Dear lord! At a first sight I thought that you do also have records in the toilet… you knew that our common friend Bruno Dorella keeps cassettes in the kitchen? I’m often asking to the Concrete Shelves contributors where and how they like to listen to music, especially when they listen to harsh or extreme…
Category: musician
Joseph Sannicandro – “I always love seeing how other people think to organize their books and records, it is a kind of microcosm of how someone’s mind works”
The most visible and exposed records are “Montreal Taperun” and “Out of Standards” by the mythical ADN Italian records. You’re partially Canadian/American and Italian music lover, artist and journalist. Are you among those who think that Italian experimental music is so worldwide fundamental? Yes, well I grew up in Westchester, NY not far from the…
Al Margolis – “You never know how many copies someone made of a tape”
Well, a first one very spontaneous question: I see a lot of LPs in what seems to be a basement, or a least a low ceiling room. The records are so heavily wrapped in plastic that at a first sight they don’t even look 33 rpm vinyls. My friend Gianmaria Aprile, musican and…
Marino Malagnino – “Doing noise music does not mean to do be idiots”
Well, among these foggy and dark photos, that make me figure that you live in a messy but inspiring and creative cave, I noticed “Vangelo secondo Matteo”. Is it really a religious CD? Why do you have it? I remember that you told me time ago that some of the musicians that you involved in…
Angèle David-Guillou – “Spending long evening drinking wine and listening to music is part of what friendship and life in general are about, for me”
It seems you like African Music: I’ve discovered it late in my musical life, but I think that sometimes we ‘western’ get to it when we’re fed up with 4/4 rhythms and generally ‘squared’ structures. Is it the same for you or you had the opportunity to grow up with non-western music already when…
Frans De Waard – “Many times I have been asked if I really had a big collection of records, following all these reviews I wrote. Well, no.”
[This post needs a short introduction – I’ve contacted Frans via Facebook on December 2018, with the following message, which actually is the usual one I send to those I invite to contribute to Concrete Shelves. What follows is (nearly) the uncut the conversation that we had.] Hi Frans! We’ve been in touch many times…
Marufura Fufunjiru – “Music is important, but the main thing for me will always be how people treat each other”
Well, it seems that 90% of your collection is Miles Davis on one side and John Cage on the other… do you like the good balance between improvisation and composition? I thought you where more a guy of extremes… John Cage and Miles Davis, as you can see, are two of my great heroes…
Bruno Dorella – “Harsh noise music really cleans my brain, it resets it actually, it makes my thoughts very clear, so I’m gonna cook something delicious”
“I sent you the photos of LPs and CDs, as I’ve put the cassettes in the cellar. I pick a few of them every now and then, and I put them in a wall holder in the kitchen, which is where I like to listen to them. Please note that, about the vinyls, this is…
Paolo Bandera – “Whatever sound I am listening to, I really like it LOUD”
It’s absolutely impressive, but it does not surprise me, I knew that you’re a heavy collector. And, as expected, I see a lot of what I can call ‘heavy’ stuff, things like Swans, Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, Boris, New Blockaders… you with Sigillum S and maybe even more with SSHE RETINA STIMULANS are known for having…
Gianmaria Aprile – “I don’t like holding LPs closed in a plastic envelope, ‘cause I like too much listening to them.”
Well, I knew you have a lot of vinyls, but what I notice in the pictures is that many of them are like ‘consumed’, are they mostly old? How did you get them? I was very lucky ‘cause I inherited a rich vinyls collection from my uncle… and of course, today, I keep buying others…
Yan Jun – “Minimalism in art smells very bourgeois nowadays”
Amazing! You’ve got a lot of stuff… is it as messy as it seems or there is some order (I see many Erstwhile CD piled together at least)? Yes there is order. I really hate if I want to find something but it’s lost in to a messy pit. The last summer my wife complained…
Paul Lemos – “Like some hoarder, I am a slave to this CD collection”
“Here is a pic of the sun pourch: a total horrific mess! Like some hoarder, I am a slave to this CD collection… after my last move, years ago, everything was left unorganized…and it never changed. So, I will get rid of about 75% of what you see in that picture. I just will put…
Vittore Baroni – “I do not listen to a lot of Swaili folk tunes…”
Well, your collection is amazing, especially the LPs… so you even need a ladder to reach soem of them. How can you remember where a specific record is stored? In which order are they put? They are arranged alphabetically and for genres, Italian stuff has a separate section as well as jazz and classical music….
Why Concrete Shelves?
I’ve always been extremely curious about other people’s books and records. Mostly records. Each time I enter a new house, I often identify the spot where CDs, LPs or cassettes are stored, I forget the other people in the room and I keep staring at the shelves (or sometimes just stacks) of sometimes unknown names,…
Concrete Shelves 