About us

The first live performances were done with the six-member lineup, with Riccardo and Sandro on vocals, just a few weeks after the band’s formation (Bologna San Donnino, then Bologna Piazza San Michele, then Bologna Piazza Maggiore). Many others would follow (see the “concerts” section) with the four-member lineup and some with the three-member lineup (during the drummer’s military service).

• In San Donnino, we played in public for the first time, on a platform in the park, it was quite fun. Among the audience was Mr. Medardo, my grocer, who – incredibly – was favorably impressed. Regarding the concert in Piazza Maggiore, I remember leaving school, throwing my backpack under the stage, and going up to do the soundcheck: a few days earlier, The Clash had played on the same stage, Michel Pergolani was the announcer because it was all broadcast by RAI (Italian national television), it was a lot of fun playing in front of my schoolmates. The “strangest” one was Lino (Catello Di Carlo, the drummer, ed.) because he still had long blond hair and contrasted sharply with us little punks… but luckily he cut it soon after. We even got paid: it was a pittance, but it was satisfying (Steve)

• The fact is that Piazza Maggiore was full, it wasn’t just a Metalvox concert, but a whole event dedicated to “Bologna Rock”… so many girls came to have their pictures taken near us!!! Obviously, there were no selfies back then 😉 I also had long hair, but soon after, and very willingly, I had it cut almost to a buzzcut (Gianni)

After seeking an agreement with Fonoprint, the group landed at Italian Records, immediately after a lineup change. Riccardo “Ricky” Rinaldi (Ohm Guru) and Sandro “Fucky” Palmieri, along with other friends, started a project that better satisfied their punk influences (Noise Area), while the other four moved decisively towards the emerging new wave, following the wave of new bands like The Cure, Joy Division (to whom Metalvox were often compared), Bauhaus, Talking Heads, Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Tuxedomoon, but especially DEVO. Marco Tubertini at the time was selling cash registers, Gianni Capra was a lathe operator in a factory, Steve Paselli left school to dedicate himself to the band, and Catello Di Carlo continued his work as a mechanical draftsman.

• Given the unexpected and unforeseen public success, the band decided never to perform for free again (and they didn’t). In fact, despite not wanting to miss a collective event at the Aldini Valeriani Institute in Bologna, when their turn came, the band placed a Revox tape recorder in the center of the stage and the four musicians crossed their arms, remaining silent, i.e., only playing the Revox, as an act of protest because there wasn’t even a reimbursement of expenses for participating in that event (Gianni).

Thanks to the excellent relationship the band had with some musical instrument stores in Bologna, the four managed to acquire a respectable set of equipment: a collection of Korg MS10, MS20, MS50 semi-modular monophonic synthesizers, even a Roland System 100 (2 mono synths, mixer with a wonderful spring reverb and a rather unstable 16-step pitch sequencer…), a Korg SQ10 (another analog sequencer), a Korg VC10 (vocoder), an MS-03 “Signal Processor” (or “pitch to voltage converter,” which was used in many improper ways), a Logan string keyboard, a beautiful Roland VP-330 keyboard (strings, choirs, and vocoder), a bizarre and very heavy SD-Curlee electric bass, a splendid Fender Stratocaster, BOSS and Roland effects and electronic drums (TR808, TR606, the famous TB03 bass line…), a brand new Ludwig drum kit, a Synare electronic percussion, AKG D-210 and D-330 microphones, Montarbo amplifiers, Tekson monitors…

• At that time, synthesizers had no memory; you actually had to build and re-build a single sound at a time, every single time… Marco (Tubertini, keyboardist, ed.) bleached his hair into a brush cut, and his serious and Teutonic appearance while standing almost motionless behind a mountain of synthesizers was truly impressive. But between songs, his hands had to move incredibly fast to rewire the sound needed for the next track… even Lino (Catello Di Carlo, the drummer, ed.) had to program his Synare every time. These were not easy times for those who made electronic music (Steve).

• … it was terrible suffering to arrive, perhaps laboriously, perhaps purely by chance, at a beautiful sound, and not know how to find it again. So we created photocopied diagrams on which we would draw the settings of the various knobs and patch cables with colored markers. Some originals of these settings have been preserved (Gianni).

During endless evenings of study, Gianni and Steve became quite expert in the use of those ancient electronic contraptions: analog subtractive synthesis was a way to obtain the sounds the group desired, and experimentation began.

• I often arranged for the other members of the group to find the entire rehearsal room rewired to obtain ONE particular sound or effect: they would compliment me and say, “Bravo, beautiful, but now put everything back the way it was!”… (Steve)

The 4 members of the band were and are multi-instrumentalists and composers: Capra, Paselli, and Di Carlo composed the songs, while Capra and Paselli wrote the lyrics. On stage, they often swapped instruments, a peculiarity that struck many in the audience. They often presented themselves dressed all four in the same way, as if it were a uniform.

• We presented ourselves with four strange, identical jackets with Velcro tear-off openings, or we wore certain collarless Mao-style shirts. Gianni (Gianni Capra, the guitarist, ed.) and I cut our hair very short and dyed it black and blond, respectively, while Marco (Marco Tubertini, the keyboardist, ed.) went completely blond with a brush cut, causing quite a stir among his work colleagues… (Steve).

• … they were real uniforms. And the four identical jackets were also used to… create rumors; in fact, as soon as they were bought, the band took a walk under the most crowded porticoes of Bologna, obviously arousing curiosity. However, the first uniform consisted of black shirt and trousers, white t-shirt; the second, exactly the opposite; the third, military green shirt with a Mao collar and black trousers; the fourth, iridescent purple-lilac-red shirt with a Mao collar and fire-red trousers… Sometimes we changed clothes during the slide show between the first and second sets of the concert (Gianni).

With Italian Records, under the direction of Oderso Rubini, the band participated in a compilation titled “Ref.907” along with Absurdo, Kerosene, Ipnotico Tango, and Eurotunes, releasing the tracks “Future,” “TV Hero,” and “Infinite.” The first has a dystopian feel, the second is a precise social critique, and the third is a completely experimental piece, with its unsettling synthesizers in perpetual glissando over a funky bassline. “Ref.907” was later irregularly reprinted (i.e., without recognizing the rights of Italian Records) in France, Germany, and Australia; the compilation was also regularly reprinted in Italy twice, including the last time in a “Deluxe” version that also included a CD in addition to the vinyl. The group continued to perform in completely self-managed concerts: for the Cagliari concert, they traveled in a Panorama van packed like an egg, and Barbara Korompay also participated as a backing vocalist on that date (the band’s first contact with a computer, a Commodore PET, was thanks to Barbara’s father and his incredible Citroen DS). In Brescia in 1981, the band opened for Snakefinger under a large tent on a rainy day and had excellent public success.

• Snakefinger’s band had bizarre Peavey guitars that had never been seen in Europe, which we nicknamed “stranocaster” (“strange-caster”). During the concert, the cry “Metalvox! Bologna!” was heard from the audience, which left us incredulous: who the hell knew us in Brescia?! The trip to Sardinia was legendary; the weather was beautiful, and we crossed the deserted deck dancing to The Cure in the warm Tyrrhenian wind after a spectacular sunset. Sometimes we even used improper objects on stage, like Catello’s “electronic” doorbell from home. There was a song, “Progress,” in which I had to continuously play a descending glissando on the bass on every downbeat for the entire song; the effect was nice but terrible for my fingers, which usually bled at the end of the song… (Steve).

• Snakefinger’s band, who represented a rock star for us since he collaborated with cult West Coast bands like Tuxedomoon and The Residents, behaved with extreme kindness towards us, for example, letting us calmly manage our soundcheck (we were at the Palazzetto dello Sport in Brescia, so a much larger venue than those we were used to, except for the Pirri cinema in Cagliari), they didn’t rush us, even for the performance; in fact, they were all very kind, and that struck me a lot, even though being recognized by the audience was truly the strongest emotion. Snakefinger, in the same month (April 1981), also performed at the Aleph in Gabicce, in my opinion the most exciting and most alternative club ever at the time. At the Aleph, in November of the same year, I was the stage technician for James White and the Blacks; James White is one of the stage names of James Siegfried, much better known as James Chance, who created bands like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and James Chance and the Contortions, a guru of the No Wave movement, it was fantastic… (Gianni).

The group produced everything themselves, graphics and photos, and also the posters, which were designed by Gianni and Steve, as were the stickers. Unusual solutions were adopted, such as keyboard stands made using plastic crates for mineral water bottles placed behind chipboard panels painted with the group’s graphics. Often at concerts, there was a slide projector, with slides projected onto the musicians or onto a beautiful and enormous “cinema” screen that the band had purchased.

• One summer, we took all the equipment to an old water mill near Monterenzio, which my family had rented for holidays and weekends; we set everything up on the riverbank and rehearsed the setlist outdoors. The point where we had set up the stage was visible from an overpass, on which a bus full of curious people stopped… amazed to see four new wave extraterrestrials with black band glasses playing electronic rock for the frogs of the river! (Steve).

The band’s old orange Mercedes van, which had previously belonged to a ballroom music group, was furnished with seats – soon removed – and useful window curtains, and was also used for the band’s “dancing” outings: it often accompanied the band to the Small in Pieve di Cento – back when Red Ronnie was still the DJ, a historic venue that also hosted two of the band’s concerts – or to the Punto Club in Vignola, another famous “rock disco.”

• When we played at the Tenax in Florence for the second time, Bauhaus had performed the night before. The scene we found in the dressing rooms was incredible: there were at least a few hundred extinguished cemetery candles scattered everywhere, there was wax 🙂 all over the place. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a camera… (Gianni).

Then we bought a used FIAT 242, with a brand new engine and reinforced leaf springs, definitely more suitable for transporting the equipment. A providential mattress resided in the cargo area for some time.

• Our beautiful red van was quite noisy: to try to soundproof the passenger compartment, we covered the panel between the cabin and the engine with rock wool: it worked very well until it caught fire… we also invented a simple anti-theft device: to start the engine, it was necessary to operate twelve switches mounted in a “burglar-proof” position, for a total of 4096 combinations: this also worked very well until the solder we had used for the connections melted… so many good ideas and no experience (Steve).

Gianni had to give up the apartment where he lived, and the rehearsal space moved to the very famous cellars of San Vitale, where other Bologna Rock bands also rehearsed. Unfortunately, this choice proved disastrous because, after a few months, the entrance door (which was closed by an incredible number of padlocks) was broken down by smashing the wall around it, and the band found itself robbed of practically all its beloved and hard-earned instruments. Italian Records, while regretting Metalvox’s peculiarity of writing and singing in English unlike other bands that performed songs in Italian (Windopen, Luti Chroma, Skiantos, Gaznevada, and even the early Righeira), invested in the band by producing their first album in 1982, recorded on an eight-track recorder at Harpo’s Bazaar studios in Via San Felice in Bologna, with Stefano Barnaba at the mixing desk, and mixed in Junior Magli’s prestigious studio in the hills above Imola, produced by the equally expensive sound engineer Massimo Costa.

• The experience of recording our songs on eight tracks was enlightening (some songs took their complete form on that occasion) but not without drawbacks: for example, we lost a morning solving a problem with a sudden hum on one channel; the work with Stefano Barnaba went very well, I only remember a bit of bewilderment when Stefano, to work more comfortably (it was summer…), took off his shoes in the studio… during that period, I had found temporary employment selling ice cream at the Central Station: after eight hours of shouting “GEEELATI! ICE CREAM!” (or rather “I SCREAM”!), I went to the studio to do the vocals; when I examined the digital tracks derived from the tape, I saw all the damage to my vocal cords (Steve).

After this truly substantial investment, Italian Records decided not to print the album, “for the moment,” due to the depletion of the planned budget. The master of the album was stored in a warehouse of Italian Records which, after a few months, was hit by a flood, causing the loss of the master and other material.

• Later, together with Ignazio Orlando, we unsuccessfully tried an approach at Fonoprint again, playing some productions made with a very particular use of the Roland vocoder for the owner, and the final comment was “very interesting, but too strange… there’s no market” (Gianni).

The rehearsal room/headquarters moved to a new garage, located two floors underground in the Massarenti area (Bologna). Second move, third rehearsal space.

• The garage in Massarenti was a brand new, cold, and futuristic environment: two floors underground, the bells of the nearby church arrived like a distant and unsettling resonance. The garage was soundproofed with an ingenious system based on fiberglass (a rather toxic solution, looking back) and polystyrene panels with interlocking wooden strips between the floor and ceiling. Gianni and his girlfriend practically lived in that garage for a few months because times were tough. We also hosted a RAI3 crew there for a documentary about the Bolognese scene (Steve).

• RAI3 made a video all about us, about 4 minutes long, on the song “Where’s Love.” It was broadcast a few times, on RAI3 of course, but there seems to be no way to recover it (Gianni).

It was 1982, and despite the absence of the drummer Catello Di Carlo due to military service, Metalvox continued their live activity using electronic drum sounds. However, in the second half of the year, due to the previous theft, the resulting debt for the reacquisition of equipment, Catello’s conscription, and the definitive breakdown of the van, the group disbanded.