Saturday, October 27, 2012

40 Year Itch : Italian Prog Rock In 1972 part 2



Don't be afraid of Italian Prog!
-1001Songs

Fusing a little Bach ,Brahms or Corelli, violin player Don V. Lax of Quella Vecchia Locanda  literally fused classic rock with classical music. This is pleasant stuff for the ears. After the band's critically acclaimed career ended, Lax played on Camper Van Beethoven's 1989 album Key Lime Pie.







Though formed in Genoa in the mid 60's, by the early 70's Garybaldi wore their Jimi Hendrix influences proudly. So much of the credit goes to wah wah pedal mashing guitarist and vocalist  Bambi Fossati. "Maya Desnuda" even name checks  James Brown ( "e la sua Sex Machine").





Experimental, avant-garde, spacey prog , Pollution sounds like the soundtrack to an Italian Exploratorium ( a museum I visited often as a kid in San Francisco). Among Italian rock gods, Franco Battiato assumes a seat that would be equal to one shared by Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno in England. But this album isn't nearly as interesting as Battiato thinks it is...with the exception of "Areknames"


and one more for the road....



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