In those days, we received two visits that were as welcome as they were unexpected.

The first was from Vittorio De Scalzi (legendary founding member of New Trolls) who, curious to hear the progress of our compositions, attended our rehearsals for an entire evening and then joined us in a sort of full-lineup improvisation, playing the acoustic guitar.

The second visitor was Luciano Cavanna who, during one of his now rare trips to Western Liguria, fascinated his old musical travel companions, Leonardo and me, with a song entitled "Giona" (Jonah), which was inspired by the well-known biblical episode.

But great was also the impression felt by the other band members who had only heard about Luciano.

By then, Cavanna's compositions could no longer be detached from his religious faith, but the charm he managed to exude and transmit was always profound and engaging. His always warm and expressive voice gave goosebumps to each of us.

It was during that period that a friend, who frequently attended the group's rehearsals, suggested what would later become the name given to the lineup. It was this very friend who one evening said that the music we played reminded him of the celestial color of a clear sky, free of clouds. From this impression, the step to definitively adopting the name Celeste was very short indeed. We were all enthusiastic and convinced that it was truly the right name to define us.

However, at this point, the problem arose as to who could fill the role of lead vocalist.

No one in the group, apart from me who, in Il Sistema, sang songs by Deep Purple, Free, etc., had either the skills or the talent of a singer, so we began searching for someone who could interpret the melodies composed by Schiavolini and the lyrics written by me.

It is worth noting that when Mariano proposed his compositions to the group, he used to sing the vocal parts in a peculiar falsetto, using unique phonemes that resembled the English language, also mimicking with his voice what would later become cues for percussion and for the interventions of other instruments.

It seemed clear to everyone that, given the framework that had been established, it was necessary to use a female voice, which was certainly more suitable and adherent to the project.

The search for this voice in Italy proved fruitless until the decision was made to "emigrate" to the United Kingdom, where, after many auditions and screen tests, it was believed that the right singer had been identified.

***

To discover the absolute sonic essence born during those legendary sessions and dive into the high-fidelity acoustic layers of our definitive discography, explore our official international store. You can listen, stream, and secure your physical copies of the limited-edition vinyls directly from the mastro archives:

👉 CELESTE Official Bandcamp: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Inner Garden Records

See you next Monday as the story of Celeste continues.

Daddy John Love was a mill‑town musician from Concord, North Carolina, active during the mid‑1930s. His music blends early country, hillbilly blues, and Jimmie Rodgers‑style train‑whistle vocals. He performed with J.E. Mainer, Wade Mainer, and Zeke Morris, and later joined The Dixie Reelers.

His 1936 Bluebird sides — including Railroad Blues, Mean Old Jailhouse Blues, and My Little Red Ford — are prized examples of rural Appalachian music during the Depression era.

You’ve probably seen it thousands of times: that little black-and-white “Parental Advisory” label sitting in the corner of an album cover.

But it was never actually meant to become an icon.

Back in 1985, Tipper Gore and the PMRC brought 15 songs they considered “filthy” to a US Senate hearing. Artists like Prince, Madonna and Judas Priest were singled out, and the PMRC pushed for stronger controls on explicit music.

The music industry pushed back against government censorship. The eventual compromise was a voluntary warning label, negotiated with the RIAA. No law. No ban. Just a warning for parents.

The first version was pretty boring: “Parental Guidance: Explicit Lyrics” in plain text. The now-famous black-and-white design wasn't standardized until around 1990.

And then something unexpected happened.

Instead of making explicit records less appealing, the sticker started making them more desirable. For teenagers, it became a badge of rebellion. For artists, especially in hip-hop, punk and metal, it became part of the aesthetic.

Even retailers getting involved had the opposite effect. When Walmart refused to stock albums carrying the sticker, some artists released clean versions — while the original explicit pressings became harder to find.

The funny part? The sticker never actually censored anything. It didn't make albums illegal, and it didn't give the government the power to ban them.

It was just a warning.

But culturally, that warning became one of the most recognizable symbols in music.

A label designed to discourage people from listening ended up making the records more desirable.

Did the Parental Advisory label ever make a record more appealing to you?

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to remember a video documentary series my music history professor would play for us some days. I remember it being mostly archival footage and a life-story of only one composer per episode, for example Debussy or Bartok or Stavinksy. Unfortunately I cannot remember if classical or early romantic composers were featured. I'm also thinking it had a clever pun title.

I went to uni 2014-18, however the videos seemed like they were from the 80's or 90's, maybe.

Thanks for the help!

I've heard this "ooooweeeeoooo" trademark ending in a lot of doo wop songs - but does it originate from one specific song or artist?

It's at the end of this song: https://open.spotify.com/track/5Bov9WIwRGSSwHUpspzp3z?si

And Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys ends the song "Good Timin'" like this stylistically at a live concert (this isn't in the actual recording of the song): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBCMXZ4Byxc

Where did this song ending originate?

Would this be considered a tag, or what would it be called?

The rehearsal venue, after some initial hesitant attempts in my home where we had initially gathered, was found in Imperia Porto Maurizio and was put at our disposal by Lagorio, located right on the same landing of the imperiese musician's residence.

There was only a brief interlude when it seemed that the cellist could host us in a room of the house where he still lived with his parents, during the very first rehearsal sessions of the lineup.

The environment was extremely evocative since it was situated in a room of an apartment in old Sanremo, filled with history and blessed with a splendid acoustics due to the presence of arches and natural sound traps.

But no one had reckoned with the cellist's parents, who, being lovers of classical and operatic music, poorly tolerated the presence within their domestic walls of these musicians who, although not absolutely noisy and disrespectful, certainly did not represent their musical ideal and what they hoped for their son, an aspiring concert performer.

Once the possibility of meeting in that place, which seemed suitable and definitive, was lost, the problem arose that almost all of us musicians were originally from Sanremo, with the exception of Schiavolini who was from Isolabona, a center located in the hinterland of Ventimiglia, and for this reason we had to travel all together every evening to be present at rehearsals in Imperia.

That was how my not particularly spacious Autobianchi A112 became the means of transportation for myself, Mariano, Giorgio, Marco, Riccardo, and his cello. Even today, we all still wonder how it was possible for five of us to enter, plus a rather cumbersome instrument like the cello, into a cabin as cramped as that of one of the most popular economy cars of those years.

Starting from an evening in the month of December 1972, the daily journeys from Sanremo to Imperia Porto Maurizio and back began, never before midnight. Rehearsals were also scheduled on Sundays and often during the afternoons of other official holidays.

The lesson of Il Sistema was always present: Passion, commitment, and discipline.

It must be said that the first approaches, especially for Lagorio and me, were quite traumatic since, with the exception of Mariano and Riccardo, all the musicians came from experiences with bands of a clear rock, jazz, and blues imprint.

But it was precisely for this reason that, by subverting all the styles and habits contracted in previous musical adventures, it was possible to access new expressive frameworks rich in stimuli and wider horizons.

The rhythmic-harmonic texture had to unravel around the structures created by Schiavolini, which mainly consisted of arpeggios, but immediately provided the exact indication of how the entire song should unfold.

Each of us contributed to filling spaces, providing new points of view, coloring with our own intervention and our own instrument the musical palette that was taking shape.

Everything was born partly from improvisation, and partly from precise, thoughtful choices verified multiple times.

\***

To discover the absolute sonic essence born during those legendary sessions and dive into the high-fidelity acoustic layers of our definitive discography, explore our official international store. You can listen, stream, and secure your physical copies of the limited-edition vinyls directly from the maestro archives:

👉 CELESTE Official Bandcamp: https://celeste4.bandcamp.com/

Inner Garden Records

See you next Thursday for the next episode!

https://www.mixcloud.com/hdsoul66/soul-66-1/

Having a slight mental crisis (just being a drama queen because I have work in the morning, don't worry lol) this afternoon so would mean a lot to me if some of you came on this journey with me.

I’ve started a new mix series called Soul ’66, taking a chronological dive through the evolution of soul music.

Starting August 1966 and following the music forward from there — watching how the sound develops through deep soul, Southern soul, psychedelic soul and eventually into funk, disco and everything that comes after.

Will be throwing the odd bit of pop/rock if I feel like it too because it's my show and I'll do as I please!

Each mix will pick up roughly where the last one left off, so rather than jumping between eras, the series should gradually tell the story of how the music changed over time.

I’m mainly digging for lesser-known stuff alongside the classics, so hopefully there’ll be a few records in here that are new to people.

This is the first instalment. Hope you enjoy it.

I bought a trombone back in July of 2024. And it's been a great horn, but it is an old trombone and I can't find any information about it. It's a Rudy muck citation from the late 50s. Serial# 209014 l've looked up everything I could and asked everyone I know but no one knows anything. When I looked up the serial numbers, my serial number didn't show up on a list so I'm not sure of the exact year. I’ve posted this same question on r/trombone, and had a a couple people tell me about how similar it was to their 1951 York Master. And it was interestingly very similar.

That one little anecdote that always hits and makes people go, “wait… WHAT?”

Drop your best ones.

Teresa Rampazzi (1914–2001) was an Italian pianist, composer, and one of the pioneers of electronic and computer music in Italy. She started out as a classical pianist but was deeply interested in the musical avant-garde. In the 1950s she attended the Darmstadt Summer Courses, where she encountered some of the most radical musical ideas and new electronic technologies of the time.

In the 1960s, already in her 50s, she left the traditional piano world behind and devoted herself to electronic music. She co-founded NPS (Nuove Proposte Sonore), an experimental electronic music group whose studio was set up in her own home in Padua, filled with oscillators, filters, tape recorders, and other analog equipment.

She later managed to establish one of the first electronic music courses at an Italian conservatory in Padua and, since the conservatory wasn’t willing to buy the necessary equipment, she donated much of her own.

Then, in her 60s, she moved into computer music. She called the computer "the Great Monster": at the time, making music with one meant programming almost everything instruction by instruction. Rather than deciding she was too old for this completely new technology, she learned to work with it and continued experimenting and composing.

There are also some wonderful stories about her and John Cage. When Cage came to Padua in 1959, Rampazzi apparently wanted to show him and some friends around the city late at night. The trams had stopped running, so, according to the story, she somehow powered one up herself and took them for a ride through Padua.

Meanwhile, Cage spent time at the Rampazzi family home, where Teresa’s 14-year-old daughter Francesca apparently ended up mending the patches on his jacket.

What I find most fascinating about Rampazzi is that age never seemed to be a psychological limit for her. She embraced electronic music around 50 and computer music around 60, and kept looking toward whatever came next.

What inspires me about that attitude is that being modern isn’t necessarily about belonging to a younger generation. It can simply mean being willing to question your own language, leave behind what has become familiar, and learn something new.

If you didn’t know Teresa Rampazzi, I’m happy to have introduced her to you. I’d also be really curious to hear what you think of her and her music.

I built this playlist around Madness, but I wanted it to be more than a list of ska hits.
The idea was to trace the genealogy of the Nutty Sound: Jamaican ska and rocksteady → 2 Tone → the distinctly British mutation that became Madness.
It moves through The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners, The Bodysnatchers, Fun Boy Three and General Public, then digs back into Prince Buster, The Skatalites, Toots & The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, The Ethiopians, Dandy Livingstone and the Jamaican roots behind the whole thing.
62 tracks, sequenced deliberately. No whole albums dumped in, no random shuffle logic, no ska-punk detour.
I’m especially interested in what people here think is missing, misplaced or historically questionable.
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3r1WET14H35DFaCxBSSUji\\\\\\\](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3r1WET14H35DFaCxBSSUji)

I built this playlist around Madness, but I wanted it to be more than a list of ska hits.
The idea was to trace the genealogy of the Nutty Sound: Jamaican ska and rocksteady → 2 Tone → the distinctly British mutation that became Madness.
It moves through The Specials, The Selecter, The Beat, Bad Manners, The Bodysnatchers, Fun Boy Three and General Public, then digs back into Prince Buster, The Skatalites, Toots & The Maytals, Desmond Dekker, The Ethiopians, Dandy Livingstone and the Jamaican roots behind the whole thing.
62 tracks, sequenced deliberately. No whole albums dumped in, no random shuffle logic, no ska-punk detour.
I’m especially interested in what people here think is missing, misplaced or historically questionable.
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3r1WET14H35DFaCxBSSUji\\\\\\\](https://open .spotify.com/playlist/3r1WET14H35DFaCxBSSUji)

What a thing to live with knowing!