Biography
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Founded In
Torino, Piemonte, Italy
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Members
- Gigi Venegoni
Venegoni & co. was formed in 1977, by guitar player Gigi Venegoni who had just left the group Arti & mestieri, a renowned progressive Italian group.
The main peculiarity of the group is to have a very open and democratic structure. The musicians follow each other in the ever-changing teams, free to fully express their musical styles and to develop new musical forms. Venegoni & Co performed in more than a hundred live concerts, and some of them have just been released on CD.
At the same time the group recorded two LPs for Cramps Records: Rumore Rosso and Sarabanda.
In ’79 the main performance of the group was the “Concert for Demetrio” , a commemoration concert for the famous singer Demetrio Stratos, held at the Milan Civic Arena with an audience of 70.000.
At the end of 1980 the group splits, mainly for two reasons: the obvious difficulties to keep the group together and the ever-worst problem of finding live gigs.
In the eighties Gigi Venegoni works on two more recordings, ( Mosaico and Nocturne), but fails to reform a live band. To perform live, the guitarist forms the Dynamic Duo with former keyboard player of the band, Silvano Borgatta.
The duo plays in many concerts, with the help of some complex electronic devices (Computer+drum machine) to experiment with the new midi music language.
From ’79 to ’90 Gigi Venegoni becomes an expert of the Midi Guitar, working as a professional endorser and demonstration player for Casio.
After a long pause, in 2001 Sarabanda is reprinted as a cd by Edel label. Then some live recordings are remastered and released in the cds Rumore Rosso Vivo and Live... Somewhere In The Seventies and, as a consequence, Rumore Rosso the first recording by the band is re-released with a bonus track.
In 2006, following a suggestion by Beppe Crovella, owner of Electromantic Music label, Gigi Venegoni eventually reforms the band to compose, produce and record the new CD, Planetarium, working with some of the best Italian musicians, and, among them, with Piero Mortara, a renowned keyboard and accordion player. After twelve months of hard work the new “Venegoni & Co” record is ready to be listened.
Line-up
Gigi Venegoni (guitar, bass, percussion)
Ludovico Einaudi (keyboards)
Luca Francesconi (keyboards)
Ciro Buttari (percussion, vocals, piano)
Pietro Pirelli (percussion)
Massimo Aimone (drums)
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