Italian Indie Punk Rock from Italian Band – Les Fauves

The Strokes, The Raconteurs, The Hives and Arctic Monkeys are only a few bands that pop into mind when hearing Les Fauves do their stuff.  That’s right, Les Fauves is now no longer the name of a short-lived group of impressionist artists from the early 20th century, nor has the Italian band got anything to do with the Aussie band – THE Fauves.

Nope, Les Fauves is now the name of a 21^st century Italian punk rock band.  The band seems to spend quite bit of its time playing gigs in venues around London in the UK. The band does all it can to reveal and show off the cool, rhythmic, and aggressive inner-selves of its members with its 21^st century version of punk rock.

Sounds promising, but perhaps their 21st century flavour punk rock is not original enough.

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Indie Interview with The Calorifer Is Very Hot

A strange and ever changing combination of punk, psychedelic pop, and garage-beat hits you when you put a track from Italian indie band The Calorifer Is Very Hot! on.

It can be hard to figure out what to call their music and quite frankly that’s their fault, as they explain: “we started out without any idea what music we wanted to play, knowing only that we wanted to create our own identity. We listen to a lot of different music, from 50’s rockabilly to new age electronics and we try to combine it in our own way”.  With the punk faced beat-pop that crawled out of this melange, they have been taking on Europe.

So, how did The Calorifer Is Very Hot! set off on their musical trip?

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Independent Italy – Part 2 – The Indie South

It appears that in my first article on Italian indie-music, I got a bit hasty when I said that the south of Italy didn‘t really have much good indie-music to offer. Well, since my first indie-music observations went online more than a few people have pointed out to me that the south of Italy shows lots of promise on the indie-music front.

To set the record straight, the problem with the “southern” indie is not so much the lack of good music or musicians, but the lack of visibility.  It’s the poor or virtually non-existent marketing of southern Italian indie-music which makes it so darn difficult to discover all the good musicians hidden away down south. However, once you’ve found one or two bands, it’s like you get a grip on a kind of chain.  As you follow this indie chain link by link, you start working your way through the foggy maze that is southern Italy’s music scene and moving towards hidden talent.

So far, following the links of the southern indie chain has helped me find a couple of bands with distinctive sounds.

And here they are.  Have a listen, and see what you reckon.

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Independent Italy – The Indie Music Scene in Italy

For reasons unknown, I had never let my mind wander towards something like Italian indie music. I guess that to me the idea of indie music in Italy got lost somewhere in amongst football, pizza, and Eros Ramazzotti.

One day I heard of an Italian indie band called LetHerDive, and had a listen.  I was pleasantly surprised and decided I had to take a closer look.  The more I looked and the deeper I dug, the more I liked what I heard and saw.  I realised that I shouldn’t have let Eros Ramazzotti (in spite of his vast talent) dominate my ear canals and disrupt my search for fresh Italian indie music.

There might be a reason for me not knowing much about Italian music (not only indie).  I get the feeling that Italians are not really willing to embrace their own musicians, especially if they don‘t sing in their native Italian.  This makes the struggle for success abroad for Italian bands much more complicated than it should be.  And, at the same time, for those of us who want to hear good music by Italian artists, it makes finding it darned complicated.

Indeed, patience is a handy virtue to have when it comes to hunting down interesting Italian indie music.

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Norway Opportunity for Italian Musicians

Rudi Nikolaisen from the LiNN, Regional Musicians in Norway association, contacted me this week to mention a project in Norway designed to promote music in the country’s smaller northern towns. This project may be of interest to Italian musicians too, as they are welcome to apply.

Musicians, which includes both solo artists and bands, who play jazz and rock music, are invited to apply for a form of grant.  A condition of this grant is that the winning artist or band will be required to live in a town in northern Norway for three months. The intention is that the

A LINN Musician

musicians concerned will benefit from broadening their horizons, while at the same time helping spread a little diverse musical culture to the residents of towns in northern Norway.  It’s a kind of win-win situation in may ways, and the musician or band involved, apart from having a lot of fun, I imagine, should also receive a little more exposure.  This may lead to a recording deal, and, potentially, international fame.  Not a bad opportunity.

Whilst residing in Norway, the artist or band will be involved in the co-production of a tour of northern regions of the country, along with other local musicians.  The LiNN organisation’s role will be to help with the setting up the tour, as well as providing musicians and finance for it.

The catch?

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Top Italian Music Hit of 2009

Italian music blog ChartItalia which follows the contemporary Italian music scene, recently published a list of the top 100 hits in Italy for 2009.  So what, I asked myself, was the top Italian music hit of 2009?

Interestingly, for me anyway, it is not an Italian track which made it to the top of the top 100 for 2009, it was instead, those Black Eyed Peas people with their number ‘I gotta feeling’.

Were there any Italian tracks in the top 10 of the top 100 for 2009?  The answer is yes, there were, and the highest ranking track is significant in that it reflects an event in 2009 which touched the hearts of many Italians.  Indeed, ranked at number 4 is the track Domani 21.04.2009.

Quite a number of well-known Italian musicians got together to make Domani 21.04.2009 as a fund raiser in the aftermath of the Abruzzo earthquake.

Here is the track for you to listen to, and seeing as this is a karaoke version, you can either sing along, or, if you don’t feel up to singing, you can simply read the words and listen.  This may well help anyone out there who is learning Italian, even if not all the words are Italian.

Happy listening!  You will also find the names of rest of the top 10 tracks in Italy in 2009. … Continue Reading