Author: Cesare

After a year’s break, Sud Est Independente returns in 2010 and completely transforms itself by becoming itinerant and offering six concerts between folk, rock and songwriting.

The first event was on Saturday, June 26th in the outdoor spaces of the Manifatture Knos in Lecce with a concert by Calibro 35. The soundtracks of 70s movies are the band’s signature piece. The mixture of funk, jazz, and prog rock that characterized the soundtracks of “Milano Calibro 9,” “The Cat o’ Nine Tails,” and “La Mala Ordina” came to life in an engaging and enthralling live show brought forth by musicians of the highest level.

On Sunday, July 4th, in the atrium of the Ducal Palace in San Cesario of Lecce, space was given to the first special project of the festival. Indeed, the Salento folk of Tobia Lamare & The Sellers and the Northern European folk of Norway’s Nordgarden met on stage. A beautiful and exciting concert where two cultures so far apart were united in their common passion for folk.

On Thursday, July 15th, again in the atrium of the Ducal Palace in San Cesario of Lecce, the Sei festival hosted Brunori Sas. The Calabrian singer-songwriter with his unadorned and direct songs, now disillusioned now romantic, ironic and creamy, gave the audience the imagery of the memories of today’s 30-year-olds, namely the early 1990s. The point of no return.

On Tuesday, July 27th in San Cesario, the second special project with Milan-based band Amor Fou met with Salento singer-songwriter Lucia Manca. In I moralisti, Amor Fou’s second CD, dedicated to the theme of morality in contemporary Italian society, the band’s characteristic ‘investigative pop’ is supported by a renewed sound in which ‘vintage’ melodism and songwriting open up to echoes of rock and new wave echoes.

Finally, on Thursday, August 12th, Gallipoli’s Parco Gondar hosted the last event of the festival. The opening the evening was entrusted to two interesting bands from Salento: Le Carte and Gualeve, who proposed rock-noise with alternating psychedelia and effects, grunge atmospheres, with pop openings.

Immediately afterwards Sud Est Indipendente hosted Samuel Katarro, a pseudonym behind which lies Alberto Mariotti, a 24-year-old Tuscan singer and musician who combines the sparse and essential acoustic dimension of the very first American bluesmen and folksingers and the neurosis of certain American new wave of the 1970s.

Around 10:30 p.m. the Gondar was ablaze with the high-voltage rock of Teatro degli Orrori. The band was formed in 2005 by members of two bands of great depth in the Italian rock scene, One Dimensional Man and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic. Teatro degli Orrori, from the very first record, has shown that it makes music for those who want to reflect. Rock applied to songwriting. It’s about time. It is lucid poetry. Social passion.

Last to take the stage were the Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, a welcome return to the Sud Est Indipendente. The band from Pordenone presented “Primitivi del Futuro”, one of the most appreciated CDs of 2010,in Gallipoli.

The evening continued, then, with a DJ set by Ballarock, namely Filippo (aka Filippiakos) and Gabriele (aka Streaker), who also involved with their selections the artists who had performed on stage. It was a demonstration that the Sud Est Indipendente is a great party of music.

.[:en]#SEIfestival 2010 – June 26th @ Manifatture Knos in Lecce with Calibro 35 band
4, July 15th and 27th @ San Cesario of Lecce featuring Nordgarden, Brunori Sas, Amor Fou and Lucia Manca
August 12th @ Parco Gondar in Gallipoli (Lecce) on stage Samuel Katarro, Teatro degli Orrori, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti

The third edition of the festival moves from the coast inland, to the spaces of Masseria Torcito in Cannole (Lecce), and aims high by welcoming Gogol Bordello, an out-of-the-box musical phenomenon, on August 20th.

The band gives the Sud Est Indipendente audience a concert that is a real party in music. It was impossible for those ipresent to stand still and not dance to the gypsy punk of the group that made Madonna fall in love to the point of wanting the leader, Eugene Hutz, in her movie “The Sacred and the Profane”.

The group was preceded by performances by two of the most popular Salento groups in Italy and abroad, namely Opa Cupa and Mascarimirì.

“Opa Cupa” (read: “opa tzupa”), a cry of exhortation to dance of the gypsies of Southeast Europe, was originally born with the research of the musical repertoire of the Balkans, but more and more the original lyrics and music written by Cesare Dell’Anna, crosses over with the jazz and band sounds typical of the musical tradition of Southern Italy, becoming something new and original. Don’t call this project Balkan, because it is so much more.

Mascarimirì, with their original sound, from pizzica to tarantolato punk-dub, have always been engaged in the re-signification of traditional Salento music, of which Mascarimirì are worthy heirs and prosecutors, revealing themselves, throughout Italy and beyond, as one of the most established world-music projects.

From France came, finally, Les Troublamours. The tarantella Gitano Guinguette is the traditional music of Tadgiguinia spread to the four winds by its Troubadours ambassadors: Les Troublamours! The ingredients of this music are a little bit of tarantella pizzicata for the frenzied rhythms with therapeutic virtues, a bit of gypsy spirit brought by the Gypsies who came from the East and who know how to draw on the traditional repertoires of the countries they crossed to revisit them, and, finally, a bit of influence from the guinguettes of the belle époque where the accordion made people dance and sing. Opening slot for Salento’s Jolaurlo and Cucuwawa…[:en]#SEIfestival 2008 – August 20th @ Masseria Torcito in Cannole (Lecce) with Gogol Bordello, Opa Cupa, Mascarimirì, Les Troublamours, Jolaurlo and Cucuwawa

Since its beginning in 2006, the SEI has declared its vocation to choose heterogeneous groups and projects, to transform itself every time expanding the horizon of its proposals to offer to its audience a broad and varied overview of the music looking for different genres, from punk to singer-songwriter, from rock to ska, from folk to the upbeat rhythms. In the different locations of Salento that have hosted the festival, took turns artists like Kings of Convenience, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Cat Power, Baustelle, Gogol Bordello, Bugo, Skatalites, Daniele Silvestri, Verdena, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, Vallanzaska, Teatro degli Orrori, One Dimensional Man, Russell Leetch, Is Tropical, Populous, Giuda, Fast Animals and Slow Kids, Mannarino, Avion Travel, Negrita, Calibro 35, Brunori Sas, Amor Fou, Lombroso, Dellera and many other Italian and Apulian realities such as Crifiu, Mascarimirì, Mery Fiore, Sofia Brunetta, La Gente, Una.

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For the second edition, SEI doubles up and moves to the Ionian Sea. On Wednesday, August 8th and Thursday, August 9th, Gallipoli ‘s Stadio Comunale hosted a two-day festival of ska and rock, reggae and punk, hip hop and pop. Two evenings in the company of Italian and international artists and the best realities of Apulia and Salento. Among the 2007 guests Skatalites, Verdena, Three Merry Dead Boys, Vallanzaska, Fido Guido, Leitmotiv, Makako Jump.

The first night of the festival is marked by the rhythms of ska, rap and reggae. Headliners the legendary Skatalites, the group that marked the birth of ska. The Skatalites have made a stop in Salento for their “40th anniversary Tour”.

On stage alongside them Vallanzaska, who presented in Gallipoli the CD Cose Spaventose. With this album Vallanzaska have achieved what every band yearns for: the invention of their own genre. A trademark, a unique style: the “Vallanzaska style”.

Plus Taranto singer Fido Guido and Trieste’s Makako jump and, to end on a high note, Villa Ada Posse, one of Italy’s most popular crews abroad. With its great songs, concerts and hundreds of dance hall around Italy, the Villa Ada reggae crew has contributed in a fundamental way for more than a decade to writing the history not only of reggae in Rome, their city, but also of Italian reggae.

On Thursday, August 9th, Sud Est Independente shifted to decidedly harder sounds. Guests were Verdena, a group idolized by the public and critics as the most original and interesting rock act on the Italian scene. The band from Bergamo, which was back from tours throughout Europe, presented Requiem, the fourth CD of their production, in Gallipoli.

Also on stage were Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti .Led by musician and cartoonist Davide Toffolo, the band presented the CD “The Second Sexual Revolution” in which the Pordenone trio’s rock’n’roll, after their South American experiences, was colored with more dance grooves, enriched by their many collaborations. As always, their live show ended with Toffolo’s now mythical mantra, “Life is bad but I didn’t invent it”.

From Salento, finally, Leitmotiv, Spread your legs and Logo arrived on stage too. Also performing over the two evenings were the two winning bands from the competition held August 6th and 7th at Cotriero in Gallipoli. The two winning bands were selected by a jury composed of journalist Maria Pia Romano, event organizer Mino Munitello, and Rai singer and chorister Michele Cortese.[:en]#SEIfestival 2007 – August 8/9 @ Stadio Comunale of Gallipoli (Lecce) featuring Skatalites, Verdena, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, Vallanzaska, Fido Guido, Leitmotiv, Makako Jump, Spread your legs and Logo.

Since its beginning in 2006, the SEI has declared its vocation to choose heterogeneous groups and projects, to transform itself every time expanding the horizon of its proposals to offer to its audience a broad and varied overview of the music looking for different genres, from punk to singer-songwriter, from rock to ska, from folk to the upbeat rhythms. In the different locations of Salento that have hosted the festival, took turns artists like Kings of Convenience, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Cat Power, Baustelle, Gogol Bordello, Bugo, Skatalites, Daniele Silvestri, Verdena, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, Vallanzaska, Teatro degli Orrori, One Dimensional Man, Russell Leetch, Is Tropical, Populous, Giuda, Fast Animals and Slow Kids, Mannarino, Avion Travel, Negrita, Calibro 35, Brunori Sas, Amor Fou, Lombroso, Dellera and many other Italian and Apulian realities such as Crifiu, Mascarimirì, Mery Fiore, Sofia Brunetta, La Gente, Una.

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On Thursday, August 17th, and Saturday, August 19th, Salento was traversed from the Ionian to the Adriatic, from Gallipoli to Otranto, by the first edition of the alternative music festival Coast to Coast, organized by Sold Out, Coolclub and Alta Fedeltà Produzioni, in which Sud Est Indipendenteis included, in its first public appearance. An event that brought just a few steps from the two seas that bathe Salento, in the middle of August, the best of Italian rock music (and more). A peaceful invasion, the conquest of Salento by other musics. On August 17th, the port area of Gallipoli hosted the final stage of the Hula hoop festival. On stage Caparezza, Punkreas, Folkabbestia, Villa Ada, Krikka reggae. August 19 is the turn of SEI, which offers in the moat of Otranto Castle a program dedicated to pop and rock lovers with performances by Superpartner, Lotus, Studio Davoli, Bugo and Baustelle.       The ability of Southeast Independent to look forward to the future of Italian music is evident from the start. Baustelle, in fact, would soon depopulated, becoming a cult band in the Italian rock scene. In 2006 they had appeared on the Otranto stage with their album La malavita and, on the strength of their success at Festivalbar, they had confirmed their ability to mix excellent melodies with engaging and evocative settings live. At the conclusion of their concert Francesco Bianconi invited Bugo onstage for a crackling and enthralling duet.  Bugo loves noise, punk, metal, he also likes rap, but he remains someone who writes and sings his own songs, raw and rough tunes and the result is funny stories about everyday life, brilliant irony and a bit of madness, which the main seasoning of his live performances. The singer-songwriter brought to Sud Est Independente his album “Sguardo contemporaneo”. But SEI naturally has a special passion for local bands, and the first edition of the festival also saw Studio Davoli, Lotus and Superpartner perform.   Studio Davoli (from whose members would later be born Il Genio and Girl with the gun, two other rather interesting chapters in our home music) took the stage as one of the bands most incensed by Italian rock critics that year with their vintage, psychedelic, lounge but also experimentally electronic atmospheres. All seasoned by Matilde’s voice and Gianluca’s keyboards. Lotus, on the other hand, was the project of Amerigo Verardi, a historical figure in the Italian underground of the last fifteen years. His recording beginnings are linked to a cult band, Allison Run. This first project was followed by a solo experience, then the Lula with whom he recorded two slendid records, Da dentro and Lula.[:en]The first edition of #SEIfestival – August 17/19 @ Gallipoli and Otranto (Lecce). On stage Caparezza, Punkreas, Folkabbestia, Villa Ada, Krikka reggae, Superpartner, Lotus, Studio Davoli, Bugo and Baustelle.

Since its beginning in 2006, the SEI has declared its vocation to choose heterogeneous groups and projects, to transform itself every time expanding the horizon of its proposals to offer to its audience a broad and varied overview of the music looking for different genres, from punk to singer-songwriter, from rock to ska, from folk to the upbeat rhythms. In the different locations of Salento that have hosted the festival, took turns artists like Kings of Convenience, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Cat Power, Baustelle, Gogol Bordello, Bugo, Skatalites, Daniele Silvestri, Verdena, Tre Allegri Ragazzi Morti, Vallanzaska, Teatro degli Orrori, One Dimensional Man, Russell Leetch, Is Tropical, Populous, Giuda, Fast Animals and Slow Kids, Mannarino, Avion Travel, Negrita, Calibro 35, Brunori Sas, Amor Fou, Lombroso, Dellera and many other Italian and Apulian realities such as Crifiu, Mascarimirì, Mery Fiore, Sofia Brunetta, La Gente, Una.