The Italian Prog Appreciation den

This band is from Venezia and this is the only album they've made in their musical life. Today only two members are musicians, the two drummers. In fact the former drummer Tury (nickname for Luigi Turin) had played in all tracks except for "Le mie storie", wich was played by Massimo Iannantuono. Both drummers are still playing in our days, not professionally. The other members are (Theo and Paul, Teo e Paolo Biasutti) are owner of a restaurant close to saint Mark's square. My cousin Gigi (Pierluigi Pandiani) is a cook, he works 'round the town. Despite to some songs, the intentions of the band were not to create a progressive album; if you hear something progressive is for about in the seventies in Italy was difficult to not hear prog rock. The main influence for Cocai (the name means "seagull" in venetian language) were New Trolls, not necessairy the progressive Trolls but the harmonic vocal lines. Other influence were surely Pink Floyd (for Le mie storie), the only track sung by my cousin, others are made by Theo).

The songs are not written by the members but from a team of composers, but I didn't know anything about them. I know that some songs (Milioni d'anni fa and especially Piccolo grande vecchio fiume) were inspired from the Vajont tragedy.

In the past to made a records was very complcated: i remember my cousin and the band work hard but enthusiastically for the release of the album, including the problem of the wrong printed labels. There are some grammar mistakes on the back cover and funny grapich choices, like to write the first insrument in small and the rest in capital words. Believe me, it was a semi-artigianal work, thoug the label was an official label.

I know that this album was reprint on cd; my cousin Gigi did'n t know anything about that. It was a personal discover. The fact is that me, a drummer who works regulary, i've discover music thanks by Gigi. In my family nobody was interested in music, no one plays an instrument. Only him he was a Beatles listener and a guitar player. So I am very grateful to him for that.

Honestly i think this is not a capital album, not a masterpiece, but it's significant for me and it was a big surprise that in japan, Corea,here, on youtube you canl find easily the tracks. Internet is another world: it seems possible that infinitesimally small sliver can survive. So Piccolo grande vecchio fiume is now not only an old, odd lp inside my collection.