me...

One last question: for a little over a year and a half now I've been hosting a radio show for OndaRock, on a small radio station in Milan. Do you have any advice for me?

As I was saying before, it's essential to connect the dots. Remember that all art is interwoven, both stylistically and historically, so you should always have in mind that if you're talking about one thing, you can refer to something else entirely, and this, in my view, enriches your audience, to whom you can offer information and new ideas. I think it's interesting to be able to explain the surrounding context, the setting in which the music moves.

Ride the wave of great music

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