Atarassia Grop

There was a garage in Como countryside, with the fragrance of dreams in arms. In that place there wasn’t anything but friendship, nothing but sweat. Nothing without a desire face, nothing without the wish for screaming. It was 1993 and this garage gave birth to Atarassia Gröp. Since that moment music has become the barricade from which we shot hardcore, ska, reggae, dub, street punk and folk to a self-centred and hypocritical world, which didn’t fit us as if it was a three sizes smaller dress. No music lessons: it was enough to know the differences between a guitar and a bass, between the microphone and a bottle. It was enough to spit our heart outside the barricade of our out of tune notes. After a demo-tape, for the first time we had to face up to a recording studio, and that gave birth to “Risvolti politico sociali dell’alcolismo post-adolescenziale” (political and social implications of alcoholism after adolescence).We had our first cd, our hands were outstretched towards future to pull our wishes by the hair. Under self-production flag the little army of “combat burdel” advanced, ready to come in the big world of independent music. We were ready to everything, even to play outside. Maybe one day we’d play in another province. All our friends were at our concerts, everyone gave the cd to all his friends, you could see our adhesives appearing everywhere, there wasn’t any motorbike nor any traffic sign without them on it. Our garage was always giving birth to new emotions. When we could make up 12 songs with our few notes, we recorded our first real disc, called “L’involuzione della specie” (The involution of the species). It was 1999 and we had understood how to hold the guitar in our hand. The concerts were more and more, and we started to see strangers under the platforms. Our lyrics were growing up together with us, and like us they used to keep great hopes inside. We started to colour the words of our songs with different languages. In the next cd, “Fantasmi” (Ghosts, 2001), still self-produced, we sang in Spanish, (El Dios de la selva), in French (Immense et rouge), in German (Guten Morgen) and in Slavic language (America I Egleska). With that record we inaugurated our “working-class patchanka”, made up with rhythm, dance and social commitment. We add to our traditional instruments –drums, guitar and bass- other instruments, unusual for a band that people considered punk. The new instruments were violin, accordion, percussion instruments, wind instruments, organ, and a young opera singer’s voice. We run out of records, but people still wanted them, so we decided to join all the songs written so far in a collection (Sempre Insieme a Voi, Always together with you, 2002). In that collection we recorded also a new song, “Jamal”, which talks about the sad story of Mumia Abu Jamal. With that song we won a prize at an important festival promoted by Amnesty International. Our barricade had become bigger and bigger. A lot of people used to write us to invite us to play, and our songs were singed by more and more people everywhere. It was 2003 and the songs for AQUI ESTAMOS were ready. This record was produced by the Italian KOB Records and the German Mad Butcher Records. We didn’t know Enrico Kob nor Mike Mad Butcher, but luck put them on our hard way. With AQUI ESTAMOS we traveled a lot, in Italy and abroad. We met a lot of new friends, we toasted and played, laughed and hoped with people like us. In 2006 we gave birth to our latest record, Non si può fermare il vento (You can never stop the wind), where every song subtends the idea of little David fighting against the giant Goliath (the weak fighting against the power). We talk about the historyof our country, from the barricades in the city of Parma (L’oltretorrente), to the never solved story of the captain Neri and Gianna (two partisans died after 25th April 1945) and to our Resistance (La preghiera dei banditi). We also talked about today, about the police repressions at the G8 of Genoa in 2001 (Lettera a Genova), and about Palestine (Spalle al muro). We also give voice to our innermost emotions (Ad ogni passo, Anime di plastica) and to other social themes (Vi odio, Sciarpe tese, All reds rugby Roma). Always travelling “in direzione ostinata e contraria” (in an obstinate and opposite direction) we dedicate a song (Canzone di Gennaio) to a famous Italian anarchist singer and poet, Fabrizio De Andrè. So far we’ve played about 300 times, in Italy and abroad, we took part in a lot of compilations, and got enthusiastic agreements on radios, magazines, and fanzines. But maybe it’s just a dream, and tomorrow we’ll wake up in our garage in the countryside.