Ragazzi di Strada

20/05/2024

☭ Emilia Paranoica ☭

Servi delle mode. Emilia Paranoica t-shirt + poster out now for pre-order here: https://ragazzidistrada.bigcartel.com/product/emilia-paranoica-t-shirt-poster-cccp

Ragazzi di Strada pays homage to CCCP – Fedeli alla Linea and their anthemic post-punk snapshot in music of Emilia Romagna at the turn of the 1980s with a t-shirt and a foldable A3 poster featuring stills from a recently resurfaced and previously unseen live performance at Fortezza del Priamar, Savona, 1984 from which the clip is taken.

The design continues Ragazzi di Strada's investigation in the rebel sounds and youth folklore of Emilia-Romagna after the Liscio Got Me Hardcore exhibition, book and poster series.

☭ Emilia Paranoica ☭ is available for pre-order until Sunday, May 26th on our online store: https://ragazzidistrada.bigcartel.com/product/emilia-paranoica-t-shirt-poster-cccp

09/08/2023

Vota Pepp. Gagliardi

A pop-up stand in Naples selling Peppino Gagliardi's music and inviting the people to vote for the singer as part of Un Disco Per l'Estate, the competition that crowned the most successful and played single of the Italian summer.

Farewell to glorious Neapolitan pop star Peppino Gagliardi, who passed away tonight at the age of 83.

He was the interpreter of many classics of Italian music including "Che vuole questa musica stasera", composed with Armando Trovajoli for the soundtrack of Dino Risi's masterpiece "Profumo di donna" (1974).

27/04/2023

Paolo 'Puliciclone' Pulici on the youth contestation shaking Italy up in the 1970s.

Interviewed by Alfredo Pigna on football TV show "La Domenica Sportiva" in 1973, the then 23-year-old Torino Football Club superstar striker is questioned about the student riots that had been putting Italian cities in turmoil since the late 1960s.

Paolo Pulici, born on this day in 1950, turns 73 today.

30/03/2023

Alfio sadly left us today.

In 1970, Alfio Cantarella, drummer and founding member of Equipe 84, was the first Italian musician to be arrested for illegal possession of cannabis, when the police raided his flat in Via Solferino, Milan. It was perhaps written in the stars, since the band had opened their boutique three years earlier in an old 'Drogheria' on the same street.

This is our favourite photo of his.
Psychedelic daises wedding of Alfio and his brother's Dino cousin Mariella.

Rest easy Alfio 🤍

11/01/2023

DEVIANZA GIOVANILE EP02 – BELPAESE NORTHERN SOUL
Airs today on Radio Raheem 2PM (CET): https://www.radioraheem.it

For an Italian way to northern soul. For its second episode, the show hosted by Ragazzi di Strada on Radio Raheem traces the elusive trajectory of northern soul in Italy, from forgotten gems to the re-evaluation of cuts from pop legends like Lucio Battisti, Giuni Russo and Lucio Dalla as overlooked northern soul masterpieces.

07/01/2023

🌙 Saturday Night Fever 🌙

"'A febbre der sabato sera? Ai tempi miei se chiamava voja de scopà, signò".

Rare shot of Franco Califano courtesy of Elisabetta Graziani

06/01/2023

Adriano Celentano, 85 years young today

04/01/2023

Paolo Mengoli & Le Mengoline

Did you know that Paolo Mengoli was the first Italian singer to feature go-go girls during his shows? This according to a memory recently shared by the singer himself.

Le Mengoline were Monica and Roberta, two pupils of Alda Scaglioni, the same vocal coach who forged Gianni Morandi.

They were an intuition of Mengoli's then manager Bibi Ballandi, perhaps inspired by both American Soul acts and the 1960s go-go mania, and they debuted between late 1968 and 1969, the year this picture was taken during the Festival di Castrocaro Terme.

Mengoli had also been previously supported by an all-female backing band, the gloriously-named Beba & Le Racchie, about which we'll tell you another time.

Mengoli had also been previously backed

Photo via Paolo Mengoli

01/01/2023

🥂 Ragazzi di Strada wishes you a happy new year

29/12/2022

C'era una volta O'Rei

Pelè fights Bruno Bolchi.
Inter Milan-Santos, Milano – 1963.

06/12/2022

🇮🇹 World Cup Fever 🇮🇹

'Vamos in Spagna' – Italian gonzo comic Lando issue 184 dedicated to the Spain 82 world cup.

The publication, one of the most notorious x-***ed 1980s comics, was issued by Edifumetto which also published Paninaro.

03/12/2022

⭐️ La Dea del Paradiso Sciccoso ⭐️

Saturday afternoon was the classic shopping time for the Italian youth of yesterday. The school week was over and, as the excitement for the night marauders grew, the afternoon hours were the perfect time to pick up the latest vinyl releases, exchange tapes and to dig the best show-stopping clothes to cause a stir on the dancefloor.

Gamma – the elusive and short-lived Turin scene that unfolded between 1977 and 1982 – mostly revolved around La Dea del Paradisco Sciccoso.

The store, located in Via Rattazzi, opened in 1981 and its totally insane name mirrored the eclectic mix of clothes, which nodded to disco, vintage American garments, DIY fashion and afro/baioso style.

Marilyn Monroe was its logo, and USA flags covered its walls. All elements that reiterated the 1980s Italian youth obsession with the Hollywood Babylon iconography and all things 1950s Americana.

Head to our stories and story highlight to read our research on Gamma for

01/12/2022

🍔 Ciao Burghy 🍔

As of today, the San Babila which was originally opened as a Burghy in 1981 officially ceased its activity.

Although the original cluster of Paninari first gravitated by the Al Panino sandwich bar in the nearby Piazza Liberty, Burghy became the true symbol of the scene, especially at the apex of its trend.

The first Italian fast food incarnated the rampant American lifestyle which 1980s Italian kids dreamed of, in a mix of revivalism of 1950s college culture (see the Happy Days success on TV) and excitement for the hedonism of the Reagan presidency embodied by fashion brands like Timberland and pop icons such as Top Gun.

Not only Burghy inspired television characters and the now cult B-movie "Italian Fast Food", but it left a significant trace in the Paninaro press too.

The Piazza San Babila Burghy restaurant is, in fact, well recognisable in the first issue of comic Paninaro, as the setting of the adventures of the gang of milanese Galli and Sfitinzie (see the photo).

For over a year the premises had already been occluded by the works for the new Milanese metro line, taking a bit of the magic of the square away and which now, without Lucido and all the other Cucador, will no doubt look way gloomier.

28/11/2022

⚽️ World Cup Fever ⚽️

Nino D'Angelo meets Diego Armando Maradona.

25/11/2022

ɢᴀʀᴍᴇɴᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀɴ ɪᴛᴀʟɪᴀɴ ɴᴇᴡ ᴡᴀᴠᴇ

Synthetic Kisses T-Shirt – Pre-order here: https://ragazzidistrada.bigcartel.com/product/synthetic-kisses-t-shirt-pre-order

The first ever tee by Ragazzi di Strada pays homage to the pioneering genius of Chrisma (Krisma) with a design taken from a rare and hardly seen graphic included in the band's press release for their seminal debut album 'Chinese Restaurant' (1977).

The graphic concept retains the original artwork's Xerox grain while tributing the erotic pulse of Chrisma by referencing their synthetic hymn Many Kisses.

Recorded in between London and Milan with the supervision of Vangelis and his brother Niko Papathanassiou, 'Chinese Restaurant' opened an ambitious and then unseen way to an Italian New Wave, blending the attitude of London Punk and the influence of Synth Pop with Maurizio Arcieri's (a former teen idol with New Dada) research on electronic music and Christina Moser's sensual lyrics and immense stage presence.

In loving memory of Christina Moser & Maurizio Arcieri.

____

Pre-order stays open until Friday December 2nd.

Limited run of 40, pre-order now, save 10% and avoid being left out.

19/11/2022

⭐️ Ciao Nico ⭐️

Nico Fidenco meets Jane Fonda as Barbarella.

18/11/2022

Chi ha mai sentito parlare dei Gamma? La sottocultura 'perduta' della Torino degli Anni di Piombo, i figli e le figlie della FIAT che portarono la Cosmic Disco sulle sponde del Po.

Su i-D abbiamo tracciato la loro storia, intervistando i fondatori della scena e aprendo i cassetti con le loro memoria e stupende fotografie.

Una sottocultura perduta della Torino di fine anni Settanta, che tra le nebbie del Po e i fumi delle fabbriche della periferia trovò l'escapismo nel ballo.

20/02/2022

🔴 Gioventù Rossoblu 🔵

Members of Gioventù Rossoblu, the mid-1980s-to-early-1990s ultras group of Saviglianese (Cuneo), here pictured away at Bra – 1990/91

On top of the use of denim jackets and Aviator frames, two late '80s/ early '90s Italian street wear staples, the inflatable Chiquita banana is a peculiar nod to the practice of using inflatables (especially bananas) as fandom tools, introduced by 1980s British hooligans, most notably Manchester City supporters.

The logo of Gioventù Rossoblu was Corto Maltese, the character of the same-titled comic/graphic novel by Hugo Pratt. His bust was used on the scarves, like the one seen in the photo, paired with the name of the ultras group in Victorian-style Dusty Circus typeface.

Ultras groups represented spikes of creativity in the Italian province, when defending and celebrating the pride of local community through football was a practice that generated long-lost teenage camaraderie and fantastic forays into DIY graphic design in the form of stickers, scarves, and other ephemera.

Most of all, though, these forms of youth association showed how national practices were replicated with great enthusiasm and dedication even on a local scale, unlike today where the relevance of amateur football has been fully eclipsed by the concept of sport as a television event, with the result of steering the attention of the Italian youth away from the activity of ultras fandom.

13/02/2022

Football Crazy

Zico acclaimed and escorted by fans upon his arrival in Udine – 1983

All our love is for the geezer on the left: looking like an extra from a cop flick or like an Italo-American X-***ed actor and sporting what had now become our greatest obsession, the Zico t-shirt.

On the tee the Zico's "Z" is replaced by the Zanussi logo, back then the club's sponsor.

Apart from its exquisite design, the promotional tee represents another step towards the commercialisation of football and Serie A which had started to surge between the late 1970s and 1980s.

Not only Udinese had incorporated the Zanussi "Z" logo into their newly designed crest, but a few seasons earlier, in 1978, the bianconeri had introduced the Sanson ice-cream logo on their shorts, vertically, so as to escape the FIGC rules forbidding shirt sponsors.

Photo via

12/02/2022

🍔 When you're meeting your friends in San Babila at 3pm, but you've got a Serie A match at 7pm 🍔

Paninaro Western wave with a Stone Island arm patch sewed on top of his jeans. Absolute style gem.

10/02/2022

Funky Romagna

Wess & The Airedales performing at Taverna del Lupo, a pizzeria-cum-club that made the history of Miramare di Rimini – 1973

08/02/2022

🪐 Space is the place 🪐

Renato Zero and Mimì Bertè (aka Mia Martini) in Rome, mid-'70s

07/02/2022

Fegato, fegato spappolato

Happy birthday to Vasco Rossi, who turns 70 today. We hope your liver is doing fine.

05/02/2022

Saturday Night Fever

As the Sanremo Festival approaches its final night, we look back at the stage design for the 1981 and 1982 editions, when Enzo Somigli took inspiration from discotheque architecture and postmodern design to give us some of the best Sanremo set ups to date.

The early 1980s marked the Cecchetto years of the contest, when under the conduction of the visionary DJ and host Sanremo finally went back to its prominence within Italian pop culture, launching the career of Alice with her "Per Elisa" and conforming Albano&Romina Power as two bonafide icons of Mediterranean pop music.

05/02/2022

Guido Crepax for Sanremo 69

04/02/2022

Charmless Men

Sanremo 96. Pippo Baudo introduces Blur on the stage of Sanremo. While he tries to contain his perplexity for the copywriter who defined them as the "new Beatles" on the script he's reading from, Damon appears in the background, swirling his arms, sporting a sleazy Nike tee and one of those ethnic necklaces you buy when aged 14 you go on your first school trip away from home.

If this sounds like quite of a mindf**k already, wait until the camera turns to the band only to reveal a 2D cardboard figure of guitarist Graham Coxon.

Blur perform, lip-syncing to their single "Charmless Man", with Alex James replaced by some member of the touring staff, and Damon doing his best to miss the lip sync, imitating Liam Gallagher's poses and playing with Graham's silhouette.

Allegedly Coxon was denied entrance in the country as his passport had expired. Anyway, this performance stands as one of the artistic peaks of Sanremo, a rebellion against playback gigs and the buttoned-up stiffness of the festival.

04/02/2022

Un Linciaggio Mancato

Italian magazine excerpts about The Yardbirds participation at the 1966 Sanremo Festival, when they performed jointly with Lucio Dalla.

The Yardbirds represented one of the first electric bands landing on the stage of the Sanremo Casino, causing stir among the contest's old-fashioned and conservative audience.

The teen music magazine Big (February 1966) reports on the frustration of the band, restrained in their performance standards (think of Antonioni's Blow Up) and on the fact they risked lynching from the exasperated audience – well maybe here the journalist went a little too far.

The author, Piero Vivarelli, who was also one of the most influential 1960s promoters in Italy and the man responsible for bringing the likes of Jimi Hendrix to the country, wrote:
"fin dalle prime prove sul palcoscenico del festival, gli Yardbirds si sono resi conto che sarebbe stato loro impossibile, alle condizioni dettate dalla RAI-TV, suonare secondo il loro normale standard. Questa fotografia descrive meglio di mille parole lo sconforto di tutti i complessi che hanno partecipato a questa edizione di Sanremo."

02/02/2022

🥀 𝕲𝖆𝖗𝖆𝖌𝖊 𝖄𝖔𝖚𝖙𝖍 Vitti 🥀

Ciao Monica, keep on playing the Beat Mass.

"Noi Donne Siamo Fatte Così", Dino Risi – 1971

02/02/2022

💛 Casco D'Oro 💛

Caterina Caselli rehearsals in a shiny leather sheepskin coat at Sanremo 67 for "Il Cammino di Ogni Speranza", the song she brought to the festival with Sonny&Cher.

01/02/2022

Ready for Sanremo?

The RAI troupe interviews the female artist taking part to Sanremo 1986. The outcome is an exhilarating yet controversial reportage, where the contrasting attitudes of the performers emerge. The press had been in fact cavalcading the alleged rivalry between Loredana Bertè and Donatella Rettore.

This video, taken from the archives, was shown during our talk for to debate the representation of the woman in the 1980s Italian music industry.