Sono a Pescara da tre giorni, con Cisco e Giovanni, a preparare lo spettacolo di Bandabooster. Scrivo giusto due righe perché siamo molto impegnati, ieri abbiamo fatto le due in sala prove. De resto si tratta di preparare uno spettacolo in tre giorni scarsi, con gente che non ha mai suonato insieme! Comunque è divertente. Adesso vado in teatro per le prove generali. Informazioni qui.
Radio Popolare has started a show in which they ask “established” artists to recommend up-and-coming ones. When they asked me for one such recommendation, I was in trouble, because there are many young artists I like: for example Gianluca Lo Presti, who made a wonderful record earlier this year. I chose Davide Zilli because he will soon perform in Milano (December 5th at Arci Biko) and I thought if someone hears his music on he radio and likes it has a chance to make the show. So I recommended Davide, and Radiopop aired my recommendation and his Jazzabbestia, which is totally untranslatable into English but great fun. I’m going to the show, anyway.
It all ended up with Lady Jessica going over to MEI for the Imola in musica award ceremony, and being welcomed by a kind man working for the festival direction called Franco Benni. Funny, thinks Lady J, he has the same last name as Melchiade Benni. And no surprise: it is his son! General commotion. Many times, on stage, we have evoked Melchiade from Monghidoro, saint protector of Emilian folk music, especially when you can dance to it! We even dedicated to him a set of traditional tunes, “The return of Melchiade” (Franco did not know about this). It will be beautiful, next June, to perform in Melchiade’s homeland, before his son: FF’s folk, after much travelling, is going home.
Amazing. A kind gentleman who worls for the Imola city council called me to break the news: we have won the Imola in Musica award, conceived to celebrate “the crossing over from the tradition of Emilia Romagna to contemporary music genres”. That’s us all right! 
The award consists of a trophy, which will be given to us on Novembre 23rd at Masini Theatre in Faenza (it is the opening ceremony for MEI 2007 (Lady Jessica will represent us all, taking a welcome break from studio work); and of an invitation to perform at the next Imola in Musica Festival, in June 2008. A nice surprise! Our thanks to the judges, and congratulations to the City of Imola for a brilliant idea.
As anticipated, I’d like to tell you more about this show with Cisco and Giovanni Rubbiani. It’s very simple, really: since Cisco left Modena City Ramblers too he got us involved in his solo project, as songwriters and authors. We still really enjoy making music together, or simply hanging out together, after all these years! So I got Cisco and Gio involved in the last phase of a European development project that my company is doing in Pescara. We will prepare and perform a show together with the students of a training programme for young creatives. Performance day will be Saturday, December 1st. In between the show we will claim a little space to play some music as an acoustic trio, just Cisco, Giovanni and me. It will be a good excuse to spend some time together.
Fiamma Fumana are taking a break: we do not intend to play any more shows before 2008. Many people are asking me “So, what are you doing now?”
Lady Jessica, maybe inspired by Martyn Bennett, is producing an album of Arezzo folksongs generously sprinkled with elecronica, commissioned by IMAIE. She is using field-recorded vocal samples of farmers and craftsmen (maybe the same recordings made by Diego Carpitella and Alan Lomax over 50 years ago?), She is producing, and - if I’m not mistaken - ex-Fiamma Fumana Marco Bertoni will also be involved in mixing and mastering. I don’t know a lot more than this, I hope she’ll give us more details herself on this blog.
Roberta is very busy recording, too, In her case, she is recording no less than her first - and long overdue - solo album. We talk a lot about the songs, and she has played some for us (I’m a fan anyway, I used to go her shows even before she joined FF), but here, too, I prefer it is her to write about it.
Medhin is in a photography-and-commitment period: she is active in a NGO called G2, which rallies second-generation immigrants, those born in Italy of immigrant families. I think it’s a great idea, and I hope it does well. In fact I’d like to help out somehow.
Paolo is working in his own studio. Among other things, he is speaking about a project of N.O.A. with Fondazione Andrea Pazienza.
Me? I’m preparing a nice little show with two old friends, Cisco and Giovanni Rubbiani. I’ll write about this in a separate post.
Artistic director Donald Shaw and his people at Celtic Connections have called a press conference and gone live with the 2008 website. What a lineup! Flook, Steve Earle, k.d. lang, Liam Clancy, Mercedes Peòn (we crossed path at Folkwoods, in Holland), Solas, old glories Moving Hearts, Eliza Carthy, Peatbog Fairies, Le Vent du Nord, Michelle Shocked, Bill Wyman (BILL WYMAN?), Capercailie, Trilok Gurtu… And yes, we are there too, in the Voices of the world together with theBulgarian Women’s Choir Angelite. No Uncle Earl, though: their place - quite appropriately with the rest of the night’s lineup, I think - has been taken by the Aberfeldy Gaelic Choir, conducted on this occasion by Margaret Bennett, high-ranking vocalist and mother of our much-missed Martyn. Gulp. We really must be super-ready for that.
I’m just back from WOMEX, still in Sevilla this year. It’s very hard work, trade fair by day and showcases by night: and got there straight from a different conference, eChallenges in The Hague, so I was missing sleep before I even started. But it was good fun, I could feel a lot of energy. I’ve met a lot of friends: Drew, Steve, Ian, obviously, but also many others, from Gudrun Holck to Shooglenifty, from Yatrika (from Skirball in Los Angeles) to Andrés and José Luìs from Ollinkan in Mexico City, from Roddy Campbell of Canadian magazine Penguin Eggs to the Grand Old Man Christoph Borkowsky from Piranha. To my great surprise, Globalquerque patron Tom Frouge put a contract in front of me: he is working in connection with the New Mexico Film Commission to sync various movies, and he wants FF on his roster because we are “very unique” (which, when I think about it, is probably true :)). And many Italian friends, Paolo Sgevano (who’ll read this post the next time he googles himself, ciao Paolo!), Giovanni Callea, the Tuscans from Suoni e Armonie, “spiderman” Alessandro from Nidi d’Arac wih spiderwife and spiderbaby (cute!), Valerio Corzani and even Paolone Ferrari, who I had not seen in ages!
But the best was the music. Because of the damn The Hague conference I missed Balkan Beat Box - this year’s true sensation - and Tanya Tagaq (must be destiny: we did a festival together in Canada, and our performances were always overlapping). But I made up for it: Seun Kuti (Fela’s youngest son, thoroughbred Nigerian afrobeat), Mayra Andrade (we met her in Mexico, but her voice got thicker and more mature since. She’s always beautiful!), Alamaailman Vasarat (reminescent of Leningrad Cowboys, and just like them Finns), the fun (if a touch kitsch) electro-gypsies Caravan Palace, 3Canal (nice clothes, but I’ve heard ska-reggae before, thank you very much. This is the one band I did not like), and male singers from Marseille Lo Cor de la Plana. So nice! I had not realized how much I missed hearing beautiful nice music, music unlike the usual stuff that you hear on the radio or TV, sang in Occitan, Nigerian pidgin, Portugues, with a wide array of instruments and vocal styles. Two-guitars-bass-drums-sang-in-English-because-it’s-the-language-of-rock is great, but let’s face it, I’m like - next! Come and hear, then you tell me whether or not 99% of your indie rock-post rock bands are going to sound cold and formulaic in comparison.
Ending up with a light note, with Fiamma Fumana girls not being there the Miss WOMEX throne was vacant. My vote goes to an Italian, Greta Meda of Promo Music: they have the best-looking booth, because her colleague Marcello Corvino, too, usually gets noticed by the ladies.
She’s not writing about it on the blog (being modest!), but this week Lady J goes back to school. She’s been offered a place as a Ph.D. student at University of Siena: she is going to study Hiistroy of the modernization, with a dissertation about… rice weeders! Which seems a really sensible choice, given the extra privileged access to sources we enjoy. I hope she will interview me too, since I feel like a honorary mondina myself ;’)
Meanwhile, I arrived in Sevilla to attend WOMEX. I’ll write about it in the next few days.
Shooting for the Mondine movie is officially finished: we have been editing since September. For now, Zambe the director has put together this showreel, which contains footage (and audio) from the Detroit show cut with clips shot in various other occasions (at Arezzo on May 1st, in Detroit, on the rice paddies) and vintage repertoire material. It was really emotional to watch it… I can’t wait for the film to be finished.
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