la Repubblica - 9 September 1984

THE ROCK IS NOT TECHNIQUE YOU PLAY RATHER YOUR FEELINGS

REBEL MUSIC, FINE; A GREAT CONCERT MADE OF THIRTY THOUSAND EMOTIONS WITH THE HEART IN THE THROAT

The dream of rock 'n' roll is that of rebellious and gritty music, which speaks to young people with their language and their energy, which has the strength to tell the life with a few words and two guitar chords and to express in this way, with simplicity and passion, the desires, anxieties and anger of generations of teenagers from all over the world.

Clash, there is no doubt, are the embodiment of this dream, the image of a youthful myth that does not want to die, a music that needs nothing more than passion, energy, strength to run to the step with the world, with everyday life.

Forgetful and lashing guitars, songs sung with your heart in your throat, here is the simple and always effective formula that the Clash propose live and that once again captured the hearts of the public, more than thirty thousand people who gathered in the Roman arena of the National Day of "Unity", to acclaim the last rock 'n' roll heroes, the only ones perhaps, together with Bruce Springsteen, who still manage to make teenagers dream.

A population of young people who still gather in a few occasions in such a compact way, and who makes adolescence the reason for their strength: difficult to find in the multitude of Friday nights someone who was more than twenty years old and who did not have the desire to find Clash songs a match with his feelings.

And in fact the concert was mainly made of emotions, but not of good music, because the Clash, children of the most rigorous punk, have long banned the technique to rely on immediacy, on the spontaneity of the feeling that they manage to build with those who listen to them, and ask to be able to hear, albeit for one night, in the center of the world.

Joe Strummer, leader of this band of "desperados" of rock-n 'roll who plays memorable songs in an unsteady and enthralling way, certainly does not lack charisma and grit when he intones with his hoarse voice the songs that made Clash great , from I 'm so bore with Usa, to Tommy Gun, from Radio Clash to Jennifer Jones, favoring the old repertoire of punk' n 'roll to the punk and reggae atmospheres.

The group as a whole could have done better, but no one else would have known how to involve thousands and thousands of young people in a bedlam. (it's at)

by ERNESTO ASSANTE
09 September 1984 sect.

We are the Clash, subversive verses of songs as slogans - Joe Strummer: «The concert is peace»

La Stampa -
9 September 1984

We are the Clash, subversive verses of songs as slogans - Joe Strummer: «The concert is peace»

ROME - More than fifteen thousand people, piled between the stones and the dust of the Arena at the Unity festival, attended the other evening at the second Italian concert of the highly anticipated Clash (after Cava del Tirreni, Rome and Reggio Emilta, the group will stop tomorrow in Genoa and Tuesday in Turin).

The historical formation of politicized rock appeared on stage at nine o'clock, in front of an audience decidedly available for involvement: more than the music proposed by Joe Strummcr (vocals), Paul Simon (bass), Vince White and Nick Sheppard (guitars) and Pete Howard (drums), people perhaps wanted to applaud a myth, a tradition. Under the writing -Sex Style Subversionm and against the background of a large display board covered with black and white photos, the c.lashes launched their classic opening call. And the audience replied: raising his fist, sometimes covered with white and black rags, according to the punk fashion, dancing, singing, shouting pleìia in a certain verse of songs that sound just like slogans.

From London calllng to Com- Joc Strummer, leader of Gash bat rock, from Are you ready for the war to Rock Casbah up to the celebrattsstma Radio Clash, Joe Strummer and his group did not spare themselves, even if a first disappearance from the they did it on stage after an hour and a half of music, with the audience who - still - showed no sign of moving. In the second round, they proposed other classics and only after eleven o'clock was the concert really over. • Politics is not everything in our music, but it is a fundamental aspect of life and therefore of our musical proposal »: Joe Strummer, tireless, with his blond hair band in the middle of his head and a red suit, he met after the show some journalists. "We have life within us - he said - for this we can win: only life can free us from the domination of the system". • You already have your American missiles - he continued - we in England have ours; but to fight for peace there is no reason to go to marches: our concert is peace, life is peace ». f. c.

ENGLISH

A huge crowd for the concert of the legendary English group "The Clash", which has made pacifism its flag.

L'Unita -
9 September 1984 pg14

A Canadian wins the Busoni prize

Unita Festival

A huge crowd for the concert of the legendary English group "The Clash", which has made pacifism its flag.

BOLZANO - The Busoni prize was awarded to the Canadian Luois Lortie, who thus won the 36th edition of the international piano competition of Bolzano F. Busoni. The jury unanimously awarded the prize to the Canadian. A long ovation greeted the awarding of the highest award. In second place was the Austrian Matthias Fletzberger; West German Bernd Glemser finished third. The Busoni prize had not been awarded for two years.

ROME - 6 pm on Friday evening on the National Day of Unity à. In the gigantic concert arena, five thousand people are already crowded under the stage. Many have in their hands 11 special issue of «Immaginarla», 11 party newspaper: on the front page an unlikely and amusing Carlo Marx By bicycle Invites to the «sensational event» of the evening: «Had I known it before, I would have come too ". Over the crowd of machinists, light and sound technicians In constant movement, the red crest stands out, on a red dress, on red shoes ("It is certainly no coincidence that I'm dressed all in red" he will then say answering a question) by Joe Strummer. He advances towards the audience raising his clenched fist aloft but then is grabbed by a portly boxer: the boxer, who is part of his group of bodyguards, carries them back behind the scenes. It is only 11 prologue. At 9 pm the scenario changed. For hours, between 1 avenues of the Festival, an uninterrupted stream of multicolored crests passed, complete with black leather and studs, mixed with many In jeans and a T-shirt: they are 1 veterans of the last tan before school starts. They are all there, and they will not be disappointed. With the lights off, the "official" ironic, biting self-presentation arrives like thunder, repeated with an increasingly altered voice: lives up to its name, overwhelms the twenty thousand, twenty-five thousand crammed into the arena with its most famous songs, with the power of thousands of decibels of amplification (in some passages even insufficient), and with a strength and capacity for involvement that the complex Briton has also kept intact in the new lineup which lines up, alongside Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon, Vince White, Nick Sheppard and Peter Howard. The audience responds, is at ease, dances frantically or strolls to the rhythm of a familiar and inviting soundtrack, always willing to pick up the chorus of the hardest refrain. Twenty thousand shouting "Rock of the casbah" together with a Joe Strummer ready to provoke: "Who have got a job?" (who has a job among you?) yells into the microphone. The many who have understood answer: «None». As a symbol, the notes of "Know your right", the flag of combat rock, pacifist and anti-Thatcher of the English group, start: "You have the right not to be killed, Hal is entitled to money for eat, you have the right to speak freely at least until you have the voice not even to try.

The rights of him, Joe Strummer, 11 repeated as in a turn-of-the-century rally, transported to the year of Orwell, during the press conference after the concert. Standing on the table with a half-empty bottle of Frascati Superiore in his hand, after having overwhelmed chairs and microphones, he added: «We have the right to live in peace. Here and now. Because this is peace, the possibility of speaking freely to each other, as we are doing now, without the danger of a bomb hanging over our heads.

But the bomb is there, and it's already suspended. “Listen to me screams Strummer in an increasing confusion caused by his comrades who pass by among the journalists offering wine - he is also against the bomb, and there is no need to go to pacifist demonstrations. You just have to pull out, with all your might, your will to live and hit it in the face of Mrs. Thatcher, Reagan, or Cernienko. We do it with our music and that's why they say our rock is political and scary. Because the strength of rock and a body that dances rock is frightening to power.The harangue continues, provocative: «We were in Naples, there was so much heat. An hour ago I sang in front of a wonderful audience. Why don't you who are the Intellectuals who have studied in the Universities move? In Italy there are bombs, in Spain, in England. And in the meantime with Mr. Reagan's dollars they start killing people in South America again. We fight singing in a thousand concerts, even if we could stay at home comfortably making a lot more money by recording records: bring out your strength and slam it in the face of all these people. Make your own luke, boys, make your own luke.

Angelo Melone

Choosing from 60 labels, everyone vows to stay sober

L'Unita -
11 September 1984 pg9

Choosing from 60 labels, everyone vows to stay sober

• No soft lights, no vintage furniture, but 60 different labels to choose the right wine. This could be the slogan of the national wine shop, one of the nicest corners of the Festa dell'Uniti (together with the wine bars of the regional Castelli 'Romani)

A long long counter, white and orange, a few tables (not many, just the place for about fifty people) a little green here and there and above all two great refrigerators to keep the most popular wines always fresh. the designer's touch above the Roberto counter, known as the Monteverde section, has transformed a white net into a modern visible glass drainer: stuff to apply for a patent. No music, but by choice: There are too many places of attraction - they say - and far too many, here you don't just come to taste the regional wine products but also to have a chat with your friends. The prices of the wines are more than accessible, the most expensive bottle does not reach 10 thousand lire and a glass of prosecco costs 1200 lira.

The wine shop was built organized by the companions of the sections of Monteverde and Ippolito Nievo. How come? «Simple - Roberto replies again -, it is because we are true experts on the subject. To those who insinuate that this is an excuse to avoid the fatigue of the restaurant, we have proposed a challenge - at the last glass. For the moment we have not found anyone able to fight at the shy PCI stand that we hope in some Venetian visitors to have some satisfaction.

Excuse me, can you give us a bottle for three thousand lire ?: The two boys in front of the counter do not reach thirty years in two. On the other hand, they proudly show off a look of real bad guys, complete with studs and mops cut like crests, three thousand lire is really little but this half bottle, I give it to you even for less.

The "half" arrives on the table and since that day the two boys have become regular customers of the wine shop, they arrive around eleven, show their friend what is left in their pocket and leave only at closing time, kind and respectful as few.

It was understood that even the very young do not mind wine.
Since last Friday, when after the Clash concert, the wine shop reached the box office record (more than 5 million).

The fact is that the pleasure of drinking unites so many: already at 8 in the evening it is not easy to find a place to sit and when at 2 in the morning you start cleaning the tables, it is not easy to convince the last customers to go out.

Drunk? No - he answers no, decided from behind the counter - perhaps we will not have the most refined cellar but we only keep genuine wines that do no harm to anyone.

Carlo Chelo

The highest percentage at the national festival dell'Unità - High membership of young people and retirees

L'Unita -

11 September 1984 pg15

Massive adhesion to the PCI initiative, there is time until 20
Referendum, one hundred thousand signatures against the "cuts" of the decree

The highest percentage at the national festival dell'Unità - High membership of young people and retirees

The ceiling of 100,000 signatures to say no to cuts on escalator has already collapsed. And by 20 September the Communist Party will be able to bring an avalanche of signatures to the Supreme Court. The latest figure is on Sunday evening: in Lazio, 103,783 people signed up, in the collection desks scattered in the workplace, in the squares, at the Unità festivals. The lion's share is obviously the national holiday of the EUR, with its 50,317 signatures.

But it should be emphasized - says Angelo Fredda, of the PCI Regional Committee - that the membership is massive everywhere, despite attempts at boycott, like at the IMO ". And everyone really signs - Fredda argues - with very high percentages of pensioners and young people. , for example right at the EUR. Just mention the concert day with the rock band of the Clash, when an audience obviously made up mainly of young people recorded a real surge in adhesions. Groups of young people gathered in front of the counter and discussed animatedly before d i put your signature under the forms ..

But in addition to uniting several generations, the battle to defend the escalator finds everywhere social categories and workers politically deployed on different fronts. In factories, above all, managers and simple sympathizers of trade union organizations ranging from CISL, to UIL, to CGIL, find themselves signing together. So too in the ministries, socialists, communists, republicans, many Christian Democrats sign without subordinating this battle to political calculation.

And it is also for this reason that all the party organizations, in the center as well as in the periphery, in Rome as in the other provinces, are not yet resting on the now obvious success of the collection. The data split between the capital and the rest of Lazio indicates an identical commitment everywhere, with 15,003 signatures collected in Rome (excluding the national festival) and 38,463 in Lazio.

Ten days after the referendum is closed, therefore, the organizational machine does not stop. Up to the 20th, initiatives are planned everywhere, at the ATAC, in the markets, at the INPS, at the Milk Center, in Porta Portese as well as in the ministries. And from tomorrow, benches will also open inside the University. At this point anyway. The regional committee of the party is already beginning to urge the federations to have the material to be sent to Botteghe Oscure as quickly as possible, and from here to the Supreme Court.

All ready-made forms with notaries' authenticated signatures must begin to arrive in order to be able to "close the accounts" without amassing all the work on the last day.