Skiantos and spaghetti: Italy’s most delicious punk demonstration
Whether it be Sex Pistols, The Damned, Dead Kennedys or even later groups such as Rage Against the Machine, punk has always had a performative edge. Underpinned by something akin to a countercultural philosophy that draws on Dadaist, Situationist, Furutist and Yippie readings, most of the spectacles connected to the genre, from the Sex Pistols crashing the Silver Jubilee to Rage Against the Machine playing the 2008 National Republican Convention, are fuelled by politics and a desire to make a difference via art. One lesser-known group who has always flown this flag is Italians, Skiantos, who do it better than most.
Formed in Bologna, in 1975, for the uninitiated, Skiantos are a comedy punk band. They have released ten studio albums, two live albums and five compilations. They’ve seen various musicians play under their name over the years and currently comprise Fabio Testoni, Roberto Morsiani, Luca Testoni, Massimo Magnani and Gianluca Schiavon. Their most famous member is their late leader and unapologetic frontman, Roberto ‘Freak’ Antoni, who passed away in February 2014, aged 59.
After formation, the band’s early oeuvre consisted mainly of cover songs. However, they began to make waves as a more original project after releasing demo tapes and the 1977 experimental improvised live album, Inascoltable. It was distributed only on cassette. Antoni would later reflect on the energy captured on the record, describing it as “a night of improvisation for ten people in love of music”. The release gave the band a platform to push off and take their art to the national level in Italy and carve out a deserved space in the punk pantheon.
As well as their tapes spreading, Skiantos’ live shows began to gain attention. Characterised as provocative performances with explicit references to Dadaism and Futurism placed at the forefront of proceedings, the band were known to launch vegetables at the audience. I can’t imagine the consequences if a band did this now. They’d probably be facing assault charges, but such was the day’s spirit. There was more room to explore areas of performance such as this, particularly when you note the socio-political state of Italy at the time.
The country was locked in the bloody ‘Years of Lead’, a period of social turmoil and political violence that lasted two decades from the late 1960s. Marked by far-right and far-left political terrorism and violent clashes, a sort of nihilism and maximalism occurred in art as a byproduct.
Fast forward to April 2nd, 1979, and Skiantos would write their name into the history books for good. That day, they participated in the Bologna rock, punk and new wave festival, where their unrelenting performance attracted much media attention. It was one of the ultimate punk spectacles. The band brought on stage a kitchen, table, TV and fridge, boiled some spaghetti and then ate it without playing a single musical note. When the angered audience protested, Antoni responded defiantly: “You do not understand a fucking thing: this is avant-garde, you piece-of-shit audience.”
No clips of the spaghetti performance seem to exist online, so watch another clip of Skiantos in action below.
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