SUD ITALIA 2009

 

The band was beginning to gel. 

The various individual elements were starting to sound like one whole machine.

A moaning, groaning, siren engine fit to carry an audience..maybe

To use a football cliche , a band has to be way more than the sum of its parts..there has to be some transformation.

The animal was becoming a beast. 

But hopefully one one you wouldn't run screaming away from.

We had a little tour organised in the south of Italy, four gigs taking us from the heart of Rome down to the heel of the Italian boot in Puglia via Napoli.

For the occasion, I had the chance to take Rodrigo Derasmo, the incredibly talented violinist with us a s a fourth member.

We all met up in Rome and after a quick soundcheck, there began our little journey taking these new songs to the various shores that would kindly have us.

In Italy there are two things among many that make me very happy as I stumble into the bus in the morning after too little sleep: 

 

1.The best coffee in the world 

 

2.The thought that even if we have to stop

on the motorway for a snack, i won't be wondering how many years I'm taking off my life eating the usual toxic rubbish passed off as food

and if we have to stop I'll happily munch my way through a panino with prosciuto di parma, melanzane sott'olio and mozzarella di buffala.

Wouldn't you? (plenty of veggie options too I should add)

It's hard to talk about this part of the world without talking about food so here's another list of favourite culinary moments from the tour:

Laetitia Sherif's face when she ate the real Mozzarella from Campania for the first time..hear the sound of a jaw hitting the ground

 

The little trattoria in Sanicandro di Bari where they brought dish after dish for the us to taste, highlights being the cime di rapa ( a kind of cross between brocoli and spinach cooked in garlic and chili)

The cauliflower in a puree of chickpeas, I swear it brought a tear to Simone's eye, I know he's a drummer but still..a tear!

The Focaccia, and the burrata, a creamy cheese from the south of Italia which I've never tasted so fresh.

This will no doubt make it sound like we returned with a size up around the waist but most of the food down here is very fresh and healthy

and mostly free of the refined sugars, flours and fats that one can find so much of elsewhere.

So over four days and four gigs we slowly wound our way down to Lecce our last gig.

Before the soundcheck, we managed to find half an hour to plunge into the Mediterranean.

Across the waters you could see the outline of Albania, further south the scent of Greece on the breeze.

Here the borders aren't so watertight, there's been so much cultural exchange over the centuries, It's the kind of place I feel at home in,

away from absolutes and definitions, drifting at the edges of different worlds.

After this delicious little journey, I felt like Mercedes Sosa singing ' Gracias a la vida!'

 

 

next up LA MAROQUINERIE and other short anecdotes..

 

p

 

The circles turn, the wheels go round, the clocks go forward, the clocks go back..

And here we are on the road again, staring out of the window, gazing at passers by, laptop on my knees, fingers tapping out words as the traffic rolls slowly past.

We’re heading towards Mulhouse to play tonight, it’s a six hour drive from Paris but we’re stuck in a jam.

Could be roadworks, could be an accident, could be a breakdown or maybe, just maybe we’ve all spontaneously realised that life is moving too fast and we’ve all decided, at exactly the same moment in time, to slow down and drive at 10 miles an hour.. strangely on the other side of the road, the cars are still zipping past, they’re obviously confused, clearly not enlightened!

It’s a two tiered track to a slowed down nirvana.

Take note! The revolution has begun here on one half of the motorway to Mulhouse, the world is slowly turning..slow. I wonder why everyone’s looking so unhappy about it!

Try it for youselves..if your boss says you’ve got a day to do something, tell him you need a week.

For your next lunch break, take an afternoon to chew your sandwich.

And while you’re at it give up caffeine..go herbal!

I think I’ll take a nap..

All I really wanted to say was ‘ Hello’

Oh..and the new album’s out and I have a great new band to play with, hope to see you somewhere out there on the road if we make it on time!

P

I seem to remember that the last post I made, I began with the words, “its been a while..” but given that that was a year ago now, I should perhaps try and come up with a different phrase to express my regretful blogger’s block.

Here is a sample of possibilities, to be imagined in the form of voice mail messages:

“Hey, how are you? So sorry I never got back to you, it’s been hectic this last year, hope you’ll forgive me” or “I just completely forgot, it’s unforgivable I know, what can I say?” or “I jut didn’t feel like calling you, I needed time alone, time to think about our relationship and where we’re going”

You get the gist right? However if there’s one thing that I stand by on principle, it’s that if a friend never calls you back and then eventually you run into them and they say they were just too busy to call, sometimes an elbow to the throat and a knee to the groin is the only road to saving face. I’m joking, I would never wish to condone violence to my tiny handful of readers!

No this a non violent space, the witty put down cuts quicker than the blade.

So I address this to my very small and wonderful bunch of friends out there staring into the ether of their screens searching for some news of me. Sorry for the absence, thankyou for asking for me and hey like a rabbit out of the proverbial hat, I’m back! Cue: the sound of three people slowly clapping echoing in a large empty room But really we all know silence is way better than the sound of someone rambling on and on? Cue: the sound of three people cheering.

………..

Get to the point!
So it’s 2009, we’re dragging our flu ridden, sniffy noses ever so slowly out of winter, so what better cheer to bring to the snowy ice bound horizons than the prospect of a new Piers Faccini album. That’s right throw away the pharmaceuticals, the natural remedies and the new year resolutions, this album will almost certainly cure your chills, your seasonal blues and all of your ills both psychically and physically.
(Note: this statement cannot be backed up by any scientific evidence)

Ok, maybe not but it could be like a giant placebo in your life.

As per usual, the album will concertina out into the world in a gradual and staggered manner beginning with a release in France my adopted home and that of my new record label Tot ou Tard, until it extends itself out fully in the manner of a major 7th to a release in the rest of Europe, the U.S and elsewhere over the following months.

The album is called ‘Two grains of sand’ and it was recorded over the course of 2008 between my home in the hills of the Cevennes and Ferber studios in Paris. I produced the album together with Renaud Letang and it features the playing of some of my all time favourite people and players, Francesca Beard, Vincent Segal, Jules Bikoko, Jeff Boudereaux, Nibs van der Spuy, Ian McCamy and Johan Dalgaard to name but a few.

I’m very happy with the way the album came out and I can’t wait to get on the road and play these songs live. I had more to do with every creative aspect of the record than the previous two albums as far as arrangement and production were concerned so that if people don’t like it, the blame will sit squarely on my shoulders and if people do I’ll be able to tap myself in the very same spot and be a little pleased with myself, well, for a very brief moment anyway…

For this album as with the two before, I just picked up an instrument and a notebook and waited to see if some rough diamond would come and land on the page and on my tongue foe me to polish and if it hadn’t you wouldn’t be reading this now and I’d be looking for a job.

There’s no recipe. Each song simply just had to feel absolutely right and as fresh as a basket of groceries in a farmer’s market. I wrote a lot of songs in the last year or so and I hope these songs are the pick of that bunch. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed making them and that you will discover the same freshness and taste I experienced writing them.

Bon appetit!

I look forward to seeing you sometime on the road somewhere on this large world of ours.

Never shy to plug a good friend's work, here's a tip for any Art lovers out there, Marcus Reichert's new book 'Art & Ego'. Marcus is known for his extraordinary paintings and photographs as well as his films, notably the classic cult film noir Union City starring Deborah Harry.

In Art & Ego we find him deep in conversation with photographer Edward Rozzo. It's certainly no Mills and Boon and it might not be your companion of choice for a beach holiday but it's definitely the kind of profound intellectual text that'll go down a treat with any serious follower of Art and Art lovers as we know don't go to the beach anyway.

Marcus is a born poet and whatever he puts his hand to always bears the mark of hard lived-in truth, he's like the duracel of artists, when others begin falling down, he remains standing, beating his drum. I was also very honoured to have among the illustrations chosen for the book, a drawing I made in 1990 of Antonin Artaud that you can see below along with one of Marcus's paintings.

For more information check out Marcus's website: www.marcusreichert.com