Today, as it marks the 3000 likes/followers on Pam Courson tribute site on facebook, I would like to tell (for the ones that aren't on facebook) that we have created a very beautiful and supporting community that share Pam's love, respect and legacy. In this facebook hatred is not allowed and we share thoughts and opinions in a very respectful way and all the people who comment share the same love and respect to Pam as I do.
As I'm from Europe, lots of people from the States who have been at the places where she has been, they share the photos and stories that come with them, and I think it's very beautiful cause this is Pam's legacy. Pam's legacy in this safe place is full of love, respect and beauty, and I'm very happy for that.
Besides today marking this 3000 likes/followers, I share with you this clipping I just got today. This scan comes from Italian magazine Ciao 2001, 30th June 1974 and it reports Pam's passing :(
It's interesting to know that Diane Gardiner said that she saw Pam soon before her passing and they were planning to go to Mexico together... [full translation will come very soon]
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE GROUP: P.F.M. was born in October 1970 from the meeting between the band "Quelli" (including Di Cioccio, Mussida, Piazza, Premoli) and Mauro Pagani (ex-Dalton), one of those musicians always traveling around Italy. Their initial activity is to act as a shoulder to foreign groups such as Procol Harum, Black Widow, Yes, Deep Purple, Genesis. In this period they cover the most interesting and complex songs of the avant-garde groups (King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Blood Sweat and Tears). In 1971, they took part in the Viareggio Avant-Garde Festival.
Their first single, "Impressioni di Settembre”, is released and their first LP, "Storia di un minuto" (1972). The second LP, "Per un Amico”, is followed by the engagement with Manticore who is preparing to record the English version, with words by Pete Sinfield.
PRODUCER: Claudio Fabi and P.F.M.; for England Pete Sinfield and P.F.M.
LABEL: Numero Uno (Italy); Manticore (England).
DISCOGRAPHY: Impressioni di Settembre (45), Storia di un Minuto (LP), Per un Amico. By the first or second week of April the new single should be out.
MEMBERS:
FLAVIO PREMOLI: Instruments: piano, harpsichord, Hammond and Pari organs, spinet, mellotron, mini-moog, moog mod.12.
MUSICAL EDUCATION: he left the Conservatory shortly before graduating. He is intent on giving the exam to graduate in harmony and composition.
MAIN COMPOSITIONS: in general he takes care of the basic orchestration and arrangement of all the pieces. His is the piece “Per un amico" and the whole orchestral part of the “Banchetto".
FAVORITE MUSICIANS: Gentle Giant, Yes, King Crimson, John McLaughlin, classical music in general.
MAIN COMPOSITIONS: generally composes the basic melodies of all their pieces.
FRANZ DI CIOCCIO: Instruments: Slingerland drums, various percussion.
MUSICAL EDUCATION: Self-taught; he studied music with his father who is a qualified oboe player at the Scala in Milan.
MAIN COMPOSITIONS: contributes together with the others to the creation of the pieces.
FAVORITE MUSICIANS: the same as Franco.
GIORGIO PIAZZA: Instruments: Fender Precision bass (given to him by Greg Lake at the Bologna concert).
MUSICAL EDUCATION: self-taught.
MAIN COMPOSITIONS: competes together with the others...
FAVORITE MUSICIANS. like the others.
MAURO PAGANI: Instruments: Heinz flute, alto flute, bass, piccolo, violin (copy of the antique Stradivarius), guitar (initially he played in a guitar and bass ensemble), piano.
MUSICAL EDUCATION: fifth year of violin at the conservatory, he will graduate soon; self-taught in flute (which his father taught him). Piano was the complementary teaching he chose at the Conservatory.
Arriving at its first Japanese tour, the Italian group finally attempts the international branching, the great success told by Armando Gallo.
TOKYO, Japan
About a year ago, exactly on December 14, 1974, when I saw a rock music concert at the Long Beach Arena, I learned, for the first time, the true meaning of rock music as pure sensual expression.
On stage that night was the PFM. The Italian group had finally given me what, from music, I had been looking for for a long time among American groups, British and even German. Incredibly, I wrote nothing about that enlightening Long Beach experience.
So a year passed and a few days ago I came to Tokyo to follow PFM's first Japanese tour. My mind was still imbued with the spectacular hits of Bruce Springsteen at the Roxy, the exciting Gentle Giant concert at the Shrine, the pulsating and fiery rhythm of the Ohio Players at the Forum - but heck! - when PFM set foot on the stage of Tokyo's Shibuya Kokaido, all my best Californian memories had disappeared into distant mists. In recent days, in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and then again in Tokyo, I have seen the four best concerts of the year. This wonderful Italian group has redone my Long Beach makeup but this time there will be no fear to keep me at bay. You have one of the best bands in the world right at your home: in addition to being incredible musicians, the guys from PFM are also patient artists and they know that one day, by now not so far away, they will be elected pure “rock-stars" by the Italian public.
In this Japanese tour they were even idolized. The critics of the Japanese press in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya have already immortalized them as the most exciting ensemble to appear on a Japanese stage this year. Toshio Sato, a hugely popular critic of Ongaku Senka, phrased it like this: “...Franco Mussida erased from my mind the excellent talent of Steve Howe...By far the most exciting of rock violinists, Mauro Pagani has not never ceased to amaze me...The pulsating rhythm section (Franz Di Cioccio and Patrick Djivas) combined with the melodious and delicate keyboard work of Flavio Premoli brought me warm Mediterranean images…".
The addition of Bernardo Lanzetti was a big surprise for the Japanese audience. “Chocolate Kings” has not yet been released here, and the news of the inclusion of him as a solo singer was given by Bernardo on the first stage in Tokyo. And of him Toshio Sato said: “...The last pawn that comes to complete this wonderful Italian mosaic.” Mr. Sato's definition could not have been better. Bernardo Lanzetti, after recording “Chocolate Kings”, made his live debut with PFM right here in Japan, but it seemed that the singer had always been with the band. There was not a moment of hesitation, a slightest mistake and the heavy input of his powerful voice seems to have given the PFM the final touch towards complete perfection.
Before starting this article I looked at the notes I had put down during the tour. Then I looked at the photographs, I saw the walls of arms stretched out against the stage and I remembered an old song by Rod Stewart: "Every Picture Tells a Story” (Ogni foto racconta una storia) and I thought that with such photographs, all my comments were now superfluous. The Japanese audience, usually very calm and with gentle applause, could not bear the enormous musical hurricane with which the PFM swept the four Japanese halls and by the end of each concert, imbued with enthusiasm and energy that it could not more to contain, they rushed against the stage trying madly to touch their new idols. Each photo has its own story!
THE MUSICIANS FROM THE PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI ARE BACK ON THE ROAD WITH THE ONE WHO IS THE FATHER OF SONGWRITING, FABRIZIO DE ANDRÉ, WITH HIM THEY HAVE STARTED AN EXPERIMENT THAT MUST BE APPRECIATED FOR ITS INTELLIGENCE. THAT IS WHEN A SONGWRITER DISCOVERS MUSICIANS (AND MUSIC).
At thirty-eight and with an almost twenty-year career behind him, barely studded with a hundred public performances, Fabrizio De André can be said to be anything but a stage animal. Yet, in the aftermath of a concert silence that lasted three years, the father of the Italian singer-songwriter is back "on the road", with what can well be considered the most spectacular "live" event of the current musical season. The posters spelled out clearly - Fabrizio De André plus Franz Di Cioccio, Patrick Djivas, Franco Mussida, Flavio Premoli, Roberto Colombo and Lucio “Violino” Fabbri. An exceptional "tour", whose calendar spreads from one end of the peninsula to the other half of the peninsula, with an equally exceptional goal: to collect material for a live album that would once again bring together the greatest Italian singer-songwriter and the most glorious national rock group.
The modalities of this definitive relaunch of De André’s actions will certainly not upset the "fans" of better memory (at the end of the 60s the nucleus of what would soon become the P.F.M. recorded with the singer-songwriter "La bouna novella") and perhaps not even the admirers of "Rimini", who in Fabrizio's ninth album have really found more music than in the previous eight volumes.
On the edge of a sound of greater breath, of more immediate and consumable songs, even suggestive scoundrelly deeds (the irresistible nursery rhyme “Zirichiltaggia” in Gallura), "Rimini" marked in red the leap from the past to a new human period, as well as artistic, to a rediscovered serenity clouded only by the thousands of guilt complexes that can be clearly read in that declared and tireless guerrilla warfare against the petty-bourgeois microcosm to which it has always recognized that it belongs.
Every word, be it text or song, excerpt of interview or hasty introduction in the presence of the public, underlines how much today Fabrizio feels too close to the role of the "entertaining" artist and feels the increasingly imperative need to conquer himself a "credibility", a much more concrete dimension, clawed to a very specific reality. "For me music, records, concerts, are just a ‘part time’ job that can be done during the weekend,” Fabrizio told me, "after doing things that, at least as far as for me, today, at thirty-eight, on a farm, they are more important and precise. I don't think you can think of continuing to tread the stages singing songs at fifty. Today I am already thirty-eight and I hope to master the tools of a more solid profession, that of a farmer, a cattle breeder. Then I need music to solve my practical needs, to make some money, since my new business today is only taking away from me. You know, I'm still not credible as a farmer, there's nothing to be done.”
Yet how can one not notice a smirk of satisfaction in the pensive De André who admits, almost in spite of himself, "of course I liked “Rimini" very much. Musically speaking, I must say that in truth I have always stammered. But this record can be enjoyed without having to pay attention to the lyrics and, for me, it's undoubtedly a big step forward.”
• FRIENDS OF SINGER-WRITERS
It was therefore "Rimini" that set in motion the mechanism of this "tour". In particular, the restless Premiata Forneria Marconi of the last year, now completely open to any collaboration of a certain importance, who wanted to find De André, once he listened to the record, to try a new project "ten years later". "We believe that today the Italian singer-songwriter is a musician who collaborates with other musicians", explained Franz Di Cioccio, "prime mover" of the initiative. "Confirming once more our structure as an “open" group, we wanted to strip ourselves of the typical image of PFM to create an experience that has already paid off abroad. Just think of Dylan and the Band, Jackson Browne and the Eagles. With us, the singer-songwriter has always been considered the sworn enemy of groups, yet today he needs us not only in the studio but above all live to be able to propose himself in a real and complete way. We believe that the songs of De André are still valid today. Few in Italy are poets of his stature. Only by recovering a certain musical "verve", in our opinion, the operation could have been considered successful. So why not do a "tour" and a live record, never made before by an Italian singer-songwriter? We liked the idea and we touched the realization of all the arrangements, as well as what will be the production of the live record. It must be said that people might have expected P.F.M. but this name does not appear on the posters. This "tour" must break all existing schemes.”
To the observation that, despite many pieces being "updated" in a brilliantly unrecognizable way, a total renewal was not attempted, Fabrizio remarked, “it is still about songs. In my opinion, the old songs such as "Bocca di rosa", or even "Marinella" with such an unrecognizable introduction, are already quite distorted, but there are avalanches of words and these require a lot. They must be understood and certainly not covered. The arrangement was therefore resolved in a decoration, above all rhythmic rather than strictly instrumental.” Franz added, "you might have expected a Dylan “makeover”. However, you must consider that De André, as well as the other "historical" singer-songwriters coming out of the 1950s, is of French setting and basically has nothing to do with rock, the opposite of Dylan. For this, Fabrizio uses a group like ours, which, with ten years of work in the studio, has acquired quite a varied musical personality. You hear the Premiata in these concerts enough, but we do not cover it. There is no antagonism. Indeed, the experiment confirms exactly the opposite: that a singer-songwriter manages to coexist with a group that already has its own precise identity. This could be the beginning of a new period. All the latest songwriters - from Branduardi to Venditti, to Finardi - have given indications in this regard. As for Premiata, we hope that experiments like this will lead to a more intense exchange between Italian musicians. If this "live" record is welcomed, considerable progress will have been made. A group is not just a group, but a collective of musicians. In Italy we need to play, not to tell each other what we could or shouldn't do.”
• A “NEBULOUS AND VAGUE” CRAFT
In the “back-stage” of the Cantù sports hall, the ritual preceding the concert is now the same. Once the rehearsals are finished, the technicians are working on the final touches of the system, the music becomes a suffused background to the most disparate topics of conversation. From a dressing room, Fabbri's violin and Mussida's guitar casually chase Ponty’s "New Country", while Djivas and Marva go to discuss photography. Di Cioccio's sticks guarantee a constant and relentless hammering. Fabrizio moves constantly, mending bits of conversation with a few sips of whiskey, confessing his concerns about the new stable that he intends to build which should cost him several million, or preferring to blend in with the audience that is already filling the bleachers.
The news of a massive breakthrough finds almost everyone resigned. Only Fabrizio, particularly restless, pushes himself through the crowd that is entering to understand what is happening. The sense of guilt re-emerges in him for this "nebulous and vague" profession, the reasons for which he really cannot justify. The vision of a policeman beating up a boy from the audience discourages him by placing him in front of the reality of a problem of vast and complex implications. Back in the dressing room, his outburst is almost violent. In large part, the tension is due to his hoarseness, that forced the “tour” after only two dates to a total stop for almost a week, and a rather cold “resumption” on the occasion of the concert in Milan on January 2nd.
Four dates later, the Cantù in fact, the show still seems more run-in. If Fabrizio is certainly more convinced, nevertheless the Premiata is well-trained. A glass tumbler accompanied by shouts like "aristocratic" and "go to the Scala" attempts a disturbing action but provocations are not accepted on the stage. With “Marinella", subtly presented as "a futuristic piece of which we have understood nothing” and introduced by a keyboard intervention that makes it completely unrecognizable, Fabrizio sounds the gong to start his great catwalk of sacred and profane love, and of small bourgeois pictures yellowed between envy of power and stale silly rules.
After “Andrea", who "got lost and does not know how to return" (the first of five quotations from "Rimini"), De André puts his hand to the apocryphal gospels of “La Buona Novella”, thus renewing the glories (allow me the expression) of the first collaboration with “four pilgrims named Mussida, Di Cioccio, etc.” “Maria Nella Bottega D'Un falegname", splendid and imposing in the new arrangement, merges into a successful “medley" with the “Testamento Di Tito”, introduced by an unpublished passage of guitar-keyboards in pure Weather Report style and finally enriched by Mussida's electric embroidery. For the first time, the intelligence and taste with which P.F.M. knows how to reinvent the more “classic” De André is an admirable game of spaces and rhythms.
Even better, "Un Giudice" (from "Non Al Denaro Non All'Amore Né Al Cielo”), in a version made particularly urgent by Premoli's accordion. "Giugno ’73" and “Amico Fragile (from “Vol. 8") reveal clear notes by Cohen in the pockets of a more intimate and thoughtful De André. With "La Guerra Di Piero”, atmospheres of great effect are recovered again, but the "treatment" by the group pays too much attention to the pace of the original. After an incandescent Mussida in the beautiful "Verranno A Chiederti Del Nostro Amore (from “Storia Di Un Impiegato"), “Zirichiltaggia”, with its particularly country flavor, kicks off an ideal second part of the concert that ends up resolving in a irresistible crescendo.
“Rimini", “Via Del Campo”, the Dylan-inspired “Avventura A Durango”, “Sally” and a spectacular “Bocca Di Rosa” snatch smiles from Fabrizio who, having remained seated for the entire duration of the concert, begins to squirm, to follow the relentless rhythm dictated by the group. It is the prologue to an overwhelming finale. “Volta La Carta”, introduced by some jokes a la Stivell, offers P.F.M. themes and rhythms that are more congenial than ever. The whole group is now launched, Fabbri and Colombo more than ever in the foreground. Also well disguised, "Il Pescatore” snatches a last roar of applause before Fabrizio, his voice harshly tested, leaves the field to Premiata for a “jam” played on the edge of “Alta Loma”. A series of unmissable solos finally allows every single musician to get out of the structure of De André's pieces, from the collective arrangements, and to freely embark on the paths of improvisation. It is of course Di Cioccio who beats with his drums the unmistakable “Celebration” for the jubilation of the whole audience, and not by chance. Once again, we witnessed a real "party". An experiment that absolutely must not remain ignored.
Our reporter followed the first part of Premiata Forneria Marconi’s American tour. A big success together with the confirmation, between the inevitable difficulties of this last period, of the professionalism and level of the band.
FROM OUR REPORTER
NEW YORK
After last summer’s American debut, Premiata Forneria Marconi has come back to the United States for a five-week long second tour that will end in Chicago on December 18th.The band’s live album was released in the last days by Tamla Motown, which recently signed a distribution contract with Manticore Records, ELP’s label, and the first 50.000 copies are already in stores.
I hope these articles of mine will be interesting not only to la Premiata’s fans, but also to all those readers who only possess a superficial concept of musical America; I will try to give a wide view of all the interesting facts, of how American rock works, of the continuous pressure musicians are relentlessly subjected to and, above all, of all the concerts PFM will do.
THE BEGINNING
Mauro Pagani, Franz Di Cioccio, Franco Mussida and Patrick Djivas arrived from Milan yesterday; Flavio Premoli is going to arrive tonight. With the band, there are Franco Mamone, Roberto “Birillo” Barone, the only Italian technician. The other “roadies” are Mike O’Shea, stage director, Dave Yallop, sound technician, Pat Barkley and Bob Richardson, who share stage duties with Birillo. Mike and Bob are two technicians borrowed from ELP for this tour. “Three of the technicians we had up until the end of the Italian tour left,” Franz tells me, “An American tour is very tiring and they didn’t feel like coming back.”
The first “Spaghetti party” will take place tonight. Franz and Francone are already famous “chefs” in America and so is their spaghetti, cooked out of desperation during the last tour, consisting only of hamburgers, promoted by the always more and more famous “portugueses”. The party is at the manager of Mountain's villa, about fifty km away from New York City. Flavio Premoli, who has just arrived from Milan, prefers to go to bed, since it’s already 3 in the morning for him, due to jet lag. At the party, there are the most important American engagement agents: Frank Barselona, perhaps the most famous of them all, is even in love with the Italian band; he’s full of excitement and it’s him who wanted to organize the current tour.
Normally, Barselona works for people like ELP, Deep Purple, Allman Brothers, Yes, important bands, that’s to say. “I absolutely had to engage PFM,” Frank explains to me, “It’s the most exciting band I have seen in a while and I want to be with them when they become huge.” I asked when he expects this to happen. “It’s difficult to say. PFM is one of those bands that can last forever, so there is no rush to establish it within the American public. They don’t push with one single that could mean immediate success if that single works, just like it happened to Golden Barring with “Radar Love”. Now the Dutch band is a bit in trouble because it can work as a main event, as a top act, but do they have enough qualities to do it? PFM is a band with the same worth as the best American and British acts, musically speaking. They need to work hard, do plenty of concerts and make themselves known to as many people as possible. Maybe it will still take one year, but it could happen even before, if “PFM Cook” started selling well.” Felix Pappalardi arrived from Nantucket specifically for the occasion, with his wife. A three-hour flight to meet la Premiata. “Hello, fellow countryman!”, he greets me. His grandparents are Italian, from Naples and Bari. “It was about time an Italian band arrived in America,” Felix says with enthusiasm. We learn that his real name is Felicetto Antonio Pappalardi: it couldn’t be more Italian than that…
NEW YORK
The tour starts tonight. PFM will play at the Felt Forum in Madison Square Garden, with John Sebastian and Poco, a still very underrated band in Europe, but really popular in America. The 4000 tickets to the Forum have all been sold already.
The time for the concert arrives. PFM finds a giant bouquet of flowers from Frank Barcelona in the dressing rooms, together with French champagne bottles from Tamla Motown, according to the best cinematographic tradition (look at photo). Someone comes to call the band and two minutes later, Flavio, Franz, Francone, Mauro and Patrick are already playing the first notes of “Four Holes in the Ground”. There is a small group of young Italian-Americans shouting PFM-PFM-PFM at the top of their lungs. The other 4000 are bewildered. When Francone starts playing “Celebration” - a sharp guitar riff - the Felt Forum begins swaying. Some people start clapping and tapping to the beat, and the whole audience soon finds itself involved in PFM’s music. “Mr. 9 Till 5” and “Alta Loma 5 Till 9”, the whole side two of the live album, are played one after the other. When Mauro is left alone to play the violin solo, the audience is fully excited and explodes into a giant applause when the other musicians come back on stage to play William Tell: the audience is standing, pressed against the stage. The music stops and roaring covers the whole Forum: the concert lasted 36 minutes and it’s incredible how the band managed to create such enthusiasm in such a small time. Lisa Robinson, American reporter for New Musical Express, tells me: “Madness! It’s real madness not knowing anything about this band yet. Maybe I’m getting old. I have to send the weekly mail tomorrow morning and it’s better if I run home to write a review of the concert.” “Aren’t you going to see Sebastian and Poco?” I ask her. “Are you kidding? PFM made my night already!”
The dressing rooms are full of people. Journalists, photographers, fans who managed to sneak behind the stage. John Sebastian comes inside the dressing room with his wife and gives us another surprise: he speaks in a dialect-like Italian and tells us his grandparents are from L’Aquila and Bari. It’s crazy, even John Sebastian is one of us!
Frank Barcelona is excited and talks about organizing a second concert in New York City with PFM only.
PROVIDENCE, NEW ENGLAND
We leave the hotel at one. Mauro just did an hour-and-a-half long interview with Mary Campbell of the American Association Press, United States’ biggest journalism agency. An hour long flight takes us to Providence. PFM plays at the Palace Theatre with ZZ Top, a rock-blues band with a style similar to Canned Heat’s. Point Blank, a band from New York, opens the gig - a difference from the last tour, where PFM almost always opened, can already be noticed.
Mauro is in perfect shape and the concert will be all his. There are technical problems with the keyboards, which will be only slightly audible for the whole show. The PFM guys prove to be great professionals by relying on Mauro, who does fantastic things during solos. Everything is repeated: William Tell surprises the standing audience of Providence. In the dressing rooms, Flavio is really mad: “Coming all the way here without being able to play is useless.” The Moog lost its key during transportation, the piano had been tuned badly, the organ was covered by the other instruments and the Elka didn’t work as he expected. Yet, the audience went crazy with PFM playing at 40% of their ability. What will they do if they see a right concert?
BALTIMORE
Concert at Civic Center. PFM is a special guest at a “heavy metal rock” event with rock ‘n’ roll bands: Steppenwolf, Blue Oyster Cult, Aerosmith and Ruth Copland. One promoter tells me that la Premiata was chosen to give a break to the event: “Six incessant hours of rock ‘n’ roll can make your head explode.” PFM plays second to last and there are 12 thousand people in the Civic Center. The songs in the set list are the same, but “Celebration” is played first: forty pushed minutes that knock the audience down. An encore is resoundingly requested and PFM is allowed to play it for the first time ever (when you play as a support band, you often know by contract that an encore needs to be authorized by the manager of the event). They play “La Carrozza di Hans” and I remember the first Festival dell’Avanguardia in Viareggio, in 1971, when Italian bands were eagerly coming out of their cocoons.
The dressing rooms are swarmed by members of the other bands coming to offer their congratulations, by the music journalist of Baltimore Sun and by Don Fletcher of “Rolling Stone”: “Hey, guys, I thought I had heard everything in the album, which is fantastic, but live - wow!” Well, Rolling Stone’s review will certainly be a good one.
MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN
A two-hour flight to Chicago. We get on another flight and we arrive in Marquette after four stops, a city on the southern coast of Lake Superior, which separates Michigan from Canada. A concert with Dave Mason (ex Traffic, popular in the United States) is planned at Upper Michigan university: 9000 students. On the day of the concert, it starts snowing in the afternoon and the airport is closed. Dave Mason takes a private jet from New York, hoping to land in a military airport near Marquette, but they tell us his landing was denied. The concert is canceled and, since the band must be paid anyway in these cases, PFM asks to play and let everyone get in for free. The Students’ Union head doesn’t agree: “Dave Mason promised us he will come here on December 3rd, so if you play tonight, maybe not many people will come see Dave Mason alone,” the guy explains. It’s undoubtedly the best compliment PFM has ever received since the tour started. We take advantage of it to go visit north Michigan’s radio station, WMQT-Radio. The DJ stops the program immediately and broadcasts an interview with Mauro Pagani, interrupting it to play almost the whole “PFM Cook” album. Things that happen in our dear old RAI too…
PHILADELPHIA
I’m noticing that America is made up of states very different from one another. On the East Coast, everything is very advanced. In Philadelphia, where we stayed five days ago, money flows everywhere: cars are big, bills at restaurants are expensive (a dish of spaghetti can cost even 4.000 lira) and even a coke costs 200 lira more than in Ohio or Wisconsin, for example. Philadelphia struck us for the big Italian community. We even met two black girls who spoke Roman dialect, Deadrie and Charlie, who took us on a city tour. Maybe it was because we spoke in dialect, but I felt like I was in Rome. Tram rails in the middle of the street and not very high houses; the most surprising thing was that every shop had an Italian name: Graniti, Nocera, Grandi, Caccialepori, Garofoli, Bianchi and even Rossi.
PFM’s concert in Philadelphia was amazing: 19.000 people and everyone requested an encore by lighting up matches. Maybe I should explain this characteristic of American concerts: at the end of a show, instead of clapping, everyone shouts and lights up matches, which are given to you as a gift (in boxes similar to our minerva) when you buy cigarettes here. Concert halls are always dark and if people want an encore, a torchlight procession lights up in a few seconds. “La Carrozza di Hans” is the song PFM plays as an encore, but in a very different version than the original, which leaves space for improvisation. In Detroit, where PFM played as “guest of honor” at the Masonic Theatre the other day, “La Carrozza di Hans” even turned into a blues, with Mauro playing the harmonica.
The band is finding success everywhere and I wouldn’t be surprised if “PFM Cook” entered the charts in a couple of weeks. In Grand Rapid, a city in the middle of Michigan, 200 km away from Detroit, where the gig took place at Aquinas College, 500 copies were sold in two days: the entire amount Tamla Motown had distributed there.
The album came out only a few days ago and the first reviews appeared this week. Billboard says: “The five-piece Italian band offers a huge and functional combination of rock, electronic sound, jazz and melodic folk, with some lyrics in Italian that make this live work one of the most interesting. PFM is one of the few bands that manages to move between commercial spaces and more musically sophisticated ones, showing to be one of the biggest executors and creators. The synth, flute and accordion work is particularly good, and it makes this album particularly powerful for AM and FM (that’s to say, both popular and progressive - editor’s note) radio stations…” Record World: “Hard rock with great classical tones… A brilliant and fresh sound offered with the special dynamics their music properly captures. The musical structure of “Dove… Quando...” and the crescendo in “Celebration” offer great things.”
The interviews take place one after the other everyday, and Mauro and Patrick, the two in the band who split newspapers and radio duties, don’t seem to have breaks anymore.
They told me PFM is still trying to make itself known here, which isn’t necessary on the West Coast, California, where the majority of their fans are. We will be there next week! Yesterday, the concert in Erie, Pennsylvania, was canceled. The band should have played with Johnny Winter, but only 2000 out of the 6000 tickets available have been sold, so the promoter canceled the concert. Everyone talks about an economic crisis, but they still haven’t noticed that the main reason lies in the creative crisis American rock is suffering. Rock ‘n’ roll has been heard for years in America and 99% of the bands keep playing the same stuff over and over. With a better instrumentation, with more spectacular shows, but always the same stuff - and I believe the public is getting tired, showing it with famous people like Johnny Winter, too. In Detroit, where PFM played with Stray Dog and Dave Mason, the promoter had noticed a kind of apathy in the public when it came to pre-sales; it was only after they advertised PFM as “the best European progressive rock band” and had it appear as special guest that tickets started selling, reaching sold out.
SAN FRANCISCO
Exciting week for this tour: we finally are in California and I noticed the dreamy atmosphere from the very first moment.
The PFM guys have already done twenty-four interviews (Billboard, Cashbox, Rolling Stone, Creem, Teen Magazine, L.A. Times, Erald Magazine, Record World…) and they have a great reputation. The last time PFM was in Los Angeles dates back to last year, where it played at the Whiskey’s for five days (and at the Forum), so when they decided to pay a visit to the club, it looked like the prodigal son had returned: greetings and kisses for everyone, while there was a flood of drinks all around, offered by the management.
I attended many interviews and the respect for the Italian band is really remarkable: some interviews lasted for more than two hours and one of the most interesting ones was with Nat Freedland of Billboard, a critic feared by all the most important bands due to his “tough” reputation: anyway, at the end of the meeting, Nat took Mauro Pagani with him to introduce him to the American newspaper’s newsroom.
Meanwhile, reviews of the previous weeks’ concerts have been published: Detroit Free Press gave a lot of space to the event (more than the space given to Elton John’s and David Bowie’s last gigs), mentioning Dave Mason only to say that PFM appeared as a “guest”, while Rolling Stone wrote that “...PFM, from Italy, played a short but spectacular 35-minute long show that made everything that came afterwards feel superfluous. PFM’s sound is definitely the best thing we’ve heard in New York in a long time and it sadly faded John Sebastian’s and Poco’s appearances…”
St. Francisco’s radio station K-She dedicated an hour and a half of its program to PFM’s music, after Brian Fatter, a DJ working at the station, listened to the two shows at Ambassador Theatre, claiming to be enthusiastic about them.
However, this isn’t all yet: at the concerts in Milwaukee and Davenport, there were spontaneous applauses, something very rare with the demanding American audiences, and Peggy Mulley-Head of Milwaukee Chronicle said that, in three years of reporting, she had never seen such a warm welcome to an opening act, which are usually heard with scarce interest. The album “PFM Cook” is starting to gain consent in almost all American big cities and the certainty of a forthcoming appearance is in the air, so we celebrate and are incredibly excited.
Last night’s concert in Chicago, a city 200 km away from San Francisco and home to one of America’s biggest universities, was absolutely wonderful: the audience now starts clapping at the announcement of the songs, which shows the concise knowledge of the Italian band’s material. The concert began very late, so the promoter switched the lights on as soon as the band was finished playing, in order to hurry the change in instrumentation to introduce Fleetwood Mac, the night’s main act, but the 4.500 students didn’t agree and stood up clapping until the promoter gave up and went to call the guys, who were already in the dressing rooms: the new version of “La Carrozza di Hans” destroyed the audience here too, sending it over the edge. A really big success that filled us with enthusiasm.
From Sacramento to Chico, the countryside is one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever seen. Giant orchards with melons under each tree (and we are in the middle of winter), huge farms, ranches, horses and cows grazing. Los Angeles is a gorgeous city, if it can even be called a city: it extends for almost 150 km and every house is northern, Mexican or alpine style. Flowers, palm trees, magnolias and succulents of any size cover every garden. Californian people have great well-being and this reflects in their personality, which is one of the most outgoing: people are warm, friendly and you can become friends with anyone in a couple of hours; the girls are some of the most beautiful too, amazing mixes of northern and hispanic ethnicities.
It rained in Los Angeles on Monday and people walked around in the rain, amused like a child running excited in the first snow. It had been almost a year since it last rained, they told us. The next day, it was beautifully sunny and the sky was clear; it was 25°C at one in the afternoon - in the middle of December! I wouldn’t be surprised if PFM moved here. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if I moved here.
Today, we arrived in San Francisco for two concerts at the Winterland with Poco and Dave Mason. Everything we’ve heard about “Frisco” is absolutely true: a beautiful city that manages to contain Rome, Genoa, Paris, London, Tokyo, New York and Frascati within its hills. We’re going to stay here for three days, a dream we would never want to wake up from.
