Bye bye LA, you’ve been very good to me.
Post della categoria personal.
Holly, but sad
Friendly fire
It came out yesterday, both on paper and online: it’s the interview about me/us/Realcore by Luca Celada for the art mag Artillery. It’s a very intimate piece (we’ve known each other for over 30 years) but also very precise and ironic, in classic Celada style.
E’ uscita giusto ieri in versione cartacea e online l’intervista/articolo di Luca Celada su me/noi/Realcore per Artillery, magazine di arte. E’ un articolo molto affettuoso (conosco Luca da oltre trent’anni) ma anche assai preciso e, nello stile del buon Celada (che potete godervi quotidianamente qui), obliquamente ironico.
And a happy new dieci
LA, 29/12, Sunny side up
Feeds, bits and beats
I’m glad to announce that I finally redid the home page of my english website; it now has live feeds from the english part of this blog and the RealBlog, as well as a player with a few songs from the music zone; which has grown quite a bit, and has tracks both in streaming and (most of them) downloading. I’ve always felt that artists’ websites should have actual goodies: it’s also an interesting way to establish a relationship with the people I ultimately make things for: you folks out there. (photo by Luca Donnini)
Trazione sotto l’acqua
C’è un nuovo pezzo nella zona musicale: è un remix di Traction in the rain di David Crosby, ottenuto interpolando due versioni: quella dell’album If I could only remember my name, e quella registrata dal vivo alla BBC circa quattro mesi prima – molto simile ma non uguale. Il ritmo, come sempre già presente nell’originale, è assai pastoso – come si addice a una canzone che dice: “E ‘abbastanza difficile, lo so, trovare la forza di tornare dove tutto è cominciato. E’ difficile abbastanza avere della trazione sotto la pioggia. Sai, è difficile per me capire.” Per la mia ultima ex fidanzata.
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Traction in the rain di David Crosby, tratta dall’album If I could only remember my name, 1971
remixata nel 2009
There’s a new song in the music zone of this website: it’s the David Crosby remix I mentioned in my last post. It was made interpolating the original (that has a subtle and funky beat) with the live at BBC version, very similar but not exactly the same. The beat is sticky and slow, very apt for a song that says: “It’s hard enough, I know, to find the strength to go back to where it all began. It’s hard enough to gain any traction in the rain, you know it’s hard for me to understand.” This one’s for my last ex.
Crossing the language barrier
Among the reasons that convinced me to merge my english and my italian blogs there is the strange relationship many italians have with this language. On one hand some of us like to use lots of anglismi, english or english-derived words, in normal conversation (often mispronouncing them). On the other hand lots of people are learning it, thus discovering small but meaningful joys such as understanding what the heck Dylan is singing about, or hearing Al Pacino’s amazing voice. Yes, because one of the problems with italians and english has to do with the savage practice of dubbing movies and tv shows; add to this the almost mythological italian laziness and you have a nation where, according to most tourist guides, “english is seldom spoken, especially in small towns”.
I write in italian quite a bit, for a number of reasons; I love the language, and if you don’t know it you should give it a try. This country is also very inspiring as far as constructive (and destructive) criticism, and this blog is well known for it. My english blog is a more neuter space (I don’t like to bitch about Italy in english, unless I have to). Merging the two means also to connect two universes where I do slightly different things (and so I am slightly different, too). Then of course there’s the unpredictable element which is also fun: there are people at least from 3 continents reading this blog, and you never know where things may begin.
There will be posts either in a language or the other. Only in a few instances (special announcements or news) the posts will be in both: in these cases they will belong to english and italian categories.
SexText
As I wrote some time ago, I have a column called Alt Sex on the italian Rolling Stone. I finally managed to collect all the articles (29 so far), complete with images, on my italian website. Updated monthly. (Image courtesy of Australian Sun and Health, circa 1970)
Buy SM
The kind of work I like best at this point is definitely performing live. So, in order to stimulate bookings, I set up a little Live page with a list of available performances, talks and music gigs. Including the Interactive Tv (see image), which I did a few times in the past 17 years (in a number of permutations, according to the context): the audience really loved it (some people still remember it after years) and so did I.
Realcore interview
There’s a good interview by Louise Bak with me on Realcore in the current issue of Toro Magazine. Check out also the interview image gallery, with some new pics I found (such as this one).
Play!
I’m back in Milan, and as I have a little time I started to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: gather my published music in a single web space and serve it both in streaming and downloading. The place is the music section of this website: you’ll find both my albums (the first has never been presented online) and a lot of bits and pieces I made over the past 20 years. Most of it is published, but there are a few premieres: the original A Forest remix (unpublished in any form), the violin piece I’ve used for my Into roses video in its original, longer form and a few remixes only published on vinyl, or as singles.
Benvenuti su Fosforo, compilation di amenità verbali di 
