Daniele Baldelli
Daniele Baldelli is a true DJ icon. Italy’s equivalent to pioneering New York disco gods Francis Grasso, David Mancuso and Nicky Siano, Baldelli went from selecting rock, funk and soul 45s in ’69 on the Adriatic coast to playing soul, reggae and muscular disco at seminal club Baia Degli Angeli, deep in the heart of Cattolica club land. Then came the legendary spot Cosmic, an era of hedonism that began in ’79 where he would be simultaneously spinning samba, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode on 33 rpm into African rhythms whilst triggering drum machines and samplers. All on ’70s turntable technology as water fountains bubbled frenetically behind him. On the couch at the 2004 Red Bull Music Academy, this pioneer of the DJing artform recalled the tricks he devised and the chances he took.
Hosted by Fabio de Luca Let’s welcome Mr. Daniele Baldelli. In the ‘70s, New York had DJs like David Mancuso, Nicky Siano or the early Larry Levan. In Italy there was Daniele Baldelli. Today, we’re trying to tell a story about a DJ in Italy before the DJ was a thing. So, Daniele, when did you start DJing? Daniele Baldelli I started in 1969 in a club named Tana in Cattolica. But I think nobody called me a DJ back then. When people asked me, “What is your job?” I answered, “I play records in this club.” I had no mixer, no headphones, nothing. Just 7” records. I put one 7” on one turntable, when it was finished, I started the other one. When there was silence in between, nobody cared. People were used to wait for me and the next record. But still I tried to put the records together, even though the turntables didn’t have pitch control. At that time we had Lenco turntables. With them, you could adjust a level in between 33 and 45RPM. So I had at least some kind of pitch control. As I didn’t have headphones, I listened to the needle on the record. And when I heard that “tz-tz-tz” sound, I knew that it was time to start the other record. As we had automatic turntables, I couldn’t just press stop. You had to push a button and wait for the tone arm to lift and go back automatically. Sometimes you were late. Then you had to wait for the tone arm to react. But we had these automatic turntables only for one year. The development of the equipment was very fast. When I started, I was just 16 years old. I used to go to this disco club in Cattolica where I lived… Fabio de Luca Cattolica is near Rimini, not far away from Bologna. Daniele Baldelli 100 kilometers from Bologna. Anyway, I just went to this club for dancing. The guy that was playing records had some problems with the boss. So one day, the boss asked me if I wanted to do this job. At the beginning I was like, “Oh no, not me.” But then I was very happy about it and started playing records there. Fabio de Luca You were fond of music. That was the reason why he asked you. Daniele Baldelli Of course, that was the reason why he asked me. It was very difficult to find records these days. I was DJing in Cattolica, and I stayed in Cattolica. The DJs in Rimini stayed in Rimini, those from Bologna stayed in Bologna. All the DJs bought their records in the same shop of the town where they lived. But I had the feeling that I must find something else. So I took the train and went to Switzerland. In Lugano, there was a shop where you could buy imports from the USA. I was playing black music or rhythm & blues in the first place, records from people like Joe Tex, Rufus Thomas, Ann Peebles, Wilson Pickett, Etta James and James Brown, of course. I also played rock bands like The Stooges or Atomic Rooster. I played these records only on 7”. Going to a disco was something really new. So everybody wanted to go to discos. Fabio de Luca In Italy, public morality has always been an issue. Discos were regarded as bad places. At that moment, did you have to deal with prejudice? Daniele Baldelli No, not at that moment. This started later. Fabio de Luca What about drugs? Were drugs common? Daniele Baldelli No, not at the Tabù club where I played from 1970 onwards. Fabio de Luca So was it just about wine and beer? Daniele Baldelli Wine in a disco club? No. We had whiskey. Fabio de Luca I remember in that moment often the DJ didn’t bring his own records, but the owner of the place had his own record collection there, resident, and the DJ simply played the record of the owner. I think you told me when you spoke... Daniele Baldelli I wanted to buy my own records. So I said to my boss, “I’ll buy the records by myself. Please give me a little bit more money.” He agreed. And that’s the reason why I own 60.000 vinyl records now. Audience Member Two copies of each? Daniele Baldelli No, not all. Fabio de Luca I remember in that moment about late ‘60s, early ‘70s there was something like a rule inside the clubs that you had to play three fast tracks and then three slow tracks. Is that right? Daniele Baldelli Yes. I don’t remember everything. At that time we had psychedelic lights. The first time you could see psychedelic lights, one red, one blue, one yellow. That’s all. Fabio de Luca That’s all. Daniele Baldelli Then you used to play slow music. Fabio de Luca Downtempo we call it today. Daniele Baldelli No, downtempo is not dancing slow. No. Dancing together. You understand what I mean? Fabio de Luca Oh, you mean couples. There were couples dancing? Daniele Baldelli Five slow and five fast music that we call shake. That’s all, all the night. Five slow, and five fast. In ‘73 we start to play one hour of fast music and then a little break with five slow songs and then you start again. Fabio de Luca So, Tabú was your first club? Daniele Baldelli The first was Tana Club and then Tabú. It was similar. Fabio de Luca OK, Tana Club meant something like the heart? Daniele Baldelli I had some photos, but it was impossible to see. Anyway. Fabio de Luca Today, the DJ is such an important figure. All the girls look at the DJ, was it similar in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s? Daniele Baldelli No, I was only thinking about music. Now I know that I must have been stupid at that time. Fabio de Luca You met your wife in a club? Daniele Baldelli Yes, of course. Where else? I met her soon after I started DJing. So I didn’t have a chance to be a sex symbol. Fabio de Luca You did your job mostly in summer, when most people from around Italy and Germany would come to the disco and dance. How was it in winter? Daniele Baldelli In winter, the club was open on Saturday night, Sunday afternoon and Sunday night. In summer, we were open every night from June until the end of September, from ten until three o’clock in the morning. Fabio de Luca It was just you DJing? Daniele Baldelli Yes, just me. Then, in 1974, something very important happened in Italy. The club Baia Degli Angeli opened near Cattolica on a nice hill near the sea. This club wasn’t like anything people had seen before in Italy. It topped everything. The club didn’t have psychedelic lights. It was all white. They played music from 12 o’clock at night until six in the morning. As DJs, they hired two guys from New York. Today we know that they weren’t DJs before they started at the Baia Degli Angeli, they turned into DJs here. Their strong point was that they had beautiful music, records we didn’t get in Italy at that time. The export/import business, as we know it today, still wasn’t existing over here. These guys had all the Philadelphia sound, disco, Afro funk or Afro disco. Nobody in Italy had listened to these records before. Audience Member What was their name? Daniele Baldelli Bob Day and Tom Sison. Fabio de Luca So, they came from New York, and they actually weren’t DJs. They started DJing in Italy, because they had the records? Daniele Baldelli No. Uh, yes. I think so, yes. Fabio de Luca You told me that maybe one of them was a pizza man. Daniele Baldelli One of them was a pizza man, yes. Pizza man, Records. You can also scratch, if you want. Fabio de Luca In which year did Baia Degli Angeli open? Daniele Baldelli In ‘75. Daniele Baldelli At the time, you were still DJing at the Tabú? Daniele Baldelli I was still DJing Tabú club, yes. Fabio de Luca And you went to Baia Degli Angeli as a customer? Daniele Baldelli Yes. Because one day, these two guys, Bob and Tom came to me in my club in the afternoon. They saw me playing, and they said, “Oh you make a nice selection. But why don’t you mix them together?” I said, “What?” Fabio de Luca They were mixing together? They were mixing together at the Baia Degli Angeli? Daniele Baldelli Yes, the mix that you could do at the time, of course. Maybe two or three beats. That’s all. Fabio de Luca So, they had a mixer, anyway? Daniele Baldelli Yes. Fabio de Luca The first mixer you saw in your life? Daniele Baldelli No, it was not a mixer like this [points to mixer]. Just you had one of these here, and one for each turntable. It’s like a mixer, of course, with volume. They used to take away this [holds slipmat] It was still not invented. They put one 45 like this. And then they put the record on, with the paper. So they used this like a slipmat, yes. Fabio de Luca So then the function of the seven-inch was to make a smoother motion? Daniele Baldelli Oh, yes. And so I go visit them, and I’m looking all night, and I try to do the same thing. And then... Fabio de Luca And when Bob and Dave went to your club and said you’re a brilliant DJ you were happy, I suppose. Daniele Baldelli Of course. Fabio de Luca Because they were famous at the time in that area. Daniele Baldelli Yes. Fabio de Luca It was rewarding for you. Daniele Baldelli When they were about to return to the States, they introduced me the boss of the Baia Degli Angeli. So I started working in this club. It was very, very, very, very… The DJ booth was in a glass elevator. I could go up and down all night. This way I could see the dancefloor on the first level and the other three dancefloors upstairs. At the beginning, the Baia was a VIP club. But then it became more and more popular. About 4,000 people went there every Saturday. Fabio de Luca And some of them were American actors visiting Italy? Daniele Baldelli In the early days, yes. But later on, the Baia was about common people from all over Italy. Fabio de Luca I remember a picture of Grace Jones in the Baia Degli Angeli. Daniele Baldelli She was there when her first 12” single was just released. I think it was “La Vie En Rose.” At that time, nobody knew her in Italy. But she was at the Baia Degli Angeli, and I have a photo of her and me. Fabio de Luca Which other famous person do you remember that you spotted while you were playing at Baia Degli Angeli? Daniele Baldelli At Baia Degli Angeli, really, no one cared about me. I was playing the music, nobody cared about me. Fabio de Luca But which famous people did you notice on the dance floor while you were playing records? Daniele Baldelli No, I really don’t remember this. I remember now the director of Arancia Meccanica. Fabio de Luca Oh really, the director of A Clockwork Orange? Daniele Baldelli Yes. Fabio de Luca Kubrick. Stanley. Audience Member Do you remember a person, who is a fashion designer like Verducci, that was big in Italy? She was a connection with New York? Daniele Baldelli Yes. In fact, there was also a Baia shop, but they made their own models, like Fiorucci, of course. Fabio de Luca You weren’t so interested in the mixing with these famous people? You weren’t interested at all? You were more keen about doing your job as a DJ. Daniele Baldelli No. I don’t care about this. I was really... Fabio de Luca Do your job. That’s all. Daniele Baldelli I was just thinking about the music. That is the most important thing for me. Fabio de Luca So, you started playing Baia Degli Angeli in ‘77, sort of the high pitch of disco music in Italy. Daniele Baldelli Yes. Fabio de Luca You brought with you many mixtapes. You started making mixtapes in the early ‘70s, I think? Daniele Baldelli Say again? Fabio de Luca Still today, every month, every couple of months, he makes a mixtape of stuff he likes. Daniele Baldelli Yes, but I’m not able to use this mixer. That’s the problem. (music: Daniele Baldelli unknown mixtape / applause) Fabio de Luca You are using the tweak that the Americans taught you about lengthening the songs by using two 7” copies of the same record. Daniele Baldelli Of course. But then I became better than them [laughs]. Fabio de Luca But the Technics decks with pitch control as we know them today, they still weren’t there in ‘77. What kind of decks were you using? And how did you manage pitch control? Daniele Baldelli Normally, DJs are using these [SL]1200 we have here. But I am still very fond about the Technics SP-15 turntable. At that time, this turntable was really expensive. You bought this turntable without a tone arm, it wasn’t included. So I bought a special oil damped tone arm. It made me crazy when using the tone arm lift caused the record to jump. And then I found this tone arm in the UK. As the tone arm is balanced by oil, you can even move the turntable up and down – the needle won’t skip. I have four of these SP-15s at home. I didn’t like the turntables they had at the club, so I decided to buy my own and brought them when I played at the Baia Degli Angeli. The SP-15 has LEDs displaying the pitch speed precisely. The SL-1200 MK2 here has plus/minus 8, the SP 15 has a pitch range of plus/minus 10. Fabio de Luca Which kind of mixer did you have in the Baia? Daniele Baldelli In the Baia? Fabio de Luca Yeah. Fabio de Luca I think was a mixer made by your neighbor. Something like that. Fabio de Luca Adjust to slide? Daniele Baldelli Yeah, adjust to slide. Fabio de Luca Not cross fader. Daniele Baldelli With a little bit of a, with a... Fabio de Luca Effects? Daniele Baldelli No, not effects. Equalizer. Equalizer. Fabio de Luca Did you use tricks when you play records or cut out the bass? Daniele Baldelli No, I learn later the effects. I just play records together and I use, a lot of time, equalizer, we can listen later, I think. Audience Member I have a question. Does it have a queue function? Daniele Baldelli Headphone? Fabio de Luca Yes, at the time, yes, of course. When I started to mix, of course you must have a headphone. Of course yes. Fabio de Luca And you could stop the records after queuing? Daniele Baldelli Yes. Fabio de Luca The mixtape we just heard demonstrated the typical opening of a night at the Baia Degli Angeli. Before you got to the decks, there was no music in the club. Is that correct? Daniele Baldelli Yes. Can I say one thing? I’ve been playing the same record for one year to close the night. At six o’clock in the morning, when I saw the sun shine, I’ve always been playing Ravel’s “Bolero.” While this was playing for 18 minutes, I mixed in Pink Floyd, Malinké chants, effects from Jean-Luc Ponty’s violin… Everything I could think of. People went mad, they were full of drugs. [laughs] They flew directly in the sea. Fabio de Luca You choose “Bolero” because in that moment, there was a movie with Bo Derek... Daniele Baldelli I don’t know this, I know that Kebekelektrik, from Canada, they make the album. Fabio de Luca It wasn’t the “Bolero” it was a cover. Daniele Baldelli The original “Bolero” cover. Yes, cover. Fabio de Luca Which kind of drugs use to be in the... Daniele Baldelli I don’t know, I just take Coca-Cola. Fabio de Luca No, I... I’m not asking about yourself, of course. I’m asking about which kind of drugs people use in that moment. Daniele Baldelli I’m thinking the drug of everyday. Smoke, cocaine, that’s all. In that time. Heroin come later. Fabio de Luca Which were the hits? Daniele Baldelli I’ve been asked this question before. My answer was, “Please don’t ask this question. If I mention just one record, thousands of others will be angry with me.” You know, I always care about my records. Some of the tracks I always played were Loleatta Holloway “Hit & Run,” Miroslav Vitous “New York” or Le Pamplemousse “Get Your Boom Boom.” Of course, many people asked for records that were in the charts. I didn’t like the Top 10. So I always played something different. The B-side or something like that. I’m still buying all the underground music of the ‘70s. Also nowadays, in 2004, I still find records I’ve never seen before. Somebody must have made them for me, and so I’ll buy them. Audience Member I am very curious about the mixing specifically. You had these turntables with the LED. But disco records aren’t staying exactly, were you’re riding? Daniele Baldelli Of course not. The records 20 or even 15 years ago were not electronic. The drummer was a real drummer. Human people were playing. So the song would go up and down. It was terrible to follow a mix. In fact, I had my own idea, or paranoia. All day long, I stayed at home, played one record on one turntable and tried maybe 200 on the other one. Until I found the record I liked to mix in. I even made notes for the mixing. Like 0.0 with the first record, the other one minus 5 for the first three beats, then plus 3, you understand? I wrote down all these notes, like a musician. Everybody told me that I’m crazy. Well, that’s true. So I always prepared my playlist at home. It was very hard. But it wasn’t that difficult because at that time you didn’t have as many records as you have now. When doing this nowadays, I go crazy because meanwhile there are 60,000 records. In the past, I had to choose only among 3,000 records. Fabio de Luca Other questions? Audience Member Secret weapon records from ‘77, the ones that would make the dancefloor go insane. Fabio de Luca [speaking Italian] Daniele Baldelli Back in the days, the DJs used to cover the labels of the records. So nobody knew what the other DJ was playing. We were jealous of each other. Even the shops did that. They prepared stickers for the DJs to cover the label. Like this record here [pulls out a record with a stickered label]. They put a sticker on it with my name. But I find this terrible now. Because when I want to know what this particular record is, I can’t see anything on the label. So I can’t tell you the title. Sorry. Fabio De Luca You have to use a hair dryer, you know? A hair dryer, being very careful about the vinyl but you put a hair dryer very close to the label, and stick very little by little, maybe you can. Daniele Baldelli I can’t do it for 3,000 copies. Fabio de Luca So you won’t tell the guy from Ann Arbor, Detroit, your secret weapon at the disco. Audience Member Maybe you played Render and Louis, like the 7 Deadly Sins record. You mentioned Le Pamplemousse... Fabio de Luca [speaking Italian] Daniele Baldelli A lot of them, a lot of them. “Don’t Stop the Music,” by Bay City Rollers. A remake in Canada, was illegal record from Canada, 12”. Extended song, 9 minutes, I think, was like, everybody like it at Baia degli Angeli. “Don’t Stop the Music.” Never stop. Fabio de Luca Did it happen at Baia that people came to the DJ booth asking you for records. Asking you for, I mean, “Play something, play this track, play.” Daniele Baldelli No, most of them they was glad of what you was playing. I mean, the booth was outside the club, so yes, some people come, but just to offer you something. Audience Member You mean like a mixtape and sell it to people? Daniele Baldelli I made my money with mix tapes. Because the money I earned for DJing was spent for the records. Even today, I’m selling mixtapes to people that are 40 or 45 years old. They approach me saying, “I remember you from when I was young.” I say, “OK, come to me.” Back in the days, my mind was free. I had no input from anybody. Today, it is rather difficult for me. House music is not exactly my feeling. So when I go to a club once in a while, I hear house music usually. All I can tell is that I understand nothing about house music. At that time, I didn’t know nothing. I just saw the records and chose them by myself for my playlists. I didn’t know if the record that I was just playing was a top tune. I played it because I liked it. For me as a DJ, the situation couldn’t have been better. I could do whatever I wanted to do. This isn’t the case anymore, as far as I know. Correct me if I am wrong. Today, you have to make the people dance. Otherwise the boss will look at you: “What are you doing? The dancefloor is empty. What kind of DJ are you? Go back home!” Back then, I was free. I never had to be worried about a boss that might send me home. Audience Member When you were playing all night, how did you manage to go to the bathroom? Daniele Baldelli I was young. I could stay in the booth all night long. I could resist. Fabio de Luca You only stayed in Baia for one year, ‘77 to ‘78. What is something that has to be said, is that many of the big DJs that are now quite famous in Italy, are people like Claudio Coccoluto, maybe someone you have heard about? Even people like [inaudible] which is very commercial, quite famous in Italy. Many of them started DJing because they heard his mixtapes. In that moment it wasn’t quite usual for people to take their car and make hundred kilometers to reach a special club to hear a special DJ, but his mixtapes spread around Italy. His mixtapes arrived in Rome, arrived in Naples, arrived in Milan and so many blossoming DJs... Daniele Baldelli It’s not my fault, you know? Everybody duplicate, you know. Fabio de Luca People who went there was amazed by what was he was doing. Bought mixtape from him at Baia and then brought the tape back home and made copies for his friends, saying, “Oh, it’s incredible what this man is doing, he’s mixing things never heard before together.” Many DJs who are now great big in Italy started the DJ trade, the DJ job because they heard his mixtapes, when they were beginning, when they were very, very young. So the Baia closed in 1978. Besides your summer concerts in remembrance of the club, what happened to your life then? Daniele Baldelli I didn’t find a job for six months. Because nobody wanted to have the DJ from the Baia Degli Angeli, the club that was full of drugs. When I played somewhere else, the people, and the drugs, followed me. Fabio de Luca You are married. What has your wife been thinking about your job? Daniele Baldelli She was the girl at the cash desk. So I didn’t have problems. One day, a man from the Lago di Garda came to me and said to me, “I saw you at the Baia Degli Angeli. This summer, I am opening a new club. I would like to have you as my DJ.” The name of the club was Cosmic. They took the Commodores’ logo and altered it. Stickers were a good business at the time. Everybody wanted to have hundreds of stickers on their cars. So the Cosmic stickers with that logo really sold well. The Cosmic was another new and groundbreaking thing for Italy. The club was all dancefloor, no place to sit down. The equipment, soundsystem and lights, was incredible. Alcohol wasn’t sold. Only cola, orange juice and things like that. During the first year, I was playing all the music from the Baia Degli Angeli. Disco music, Philadelphia sound and so on. Then, in 1980, something changed in my mind. I started to discover records from all kinds of genres. Today, I understand what I did and I can explain it to you. But back then, I just followed my instinct. So I played an electro track and mixed it with an African song, and then one from Brazil, followed by an electro record from Germany. This was mixed with a jazzy song and so on. The music was a melting pot. The people liked exactly this crossover of styles when a funk guitar was mixed with an electronic Kraftwerk beat. The one thing I don’t like about house or techno is that you can put on any record. I don’t want to say that they are all the same. But it’s far too easy to do a mix. It’s always the same beat. I prefer to create my own music, combining the guitar of this record with the percussion of the other one. Or maybe the voice of this record goes down well with the voice of that one. My opinion is that you all should go the same way when mixing. There was a famous shop in Rimini, Disco Più is its name. Every week, they received a lot of new records. Some of them, they had in a quantity of maybe a hundred, of others they got only one copy. Those were the records that nobody wanted to buy, so they put them on my shelf. “Baldelli takes everything,” they said. Fabio de Luca So you don’t go to the shop and listen to all the records? Daniele Baldelli No, no, no. I listen to everything. There are good tracks in every kind of music. I also find good techno records, but I play them at 33 and not at 45. I just want to give you some examples of the records I played, or how I played them. Changing the speed of the records especially worked with dub records. [plays a dub reggae record at the original speed of 33 RPM] This is nice. [changes the speed to 45] But like that it’s even nicer. The next thing I want to show you is something I can do because I am Italian. Most Italian people don’t speak English. So we never understand the words of a song. And that’s why I don’t care when it’s sung in this way [plays a reggae song with vocals at 45] For me, as a person who doesn’t understand the words, this pitched up voice is simply music. But I was also doing the contrary. Like this… (music: Alien Sex Fiend - “Ignore The Machine”) This is how it usually sounds like. But I played it this way [plays it slowed down at 33 RPM] In summer, when a lot of German tourists were at the Lago di Garda, there got furious sometimes, when I played OMD’s “Enola Gay” at 33 RPM. I said to them, “Go back home to your town. I play what I like.” (music: Culture Club - unknown) Of course, with instrumental music, this works even better. (music: Harry Thurman - “Underwater” / applause) This sounds terrible when played at the right speed [switches to 45]. Fabio de Luca So most people didn’t notice that you played the records at the wrong speed? I mean, except of those Germans who didn’t like “Enola Gay” on 33. Daniele Baldelli At the beginning, people didn’t know this. But then they started to understand. They were used to going to the record shops with my mixtapes. Then they went to the guy working there and said, “Listen, I want to buy this record here.” So one day, somebody from the shop called me, “Stop to play the records on 45! I never understand what the people want from me.” There’s another nice story I’d like to tell you. Maybe you can even help me. I know for sure that some dub musician, Scientist, Yellowman or Mad Professor wrote on the cover of one of his LPs, “To the fucking Italian DJ who plays our records at the wrong speed.” I want to find this record! This boy, friend of mine, is not able to find it but he had this record. He don’t remember if it’s Yellowman or Mad Professor but he put a dedication to the Italian DJ, not me, but it was the same thing. Audience Member I think it was Mad Professor. Daniele Baldelli Ha, it’s better I was not there. Fabio de Luca So we can say that that’s why, one of the reasons why, vinyl is better than CD, because with CD you could have never done this tricks. Daniele Baldelli No, I like CD also, now I can do everything with the CD because I... Fabio de Luca But not playing at the wrong speed, since there is one speed for a CD. Daniele Baldelli No, when I need, of course, but when I need, I... It’s also nice now to have a CD because the stuff I was playing in ’80, ’84, most the people used to dance slow. 99, 103 BPM. Daniele Baldelli Show us some moves, show us some moves. Daniele Baldelli You want to see me? I go on... [dances] They just made this. Very slow. [applause] Especially the women, the girl. They come in the club with the bags, they put all the bags in the middle and they dance around. Put everything on the ground, clothes and the bag, and then dance around. And that’s. I forget what I was saying... Ah yes. Yes. Now I play the same stuff, also now. Every Saturday I play in a club, is called Zanzibar, is near Garda Lake, and I used to play. I have my own, privé? Fabio de Luca Oh the small room. The small room is sort of... Daniele Baldelli Dance floor privé, is two dancefloor in this club. One this floor I play alone, by myself all the night long and is called Cosmic Privé, and I play only remember Cosmic and what I call new Cosmic style. For me is everything I find... Fabio de Luca Can you drop some names of records from today that you enjoy and you play in your sets now? Daniele Baldelli I don’t think so. Maybe. This is the beginning of Cosmic. (music: Daniele Baldelli unknown mixtape) Daniele Baldelli Now I want to show you what I did 18 years ago. Please don’t laugh, please consider at that time, I didn’t have the machines you have today. You had to do everything by hand. (video: Daniele Baldelli live at Cosmic / applause) I remember the first drum machine, an old one from Korg. It was like a typewriter. I have bought a lot of keyboards and drum machines. Compared to today, these machines were really nothing. My sample keyboard, a Prophet 2000, only had four seconds of memory. So I bought three of them in order to have 12 seconds. Nowadays you can buy loads of memory for that money. Fabio de Luca So you had three decks and a sampler? Daniele Baldelli In that period, I drove to the club with my own van. I brought my mixer, my turntables, my monitor, my amplifier, three keyboards and two drum machines. Fabio de Luca The turntables were the same that you used in the Baia Degli Angeli? Daniele Baldelli Yes, the Technics SP-15. You’ve seen it in the video. The mixer was a Teac Model 3. Fabio de Luca Were you playing with these machines all night long? Daniele Baldelli No. It was for 10 minutes every hour or something like that. Otherwise the people would have thrown vegetables at me [laughs]. Fabio de Luca So this was like a live gig. Daniele Baldelli Yes, like a DJ concert. Audience Member Now we know that you are the master of this sound. But there were other DJs on the same scene as well. I think of names like Tosi Brandi, Loda or DJ Ebreo. Daniele Baldelli But, as I told you before, everybody worked in his own club. There were five clubs on this scene in Italy: Cosmic, Melody Mecca in Rimini, Typhoon [Gambara, Brescia], Chicago [Bologna] and I don’t remember the other one… Les Cigales in Bedizzole, Brescia. The DJs in these clubs played more or less the same thing. But everyone had his own style. For example, Moz-Art, Claudio Rispoli, who is now part of Jestofunk, maybe you know this group, was more fond of jazz. He played a lot of Weather Report, Don Cherry, this kind of music. Ebreo, Mauro is his real name, he played a lot of Brazilian stuff. Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, Tania Maria and so on. Another one played more reggae. I played what people call cosmic style now, that is everything mixed together. My music was more electronic. The others went more in the funk direction. I played funk or Brazilian as well, but the matrix was electronic. Audience Member I have a question. Did you have much contacts with the other Italian artists who were making this kind of music? Do you think other artists decided to do electronic music because they heard you play? Daniele Baldelli At that time, we had a musical phenomenon in Italy which is known as Italo disco today. But I didn’t like Italian music back then. For me, it was all shit. Now listening now, 20 years later, some stuff I can... re-evaluate. Now I can revalue this kind of sound, but that time I had for me all Sky Records from Germany. All the stuff from UK, was Klaus Schulze, Eno, Moebius, Roedelius... I don’t remember the names. Mike Oldfield. This was for me the real electronic music. When I listen some Italian stuff for me was like Top Ten, something for the radio, something for the television. Now, listening again, at that moment I can revalue again this kind of music. Audience Member So at that time? Daniele Baldelli So at that time I think Italian player was not influenced by me. Also because this phenomenon of Cosmic sound, yes a lot of people come from all over Italy, but only five club in Italy play this kind of music. All the other club was mainstream club, everywhere, you understand? Not so much people know us. Maybe 20,000 people all over Italy know us, when the Cosmic was open. They know now. Everybody looking for now, a lot of people come to Zanzibar because they discover Cosmic Sound later, as somebody from England. Now I’m waiting for them. Audience Member Another thing that you got to understand that period in Italy all this thing was coming not from big town as Milan, or Rome, where there is like media or journalist. Was near in like, I’m from there, and I can say, like country town, OK? From the province. There was no focus on that scene. It was not trendy, no fashion, no nothing. If you can imagine the people who used to go there, was people really into drugs, smoking a lot of hash, long hair, with the jeans, blue jeans denim, desert boot shoes, so it was really not trendy people. There was not this attention. Now in Italy people start to understand, even intellectual or journalist that dance music is important and blah, blah, blah. We tried to organized the Academy in Italy, but at the moment go to the disco was something was politically incorrect. Was not cultural. For young generations was much more into revolutionary idea, rebel ideas, go to see rock bands, at the concerts, songwriting but disco was something that was considered on the right side, OK? Fabio de Luca Also on the political point of view, they were considered fascist in some way, people who went to the disco was considered fascists, right wing, you know. Audience Member Was the music of producers like Claudio Simonetti or Rago & Farina appreciated in Italy at that time? Daniele Baldelli They didn’t know me and I didn’t know them, sorry. Italian people are always looking abroad. I think this is still the case. 20 years ago, we were looking at the USA, the UK, Germany. Next thing I want to show you is a new project of mine, Funkadiba. Next month another CD of mine is coming out. It is called Daniele Baldelli My Funky Side. Twelve tracks. I used musicians, trumpet saxophone, double bass, keyboard. These people realized the ideas I had. In early 2005, there will be a Cosmic compilation. I won’t tell the name of the company. This will be a mix CD. This compilation will be released all over the world. The label is about to clear all the licenses of the tracks I chose. A few of them I have here. One is by Richard Wahnfried, a project of Klaus Schulze. Do you know the label Innovative Communication from Germany? The track I’m playing you now was a big Cosmic hit. I’m playing it at the right speed, by the way. (music: Richard Wahnfried - “Time Actor”) Fabio de Luca This was the first electronic record you played? Daniele Baldelli It was one of the first. I played many records from Klaus Schulze. He’s always been on Innovative Communication. And also the Sky Records label from Germany, they had a lot of electronic music. Now I can make my own edits of records like this with the computer and burn them easily on CD. Back then it was more difficult. For example, there was one record I was playing at the Baia. I can’t remember the group. It was named Cosmic Melody. They were singing, “Cosmic, cosmic, cosmic melody, melody melody...” I liked only this part. And I thought this is something for me to play at Cosmic. So I recorded it with minimum speed and made it three minutes long with my Revox reel. Also with cassettes, I recorded electronic effects. So I could play a record and effects on it. I used an equalizer, it was a GE-20. Today you can buy a lot of effects. There are so many machines now. I used only the bypass button, made a strange equalization and switched it on and out in the rhythm of the music. So I had this effect the equalizer can do. The effect depends on the frequency you use. In that time, this was really a fashion. And today, people tell me that they would prefer an old equalizer to all these modern machines. Fabio de Luca How long went the Cosmic thing? Daniele Baldelli It lasted for five years, from 1979 until the end of 1984. The club was built for thousand people. But outside, in the park, there were more than 3,000 people. Fabio de Luca Because it was so crowded that they couldn’t get in? Daniele Baldelli No, I think they stayed outside for their drug traffic. The fashionable car at that time was the Citroën Diane. The poor people had a Diane or a Renault 4. Those with money owned a Citroën DS. So the people had these kinds of cars. They stayed in the park all night with their cars, which were plastered with stickers of Cosmic and the other clubs. The doors of the cars were open and the people played my tapes. They didn’t go inside. If they went, they did it to buy a cassette. Fabio de Luca So most of these people stayed outside on purpose? Daniele Baldelli The people who were using drugs, they stayed outside. They had to spend their money for the drugs. Fabio de Luca I suppose, Cosmic had problems with the police. Daniele Baldelli Of course, they closed the club twice. And then it was finally shut down in 1984. A strange thing about Cosmic was that the club opened at nine o’clock, at ten it was crowded and we closed already at one o’clock. Today, the clubs have many problems with the authorities. They say it’s dangerous when people go out until the early morning, drink a lot of alcohol, take drugs and then drive back home. But back in the days at Cosmic, it was the same thing. It’s stupid to drive a car when you have taken some kind of drug. In Germany, people take a taxi. But in Italy, no. Here it’s like, “I want my own car because I am Italian and powerful.” Fabio de Luca What happened when Cosmic closed? Daniele Baldelli Again I was without work for six months [laughs]. Then I returned to Baia Degli Angeli which was reopened as Baia Imperiale. The style was like in a Cleopatra film. Fabio de Luca It was a nightmare, believe me. The Baia was transformed into the scenery of an ancient gladiators movie with fake statues of Roman gods and so on. Daniele Baldelli … like a temple. Fabio de Luca So the original minimal style of the Baia, which was a trademark, was totally transformed into something like a theme park. Daniele Baldelli It was like Hollywood. Fabio de Luca Yes, the crap side of Hollywood. Like Hollywood trying to recreate ancient Rome. Daniele Baldelli At this time, I started to play a little bit of house music. These were the early days, I played stuff like Frankie Knuckles, really good stuff. But also in that situation, I was attracted by the B-sides. This may be the reason why I had no success with house music. I never realized that the A-sides included the good tracks, the ones that the people wanted to hear. I stayed at the Baia Imperiale for six years, from 1983 to 1989. Like I did at Cosmic, I was also using synthesizers, samplers and drum machines. Fabio de Luca So you had no success because people didn’t like what you were playing then? Daniele Baldelli It just wasn’t good enough. Fabio de Luca You had some relation with the blooming piano house scene in Italy at that moment. Did you know people like Black Box personally? Daniele Baldelli I know Daniele Davoli. I know all of them, of course. I have done a lot of productions myself, only 300 copies of each release. It was very hard to sell all of them. My mind was not ready to make a hit or create a beautiful song that people wanted to buy. Fabio de Luca At the same time you were doing Cosmic revival nights. Daniele Baldelli No, I had stopped everything. I started Cosmic again in 1992, 1993. Fabio de Luca You were asked to play in Germany and Austria. How did that come about? Daniele Baldelli As the Cosmic club was at the Garda Lake, Austria and Germany were near. During the summer, a lot of people came to the Garda Lake for holidays. People from Innsbruck started doing Cosmic parties and invited Italian DJs. This has grown within the years. Every year, there’s a big festival named Afro Meeting in Innsbruck. This lasts for two days, 5,000 people and more have been there. The music on the Cosmic CD which I had played you before, people in Italy were used to call it Afro sound, for whatever reason. But this is not the correct term for my style because I have been playing electronic music. Fabio de Luca You have no idea why they have been calling it Afro? Daniele Baldelli Maybe it’s because I also played records like Manu Dibango’s Soul Makossa or Johnny Wakelin’s In Zaire every now and then. Audience Member Can I ask you a question? I’m from Ireland. I was never aware of the depth of history of Italian music, and your involvement in it. Have you ever thought of documenting your story so that the next generations of DJs can appreciate what you did? Daniele Baldelli I think this is going to happen because now I am here. I can also tell you about Maestro. Josell Ramos is the director of that film. It’s a 90 minutes documentary of the disco scene in New York also reflecting on the fact that the first disco DJs were of Italian origin: Francis Grasso, David Mancuso, Victor Simonelli. This film shows that nightclubbing was born in New York or how the first 12” single was created. There are a lot of interviews with the people who were involved in New York’s disco scene. One day, Josell Ramos came to Bologna and presented the film. We talked a lot, he knew about me and wanted to hear my story. He did an interview, and now I am in this film. I think I can be very lucky that I had the opportunity to experience that era. I have gone through everything, from the early beginnings, from rhythm & blues, soul, funk and disco until now. A young man like you will know only nowadays’ scenes, of course. But if you are very fond of music, you will also be able to go back for sure. Audience Member In the video from 1984 that you were showing us before, you played that “fresh” sample on your synthesizer. Do you know what I’m talking about? Daniele Baldelli No, I don’t remember. Audience Member It sounded like scratching. Daniele Baldelli This sample keyboard was a Prophet 2000 and it came with factory samples. These also included some scratch style sounds. Audience Member The reason why I’m asking is that what you did was very similar to early hip-hop turntablism at the time in ‘84. It really struck me that you were thinking about that the same way. This is cool. Did you ever think of scratching? Daniele Baldelli No, I can try that when I’m older [laughs].