Sono accadute tante cose dall’ultima volta che abbiamo scritto pubblicamente su questo blog, chiudendo gli occhi, il pensiero del tour inglese ci fa sentire invecchiati di dieci anni, invece solo pochi mesi sono passati dall’ultima esperienza fuori dai confini della nostra Italia e dai nostri amati racconti.

E intanto?

Intanto si giunge sempre più al nocciolo delle problematiche e delle esperienze musicali che coinvolgono aspiranti musicisti negli anni dell’estinzione, quelli tanto attesi dai Maya, quelli confusi dal mercato libero, quelli delle produzioni fai da te, quelli del talento dei talent show, quelli dei dischi virtuali e dei giornali senza carta.

Ma procediamo con ordine :

Dopo la pubblicazione di Ghost Dance, il nostro secondo disco, e dopo il tour inglese siamo tornati in patria e come gruppo spalla di una delle più acclamate band in circolazione nel belpaese, Il Teatro Degli Orrori, siamo arrivati a suonare in quelli che da sempre abbiamo reputato i palchi che hanno fatto la storia della musica rock in Italia. Quando dopo un lungo viaggio arrivi all’Alcatraz di Milano senti l’adrenalina e la magia del posto già nel varcarne la soglia, al momento del soundcheck già ti sembra di sentire il respiro delle tante persone che aspettano l’ apertura delle danze. Così è stato durante il mese di marzo anche nelle tappe di Brescia, al Latte più, di Pordenone al Deposito Giordani, di Bologna all’Estragon, di Roma all’Orion, dove abbiamo suonato per più di duemila persone.

è stata un’esperienza incredibile, è straordinario vedere così tante  le mani battere al tempo di una canzone che hai scritto.

Nascono nuove amicizie, nuovi rapporti di lavoro, nasce soprattutto tanta fiducia in quello che è il tuo percorso musicale e per un attimo ci si riesce a sentire padroni del tempo. 

Intanto vengono pubblicate ottime recensioni del nostro disco eppure la gloria dura l’istante di leggerle, già si è pronti a passare oltre, alla nuova novità senza aver assaporato la vecchia.

ImageLa nuova situazione lavorativa ci porta a conoscere nuovi giornalisti e così ci ritroviamo ad essere ospiti della RAI, prima a Roma, negli studi di Saxa Rubra per la trasmissione di Radio Rai Tre Stereonotte e poi a Napoli a registrare un live per un’altra trasmissione di MammaRai : Asiago Live.Image

Conosciamo anche qui grandissimi giornalisti e personaggi che hanno intervistato nella loro carriera pezzi di storia come i Rolling Stones, come Kurt Cobain o David Bowie e che oggi vista la promozione culturale prevista nel nostro paese, sono rinchiusi nei loro uffici ad organizzare il palinsesto pubblicitario della Radio più importante d’Italia.

 

La tappa successiva ci vede nella nostra amata Napoli, in occasione della festa della musica, a suonare in uno dei posti più inusuali ed al contempo affascinanti : la chiesa di Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio.

Prima del concerto una riunione alla quale avrebbero dovuto presenziare Sindaco ed assessore ma che purtroppo si è ridotta nuovamente alla solita conversazione tra addetti ai lavori, pronti a presentare milioni di progetti che non saranno mai realizzati e con tutta probabilità neppure letti.

 

 

Ora siamo in Sicilia, reduci da tre date che ci hanno riportato a tanti anni fa, a quando iniziavamo a suonare, in locali piccolissimi pronti a metterci in gioco per quel minimo valore che può avere oggigiorno il comunicare.

Sempre in cammino, speriamo di non dimenticare la nostra missione, di non confondere la bellezza con la fortuna, di conservare la sacralità di un gesto che l’uomo immotivatamente compie da sempre : suonare.

Image 

Tra fine agosto ed inizio settembre avremo altre date con Il Teatro per ritornare il 20 settembre nel baluardo difensivo della nostra città : Il Maschio Angioino.Image

Last week end we played in a fantastic venue here in Italy, the ESTRAGON in Bologna, as opening act for Il Teatro degli Orrori.
It’ useless to say how fantastic and exciting was to play in such an important and beautiful place, so we want to focus on something else, something way more thrilling than your first gig in front of a thousand people: driving in Bologna.

We use to say that if you are able to drive in Naples you can drive everywhere, well, it’s no longer true.  Bologna is beautiful, and quite small, but if you don’t know EXACTLY the way to reach you destination the risk is to run in circles around the city for miles and find that you are again where you started. The frightening “T ZONE” (where you are NEVER allowed to go with your car) is pretty undefined, it exists but you can’t see it. The poor iPhone Maps app was going crazy, refreshing the itinerary every 10 seconds but it was always wrong, making Salvio go crazy. :)

So if you are going to drive in Bologna please follow these advices:

1. Beware of the Buses. They are the kings of the streets, never ever invade the bus lane, they will kill you.

2. Beware of the T ZONE. It is difficult to find, but you can find yourself inside it without knowing why or how, but sure that you will receive a high ticket. :(

3. NEVER follow the iPhone Maps itinerary. It’s a ticket machine. Wrong way and bus lanes are guaranteed.

4. Don’t get mad if you have to drive for 3Km to reach the other side of the street, it’s the only way.

5. Rent a bike or walk or, of course, take the Bus.

Of course this is a joke, but it’s funny how we wasted so much time driving without find any solution, but unless we didn’t get tickets!

Enjoy some pictures from this week end

If you want, please join our FACEBOOK page to get updates and real time news.

T A K E C A R E

the mantra ATSMM 

It’s been a long time and a long way since we wrote our last post, we were leaving UK to come back in Italy, looking back to an intense 10 days no stop gigging.

Now we took our time and many things happened, the most important is that now we are touring Italy with an important and amazing band, Il Teatro degli Orrori . We are supporting them in five dates of their winter tour and  then there are ten more to come in summer/autumn.

We have been playing in Pordenone, Brescia and Rome (yesterday, we are just back home) and it has been one of the most beautiful and exciting things we’we ever done.

N e x t   d a t e s

23/3/12 BOLOGNA @ ESTRAGON   tickets available on TicketOne

29/3/12 MILANO @ ALCATRAZ  tickets available on TicketOne 

As usual, you can join our Facebook Page and follow all the updates and news.

HERE SOME PICTURES

T A K E  C A R E 

The Mantra ATSMM

Dear Friends,

The end of a Tour leaves you with a lot inside – in the real world only eight days have passed from beginning to end, yet we feel like 80 days passed for us…You only realise how incredibly tired you are once you set foot home, in our case just under our beloved Vulcano, who looks upon us gently like an expecting father.

We could talk to you about our last performance in London at the Bull&Gate, one of our best ever, but we rather not. Instead we would like to use this space and this time to celebrate the very Italian notion of “Family”. our family.

The Mantra Family grows, evening after evening, gig after gig – our idea and aspiration to carry this ideal abroad is starting to work well, and we are proud! In every family there’s a boss, and our boss Giacomo is the first to be thanked;

In every family there is passion, and all too often nowadays passion comes after business in matters of arts and music; for us emotions, the joy of seeing people happy at our gigs, or maybe angry, or maybe sad, or maybe in love, and to be able to share all this with them is what pushes us to relentlessly do our work to the best of our abilities;

In a family there are people who sustain and celebrate you:We would like to thank all those who helped us during our “english days”, who made the project possible and helped us grow more mature during this time – We thank Henry and his passion for Spiritualized, we thank Lee, his passion for beautiful women and journalistic scoops, we thank Jamie, who pulled it all together, we thank the guys from Infestazioni Soniche, always present at every one of our steps forward, we thank Professor Frank for travelling from afar to see us, we thank Daniele, we thank the guys from Campania Rock and all those new people we had the joy and honour of meeting in person at each one of our gigs, who came to see us and helped us sustain our efforts.

We thank Luigi Nobile, the Great Mother of this Great Family, who from afar always enquired about how we were and if we were not feeling too cold.

It was an extraordinary experience, and soon we will open a new Chapter

15 gigs opening for Teatro Degli Orrori between March 2012 and Autumn 2012, up and down in Italy.

The ultimate aim of any family is to transmit healthy principles, ideals of beauty, of continuity, to tell and share stories, to help one another up when falling, to help one another become better all the time.

Thank you all from the bottom of our Hearts

The Mantra Above The Spotless Melt Moon

Dear Friends

We arrive in York in the early afternoon of Thursday and we are immediately bowled over by this beautiful city in North Yorkshire. The Old Cathedral dominating the medieval village seems completely immune to the passing of time…

We promptly go wandering around and immediately checkout the venue we will be playing in tonight, Fibbers.

Oh my, another historical venue, we can actually smell history here! What a magical place, where Nirvana, Radiohead, Muse and so many others moved their first steps…Just after soundcheck we are invited by the owner to his house and are fed a wonderful dinner! An example of incredible british courtesy….endless photos on his wall, framed contracts, all add to the surreal effect….

We are overwhelmed to see how many bands played here, as the guestbook confirms – to dine on the same table as Nirvana and Oasis, Coldplay and Stereophonics is quite a moving experience. The evening flows along with great ease, all goes really well. By the time we’ve finished we’re being asked when we will be back in future!

Now we’re back in the Van, listening to Spiritualized, the sun sits high in the sky and we are travelling along the last leg of our trip.

London : We are coming – JOIN US TONIGHT AT THE BULL&GATE – we start AT 9PM SHARP!

http://www.clubfandango.co.uk/bg_gig.php?id=2243

Ach, there is no sea in Bristol – What a Letdown! We were so convinced we’d find the sea, that we had started imagining eating fish and chips in front of the sea … Oh well.

Bristol may not have access to the sea, but we immediately like it, and we immediately feel at home (maybe because its a southern city, like our beloved Naples?). As soon as we’ve checked into our hotel we go for a walk, looking for the mythical “Christmas Steps” which served as inspiration for a track by Mogwai … At lunch time we finally try fish and potato pie. Hmm, we suspend judgement…

Suddenly it’s time to go down to the venue

from this moment on we experience a sequence of incredibly joyful moments – The Louisiana in an AMAZING place to start with, then we discover that the stage we’ll soon be performing on once carried Amy Winehouse, Coldplay, Muse and Mogwai, and finally, we meet the owner, whom we discover to be of Sicilian origin and who is incredibly kind to us, offering us oceans of beer (who needs the sea anymore?).

Time to go on stage, we are enthusiastic, the concert is awesome (Henry says it’s “the best he’s heard us playing” – for now that is :-)), everything is in the right place and last but no way least: we meet our old  friend Frank. who took it upon himself to travel far to come and support us. We love you Frank.

What a great day, great city. We want to come back, we need to come back.

The next morning, it’s time to leave for Birmingham – we know this gig is going to be a tough one, as we got the gig at the very last moment. The venue is pub more apt to welcome acoustic than electric sets, no poster is up warning people we are arriving, and, as you might expect on a Wednesday night in the outskirts of Birmingham (What a beautiful city!), no one is there to listen. Oh well.

Thursday morning and we are already driving towards medieval York – tonight we will be playing at Fibbers! (GET YOUR TICKETS BY FOLLOWING THE LINK)  We are soooo excited!

More news soon

The Mantra ATSMM

Dear Friends

The fourth leg of our UK tour sees us move from N’hampton to Sheffield, a city situated sufficiently north in the UK to worry us in regards to the weather we might find…

We approach Sheffield laden with prejudice assimilated during long discussions with our new english friends, according to whom it would be

1. Grey

2. Industrial

3. Dangerous (Poor Henry had his car broken into in Sheffield … )

Oh well – we approach this paradise, and after having carefully parked and checked into the third hotel in 4 days we go wandering into the centre of town.We discover that Sheffield (as one could expect, when prejudice is involved…) is quite different from what we imagined … it is very lively, entertaining, quite relaxed and inhabited by myriads on people our age, studying in one of Sheffield’s three Universities! Maybe the sun wasn’t shining and maybe it isn’t graced by our neapolitan sea…but it is waaaaay more beautiful than most northern Italian small cities!

Our enthusiasm rekindled (helped by the fact that you can buy 2 CDs here at a price which would make buying one in Italy impossible), we approach our Venue. the SOYO. Beautiful!

Big cocktails, small prices, big room, DJ Set, you name it! We are welcomed by numerous friendly faces and offered water, coke and beer in large quantities. WE WILL PUNISH whomever will ever say something negative about Sheffield to us again!

Two surreal moments we have to tell you about before we tell you about the gig:

a. English Pizza (uhhh there we go again with prejudice..) – Having avoided the ‘Neapolitan’ and ‘Mediterranean’ – named ones, we focus on a New Yorker’s pizza, which turns out to be a Margherita. Looking like a frisbee it confirms the only prejudice we still have – Pizza is best in Naples. FullStop

b. The oversized shop robber theatre : we witness a madman of abundant physical size just having stolen from a Supermarket, wrestle with several members of the local police force on the pavement for a surreally looong time, in front of half of Sheffield’s population and a lone japanese girl filming everything … The man is eventually arrested and brought to prison. Everybody else moves on towards the SOYO.

We get on stage after two acoustic sets and shake the SOYO with our loud electric set … Heads Or Tails, followed by Trieste, The Ship, a very intense Blue Army, The Wolf, Septembers, and finally Mangrove … another very satisfying performance (for us, we dearly hope also for our public :-))

The impression is a good one, comforted by the sight of several people dancing, many kind compliments, much beer and another questionable (but very generous!) bit of food on the tail end of the night …. 

Sheffield has moved our Hearts, and we The Mantra ATSMM have planted a small flag (with The Wolf) on our UK maps because WE WANT TO COME BACK!

We wake up the next morning and it’s …. well, snowing.

Ok time to move to Bristol (The Louisiana) where will be playing tonight. We neeeeed the sea!

The Mantra ATSMM

The second and third gigs of our UK tour were supposed to happen be at the Labour Club, in Northamption and at the Captains’ Rest in Glasgow. For reasons beyond our control, the Glasgow gig was cancelled, so we treated N’hampton (for our friends) to two concerts at the Labout Club…

This city, which reminds us of small cities in the north of Italy, lies north of London in the midst of Northamptonshire countryside, yet Adriana is convinced the Sea is hiding somewhere around there and we all wonder why…

Our on experience on stage during the first night was incredibly intense, and we enjoyed seeing the gig played by “An Escape Plan“, the band where our great road manager Henry, who we all agree looks remarkably like Roger Waters, plays bass.

Our second day in N’hampton was very relaxing, spent walking in the woods and eating roast pork (yuuum!) and rounded up with a very intimate, delicate semi-acoustic performance of our material, as stated above, again at the wonderful Labour Club. We met numerous Manchester City fans whom we gently mocked by singing a song for Mother Napoli. 

The only sad piece of news is our defeat at the hands of our (football) brothers of Genoa…

Tonight we play at the SOYO Live in Sheffield!

We’ll tell you all about it tomorrow!

The Mantra Above The Spotless Melt Moon

On the first full day in London (Thursday) we are welcomed by a pale sun (incredible!). We spend it meeting old friends and making some new ones…then head down to a pub in Gloucester Road. The next day we start preparing for our first gig … and we are already heading towards Kentish Town, final destination: The famous Bull & Gate

Once we arrive  we discover that Adriana has gone missing

But just for a short while …

Then SoundCheck – and off to the stage at 930 pm

Great Night, great PA, wonderful public!

Only one painful note – the brutally spicy Doner Kebab at 2 a.m. … No time for regrets, today we are off to Northampton, where we will play at the famous Labour Club – we are sooo excited! Hope to meet many of you there!

Goodbye London, see you on the 3rd of February, when we will play again at the Bull&Gate. Go Get Your tickets from WeGotTickets

The Mantra ATSMM

In Gloucester road, planning this touring week, drinking a beer. Excited!

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