During a recent visit to
Rome, I kept searching for some examples of the Italian Garage Beat sound, and one record shop clerk pointed me towards
this band. Later, all I could find about them is that they come from
Ravenna, a city that features prominently in medieval history and which I had never heard of in modern context. Well, from now on the word Ravenna will not only conjure in my head images of Byzantine mosaics but also the garage rock sounds of The Cavemen. The band seems to be influenced by the original 60's US garage and Italian Beat sound, as well as 80's neo-garage of the Chesterfield Kings, Miracle Workers, Sick Rose etc. Interestingly, both covers here hail from that 2nd garage age: The punky "Vigliacco" is a
Gruesomes song with Italian lyrics, while the fantastic Yardbirds-sounding opener "Il Buio E' Tra di Noi" is attributed to a certain Alberto Donati. It took some detective work to find out the original, but it seems that mr. Donati was a member of
Moonraker, who recently played a reunion concert in a Ravenna club (17 years after the initial band disbanded). Some live clips of the band are posted on youtube, although I couldn't find any discography. Possibly they belong to the
local legend category and never released any records. Back to The Cavemen and their debut "Il Buio E' Tra Di Noi": Although my copy is a CD, I think of it as mini-LP (only 8 short songs) having a Side A and a Side B. "Side A" is sung in Italian and consists of the two covers and two rough 60's sounding band originals. "Side B" opens with slow surf instrumental "Bugia" and continues with 3 wild English-language ravers: The Bo Diddley/Pretty Things-like "All Is Wrong", punky "Pigs In The Sky" and closer "Just To See You" whose chorus is reminiscent of the old R&B evergreen "Fortune Teller". The Cavemen have released a follow up called "Fiore Nero", also on the Italian Teen Sound Records and are as far as I can tell still active, though information on them is rather scarce. The way I see it, the band's strength
and weakness is their faithful revival of the 60's/80's garage sound. As a fan of that style, I enjoyed listening to them but couldn't help thinking I've heard it all before.
*** for Veleno, E' Sempre Uguale Tra di Noi, Vigliacco, Bugia, All Is Wrong, Pigs In The Sky, Just To See You
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