Fiamma Fumana Official WebSite

As I get ready to leave for America (hoping to get there, see below), I feel more and more certain that the way to make our traditional music (as other niche music genres) better known is to embrace new technologies, and to participate in the reinvention of the media. I also feel, in this social internet (”web 2.0″) thing, a really great potential for positive change. Last week, speaking in an EBA Forum panel on new media, I offered a musician’spoint of view on the matter… more on The Hub’s blog (in Italian, sorry).

Consular interview today for obtaining visas for the FF summer tour. Everything OK, except for me: no problem getting a visa, but my passport is no good. Expired? No way, it expires in 2011. So what’s the matter? The binding of the back cover is wearing out, which apparently makes it unthinkable to issue a visa on that passport. I suppose it is a threat to national security! So I need to get a new passport, then go back to the consulate to get a visa. Will I make it in time for departure? I have only one week, and that includes 4th of July. In the photo I am showing the scandalous passport.

UPD 29/6 14:32 - Woke up at 6 this morning and joined the queue at the Passports Office in Questura of Milano. It’s summertime and they are overloaded, but they’ve been impeccable: they understood the problem and issued me a new passport in less than 2 hours (+2 queue). They’ve even been kind through the madness! At 1 o’clock I was at the US Consulate to deliver my brand new passport. The consul: “See? It was possible after all!” Yeah, great. I: “Are you sre you have time enough to mail me my passport back? Would it not be better for me to pick it up?” Consul: “Nothing is certain in this life, but this is our system, and it works well.” Yeah, it works great for bureaucrats. For citizens not so much. Wish us good luck…

Concert of Colors

Concert of Colors

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Falls River Square, Cuyahoga Falls, OH

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Dopo 18 mesi, 228 posts, 17.586 visite, 30.011 pagine viste, FiammaFumanaBlogNotes trasloca in una casa più grande, questa. Grazie all’eroico webmaster Freddy e alla collaborazione della band, è online da stasera (in versione beta, of course) una nuova versione del sito dei FF, che integra anche il blog. Siccome è fatto in WordPress, abbiamo molto più controllo. Naturalmente faremo un sacco di casini, qualche volta cancelleremo tutto, ma insomma internet è come la musica tradizionale, richiede un approccio diretto. Tutti i post di FFBlogNotes sono stati caricati sul nuovo sito, per cui vi ritroverete: questo blog rimane in piedi, ma non lo aggiorneremo più… sempre che quell’altro funzioni!

After 18 months, 228 posts, 17,586 visits, 30,011 page views, FiammaFumanaBlogNotes is moving to a bigger house, this. Thanks to heroic webmaster Freddy and to the band’s collaboration, a new version of our website - that includes the blog - is online as of tonight (in beta version, of course). It’s done with WordPress, so we have a lot more control. Of course we will screw up many times, we will inadvertently erase the whole website repeatedly, but then again the internet, like traditional music, is amenable to a hands-on approach. All of the FFBlogNotes posts have been uploaded on the new website, so you shoud find your way around: this blog will stay, but we will not update it anymore… assuming the other one works.

Gli amici di No Reply hanno caricato su YouTube un paio di video tratti dalla serata di giovedì alla Biblioteca Chiesa Rossa. Quello che preferisco è questo:

E’ arrivato primo Alberto D’Ottavi. Grazie!