THERE are a few signs each year that I can't ignore. They tell me that Summer has well and truly arrived here in Italy's south [il sud].

Since moving down to Lecce in the southern part of Puglia [the southern tip of Puglia more commonly known as Salento] I know Summer is getting into full swing because the cicadas start singing, the news is brimming with celebrity holiday makers and everyone is suddenly at the mercy of those hot afternoons that send you scurrying into the shade or onto the amazing Mediterranean beaches we're flanked by on both sides of the peninsula.

The other sign that Summer is here is that some of my dearest friends here move into top gear, putting their year long preparation into action to bring their Bande A Sud festival to life for the Summer season of concerts and events. The August concerts - which are free to the public and run over a fortnight - are the culmination of a program of cultural offerings which are delivered throughout the year.

The program for the fifth edition of their festival, Bande a Sud: Suoni tra due mari [Sounds between two seas] has been announced, and builds on previous offerings. Under the artistic direction of Giacchino Palma, the festival - which originally sought to bring the old southern tradition of street Big Bands and performances back to life - this year focuses on brass and big bands in all their forms as well as on the social aspect the music. The fifth edition is an increasingly international affair as it continues to bridge the traditional with the contemporary.

Mostly taking place in Trepuzzi, with some events in Casalabate [both of which are just a stone's throw from Lecce], this year's events and selections tap into some of the themes that have long shaped the festival. 

The big bands, the annual street band festival and the showcase of local produce (and wines!!!) are back, but along for the ride this year are headline act Renzo Arbore e L'Orchestra Italiana who've been breathing life back into traditional Neapolitan music and bringing it to the world's attention for decades.

The variety of brass and street bands is at the core of this year's offerings and covers the spectrum of Circus Swing [Camillocromo], fusion [P-Funking] and includes acts like Dubiosa Kolektiv whose Balkanic sound bears the influence of ska, punk and reggae and whose tribute to Edward Snowden, Freemp3 has already racked up over 3 million views on youtube. This year's varied program is notable for the emphasis on the social aspect behind the musical and programming choices.  

The festival runs from August 4 through August 16. If you're in Puglia in the first half of August, make your way down [or up] to Trepuzzi for the concerts and events. The program is available here and you can keep up to date by popping a like on Bande A Sud's Facebook page.

In Vinyl Tiger, our hero waves goodbye to the eighties with a divorce album and a greatest hits album which sends him into a panic. Cos you know that once a pop artist releases a greatest hits album, everything that comes afterwards is going to be shite.
Well, not always, but it usually means the best of days are behind them.
Naturally with a comprehensive greatest hits album, you've gotta add a couple of fresh numbers into the mix, and if they're dance friendly even better. Cue the Seal, Haddaway and Snap references.

Not content with conquering the pop world, our hero decides its time to take to an acting career.
For one of the projects which involved a film and a soundtrack, I took inspiration from U2's majestic All I Want Is You video, and the prevailing interest we had in circuses and circus themes back then. Hello Natalie Merchant I'm talking to you.
Throughout the nineties, our hero is not content to rest on his laurels. He wants to be taken more seriously as an artist, so he really pushes the envelope with his career and musical choices.

I may be an obvious eighties lover, but when it comes down to things, I'm really a nineties boy at heart.
Here's a playlist that groups together some of the numerous references and inspiration points in the second part of the Vinyl Tiger series: the 90s and a couple of notes to go alongside them. Enjoy!

• SOUNDTRACKS AND SUPER DEALS
  

The early nineties was all about extracting as much money possible out of artists and fans. After a half a dozen or so artists really proved themselves throughout the eighties: the Jacksons, Prince, Madonna and George Michael among them, record companies came knocking with their cheque books and soundtrack deals.
It wasn't always a comfy arrangement despite the tens of millions of dollars record companies were willing to pay to re-sign artists. And how many times as a fan did you shell out for a soundtrack album by your favourite artist? They were EVERYWHERE in the early nineties. I blame Prince [God rest his soul] for that.

• SEXUAL SHENANIGANS

Along with the big ticket contracts came a wave of censorship and conservatism at the beginning of the nineties. Contracted artists had obligations to shareholders and in the business world that translates to self censorship. Like many of his peers, the Vinyl Tiger, contract in hand, has his own [self-dug] hole to get out of, but, it's so deep that it's not just the stakeholders who have gone off him. It's radio and wider audiences too. If you're a fan of Nine Inch Nails, Madonna's Erotica era, Janet (and worse, Michael) discovering her sexuality, or basically anything Prince related there's a couple of chapters in there for you.

• INDUSTRIAL POP, R&B, NINETIES POP
  

In trying to work out his new musical identity after a pretty straightforward run in the eighties, the Vinyl Tiger never veers far from his dance music background in the nineties. He dabbles with a bit of US R&B [I'm talking to you Mariah and Michael, god rest your soul... and you too Madonna] and always has the occasional pop stomper to fall back on [Hi George!]. Like many of the 80s artists who made the transition to the nineties, he is an artist in flux, unable to shake off his past, but unable to embrace his future until the wind changes in his favour again. And yet, the stakes are still high because, by this stage, he's pop royalty.

• HIDING IN EUROPE
  

Europe has, despite its traditions, generally been more receptive to artistry that thinks beyond the box. Certainly when it comes to nudity and sexuality, it's not exactly a push over, but it's no prude either. In heading off to Europe, the Vinyl Tiger is obviously inspired by what is happening there musically. Britpop is well and truly back, and with Nelle Hooper spearing the charge, artists like Massive Attack and Bjork are redefining the divide between indie and mainstream music. Electronica also takes on a resurgence, and as a result, techno gets a dash of humanity to it: artists like Everything But The Girl have changed the game, and their influence has let a strange R&B/electronica hybrid take over radio where bands like M People and Texas, with their smooth electronic focus, are on everybody's lips again.

• RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
  

If the musical inspiration for the Carnival era was a composer like Goran Bregovitch, then the Vinyl Tiger's more elaborate electronica of the late nineties was inspired by Ryuichi Sakamoto, one of the greats of world music. He's an amazingly versatile composer who has also dabbled in pop, and was the inspiration for the character of Musashi who becomes an important fixture in the Vinyl Tiger's career.

• THE NEW COMPETITION
  

Man what a competitive decade the nineties were. You had to really feel for the members of the eighties guard that didn't want to let go. You had the grunge push in the states and Courtney Love to contend with, you had a whole new generation of studio savvy Brits who were just too cool for school, and, if you were in the pop realm life was cruel: the kids wanted R&B or something outta Seattle. Not your tried and tested pop music. But then, what a brilliant and diverse decade in pop. Really something for everyone [except for Hall & Oates. No one wanted them anymore].

There are a lot of references to music in my Vinyl Tiger novel.  Some of it is mainstream music, some not. Sometimes they were just themes that needed a good name drop.

I've put together a playlist on Spotify along with some comments regarding some of the entries and music themes that appear in the first volume of my novel - the 80s, all included below.

• BUZZCOCKS - EVER FALLEN IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE
  

We often generalize when it comes to punk music: that it was all about anarchy and noise, but some of the punk movement’s most enduring music comes from the melodic style that came out of fusing pop sounds with more straightforward punk.
Lovebites was the second album by the Buzzcocks. Originally formed in the mid-70s, they were pioneers in the punk music scene.  The Buzzcocks line-up changed over the years, but their influence over the indie, punk and Manchester scenes has been enduring. Read more about them here

• BLONDIE - PARALLEL LINES

If you needed  any proof of how fragmented mainstream music was at the end of the seventies, look no further than Blondie. These New York indies, led by the charismatic Debbie Harry, mixed rock, new wave, and even electronica into their trademark sound and were at the forefront of the new era in mainstream pop, even when that wasn’t their main aim.
It’s the kind of music that almost everyone loves today, but just a few decades ago Blondie signalled a complete challenge to the status quo. On Parallel Lines you got the full range of rock, disco and even reggae infused pop, and the blue print for future pop albums.

• GRACE JONES, ANDREA TRUE AND DISCO

While the mainstream was in the midst of upheaval, disco was busy keeping everyone else busy. If you could time stamp the late seventies, it would look and sound  like disco music.
The range of the disco genre was wide: artists like Donna Summer and Grace Jones, with their natural vocal flair brought some pathos [and camp] to the genre, but for every one of those divas you got more than a couple of Andrea Trues in return. No matter, it was all about the slinky grooves, and if nothing else, we can also thank disco for removing the vocal hurdle which would otherwise have stopped half of the pop/dance acts that arrived in the eighties from achieving what they did.

• LANA MANGESHKAR
  

The idea of the global superstar started to take shape in the eighties. Before that, music markets tended to be more local: while music tastes in the West often meant that each market had its own proponents of rock/disco/new wave,  usually in their own languages. In India, the fusion of the local and western markets began to arrive in the late eighties – particularly Asian underground which mixed British and Indian styles to come up with something new.
But before that, filmi, music from films, were by far the most popular song forms in India’s music market. There are certain regal figures in the Indian music scene, among them Manna Day and Lata Mangeshkar. In Vinyl Tiger, the title character spends some formative time in India, collecting music along the way. I imagined him as a kind of early eighties M.I.A, who I think remains without peer when it comes to cannabalizing from the subcontinent and producing something new and provocative.

• GRANDMASTER FLASH AND HIP HOP, MADONNA AND CLUB CULTURE
  

Back on the hop, and now in New York after leaving London, the Vinyl Tiger joined the growing underground dance music scene in NYC. No longer disco, this was the era in which street culture gave birth to non-identical twins: hip hop and club music. Either way, it was what was coined “black sound” that revolutionized pop music as the eighties revved up.
Acts like Grandmaster Flash would go on to have a lasting effect on hip hop and mainstream music, but it was a handful of artists like Madonna who rode the underground sound right into the mainstream, bringing the new club sound to the masses. And we all know what that particular arrival wound up meaning to pop music.

• SYNTH
  

The arrival of a new sound, and the breaking down of genres wasn’t just cultural. It was technical too. A new generation of synthesizers completely changed what composing could achieve. In Vinyl Tiger our hero rides his own club record into the top forty, and follows it up with more synth pop, competing in a market full of acts like Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw. Synth touched almost every element of music by the mid-80s: it formed the backbone of mainstream pop/rock (Hall & Oates), made its way as far into music by indie staples like The Cure and got to its most lofty heights with Dead Can Dance and the Cocteau Twins.
People are really hard on the eighties. But really, they shouldn’t be. The eighties was the first decade of democratization in pop music. You no longer needed to be a killer vocalist to have a hit record, and you no longer needed to sling a guitar around to be a rock star. You could now just pound away at a keyboard (and not know more than three or four chords). Hell, you could even sling it around your front.

• CHARISMA
  

That said, what you needed, musical talent or not, was charisma. Some had it in spades (Michael Hutchence, Billy Idol) others less so.  Pop’s holy trinity of Michael Jackson, Prince and Madonna called the shots, but the days of being Bob Dylan were no more. If you had a dope groove, a decent choreographer or a sharp eye, you were already halfway through the door. Bonus points for creativity and making something from nothing.
We’re no longer in that wonderful place where anyone has a shot, no matter what they tell you. We live in a world which, thanks to our decade long obsession with talent shows, thinks that having a great vocal range makes you a great artist. But it’s also a piecemeal world where more and more, the mainstream means something less.  

I just l❤️ve Xenia Rubino's Mexican Chef.
It has a crazy kinetic energy to it along with some biting social commentary.
Bachata in the back!

Ok, I know you're devastated that the floating piers thing is over and done with but to keep you happy I've trawled the web and found the best that the Internet has to offer.
If you're not already a fan I highly recommend following the Facebook page of Adottare soluzione punk per sopravivere (adopt punk solutions to survive). It's genius.

City news doing the rounds...

When Melbourne got too hip for itself.

Fendi have got Rome and all its famous landmarks all stitched up.

Be careful where you sunbake in London. Wait, you can sunbake in London?

If you're one of the few heading to Rio for the olympics, this is the app to download first.

Oh no. When it comes to visitor numbers, Kyoto has been trumped by an American city. One that I bet you a pint you'll never guess.

Just watched a screening of an interesting documentary by Ernesto Pagano.
It's called Napolislam - and it's essentially the story of ten Neopolitans who have converted to Islam.
It's a well made film that seeks to show how integration has worked to some extent in Naples in ways that it hasn't worked in other parts of Europe.
Like any good documentary it has subjects who are riveting and others who are not, but it was a stroke of genius on Pagano's part setting the documentary in Naples.
​The devastating images of Naples (a place that I just looooove nonetheless) really reinforce the sense of alienation and contempt that a lot of the subjects have with the current Italian state.
Worth checking out. If you're not good with Napoletan

OVER the weekend I hopped on a bus and headed out Taranto.

If you're not that familiar with Italy but have heard of Taranto, you probably haven't heard very nice things being said about it. A google search will even reveal one particularly nasty blog someone wrote a couple of years back, listing ten (mostly childish) reasons not to visit the place.
I'm not even going to bother linking to it. But, it is hard to find anyone that has something nice to say about the place.


The thing is Taranto should be one of Italy's absolute jewels. On paper it has all the ingredients to capture the imagination: its Magna Grecia past, its natural and stunning beauty, its bustling new town (one of the biggest in southern Italy) and its cittá vecchia located right on the port are all things that make it special.
The problem is that the city based its modern fortunes on industry, and over time, a perfect storm of poor regulation, the Italian government's neglect and regional economic challenges all contributed to its significant deterioration. The result is some of the worst air/water pollution and unemployment  in the Mediterranean basin and a challenge that the Italian and EU governments have yet to properly face.

June as you might know was Pride month. And although it's now July, we're heading into the busy peak season for southern Italian tourism. Italy is hosting an increasing number of pride events each year. It's part of a new approach that has shelved the idea of a concentrated, national event in favour of what's called onda pride which translates to pride wave- a rolling series of marches taking place across the country.

This year a number of cities hosted their first Pride events and over the weekend, Taranto joined this group. It hosted the first of two scheduled Puglia Pride events - the next will take place at the end of August in another town in Puglia - Gallipoli - which is Italy's unofficial summer gay capital.

Had a great time on the realllllllly long march - and it was great running into friends who were in town for the event too. There was a feeling of elation and surprise for the thousands of us marching. Nobody could have predicted that a city that has been overlooked on so many levels - and that is slagged off as being a conservative, southern town - could've played host to a march that calls for change and that so many people would join what is effectively a regional march (numbers were estimated to be around 2000).

To top it off, the march culminated on the esplanade, and after a series of speeches and talks, a public  screening of the Italy-Germany match ensued, with much of the same revelry and atmosphere that marked the parade itself. Only in Italy. :)