C2V

Parts – The Clonus Horror (1979): The Island before Michael Bay

By C2VUncategorizedNo Comments

”It was 1979 when The Clonus Horror was released in theaters, that little unknown film from which the much more famous "The Island" was cloned.
The Boss

It was 1979 when The Clonus Horror was released in theaters, that little unknown film from which the much more famous “The Island” was cloned.

Nothing particularly striking, a dystopian film certainly more dramatic and less Hollywood than its “clone”, as it was in the style of the times.

But the message is there and it is hard and direct in the face: the rich are procuring spare parts for their human “carcasses”.

Movie Poster

SPOILER starts:

The film takes place in an isolated desert facility called Clonus, where clones are bred to be used as spare parts for the elite, including President Jeffrey Knight.

The clones are living isolated from the real world and looked after by the colony workers, but promised they will move to “America” after some steps of physical training will be completed.

After a group of clones is chosen to go to “America”, a farewell party is organized with all their fellow clones. The chosen clones are then taken to a laboratory where they are sedated, stuffed into an airtight plastic bag and frozen to preserve their organs until the moment of “donation”.

At the direction of the Clonus we find Dick Sargent, the Darrin of the famous TV series “Bewitched”

The story stars clone Richard who begins to have doubts and questions about his existence and eventually flees the colony. Pursued by the Clonus watch guards, Richard escapes to a nearby town.

The clone is found by a retired reporter, Jake Noble who takes it to his boss, Richard Knight, who appears to be Jeffrey Knight’s brother. The Knights discuss what to do with the clone (which turns out to have been secretly commissioned by Jeffrey for himself).

Richard and Lena

Following an altercation, Richard’s clone returns to the colony to be reunited with his sweetheart, Lena (Paulette Breen). With horror, the clone discovers that the girl has been lobotomized by the managers of Clonus. She had used it as bait to trap him. Once the clone is captured, they kill and freeze it.

Meanwhile, the Clonus sends killers to kill Richard Knight, his son and the Nobles. Jeffrey Knight is stabbed in the chest in the fight with his brother, but the next day, as if nothing had happened, he attends a press conference, where he will remain “frozen” to discover that Noble, before his death, had managed to spread a secret tape to the media. exhibiting the Clonus project.

The final shot shows Richard’s frozen corpse with his chest ripped open and a tear of ice falling from his eye.

Richard cryonized

Anyone who has had the opportunity to watch The Island will notice that it is the same film with a different ending and an extremely lower budget available.

Sadly enough, the much-admired Michael Bay has never stated that he was highly “inspired” by Clonus to make “his” film but beyond this, the very worrying thing is the absolute credibility of Clonus compared to the fantasy and edulcorated Hollywood version of Bay, in which all the typical bitter realism of the 70s dystopia classics has been lost.

“The Island” movie poster

Films like this and the previous “Coma”, made by Michael Crichton only the year before, clearly highlight the danger of organ predation following accidents that too often and too quickly are declared “fatal”.

Furthermore, the cases of the theft of organs sold on the black market and of the kidnapping of children carried out by international criminals in the midst of poor and easily forgotten populations are well known.

Obviously, the first real culprit is whoever commissions these thefts, beings to be pursued and punished without the slightest mercy.

A famous scene from the film “Coma” by Michael Crichton

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The VHS of the film

THE MOVIE THE CLONUS HORROR

“Parts: The Clonus Horror” (Usa 1979) by Robert S. Fiveson

Directed by	Robert S. Fiveson
Written by	Bob Sullivan (story) Bob Sullivan and Ron Smith (screenplay) Myrl A. Schreibman and Robert S. Fiveson (adaptation)
Produced by	Robert S. Fiveson Myrl A. Schreibman
Starring	Tim Donnelly Paulette Breen Dick Sargent Peter Graves Keenan Wynn Frank Ashmore
Cinematography	Max Beaufort
Edited by	Robert Gordon
Music by	Hod David Schudson
Distributed by	Group 1 International Distribution Organization Ltd.
Release date	August 1979 (U.S.)
Running time	90 minutes

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16 March 2022

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Omicron (1963)

By C2VCinema, Historical Figures, UncategorizedNo Comments

”In 1963 Ugo Gregoretti shoots what is probably his most dense and meaningful work.Moving between ironic science fiction, comedy, surrealism, television investigation and journalism à la Malaparte, certainly inspired by the master René Clair in crossing the fantastic with the everyday, the Roman director stages what could be defined as the prequel of the Carpenter's "They Live".The title, "thanks" to the arrival of the homonymous "pandemic variant" and the consequent collective hysteria as always fomented by the media, has recently brought to attention this jewel of italian cinema, which deserves quite another consideration.
Daniele Pieraccini

«Omicron was a film about the factory, or rather, about Fiat, so much so that its documentary basis is the investigation into Fiat made by Giovanni Carocci and appeared in the magazine” Nuovi Argomenti “, directed by Alberto Moravia, which analyzed difficult trade union issues within the Fiat factories after the creation of a secret police that supervised work in the factories. Some things came from a meeting in Turin with young people from the “Quaderni Rossi”, Fofi and Soave.

After my first works and after the success of the film Ro.Go.Pa.G. Cristaldi proposed to me in 1963 to shoot a science fiction film, which at first I thought of shooting directly in Turin. Omicron was a curious example of satire on blue-collar work in a large factory, with an alien embodying himself as a worker.

I went to Fiat, a little naively, to ask for the use of a large factory where I could shoot, but obviously Fiat did not give us permission. I then went to Eni which, driven by the desire to demonstrate how public bodies were more open than private ones, immediately made available a plant in Florence, the Nuovo Pignone, specialized in the construction of gas cylinders for kitchens.

We stayed there for almost a month, in Turin we only shot a few exteriors in Piazza San Carlo and on the outskirts» (U. Gregoretti, in D. Bracco, S. Della Casa, P. Manera, F. Prono, edited, Turin city of cinema , Il Castoro, Milan, 2001).

Ugo Gregoretti

“Un giorno non saremo più noi stessi, ma degli altri che stanno dentro di noi”

Nel 1963 Ugo Gregoretti filma quello che probabilmente è il suo lavoro più denso e significativo.
Muovendosi tra fantascienza ironica, commedia, surrealismo, inchiesta televisiva e giornalismo alla Malaparte, ispirato sicuramente dal maestro René Clair nell’incrociare il fantastico con il quotidiano, il regista romano mette in scena quello che si potrebbe definire il prequel del carpenteriano “Essi vivono”.

Il titolo, “grazie” all’arrivo della omonima “variante pandemica” e alla conseguente isteria collettiva come sempre fomentata dai media, ha recentemente riportato all’attenzione questo gioiello del nostro cinema, che merita invece ben altra considerazione.

One of the fake posters, based on that of the movie “Phase IV”

In those years science fiction seems to have found its own space within Italian cinema: in 1958 Paolo Heusch directs “The Day the Sky Exploded”, the first sci-fi film produced in our country with which he anticipates the catastrophic genre; Antonio Margheriti sets the poker of the “Gamma One” tetralogy (all movies set in the homonymous space station); the maestro Mario Bava realizes “Planet of the Vampires” which will inspire Ridley Scott’s Alien; Bruno Gaburro shoots the post-apocalyptic “Ecce Homo: i sopravvissuti” and Luigi Cozzi makes his debut with the experimental satire “The tunnel Under the World” (Frederik Pohl).

Gregoretti links sci-fi inspiration to costume satire, using touches that anticipate the mockumentary (how many avant-garde ideas in Italian cinema of the sixties, an inexhaustible source for Hollywood screenwriters even decades away …) to reflect, with the same clarity and the same disenchantment of Salce in his “Coup d’état”, a few years later, on a society already on the way to dissolution.

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Renato Salvatori plays Angelo Trabucco/Omicron

Creature di prima e seconda scelta

Omicron tells us about an alien invasion, along the lines of “Invasion of the body snatchers”: beings from another planet want to conquer the Earth by possessing its inhabitants. To infiltrate us, they exploit the conformism of people, already “possessed” by the social dynamics (above all the servant-master one) that guide their existence.

It is here that Gregoretti’s vision refers us to Carpenter’s. At the height of the Reagan era, that of the American director is an awareness of an invasion by now consolidated; the Italian film instead shows us the dawn of the invasion itself. The capitalist parasite is the result of the merger between alien beings and the conformist progressivism of our times.

Calandroni giroscopici

Angelo Trabucco (played by Renato Salvatori) is a humble worker, a last of the class, who is found dead inside a concrete tube, in an opening sequence that alone is worth the film and that already shows us the mastery of Gregoretti in managing visual and conceptual expressiveness. The fact, however, is that Trabucco is not dead, but possessed by an alien entity, which gradually brings the body back to life and learns to know and control it.

The most comic gags in the film are due to this learning process aimed at parasitic control, but we also see some surprising imaginative ideas: above all the reading at an incredible speed of a lot of books, in order to learn everything about humans in the shortest possible time.

“La catalessi ha fatto di lui un uomo inesistente ed un operaio modello”

Clumsy, catastrophic and very rude in social interactions, Trabucco / alien has uncommon strength and resistance and above all is superhumanly productive in his work in the factory, putting other workers in crisis also because he makes no claims and obeys every request.

After many vicissitudes and incidents that inevitably bring the protagonist to the center of attention by colleagues and superiors, the main obstacle to the alien invasion is finally identified by our enemies who came from Space: human conscience.

This uncomfortable light, which re-emerges in Trabucco thanks to love, is however already in check by earthly forces, by the laws of the market and by the society bent on it. What troubles higher beings from other worlds is, however, stifled by the conformism of our age.

Angelo will fight in a gasp of rebellion, trying to warn his fellow men, but will eventually succumb to general indifference. Meanwhile, the aliens, who have figured out which bodies they must occupy (those of the elite), are planning the years to come. Years of prosperity for them and of slavery for most of humanity.

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Rosemarie Dexter plays Lucia, the girl Trabucco/Omicron falls in love with

Rivedere la storia (del cinema italiano)

Faced with films like Omicron, like Salce’s Coup D’Etat and many, too many others, so rich from many points of view (creative, textual, imaginative, acting …) leads us to reflect on the need to free ourselves from the institutionally imposed vision of the history of our cinema. It is not possible that there are so many works of depth forgotten or ignored by the pragmatic gaze of “official” criticism.

But this is not surprising: there is a clear desire to push certain authors to the detriment of other “uncomfortable” works, to promote precisely the progressive, conformist, hypocritical and decadent vision observed and criticized in a lucid way by authors such as Gregoretti, Salce, Petri, Tognazzi, Ferreri.

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Salvatori the istrione

“Sto perdendo sugo”

One last, dutiful tribute to Renato Salvatori, the perfect protagonist chosen by Gregoretti.

An eclectic and original actor, who in Omicron confirms his class and versatility, already shown first (with Risi, Monicelli, Castellani, Visconti …) and later (with Ferreri, Petri, Costa-Gavras … ).

In 1963 his career is already in a downward phase; his farewell to the cinema at the age of fifty (and his forgotten death a few years later) is another painful shame of our cinema.

CLICK AND UNLOCK A CLIP IN WHICH UGO GREGORETTI TELLS HIS “OMICRON”

“Omicron” (IT 1963) by Ugo Gregoretti

Director: Ugo Gregoretti
Writer: Ugo Gregoretti
Script: Ugo Gregoretti
Productor: Franco Cristaldi
Production: Lux Film, Ultra Film, Vides Cinematografica
Distribution: Paramount
Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma
Music: Piero Umiliani
Scenography: Carlo Gentili

Cast

Renato Salvatori: Angelo Trabucco / Omicron
Rosemarie Dexter: Lucia
Gaetano Quartararo: Midollo
Mara Carisi: Midollo’s wife
Ida Serasini: Piattino’s widow
Calisto Calisti: Torchio
Dante Di Pinto: Policeman
Vittorio Calef: S.M.S.’ CEO
Maria Grazia Grassini: miss Mari, the nurse
Ugo Gregoretti: journalist

24 February 2022

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HS Anderson “Global Sound” by Morris

By C2VJapan Vintage GuitarsNo Comments

”Morris, a brand of the Japanese company Moridaira and known for its splendid acoustic instruments, has also produced electric guitars and basses under other brands, the best known of which was HS Anderson, famous for Prince's Madcat.
Lorenzo

body_morris_global_sound_classic_2_vintage

Morris, a brand of the Japanese company Moridaira and known for its splendid acoustic instruments, has also produced electric guitars and basses under other brands, the best known of which was HS Anderson, famous for Prince’s Madcat.

The Moridaira Guitar company has long been building quality handcrafted instruments in Matsumoto, Nagano. It is named after its founder, Mr. Toshio Moridaira, who founded the company in 1961 and became the first importer of Gibson and Fender for Japan.
In 1964, thanks to his working relationship with Gibson, Toshio visited the factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan and a Gibson employee nicknamed him “Mori”.

Consequently, Mori-san founded the Morris Guitars company in 1967, inspired by this nickname.

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Morris has produced high-quality dreadnought and jumbo copies based on Martin and Gibson.

The factory also manufactured for third parties, including Morris-branded guitars which were imported to England by Rose Morris. Moridaira has also produced guitars for Hohner (the Madcat made famous by Prince came out under both the HS Anderson and Hohner brands) and other smaller brands.

Morris began producing proprietary design models in the 70s and among these also the Global Sound line, of which here we have one of the models designed by Patrick Vrolant for HS Anderson, in fact.

Vrolant is a French musician who made a career as a Country singer-guitarist under the stage name of Pat Winther. In the 1970s he was a salesman for Gamme (the company that had Matsumoku produce the Country SV 300 for the French market).

Today Morris produces exclusively acoustic instruments, largely in Korea while still retaining its base in Matsumoto where it produces its own line of handcrafted instruments of the highest quality.

Going back to this beautiful Global Sound by Vrolant and owned by our friend Gordy, it is a neck-thru made in maple and mahogany, with steel and brass hardware and which seems to wear a beautiful pair of Di Marzio with split coils and adjustable by two pairs of potentiometers enriched by mahogany knobs.
But now let’s enjoy the pictures.

Click the button and watch the exclusive videos of this incredible Morris Global Sound!

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16 February 2022

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The Giulietta and the Italy of the Boom

By C2VAutomotive, Giuseppe LuraghiNo Comments

”It was 1955 when Giuseppe Luraghi, CEO of Alfa Romeo, put into action the industrial plan for the production of the Giulietta, a car that will see the rise of the Alfa Romeo brand after the war.
Testi Alessandro Spagnol / Ricerche ed editing Lorenzo

The historical Alfa Romeo Portello factories in Milan

With a new section dedicated to classic and vintage automotive, we welcome our new collaborator, Alessandro.

The Giuliettas

By Alessandro Spagnol

It was 1955 when Giuseppe Luraghi, CEO of Alfa Romeo, put into action the industrial plan for the production of the Giulietta, a car that will see the rise of the Alfa Romeo brand after the war.

In those years Italy was putting new trust in the economy and consequently the most important companies on the world scene, Alfa was one of them, worked hard to create new jobs and new opportunities to give prestige to Italy in the world and to increase income.

It was the historical period in which a car was not just a car, it was the vehicle that the family would choose to move around for decades, so it had to be reliable.

The Giulietta Berlina

In addition to efficiency, you could always find style, charm and performance on cars like the Alfas. The Giulietta as a car was a ssum of all this, becoming “the fiancée of the Italians” as it was defined in one of the many advertising campaigns of the time.

It should be noted that the coupé version was first launched only because some tests on the sedan had not been completed and paradoxically this created great curiosity and reservations, especially from the United States and other countries abroad, which gave further confirmation on the body lines designed by the Center. Style led by Giuseppe Scarnati.

The Giulietta Sprint

132,000 were the total cars produced, numbers that for the time were considerable. At the time the lines and fashion were very different from today’s style, just think that a model like the 2000 sprint, released only two years later in 1957, already had more aggressive lines, being a top sports car.

A Giulietta at the time could be bought for about 1.500.000 Lire (it would be about 20,000 Euros today, but for the time it was really a lot of money considering the average salaries of about 43.000 Lire), while a Fiat 500 could be bought for just over 500.000 Lire (When it comes to vintage cars I always like to contextualize to give the idea of how some things were unreachable for many, even in full economic boom).

The Fiat 500 “porte controvento” with reverse doors

Today there are very few of these cars and they are jealously guarded in order to preserve the functionality and prestige of a period that will hardly return to our country shortly, but one thing that period taught us: the ability to dare, to try to explore, so creative in every sector, from the fashion and style industry, because the Alfas were also style, up to music and art.

The Giulietta Spider

Three sectors in particular are and will always remain interconnected: Music, Cinema and Motors. When only one of these pillars creaks and starts to produce something poor, everything else gives way and boredom is created. Always contextualizing the historical period, it must always be remembered that at the end of the 50s overseas a new wave of energy was raging characterized by grease, huge cars with sinuous lines and Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Big cars, grease and Rock ‘N’ Roll

CLICK PLAY TO WATCH THE CLIP OF THE LAUNCH OF THE GIULIETTA

Giuseppe Luraghi and his Portello

Luraghi, the man of providence for Alfa Romeo after the war, was one of the greatest industry executives: tenacious, creative, far-sighted and visionary, he managed to hold out even in the darkest moments of the company, when the long corrupt hand of politics has come to do harm to the perfectly oiled and running machine that Alfa had become at the time.

He will remain in history as the person responsible for the rebirth of the Alfa Romeo’s Legend.

Giuseppe Luraghi

1

Small tour of the Portello factories in the 1950s

The Giulietta

Thanks

Thanks to the portellofactory.com site for some images in the article.

6 February 2022

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Alastair Riddell & Space Waltz (1975)

By C2VUncategorizedNo Comments

”Alastair Riddell is a mythical character in New Zealand, he began playing in groups at the age of fourteen and throughout his life he continued to write music and perform in public, in a career spanning over 50 years.
Lorenzo

A very young Alastair Riddell

Alastair Riddell started as a member of Original Sun with his brother Ron in the late sixties, with whom he went from a John Mayall oriented blues to a more Cream and Hendrix psychedelic scented one.

In 1971, when he was studying anthropology at the University of Auckland, he met keyboardist Tony Rayner and drummer Paul Crowther (the creator of the legendary Hot Cake overdrive) and, with the addition of guitarist Paul Wilkinson and bassist Peter Kershaw (also formerly of Original Sun), they formed a group called Orb.

Alastair Riddell with The Original Sun

Riddell with Orb

Orb was a band that offered a repertoire of Genesis, King Crimson, Yes and David Bowie, with the addition of some original songs. The Orbs were of the post-hippy school, artists determined to adhere to the values of the Love Generation but extremely concerned not to make the same mistakes. Very serious and scrupulous guys, completely free from hedonism.

The Orb project was in step with the times and the students from Auckland followed them but it was not enough to support the group. They lasted until 1973, one of the few synth bands in Zealand, with Riddell playing a synthesizer built by electronics wizard Paul Crowther.

Both Rayner and Riddell were confident in the band’s abilities and wanted to take it to Britain but the other guys weren’t prepared to take the risk of failure, so after their performance at the 1973 Ngaruawahia Music Festival, Orb disbanded.

And while Alastair Riddell later rose to national fame a few years later as the leader of the Space Waltz. Rayner, Crowther and Wilkinson all became members of Split Enz.

And here we are at the part where Riddell brings together his friend Eddie Rayner with Greg Clark, Peter Cuddihy, Brent Eccles and the Yandall Sisters and gives birth to the guest album of this article, that concentrate on glam, progressive emotions and intimist atmospheres going under the name of Space Waltz.

Alastair Riddell & Space Waltz

At that time Roxy Music, Mark Bolan and David Bowie were a source of particular inspiration for the musicians and young people of the period, it was quite logical that those with commercial aims would think well of marrying business with pleasure and here is the birth of Space Waltz, at the sign of a flashy glam but at the same time enclosing a particular interiority that winds through blues, soul, rock’n’roll, psychedelia to arrive at a ballad so emotional that give you goosebumps.

It makes me think of Alastair Riddell as a New Zealand brother of Alex Chilton: an artist who manages to admirably link deep intelligence and emotionality to music that is melodically and commercially captivating, catchy.

The Space Waltz album

The Space Waltz album cover

Side one opens with “Fraulein Love”, a perfect Roxy-style opening for the album; a strong and overwhelming rocker, a great chorus full of heavy breathing and some excellent guitar licks are the basis of a song in the Ferry style and Riddell makes no secret of it (“Here I say ‘ta’ to Bryan” writes next to the title in the lyrics sheet).

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Click play and listen to

Freulein Love

It continues with “Beautiful Boy”, a great commercial and cute piece to capture the ears of the average listener, perhaps nothing striking but his “dirty work” does it well.

Click play and listen to

Beautiful Boy

And when you think you are in front of “just another” good glam record of the time, suddenly and unexpectedly “Seabird”, the album’s masterpiece, appears. An impressive ballad, which begins with solid drumming before Tony Raynor’s piano and mellotron enter (Raynor was already the keyboard wizard of Split Enz at the time).
The song ends slackening with the rhythm of the drums again and the mellotron choir.
Extremely beautiful.

Click play and listen to

Seabird

Side one closes with the shouted “Watch out young love!” of the group’s hit, ‘Out on the Street’, in a different version than the single, especially on the chorus.

Click play and listen to

Out On The Street

Side 2 opens with ‘Angel’ which is practically an intimate hard glam number with a strong taste of progressive rock.

The song itself is amazing and very dramatic and when launched at high volume it almost has an adrenaline-pumping call to Captain Beyond’s “Raging River Of Fear”.

Click play and listen to

Angel

‘Open Up’ follows, it’s a nice piece with a Ziggy flavor. Introduced by the guitar solo that leans on piano arpeggios, it is then made strong by the Mellotron that accompanies us in the chorus of the chorus and, through the bridge, to the finale.

Click play and listen to

Open Up

Then we come to the nice catchy and compact rock of ‘Scars of Love which unfolds through a nice guitar phrase and solid drums with a cowbell. Strongly inspired by “Queen Bitch” and “Suffragette City”, however, it is much more articulate, enthusiastic and lively.

Click play and listen to

Scars Of Love

“And Up to Now” is another nice glam song, hard but rather cheerful this time and Raynor’s beautiful organ solo makes it even more brilliant. Very beautiful while being catchy.

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Click play and listen to

And Up To Now

The album ends with “Love the Way he Smiles”, a strange amazing suite with the psychedelic soul choir of the Yandall Sisters against a background of cheering crowd voices and an extremely nervous work by Raynor on the piano.

To be a record strongly inspired by Bowie’s glam (in turn eternal “inspired” by the work of many others, particularly Roxy Music), I would say that in many points it surpasses it clearly and the writing quality is definitely superior.

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Click play and listen to

Love The Way He Smiles

Riddell’s lyrics seem very urban in content and the music reinforces this impression. Hard, sometimes really deep in content, and some others they deal with themes similar to some of Bowie’s pieces.

All in all, it’s a really brilliant debut. The only regret is the recording quality and that can be blamed on the EMI.

A real shame, for a record that is a milestone in Zeeland music and beyond and that was played with skill and passion by the band.

Space Waltz, sharing bassist and keyboardist with Split Enz, often played live together and Riddell was asked twice to replace their guitarists but he always refused and eventually the place was taken by Neil Finn.

After Space Waltz, Riddell adopted an elegantly sober style, moved to Los Angeles and Great Britain, returned home and left again for Great Britain, returned in ’89 with his beautiful wife Vanessa, continued to make music and began his career in cinema as a film director too.

Now Riddell, drummer Brent Eccles, Chunn and Rayner – the original tour lineup – have reformed for a gig.

And Alastair told us that a new single from Space Waltz will be released in the next few weeks.

The Space Waltz’s back cover and vinyl

CLICK AND WATCH THE TV APPEARANCE OF SPACE WALTZ IN 1974 WITH “OUT ON THE STREET”!

Side 1

1. Fraulein Love
2. Beautiful Boy
3. Seabird
4. Out On The Street

Side 2

1. Angel
2. Open Up
3. Scars Of Love
4. And Up To Now
5. Love The Way He Smiles

Produced by Alan Galbraith

Space Waltz:

Alastair Riddell: Guitars, Synthesizer, Lead vocals
Tony Raynor: Piano, Hammond Mellotron, Synthesizer
Greg Clark: Guitars
Peter Cuddihy: Bass
Brent Eccles: Drums
The Yandall Sisters: Backing Vocals

Alastair Riddell in recent times

Alastair Riddell with his wife Vanessa

Credits

Thanks to Alastair Riddell for many of the images in the article, taken from his personal Facebook page.

20 January 2022

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Epiphone JDM LPC-90, the Gibson of the Rising Sun

By C2VUncategorizedNo Comments

”Let's start the year with a flourish with this gorgeous black pearl that comes from the Rising Sun: a rare Epiphone LPC-90, the Japanese Gibson Les Paul Custom.
Lorenzo

Gibson began the production of instruments in Japan in 1969, when it moved the production site of Epiphone, which was entrusted to the Matsumoku Industrial Co. factory (then it was still called Matsumoto Mokkou, from which the compound name Matsumoku derives), located in the city of Matsumoto.
Matsumoku was initially a manufacturer of wooden furniture for Singer sewing machines and later converted to the manufacture of electric guitars in 1962 thanks to a commercial agreement with Yuichiro Yokouchi, former founder of Fujigen, also based in Matsumoto.

When Gibson arrived at Matsumoku, it was already famous as a manufacturer of instruments for brands such as Aria, Westone, Ibanez, Greco and in its history as a manufacturer of quality guitars it produced for over thirty different brands, until closing in 1987, the following year. at the end of its relationship with Gibson.

It can therefore be imagined that the loss of such a big customer has had a significant negative impact on the already expensive investment that the factory had made to renovate its plants in 1986: air of sabotage? Who knows…

However, Gibson decided to entrust the management of its new brand “Orville by Gibson” to Yamano Gakki, who had already led the production of Fender Japan together with Kanda Shokai.

The brand, derived from the name of the founder of Gibson itself, was created to stem the commercial loss caused by the high sales numbers of high quality and competitive prices of the Japanese copies, both in the domestic market and in export. Consequently, producing a Gibson line at lower cost directly in the country of sale and reserved exclusively for the domestic market seemed the best solution.

Production of the ObGs started in 1988, instruments of high manufacturing and quality of materials, nitro finished and equipped with Gibson pick-ups, and in 1989 also began the production of the “Orville”, a cheaper line finished in polyurethane and with Japanese production pick-ups. While the Orville instruments were marketed between ¥ 70,000 and ¥ 80,000, the Orville by Gibson instruments were sold for between ¥ 100,000 and ¥ 200,000.

The production of these instruments was remarkably successful but nevertheless came to a halt and, while the ObGs were discontinued in 1995, the Orville stopped in 1997 to make room for the Epiphone Japan, which was produced in two diversified series: the Elitist with Gibson pick-ups, produced mainly for foreign countries, and the Elite JDM (Japan Domestic Market).

Of the latter, not much is known apart from the fact that they were produced by both Fujigen and Terada, always exclusively for the domestic market and always with a polyurethane finish and the same pick-ups as the Orville. Although they were in production until 2002, they are quite rare instruments and are even more interesting as they are among the very few existing ones under the Epiphone brand but with the typical Gibson-shaped headstock.

In the JDM line, Les Paul models were produced in the Junior SC and Dc, Special, Standard and Custom versions along with SG models, 335 models and Thunderbird and EB basses.
The Customs were in 3 versions, LPC-80 (rosewood), LPC-90 (ebony) and LPC-95L (left-handed), today at Classic2vintage we are pleased to welcome a splendid LPC-90, or the version with ebony fretboard.

It’s a Fujigen and the year of production is 1999, it’s owned by our friend Mark R. and came to him from Osaka on a 4-month odyssey journey at sea due to the courier blockade which made air shipping impossible. But in the end, she miraculously arrived safe and sound, just when he believed she had been shipwrecked on some distant island.

This beautiful black pearl is in excellent condition and completely original except for an upgrade of the pots and bridge pickup with a Seymour Duncan SH-4 JB and will continue to rock in Mark’s hands for a long time to come.

…BUT HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Click the button to watch an exclusive mini demo of this Epiphone!

1 January 2022

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Yume, Yume No Ato (1981) / Dream, After Dream – Journey (1980)

By C2VMusic, MusicNo Comments

”This is again the story of a mysterious lost movie, which was shot by Kenzo in 1980 and his splendid soundtrack made by Journey. "Yume, Yume No Ato" is a mystery on film, an esoteric fable that was created by the Japanese designer Kenzo Takada in 1980.
Lorenzo

Movie poster

“Yume, Yume No Ato” è un mistero su pellicola, una favola esoterica che fu realizzata dallo stilista giapponese Kenzo Takada nel 1980.

The official story has it that at the end of 1978 producer Hiroaki Fujii sent a letter to Kenzo Takada via an actress: “Dear Mr. Kenzo Takada,” the letter began. “I knew that You are very interested in cinema and was wondering if You would like to work with me on an interesting production ».

Another story, now gone from years and therefore no longer verifiable, spokes of involvement of Salvador Dalì and other exponents of the French and Hispanic nobility.

Be that as it may, Kenzo said he was unable to direct a film but Mr. Fujii was so enthusiastically insistent that the designer ended up giving in, becoming at the same time scriptwriter, screenwriter, costume designer, artistic director and director.

Kenzo was inspired by a fairy-tale world like that of Kenji Mizoguchi’s “Tales of the Pale August Moon”: A young weaver meets a pair of beautiful sisters by a lake.
The older sister is called Tsuki (Luna) and the younger sister is called Yuki (Snow). The young man is attracted by the image and the bewitching spirits of the sisters and is completely at their mercy.

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Kenzo with Anicée Alvina (Tsuki)

Morocco was chosen as the location, as a mix of cultures at the crossroads between East and West. In July 1980 the crew headed to Zagora, near the Sahara desert. It was a vast place, with yellowish-brown mountains and desert that stretched as far as the eye could see. Daytime temperatures reached 50 ° C and Kenzo says they consumed 250 1.5-liter bottles of Evian in a single day.

Shootings proved to be one difficulty after another. The actors were mostly Italians and French and the staff mostly Japanese, so communication problems prevented the whole process from proceeding smoothly.
It was hot as hell and there were also unexpected incidents such as when the artistic unit got stuck in a swamp or a scene in which a horse led by the protagonist had to collapse from fatigue but proved to be resistant to the anesthetic because Moroccan horses eat regularly wild cannabis and therefore the drug was completely ineffective.

The production budget was 400 million yen. For the soundtrack, Kenzo wanted Journey and, thanks to Fujii’s efforts, the group accepted, giving up on a European tour.

Anicée Alvina (Tsuki)

The original title of the film, “Yume, Yume no ato (The dream, after the dream)”, was only translated into English and French and the premiere, with Kenzo’s extreme anxiety, took place in Paris:

“Parisians have a sense of extremely ruthless aesthetic, it was the worst place and I knew it.
300 people came and when a giggle burst out during a critical scene that should have moved the audience to tears, I realized that I had not been able to create the atmosphere I wanted. At some point, the audience started to get up and walk away in the middle of the film.
It was a total fiasco. And it was all my fault. I had caused significant problems for everyone involved, not least Fujii. ”

As a kind and honorable person, Kenzo, therefore, assumed all responsibility and, deeply hurt by the rudeness of the public, decided to block the distribution of the film, which was only broadcast a couple of times on Japanese TV and has disappeared apparently so far.

Anicée Alvina (Tsuki)

The music score

Journey was then one of CBS’s most successful record and live bands: they had produced three progressive jazz albums to then acquire a singer and turn towards an AOR commercial style and were returning from the success of the album Departure, which had placed eighth on the Billboard 200 album chart.

The soundtrack by Dream After Dream was recorded in the space of time between Departure and Escape and was the seventh album of Journey, representing a partial return to the progressive vein of the group’s beginnings.

It is the latest album with the keyboard player and founding member of the group Gregg Rolie and of its nine tracks, only three are sung, admirably, by Steve Perry while the rest are instrumental. The orchestral arrangements were handled by Neal Schon’s father, Matthew, and “Destiny” still represents the longest track recorded by Journey so far.

Recordings took place at CBS / Sony Shinaromaki studios in Tokyo between 13 and 22 October 1980. A Japanese tour was combined with the recording sessions which then resulted in a couple of songs included on their next album “Captured”, recorded on the evening of the 13th, the final date at the Koseinenkin Hall in Shinjyuku.

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The music is extremely inspired and well played, you can perceive all the commitment and passion of a band that once in a while is free to create and work outside the rules of the music market to which it is normally forced.

The compositions are presented as separate works, where their cinematicity is reflected in the generous use of the section of arches, which gives them a mysterious and ethereally romantic character, always entirely in the context of the vocal extension by Perry, who sings like never before and since.

Harder rock rhythms are rare, but in emotional dynamics, Dream After Dream surpasses anything Journey have ever realized. The long passages of the slow and meditated guitar solo perfectly underline the landscape of dreams.

The album was released on December 10, 1980, only in Japan and came as a surprise for both fans of the band and for enthusiastic critics, when years later its existence emerged thanks to the internet (in the US only one version on tape had quietly come out in 1985) and imports from Japan. On the other hand, there is still no trace of the film.

Except that…

Journey’s entire album “Dream, After Dream”

Film Synopsis

A young weaver with no name (Enrico Tricarico, already seen in the role of the director of the Village 27 in Ugo Tognazzi’s “The Twilight Travellers“) leaves in search of happiness. A wise soothsayer (Léo Campion) tells the young that he will find it on the opposite bank of a south lake, the weaver listens to the advice and goes to it.

After crossing the desert, the man arrives at the lake and, finding an abandoned ship nearby, sets sail late at night.

At sunrise, he loses consciousness and, upon awakening, he discovers he has been brought to an ancient castle at the opposite end of the lake. This castle is home to two mysterious sisters, named Tsuki (Anicée Alvina) and Yuki (Anne Consigny), the latter of whom he had found him and brought him to safety.

Although fascinated by Yuki, the man falls in love with Tsuki, who invites him to bed with her. The man starts weaving for both of them, but while the fabrics he creates for Tsuki are particularly beautiful, Yuki finds hers to be inferior.

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Movie pamplet

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Enrico Tricarico (the young weaver)

Anicée Alvina (Tsuki)

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Anne Consigny (Yuki)

One day, Tsuki and the man meet outside the castle and make love on a flower bed. Upon their return, Yuki learns of their love story and is therefore saddened.
The two sisters start arguing and the man feels guilty for the animosity he has caused.

As a result of the quarrel, Tsuki decides that she will have to kill the man and invites him to bed once again. However, wrapped in his embrace, she finds she can’t stab him.

She escapes to the terrace, followed by the young man, who watches in awe as Tsuki slowly transforms into a bird, spreads her wings and takes flight. Yuki imitates her and as she flies off into the distance, she whispers regretfully to the man that although he was too beautiful and wonderful to be loved by them, they both still fell in love with him.

The man cries to heaven to confess his true love and is left alone to face his fate.

Anicée Alvina (Tsuki) transforms into a Bird.
Kenzo’s passion and symbolism’s accuracy went so far as to choose two actresses of air zodiac signs for the role of Tsuki and Yuki: Aquarius (Alvina) and Gemini (Consigny)

Production

The project was announced at a press conference on June 16, 1980, and was a Japanese / French co-production, as the cast was largely composed of French actors while the known crew members were a mix of the two nationalities.

Kenzo with Anicée Alvina (Tsuki), Liliana Gerace (the Housekeeper), Anisée Alvina (Tsuki), Anne Consigny (Yuki) and Enrico Tricarico (the Young Weaver)

Kenzo Takada wrote the subject of the film together with Xavier De Castella, his then partner, and Yoshio Shirasaka was the screenwriter.
Hiroaki Fuji and Tatsuo Funahashi were the producers,
Tatsuji Nakashizu was the production designer,
Senji Horiuchi and Julien Cloquet were the sound engineers,
Setsuo Kobayashi was the cinematographer.

Kenzo with the cast and the troupè

The film officially released on January 24, 1981and has a duration of 101 minutes.
The French title is Rêve, après Rêve.

It is understood that the nature of the film was very intimate and metaphorical and that consequently it required a certain sensitivity and predisposition of which not everyone can be gifted while education should be something common to all.

Due to the rudeness of the French public, Kenzo felt so humiliated that he always refused to publish it on home video or DVD and after his death the hopes of being able to recover a copy of this film seemed even more vain but in recent months it is incredibly vain. A copy of DVD with an interactive menu that is in the possession of an American gentleman and which seems to have been extracted from a VHS, perhaps recorded from one of the very rare Japanese TV shows, came up.

It is unclear whether this copy will ever be made available to the public but perhaps, the casa producer TOHO-TOWA Company, it will one day decide to reprint the film and distribute it.

Important Update:

A few months after the release of this article, fortunately, a collector was able to share an incomplete copy of the film which, even if missing by about half an hour, manages to give an idea of the film to those who, like me, was trying to watch it for decades.

CLICK AND WATCH THE VERY RARE COPY OF THE FILM SHARED BY THE AMERICAN COLLECTOR!

–

“Yume, Yume No Ato” (Jp/Fr) by Kenzo Takada

Director: Kenzo Takada
Subject: Kenzo Takada, Xavier De Castella
Screenplay: Yoshio Shirasaka

Costumes: Kenzo Takada
Set design: Tatsuji Nakshizu
Cinematographer: Setsuo Kobayashi
Sound: Senji Horiuchi, Julien Cloquet

Producer: Hiroaki Fujii, Tatsuo Funahashi

Music: Journey (Neal Schon: guitars, backing vocals – Gregg Rolie: keyboards, harmonica – Ross Valory: bass, piano, flute – Steve Perry: vocals and backing vocals – Steve Smith: drums and percussion) – Production: Kevin Elson

Characters and performers

Enrico Tricarico: The Young weaver
Anicée Alvina: Tsuki
Anne Consigny: Yuki
Léo Campion: Seer
Liliana Gerace: Housekeeper

16 December 2021

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The Twilight Travellers (I Viaggiatori Della Sera) – 1979

By C2VCinema, Cinema, Cinema, Fiction and non-fiction, Historical Figures, Historical Figures, Historical Figures, Historical Figures, Historical FiguresNo Comments

”For his farewell as a director, Tognazzi returns to the dark dystopian territories and chooses a story that makes farewell his subject: "The Twilight Travellers" by Umberto Simonetta.
Lorenzo

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Article by Daniele Pieraccini

(contains spoilers)

«E se allora essere umani non fosse più l’unico requisito richiesto per avere diritto di vivere?
E se un giorno si ipotizzasse che degli esseri umani potrebbero, in base alle loro prerogative di medici, politici o giudici, decidere se la vita di un altro essere umano è degna o meno di essere vissuta?».

da “La morte moderna”, scritto nel 1978 da Carl-Henning Wijkmark

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More than a decade after The Seventh Floor, Ugo Tognazzi returns to amaze with another dystopian work, based on the novel of the same name by Umberto Simonetta.

We are still in the territory of sociological criticism: in the 1967 film, the main theme was the health market, this time the actor and director from Cremona targets the management by the power of environmental, economic and even human resources.

Think how modern Tognazzi’s “visions” were, now that we are penetrating more and more into a “New Normality” of flexible and revocable rights, of permanent emergency, of overturning of the moral sense, of zeroing out any critical sense, of capillary indoctrination.

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Cover of the novel by Umberto Simonetta

In the future world described by Simonetta, only one newspaper is published, the vote is asked for 13-year-olds and the power is handled inflexible by young people.
White-clad policemen stand guard as the Public Health Army, while Orwellians speakers continually remind you of rules and regulations.
A law requires (according to a dramatically current formula of “voluntary obligation”) that once citizens have reached the age of 49 they must leave family and society to move to absurd tourist villages, apparently to go on indefinite holidays.

We are in the thematic area of Logan’s Run, an American movie from 1976, directed by Michael Anderson and also inspired by a novel; in fact, there is talk of a “bio-ecologically” balanced, fully planned organization of life and management of the demographic curve implemented through birth control and euthanasia disguised as a ceremony or prize.

“Who knows if there is anyone among you who remembers when we could still all be together…”

Orso Banti, aka Orso Scoppiato (Tognazzi) is a radio DJ at his last broadcast.

For him and his wife of the same age Nicki (a very good Ornella Vanoni) it is time for “retirement” in the holiday village. The radio space of Orso, transgressive and scurrilous, will be occupied by newsletters of public utility, conducted by young bureaucrats, with daily updates of the Grande Contatore (The Big Counter) on the number of inhabitants of the planet.

The young people are gray and amorphous, sober, polite and perfectly tamed, dressed in a formal but anonymous way and live according to strict principles of order. On the contrary, old people are linked to another way of life, more spontaneous, they dress colorful and unkempt and they just want to have fun and fun.

“Nonno, perché dici tutte quelle banalità e sconcezze alla radio?”

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Orso prepares to leave for the “vacation”

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Nicky was stopped by an official spy who caught her for dropping a newspaper on the ground and pretends to check her ID

While Orso and his wife are packing for the trip of no return, we learn many things about this “new world” from the family conversation between them, the children and the little grandson:
in order to procreate you need specific authorization from the central power; every citizen is equipped with cards to access any type of service; sterilization is constantly and strongly encouraged; at the age of forty-ninth it is mandatory to wear an arm band.

Above all, from the dialogues between family members, the distance of thought that runs between generations and which nullifies any attempt at mutual understanding appears clear.
Their son and daughter, very accomplished and dutiful, consider parents to be hopeless, irritating and irresponsible scoundrels.

For Orso and Nicki, the children are overly framed and inhibited and don’t know what it means to enjoy life. A reversal of roles that appears grotesque to our eyes. Even more grotesque appears little Antonluca, grandson of the two protagonists, totally shaped by propaganda, a small bureaucrat who continually scolds his grandparents using tones and concepts that do not belong to a child.

“Orso, noi siamo la prima generazione che va al villaggio…lo senti loro come ragionano? sono cresciuti con quest’idea e così i loro figli”

The family then leaves to reach village number 27, which Orso and Nicki are destined for. Children and granddaughter accompany them, following up on discussions and conflicts and not hiding too much the desire to quickly “close the file” and go back to their lives. We learn that their sons do not even wish to reach the age of the “vacation”, they are so focused on efficiency that they lead to suicidal self-responsibility.

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Along the way, in a barren and arid landscape, the presence of propaganda and eco-health power is constant. Patrols of very young ESP policemen popping up everywhere, creepy billboards lining the deserted highway (“we are too many” “sterilize yourselves” “order is civilization”) and a deserted gas station with the bartender-lawyer serving customers with their backs to them but peering at them through a screen, while drinks and coffee are produced by an impersonal machine.

Even the marijuana that Bear and Nicki smoke is provided by the state.

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Before arriving at the destination there is a digression into an oasis of greenery, where all future guests of the village gather for a party with music, drugs and wine, always under constant and pressing surveillance of the young policemen dressed in white. What proceeds in glee as the last commemoration of a happy past ends tragically with the blatant suicide of the two twins who own the estate that hosts the party. They, too condemned to “vacation” and consequently abandon the estate in which they spent their life, prefer immediate death.

The fears already existing in many of the future vacationers resurface, the tone of the story becomes more and more crepuscular.

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Party with suicide

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“Here everyone does it and the authorities say nothing, on the contrary they consider it a high social service”

Arriving at the village, modern and aseptic, an open-air prison in which they can move freely but without going out of bounds, Orso and Nicki learn the rules of the place from loudspeakers and get to know the other guests and also find old acquaintances.

Soon the couple, even if they keep on living together in the same apartment, goes into crisis. Inside the institute everyone betrays everyone, there is a rage of sex that has prevailed over all human relationships; old men and women negotiate sexual services with young attendants cold as automatons, who are satisfied, in exchange, for a sweater or a necklace.

In fact, in the new order sexual promiscuity is encouraged but technicized and disconnected from any vital or affective drive (as Huxley already predicted in The New World).

Guests continually dedicate themselves to it more out of boredom than out of desire, flaunting a frenzy that is only in search of stunning.

“Chiedo l’autorizzazione al disbrigo di una pratica sessuale”

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The most awaited and above all feared event is the periodic lottery, in which all guests are obliged to take part. It is a bizarre cross between Mercante in Fiera (a traditional Italian Christmas card game) and Bingo, with strange tarot cards, and the prize is the immediate departure for a cruise that no one dreams of: in fact, the winners have never returned to the village, from this we deduce that in reality they are deleted.

The fact is accepted with resignation by the guests, who continue to enjoy by dedicating themselves to sex, the only “real” activity allowed.

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Orso makes friends with Bertani, what some today would call a conspiracy theorist, who favors the rebellious and supportive spirit of the former DJ. While the other guests live suspended between obedience and fatalism, the two are unwilling to accept the fate that others have decided for them and want to prepare an escape.

Meanwhile, marital and emotional ties are loosening, also in anticipation of future, painful separations.

Even Orso, although initially reluctant to cheat on his wife, indulges in a relationship with a young village worker, Ortensia, addressed in his choice by Bertani. In fact, the girl is part of a movement of young people against any deprivation of freedom and helps the elderly who intend to escape.

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“L’ignoranza è errore e l’errore è la morte”

To escape, however, Orso and Nicki have to go through the next lottery unscathed; so they consult Simoncini, the longest-lived guest of the village who seems to have found a mathematical system to always lose at the game and therefore never be selected for the cruise.

Unfortunately, despite this effort, Nicki ends up among the winners and is forced to embark. In a harrowing scene on the pier the two, aware that they will never see each other again, greet each other with a last kiss, confessing their love.

Orso, overwhelmed by grief and resigned not to flee anymore and to wait his turn for the cruise, will also die. But in a sensational and unexpected way, to create a diversion that allows Bertani and another guest to escape. It will be Antonluca, the grandson, to kill him for fun or by mistake, in an old abandoned floating zoo, full of now extinct stuffed animals.

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Welcome to the new normality

Today we understand why such films have been ignored, crushed by critics, or soon ended up in oblivion, rather than being screened and discussed in schools.

Otherwise, we wouldn’t live now a historical moment in which the majority of people live as guests of the village, obedient and resigned or perhaps victims of the illusion that the cruise called the Great Reset is a promised land rather than a slaughterhouse.

Related works:

Books:

“I viaggiatori della sera” di Umberto Simonetta
“Logan’s Run” by William F. Nolan e George C. Johnson
“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
“1984” by George Orwell
“A Generation Removed” by Gary K. Wolf
“Modern Death: The End of Humanity” by Carl-Henning Wijkmark

Movies:

Il Fischio al naso (The Seventh Floor – 1967) by Ugo Tognazzi
Swiss Made 2069 (1969) by F.M. Murer
Logan’s Run (1976) by Michael Anderson

The film was shot in the opening scenes in Milano 2, and then in the splendid location of Lanzarote, in the Canary Islands.

THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDTRACK BY TOTI SOLER AND XAVIER BATTLES WITH IMAGES FROM THE FILM

“The Twilight Travelers” (IT 1979) by Ugo Tognazzi

Director: Ugo Tognazzi
Story: Umberto Simonetta (novel), Sandro Parenzo
Screenplay: Ugo Tognazzi, Sandro Parenzo
Productor: Franco Committeri
Music: Toti Soler, Xavier Batllés, Santi Arisa

Cast

Ugo Tognazzi: Orso Banti
Ornella Vanoni: Nicki Banti
Corinne Cléry: Ortensia
Roberta Paladini: Anna Maria Banti
Pietro Brambilla: Francesco Banti
José Luis López Vázquez: Simoncini
William Berger: Cochi Fontana
Manuel de Blas: Bertani
Deddi Savagnone: Mila Patrini
Leo Benvenuti: Sandro Zafferi
David Fernández Álvaro: Antonluca, figlio di Anna Maria
Enrico Tricarico: Village director
Sergio Antonica: Nicola
Ricky Tognazzi: gardener
Carmen Russo: girl at the radio station

8 December 2021

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Eko – the 1980s

By C2VVintage Italian Amplifiers, Vintage Italian Amplifiers, Vintage Italian Bass, Vintage Italian Guitars, Vintage Italian Guitars, Oliviero Pigini, Vintage Italian Synthesizers, Vintage Italian SynthesizersNo Comments

”We have come to the end of the Eko epic, an adventure that runs over three very dense decades and that sees its conclusion with the Master, Performance and SA series, at the same time spearhead and swan song of the historic brand.
Lorenzo

The end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s had seen the birth of high-quality instruments, entirely in solid wood and with Val di Fiemme spruce tops, such as the Alborada and Giuliani for classical guitars and the Korral Special and Chetro for the acoustics.

About Giuliani, the 1981 catalog quoted:
“Concert guitar built to order only. An exceptional instrument from all points of view etc. And it follows:” The Giuliani is the only guitar available today for which the manufacturer can guarantee the level of both power and sound quality. Only the instruments that pass the very strict final tests of the E.A.R.L. (ACOUSTIC RESEARCH LABORATORY) in fact obtained the name Giuliani. ”

On the electrical side, unibodies instruments were born, both bass and guitars, such as the M24, M20, CX7 and the BX7 and MB21 basses. The hardware was in solid brass and was produced in the internal workshops together with the excellent pick-ups (anti-hum in barium hexaferrite and in American alnico 5 ° – a special alloy of aluminum, nickel, chromium, cobalt and copper) which were offered as an alternative to the DiMarzio.

A 1981 “Strumenti Musicali” article – click on images to read

There was also a very small production of DM, namely the double-neck versions of the M24 which were created at 10 (guitar and bass), 16 (guitar 12 strings and bass) and 18 strings (neck 6 and neck 12).
Other new models were the C33 and C44 with a 42 mm thick solid maple body and maple neck.
The famous M33 Short Gun was also born in the late 70s and early 80s, commonly known as the “Rifle” due to the strange shape of the body (always in solid spruce from Val di Fiemme) in the shape of a rifle butt.
In those years Eko also began a collaboration with Camac for the German market.

Unibody M24

Unibody M24 e SC800 in the movie “Journey with Papa”

Unibody M20

Unibody DM 10, 16 and 18

Camac

The same technique was also used for the C11, inspired by the Gibson SG. The bass series was also renewed with a new series: alongside the C01 and C02 guitars, the B02 was created with the same construction techniques and short-scale neck.
The B55 and B55S were born as long scale Fender-style basses, again with the Val di Fiemme spruce body with Natural, Cherry and Walnut finishes (they could also be ordered fretless).
A separate discussion was the rare C22, a beautiful, very light and extremely playable Les Paul, built with a particular wood called Jelutong. So few were made that it is almost impossible to find and whoever has one keeps it or makes you pay big money for it.
Also for these lines, there was a choice between Eko or DiMarzio pickups (the final letter S in the acronym meant that the instrument was DiMarzio equipped).

C11

C02

B55

CX7 Artist

C22

The first acoustic electrification system was the Shadow piezoelectric (the best pickups available at the time) and consequently, the need to have an amplifier to match the purpose also arose. At the amplifier section department, whose head was Ferdinando Canale (later founder of SR-Technology and Sound Engineering), they created the wonderful and excellent SC800, still with a Val di Fiemmecabinet, of which two batches of 50 were produced.

In the early 80s, as regards the production of guitars, the classics section saw, in addition to the already existing Alborada and Giuliani, the birth of the Conservatory 51 and Conservatory 53, both with solid Val di Fiemme top and the whole Carulli, all in solid wood.

For the acoustics, from 1983 also Eldorado had a solid Val di Fiemme top and the D100FP model was born, again with a solid top in precious Val di Fiemme.
In 1984 Korral and Chetro remained in production, the Ranger disappeared and the AW took over in the 6 and 12 string versions with electromagnetic amplification in the neck or a piezo in the bridge.

The acoustic line

The new TK Classic became the top model of the classical guitar, with a thin body, entirely in solid wood and with a pre-amp system: only about thirty pieces were built.
The Tk was also introduced in the Acoustic version, always with a thin body and preamp (very similar to the Takamine EF391MR).

At the time the greatest Italian musicians used EKO acoustic instruments. The Korral and Chetro were commonly played by Guccini, Franco Mussida, Teresa De Sio, Stefano Rosso, Ricchi e Poveri, Mauro Pagani, Mario Castelnuovo, Marco Ferradini, Lucio Violino Fabbri, Claudio Baglioni (also with SC800), Ivan Graziani, Goran Kuzminac , Ricky Gianco, Fausto Leali, Francis Kuipers, Edoardo Bennato.

TK Classic

For electric instruments, the M6 and M7 arrived in 1983, equipped with “Magnetics” pickups, both active, and the MB9 and MB10 basses, also coming with “Magnetics” pickups.

In 1984 the Master series saw the light with the M4, the M4 and M4S Electroacoustic model (presented at the Milan fair just before the bankruptcy), the M5, the M7 and the M7 Deluxe. The Electroacoustic system was an EKO patent that featured a piezoelectric pickup with 6 separate saddles inserted into the bridge of an electric guitar.

The Performance series was also born, with the P100, P100 DeLuxe, P200, P200 DeLuxe guitars. These models had a solid alder body and maple neck. The P100 Gipsy was like the P100 but had a built-in amplifier with a speaker between the bridge pick-up and the neck.
The basses of the performance series were the B25 and B55.

M4S

P100

M4 Electroacustic

M5 (picture by Atraz)

M7 DeLuxe

To meet the needs of a young rock audience, the Thunderbolt series was also born, with the T40 model (DiMarzio humbucker pick-up at the bridge) and the T50 with two pick-ups and a new body design.

The semi-acoustics were also renewed, with the SA29, SA39, SA39 Custom models. The top models were the SA396 and SA396 Custom, both with 60 mm high bodies and Attila Zoller or DiMarzio DP106 pick-ups.

In 1984 all the company’s financial problems began to arise, so Eko consequently closed in 1985. The bankruptcy petition is dated May 21, 1986, followed by a sale managed by the bankruptcy trustee and so, sadly, ends the story of the REAL EKO.

Thunderbolt

Le semiacustiche SA

SA39

Ekoists in the 80s

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Franco Cerri with M-24

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Ivan Graziani with Korral

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Ivan Graziani wth M-55 “Short Gun”

Edoardo Bennato with Ranger 12 Electra

Edoardo Bennato with Korral e Lucio Bardi with M-24

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Edoardo Bennato with E85 in the Eko rehearsal room

Franco Mussida (PFM) with DM-18

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Patrick Djivas (PFM) with MB-21

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Patrick Djivas and Franco Mussida

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Flavio Premoli (PFM) with Ekosynth P15

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Rino Gaetano with a rare Bouzouki

The Balestra Brothers (Rocking Horse, Superobots) with the Crossbow (Balestra in Italians means crossbow, in fact), derivations of the M33 “Fuciletto” jokingly created for them by Eko

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Bobby Solo with M-24

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La Bottega Dell’Arte with a M33 and a Polyphemus mini amp

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Bernardo Lanzetti (Acqua Fragile – PFM) with M-24

Donatella Rettore with a “rising Sun” M-33

CLICK THE BUTTON AND WATCH!

Donatella Rettore – “Oblio” with CX-7 Artist, M-24 and BX-7

The Knack with M33

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Shane McGowan (The Pogues) with Ranger 12

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Andy Wickett (formerly of Duran Duran) with Ranger 12

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Ricchi e Poveri with Chetro and Korral

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Vasco Rossi with Ranger 12 Electra

Roberto Puleo and CX-7 Artist for Riccardo Fogli

Ekoists today

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Mauro Pagani (PFM) with Bouzouki and Chetro

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Fausto Leali and one of the early Korral

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Giorgio Zito (Edoardo Bennato) with Ranger 12 Electra

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Claudio Prosperini (Stradaperta – Venditti) with an extremely rare M-24 12

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Teresa De Sio with Korral

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Francis Kuipers with his signed Korral Special

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Chiara Ciavello with Florentine single cutaway

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Cristiano De Andrè with Bouzouki

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Federico Poggipollini (Ligabue – Litfiba) with 500

Saturnino with B02

De Gregori with 100/M

Johnny Winter with Ranger 12

Phil Rocker with 500

Sean Lennon with Ekomaster 400

We greet and thank our friend Julien D’Escargot for very kind and fundamental advice and for the enormous amount of material made available: without him the entire Eko article would not have been possible.

Some of the material was found in the FB group “Eko vintage guitars”, where former Eko staff and enthusiasts share images in their possession or found on the web. A sincere thanks therefore also go to all of them.

4 December 2021

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EKO – The 1970s

By C2VVintage Italian Effects, Vintage Italian Pedals2 Comments

”The 70s began and Eko led by Augusto Pierdominici prepares to face the new decade with determination, with new cutting-edge products both from the new Ekoelettronica department and from Remo Serrangeli's Guitars department.
Lorenzo

While at first the manufacture of Ekosonic organs and amplifiers was entrusted to Galanti and in ’65 to Cremonini (who produced Viscount, Duke, Herald and Valet but also the pickups for the Eko and Vox guitars that previously came out of CRB), in 1968 Eko founded EME with Danieli Milano, JMI and Thomas and took charge of the production of Eko branded electronic instruments, while the furniture that contained the electronic parts were manufactured in two departments managed by the wood section of Remo Serrangeli, who continued to deal with guitars, workshops and maintenance.

Ekoelettronica

After the design of the beautiful Auriga guitar and bass model, Augusto Pierdominici moves on to lead the newborn electronic design department of Eko, which will see Felice Labianca in charge of the design and costs department and who got off to a great start in 1972 with the birth of the incredible ComputeRythm.

The ComputeRythm is the first fully programmable drum machine in history, a little monster that would have made history thanks to the albums of names like Tangerine Dream, Manuel Gottsching (who bought it from Chris Franke of TD) and Jean-Michel Jarre (starting with Oxygene), who still uses it today, singing passionate praises.

Jean-Michel Jarre with Eko ComputeRythm

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Eko ComputeRythm, prima drum machine interamente programmabile della storia

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Manuel Göttsching (Ash Ra Tempel) with Eko ComputeRythm

The wonderful creature of Giuseppe Censori, Aldo Paci and Urbano Mancinelli even had the capacity to read the presets saved on punch cards in real time and its so peculiar aesthetic led it to even be the central character in the sets of some science fiction movies of the period.

One of the few specimens still traceable is now owned by the Marche and Italian Synth Museum.

Hainback with Eko ComputeRythm

Later, in addition to a whole series of home organs of various price ranges, the famous Tiger organ series (a success of 55,000 units produced in three years), the Sensor electric piano, the K1, K2 and K3 and in ’74 the monophonic synth Ekosynth and the Stradivarius, a string synthesizer.

Eko Tiger 61

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The New Tiger Duo designed by Fabio Conti: the organ’s upper keyboard slides on internal rails and closes to become a suitcase.

Ekosynth

Eko Stradivarius

A line of effect pedals was also created such as the wha Strepitoso, the Sound rotary speaker simulator and the Mitico Multitone, one of the very first analog multi-effect pedals (volume, wha, bass / treble booster, distortion and repeat percussion), which seem to have even been born in 1969.

Eko Multitone

Strepitoso wha

Ekosound, Multitone and Special o K1

In 1975 the EME will be owned by Farfisa and the last products of the Eko electronic department will be the SC 800, Super Polyphemus and mini Polyphemus portable amplifiers and finally, in ’79, the P 15 (an analog monosynth with digital control with preset) and the ‘Ekopiano in the early 1980s.

Ekosynth P 15

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In the meantime, at the guitars department

While Pierdominci’s department was a furor, Serrangeli certainly did not stand by and, between ’74 and ’75 resumed the technical study of the physics of stringed instruments and the forces acting on them. For this purpose, he bought the same complex Bruel Kier machinery that was used at the University of Cremona for this purpose and started the production of the Alborada.

From these experiences, three years later, the Giuliani was born, an authentic flagship model (also in solid wood and board in precious Val di Fiemme fir), which was supplied with a certificate of the response curve, made with that equipment. This document allowed the customer to return to the factory after years and repeat the test to check the aging of the woods and the consequent increase in the volume of the instrument.

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Chetro and Korral

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Serrangeli and De Carolis with Chetro

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De Carolis Chetro guitars

In the same period he began the design of the first professional acoustics and, in collaboration with John Huber, luthier and at the time Martin’s area manager in Europe, he designed the Korral Special, also entirely in solid wood and with a solid top in Val Di Fiemme and ebony fingerboard. From this will be born the Chetro, the first of which was a 9-string model created for Ettore de Carolis (Chetro is precisely the name of his daughter). The labels inside the soundhole, with descriptions of materials and workmanship, in all four acoustic instruments were handwritten with Indian ink by Ettore Guzzini, Eko’s Italian Market Manager who also wrote the owner’s name on the specimens destined to become Signature.

Then there was the production of the black Ranger by Bennato which sold 6500 units and at the end of the 70s the monobloc electric ones like the M24 were born, but we will talk about this in the part dedicated to the Eko in the 80s.

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Little Chetro De Carolis with the 9-string prototype guitar that took its name from her

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1975 acoustic guitars catalog

Who played Eko in the 70s

Mick Taylor

Mick Jagger

Martin Barre (Jethro Tull)

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Mike Rutherford (Genesis)

Peter Ham (Badfinger)

Joe Egan (Stealers Wheel)

Stealers Wheel – Stuck In The Middle With You

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Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin)

Bob Marley

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Lucio Battisti and Ornella Vanoni

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Mia Martini with J56/1

Ron and Lucio Dalla

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Guccini with a Chetro

Fabrizio De Andrè with PFM (Lucio “violin” Fabbri plays a Chetro 12)

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Peter Van Wood with Ranger 12 Electra

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Lino Vairetti (Osanna) with Ranger 12

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Pino Daniele with the Ranger 12 owned by Lino Vairetti of Osanna

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Vanna Brosio with Ranger 12 Electra

Renato Zero with Rio Bravo

The Trip with Eko instruments (Billy Grey with a Kadett guitar and Joe Vescovi with Ekosonic organ)

Click and watch The Trip playing Eko instruments (Kadett and Ekosonic)

A warm thanks to our friend Roberto Bellucci of Elettronica Musicale Italiana for the additional information on the creations of the Ekoelettronica department.

The article continues in the third part: Eko – the 1980s

27 November 2021

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“Parts: The Clonus Horror” (Usa 1979) by Robert S. Fiveson

“Omicron” (IT 1963) by Ugo Gregoretti

Click the button and watch the exclusive videos of this incredible Morris Global Sound!

The Giuliettas

Giuseppe Luraghi and his Portello

The Giulietta

Thanks

The Space Waltz album

Side 1

Side 2

Space Waltz:

Credits

…BUT HOW DOES IT SOUND?

Click the button to watch an exclusive mini demo of this Epiphone!

The music score

Film Synopsis

Production

Important Update:

A few months after the release of this article, fortunately, a collector was able to share an incomplete copy of the film which, even if missing by about half an hour, manages to give an idea of the film to those who, like me, was trying to watch it for decades.

“Yume, Yume No Ato” (Jp/Fr) by Kenzo Takada

Welcome to the new normality

Related works:

Books:

Movies:

“The Twilight Travelers” (IT 1979) by Ugo Tognazzi

Ekoists in the 80s

Ekoists today

We greet and thank our friend Julien D’Escargot for very kind and fundamental advice and for the enormous amount of material made available: without him the entire Eko article would not have been possible.

In the meantime, at the guitars department

Who played Eko in the 70s

The article continues in the third part: Eko – the 1980s

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