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Post for new year’s wishes: not entirely unexpected, but very sincere nonetheless. 2008 will bring about a lot of news, including some pretty major ones. But this is no time to speak about them: today is a day for wishes and fond messages. Another year is past, our lives have moved on, and music has not stopped either. On the contrary! Andrea has shot the movie on the Mondine choir and us - Andrea, when are you going to finish it? - we started collaborating with a very fine British agent, we have a new drummer that the world envies, Jessica has made a great solo album.. For me the best sign of life in 2007 has maybe been the start of an orchestra of piva emilianas (!) called, appropriately, “le pive nel sacco”, which is totally untranslateable. Sure, we are still the flag carriers of a very marginal, semidead culture, but we are holding our ground, and we can enter 2008 with a clear heart and even a pinch of pride. Thank you all, thank you so much for sharing this with us in 2007, stay close to us in 2008 too. Knock knock. Hello? Mr. 2008? May we?

Lady Jessica was here yesterday to meet a few people together with us. She brought us an anticipation of her album, a “remix” of field recordings (collected in the 60s) of folksongs in the Arezzo area. It’s called “In dote”(roughly “My dowry”), and is SO BEAUTIFUL, full of love and respect for the tradition of music, language and culture that consotutes the dowry of our Tuscan Lady, and of us all, really. It will be released in a matter of days by Suoni e Armonie, and I think it is one of the best Italian folk music albums ever made. I am so happy!

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.

The only Italian show of our summer tour 2007, Radicazioni festival, was really something different. The 700 sould of Alessandria del Carretto (”the highest village in the Pollino National Park”), together with about a thousand visitors, gave life to a real zampogna (the Southern bagpipes, as opposed to our Emilian piva) rave. Musicians from 10 to 80 years of age played until 6 in the morning, everyone danced like there was no tomorrow and in the raffle you could win a zampogna (first prize) and a live goat (second prize… I suppose you could make it into a zampogna!). I was almost shy of playing tunes in 4/$ to this crowd! The people to thank for this event are a group of village youngsters led by Paolo, student in Cosenza, a vague resemblance with young (Ernesto Che) Guevara. Really good, we northerners should learn from them!</lang_en>

Certo, l’età, la generazione che scompare, tutto normale, direte voi. Ma non riesco ad abituarmi, quando se ne vanno persone così: Maria Cervi, figlia di Antenore (sì, quell’Antenore uno dei sette fratelli Cervi), non c’è più. L’ho abbracciata l’ultima volta il 25 aprile, salendo sul palco con Cisco nell’aia della casa dove è cresciuta, oggi museo della Resistenza e della civiltà contadina. Sembrava bella e forte come sempre, ma perché non ha potuto restare con noi ancora qualche tempo? Mi manca, ci manca tanto.

Erano cinque anni che avevo voglia di sentire un concerto intero dei Nidi d’Arac, spesso accostati ai FF per attitudine al folk elettrificato e dancefloor. Avevo sentito solo tre pezzi in un concrto (con tanti altri gruppi) all’Alcatraz che mi erano piaciuti tantissimo (come dub master c’era Stefano Miele, forse il miglior dj etnico italiano. Bellissimo, tra l’altro, il suo nuovo album!). Finalmente arrivano alla Casa 139 e… mi vanno a suonare in acustico! Che peccato!

Il concerto è stato bello lo stesso: il batterista (che ha delle gran belle idee), e il bassista dubbettone hanno mantenuto un riferimento al breakbeat e al dub, e soprattutto Alessandro, Vera e gli altri “ci credono”, sono dentro la tradizione. Quindi bello. Ovviamente, però, così hanno meno energia, meno pacca, meno carica innovativa. La gente però ha gradito eccome. Milano è piena di leccesi che cantano le canzoni tradizionali… All’altro concerto ero andato con Medhin; a questo ero con Roberta, pugliese verace.