A small anecdote to start. At the end of 2014 the Sparks performed in London to celebrate the 40 years of their most famous album, Kimono My House. To see them were Enrico Ruggeri, Silvio Capeccia and Fulvio Muzio. That concert was the spark, indeed the fire of the decibel reunion: the three had not made a disc together since 1980.
“The best way to describe the Sparks is to say that you cannot describe us,” Ron Mael told us when we interviewed him a couple of months ago. We tried the same, to describe them, asking Enrico Ruggeri to explain who they are to those who do not know them. The occasion is the very first Italian concert of the group, on 8 July at the Arcimboldi Theater in Milan. They have already performed on Italian stages about ten years ago with the FFS project, which put together the duo and Franz Ferdinand, never like Sparks.
In the history of great music we had extraordinary, revolutionary musicians, who have enhanced and moved us to become the soundtrack of our lives. However, all these giants had a common point, having metabolized those who had preceded them by pushing further: even the Beatles had started from the old rock'n'roll making his roots a luxuriant thickening tree dripping creativity.
Well, the Sparks are perhaps the only case of band that does not resemble anyone.
We can look for their inspirations in the German cabaret, to trace music of distant times, archetypes buried in memory as forgotten poems: no “spiritual fathers”. Two Californians fascinated by old Europe, which after two already mature and interesting albums cross the ocean to conquer the highest spirits.
Their characteristics and refinement will preclude the Mael brothers the great success to which they probably did not aspire: the exception was This Town Ain't Big Enoough for Both of Usa breathtaking ironing with which they scaled the rankings of half of Europe, dragging their first European album at the top, Kimono My Houseten songs to which 50 years later I still can't find a defect.
With the Sparks the rock became Dadaism, irony, elegance and above all personality.
As far as I'm concerned, they are among the few musicians to whom I have to pay thanks: they have influenced a lot of part of my compositional style, starting from Countess (the decibels loved them as much as me) to continue with many written songs thinking of them, of their way of combining hard rock and vaudeville, their irony, their dry and together bombastic composition.
For me they remain one of the angular stones on which rock has built its empire: I will never stop thanking them, always adding a touch of snobbish compassion for those who have never known them.
