SPAGHETTI DISCO -CREARE SPAZIO ALLE MEMORIE
An exhibition by Lorenzo Cibrario and Ernesto Leal 19/25 September 2016
Red Gallery, 1-3 Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3DT
“The dance music we make is like a shell, it can provide a home to R&B, funk, and rock’n’roll, with one simple common thread - a four-to-the-floor structure. Our dance music is like a vehicle. You can follow alone or in a group. There are no rules. This vehicle is Italian in spirit; open-minded and ready to embrace all cultures. It could be transporting the Venus de Milo or some gravel, it doesn’t matter.”
Mauro Malavasi - Italian pianist, songwriter and producer
Born from the ashes of a nation under the influence of heroin and terrorist attacks of the '70s, Italo Disco became the symbol of ‘80s Italy. It was a decade where discotheques, DJs and exhilarating musical productions collided with fashion, drugs and thrill seekers making Italy’s new hedonistic attitude the envy of the world.I asked London based Italian journalist Lorenzo to curate and tell the story of one of the most exciting adventures in the history of the dance music of Italy and tell how it really was, the Good, the bad & the Ugly side of this amazing genre Curating an exhibition about Italo Disco meant that Lorenzo had to dig in dark recesses of Italian dance music, a country where in the 70s and 80s the extremes collided and created something as unique as the Italo Disco music scene.In those years, Italy was a country with a furious political scene, where heroin and cocaine were plentiful and where youth cultures were struggling to find a place where they could express themselves. Italy was the point of contact between the Western Culture, the US legacy after the Second World War, and the Communist Russian influence, a place where Coca Cola met the Communist Party and where KC & the Sunshine Band met would eventually influence the dancefloors of pre Perestroika Eastern Europe. Such mix of cultures, of way of thinking gave the birth, among others expressions in several art forms - to the Disco Sound, a glorious sound that became popular all over the world.‘We just did not realise that It wasn’t such a easy thing!’ Lorenzo went on contact people via email, phone, skype or social network was not just the right thing to do, the project was not starting, the feedback from people in Italy were slow to come, people were tired of dealing with a stranger from the other side of Europe. So in the end Lorenzo decided to go over to Italy in order to meet the Italo Disco legends in person. And it has been a beautiful journey, a trip made with fantastic people, genuine smiles, inspiring anecdotes from the 70s, and the 80s. From Milan to Bologna, from Florence to Genoa, from Brescia to Parma, everywhere we went, we met friendly and welcoming people with attics full of pictures, bags full of memories, garages packed with flyers and posters. Travelling all over the Bel Paese was such a journey and it was like living in two dimensions: the present of Italy with its problems and nightmares and its funky disco past, between its sad present and its bright past. Meeting djs, producers, musicians, clubs owners was a jump in a glorious past, where people were producing hits that would have last forever.So much could have done with more time! But at the time people did not believe they were making pages in the history of Italian music! So many time people told us “Ah, at the time we were young, we were not thinking about taking pictures”. All those memories will be lost in time, like glitter on the disco dance floor but this is perhaps the core spirit of the Spaghetti Disco. There was no attitude, everything was made just for pure fun. The genuinely attitude, the honesty of these people were the heart Spaghetti Disco scene, the same humbleness we met in our journey in the story of these friendly Italians.During the two weeks of the exhibition we featured several DJ’s that included Nancy Noise, Leo Mas, Hysteric (Mothball Record), David Agrella Disco Set, Hypnotic Tango, Dr. Kruger (NTS), SUGO, Severino and Toni Rossano (STRUTT RECORDS)
