Turin, early 1980s. One of the largest factories, the driving force of twentieth-century Fordism, began to show the first signs of arrhythmia, and soon the city began an inevitable transformation that radically altered its very DNA. Between industrial demobilization and the transition to the new millennium, a new generation was ready to break the mold and, to paraphrase Lou Reed, chose to "walk on the wild side of the road." Their form of expression was music; the chosen venues, more out of necessity than choice, were the city's underground. Within a few years, some of them became leading figures in Italian music through Mau Mau, Africa Unite, and Subsonica, but that's another story. Ours, instead, aims to recount the primal energy from which it all sprang: Loschi Dezi. But ours is also—and above all—a film about the city and some places we consider indispensable. From the Balòn flea market to the former Fiat Lingotto, now a shopping mall; from the Galleria Umberto I to the El Paso anarchist social center; from the Mulino del Brenta near the Dora Riparia to the Transeueropa Recording studio; from the Le Roi Music Hall dance club to one of Turin's most iconic locations: the Po River.Our aim is to describe Turin in that period: from the March of the 40,000 (1980) to the first Castellani administration (1993). Fifteen years, poorly counted, that marked a transformation of the city unlike anything seen since the capital moved from Turin to Rome over 100 years earlier: from an industrial city, a symbol of twentieth-century Fordism, to…what? Music, then, is a pretext, the key to achieving something else.
“They called us to play at the Cammello… that night we thought we'd perform our dark pieces revisited in a tango, cha-cha, waltz, and liscio version. The audience had a great time. We decided to continue along that path…” - Loschi Dezi
In a Turin pub brewery, in the mid-1980s, a group of young people transformed their small dark band into one of the most unusual bands on the Turin and Italian underground scene of the time. Loschi Dezi were a rather bizarre and strange group, starting with their name. They combined cultured authorship and punk music, dance hall music and North African “Rai,” waltz and new wave. They drew inspiration from Paolo Conte, the Clash, Fred Buscaglione, and the Talking Heads, as well as Piazzolla and the Negresses Vertes. The most striking example of that blend of genres and sounds is represented by the French band Mano negra, led by globalist chansonnier Mamu Chao. With only one true studio album, "Cabala," under their belt, several years of club apprenticeship, and hundreds of concerts across Italy and Europe, they decided to disband in 1993. Like a phoenix, all the members took on other, more recognizable guises. The singer (Luca Morino) and the keyboardist (Fabio Barovero) founded Mau Mau; the saxophonist (Paolo Parpaglione), the guitarist (Gianluca Cato Senatore), and the drummer (Davide Graziano) joined Africa Unite. The sound engineer and producer (Max Casacci) created Subsonica a few years later, and another of their producers, Carlo Ubaldo Rossi, became one of the key figures in Italian music over the last 30 years. Our story will focus on Loschi Dezi and the world from which they emerged. Then at a certain point, between the 1980s and 1990s, this apparently unshakable paradigm collapsed, creating new visions. Our intent is to show Turin, from the march of the 40,000 to the first Castellani city government. About fifteen years have decreed the beginning of an anthropological mutation, as it did not occur since the move of the capital city more than 100 years earlier. Our point of view will be that of the world of “underground” music which expressed the most iconoclastic side of culture: from prominent personalities to the first recording studios, from (very few) music clubs to musical groups. Among these the Loschi Dezi. The protagonist of our journey will be Federico Sacchi, a passionate Turin music-teller, who will have the task of taking us on both sides of the compass: from the assembly line to the “underground” world. It will be a story on Turin: how it was, how it has transformed, and how it could be in the coming decades. Ready to "Dance a new misstep"?
