Here are a few rare clips of Italian prog, arranged in order of ridiculousness and in inverse order of talent. On the top left are the absurdly overdramatic Officina Meccanica. There are some legitimately good moments here, but I'm mostly just awed at the strange demeanor of the band and awful synching of the video. One might expect a folkier sound from Blocco Mentale (top right) given their obviously strong relationship with mother nature - but one often expects unrealistic things, doesn't one?
On the bottom left is Italy's most ambitious attempt at symphonic prog, the New Trolls' Concerto Grosso. I find the drummer's small mistakes incredibly annoying, especially given that somebody paid a lot of money for a professional symphony to play with these hippies. At bottom right are the truly talented prog-jazz fusion dons Area. I'd understand if you don't want to listen to all the interview material interspersed in the video, but I would definitely recommend that you check out footage of singer Demitri Stratos yodeling at a handmirror at about 5:50 into the clip and a second band performace at about 7:45. Until next week...
To be fair to the drummer from the New Trolls, it was probably very difficult to hear everything going on around him, you can't really use monitors with a symphony orchestra (and monitor technology was pretty much nonexistent back then).
Posted by: illlich | June 26, 2008 at 02:12 PM
How do you say "I'm in a box! I'm in a box!" in Italian?
Posted by: Fatherflot | June 26, 2008 at 04:09 PM
I particularly enjoyed the surprise cameo appearance by Leo Sayer on acoustic guitar in the Officina Meccanica video.
Posted by: Listener Rick | June 26, 2008 at 07:41 PM
It's... Edward Biscotti-Hands.
Posted by: K | June 27, 2008 at 12:37 PM
That isn't yodelling. The techniques he is demonstrating originated in Tuvan throat singing.
Still, the clips were very interesting to see and hear. I like some progressive stuff a lot. Thank you for posting this.
Posted by: HD41117 | June 29, 2008 at 12:11 PM