CCCP a return, “More than new new”
Since it awakened, the “sleeping cell” of the CCCP – Faithful to the line (as he defined it Giovanni Lindo Ferretti) has resumed frenetic activity and along the way new elements are added for this return, which in some ways is surprising, especially with regards to the public’s response.
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We remember the events. It all started with the successful exhibition “Congratulations! CCCP – Faithful to the line. 1984 – 2024” to celebrate 40 years since the first album and which is taking place (it has been extended) in Reggio Emilia which has collected and crystallized the history of the Emilian collective (“it finally showed us still, without the dynamism of the stage” as he claims Massimo Zamboni). With the exhibition an anthological record collection. Alongside the exhibition, a series of meetings in the theater in which CCCP – Fedeli alla linea talked about each other and played “something from the stage”. Then the evening of chatter and music at the Ciampi Prize in Livorno. This was followed by the announcement of a series of dates in Berlin, where it all began. First one date, then two and finally three surprising sold out dates (24, 25 and 26 February at the Astra Kulturhaus).
On February 23, with the instruments already loaded in the car and the navigator set towards Berlin, the CCCP released “Nothing but new new”, a live album with recordings dating back to 1983, exactly at the band’s first concert in their Reggio Emilia. It is precisely during the presentation of this live sound document to the press that the latest bombshell news is dropped: in the summer of 2024 the original lineup of CCCP (Massimo Zamboni, Giovanni Lindo Ferrettithe worthy soubrette Annarella and the people’s artist Fatur) return to perform live recovering the band’s old repertoire. At the moment other details have not been disclosed, the complete calendar of summer concerts will follow.
This is what will come, but in the present of the four there is this live album, an unexpected sound document miraculously torn from the pulp. Yes, because this was the fate of those tapes, as Zamboni recalls. “While rummaging through our archives to prepare the exhibition – says the guitarist – an old reel came to light which contained the recordings of the first performance in our city. It was June 3, 1983 and we were playing in the Arci Galileo gym. We took those tapes to a recovery company who told us they were too damaged to be used. They asked us if they would throw them away or if we wanted them back and we chose to return them. Then speaking to Universal, our record company, they proposed us a further desperate attempt in another structure which miraculously managed to make the tapes usable and therefore make a record out of them.” When listening again, I was surprised to find three unreleased songs, two completely forgotten and a third never published. Here then”Oi oi oi”,”Waves” And “Sexy Soviets” whose version present on this live “Altro che Nuovo Nuovo” is unpublished as the song has been modified several times over time, until it reached a definitive form with its publication in 1989 under the title “BBB” in the album “Songs, Prayers, Dances of the 2nd Millennium – Europe Section”. There are a total of 18 tracks on the album, those from the Reggio concert.
In 1983 the band didn’t yet have a record production (the first single dates back to ’84 and the debut EP dates back to ’86) and yet on that occasion it already showed the foundations of what it would be, even if in a different lineup, that of the beginning. It is Ferretti himself, as usual irrepressible in his words, who tells the story. “When we were born we were a classic group, with drums Zeo Judges (Annarella’s brother), Umberto Negri on bass plus me and Massimo. Then Zeo left for the military, Umberto decided to leave to study and then Massimo rebuilt everything by bringing Annarella and Fatur in.” From there a new project was born which evolved and marked the history of Italian music, leaving a mark on the public which still today, even across different generations, strikes and takes hold (as demonstrated by the 34,000 – to date – visitors to the exhibition in Reggio).
This album has a double value. In fact, that concert, that formation and how far the group was already advanced in its artistic and creative process and path and also how important live expressiveness was is evidence of that concert. “We – Ferretti always explains – have never been interested in making records. We were a live band, that’s what we wanted to do, play live, be on a stage. We have always been stage beasts. Then Attack Punk Records came along and convinced us to record.” It was 1983 and yet, as the concert demonstrates, the essential elements that would emerge over time were already there, albeit expressed in a different way (and even in a reduced form, lacking the theatrical component later introduced by Annarella and Fatur). “In this concert – explains Fatur – there are the primary passions of Massimo and Giovanni, with Zeo’s drums that make them seem like a German punk band, but there are also the Rolling Stones with “Onde” and “Oi Oi Oi” instead refers to the Ramones. There are essentially CCCP trends in the gestation phase. ”
Ferretti instead explains how the repertoire was so rich and the CCCP already had a good local following. “Massimo and I, having returned from Berlin and formed the group, moved for a year to live together with Umberto and Zeo in a house in Fellegara (near Reggio). There we played constantly, every day, with maximum creative freedom, giving life to songs that would later become the heritage of CCCP. That house was always open, anyone could come and listen to us.” This is how the quartet created a hard core, a fan base we would say today, which then accompanied their growth.
The only one to have listened to those 1983 tapes again is Massimo Zamboni. “The biggest surprise – says the guitarist – was Giovanni’s voice, hearing him sing that way and so in tune surprised me. The biggest flaw is my guitar mistakes. But we deliberately kept them because they make “life”. I look at that past not with condescension but with a lot of respect.”
There is a newfound understanding between the artists that allows them to give life back to a project that is not the monstrous creature of Professor “Frankestin”, assembled with different pieces (above all a brain) brought back to life, but it truly seems like the awakening of an old woman. sleeper cell, even if everything around the CCCP is different today, distant from those times, therefore in a context far from the original. “We never thought of ourselves as militants – says Zamboni – indeed we were born in a period in which militancy had come to an end, between heroin, impossible journeys and various retreats. The aim was precisely to get out of militancy.” And Zamboni makes a joke about the changed times. “We were born when the PC was a party now… it’s a computer.”
The newfound unity, desire and cohesion to continue are surprising, even if the paths of Ferretti and Zamboni separated and the irreparable fractures between the two came later. “Over time – admits Ferretti – I have made different choices, I don’t deny anything of what happened with CCCP nor my path. When the CCCP arrive, which is inextricably the four of us, a collective arrives and I withdraw, I keep my thoughts in my mind. As an individual I have to take three steps back in a collective context. I don’t need to express my ego. CCCPs are a very satisfying entity. If and when I’m not there then Ferretti opens up to other stories and scenarios, which fall within the moment in which I’m in the band.”
Regarding the next concerts, Ferretti always recalls that the quartet’s latest album (“Epic Ethnic Ethics Pathos” of 1990 published shortly before the band’s dissolution following the fall of the Berlin Wall on 3 October 1990), has never had a tour. “I’d like to start from there for the next concerts, re-present that record that has never been played live. The idea – he adds – is to build the right lineup to highlight the complexity of CCCP.”
We wait confidently.
Tracklist
“Live in Pankow”,
“Punk Islam”,
“Sexy Soviets”,
“Militanz”,
“Waves”,
“States of agitation”,
“Pierced”,
“Kebab Träume”,
“Manifest”,
“Valium Tavor Serenase”,
“You lie”,
“You love me?”,
“Die”,
“CCCP”,
“Boredom”,
“I am as you want me”,
“Paranoid Emilia”
“Oi oi oi”.