Tra Carpi e Berlino c'è un legame speciale, perché a Carpi comincia l'autostrada del Brennero: perciò noi consideravamo Carpi come la periferia estrema di Berlino (Between Carpi and Berlin there is a special connection because the Brennero motorway starts in Carpi: therefore we considered Carpi the outermost suburb of Berlin)
CCCP was formed in 1981 when Ferretti met Zamboni (both were from Reggio Emilia) in a discothèque in Kreuzberg (Berlin). Once they returned home they founded a new band called MitropaNK. During the following summer Ferretti, Zamboni and bassist Umberto Negri returned to Berlin: it was during that trip that CCCP Fedeli alla Linea were born. The band members decided to use a drum machine instead of an actual drummer.
The name of the band celebrates the popular sub-culture of Emilia while also praising the Soviet Union, creating a link between Russia and the typical province of Emilia-Romagna.
During this period the band performed several times in Germany, playing some underground clubs in Berlin such as the Kob or the Spectrumin. Their permanence in Berlin influenced the sound of the band through the local industrial scene. East Berlin's culture and the Islamic community of the West side of the town also influenced Ferretti's lyrics.
The band's first concerts in Italy were met with a negative response from the crowd, leading the band to add two new members to the line-up: Annarella Giudici "Benemerita soubrette" (well-deserved soubrette), and a performer named Danilo Fatur [it]. Annarella, Fatur, and for a little time Silvia Bonvicini (a second "Benemerita soubrette") contributed to characterize their concerts by playing comic-demential sketches during their gigs.
1984–1985: First EPs
In 1984 the band released Ortodossia, their first EP on the independent label Attack Punk Records. In the same year the Ortodossia IIEP was released, which included the same three songs already included in their first EP ("Live in Pankow", "Spara Jurij", and "Punk Islam") plus an additional fourth track ("Mi ami?"). 1985 saw the release of their third EP, Compagni, Cittadini, Fratelli, Partigiani.
The three EPs were produced and recorded by the band with very little money and few musical instruments in a single room set as a recording studio, near to a city tram line constantly disturbing the recording.
This album is considered by many music critics one of the masterpieces of contemporary Italian music, and a milestone for the whole European punk movement.[citation needed] The album's sales induced Virgin Dischi, the Italian branch of Virgin to sign the band. Some of the band's fans saw this move as betrayal and nicknamed the band "CCCP fedeli alla lira" with lira (the old Italiancurrency before the introduction of Euro) instead of linea ('line' in the sense of 'party line', in line with the soviet theme).
1987–1988: Signed for Virgin
In 1987 the band recorded and released their first single "Oh! Battagliero" and their second album, Socialismo e Barbarie, which was made with a relatively big budget if compared with the first one. It is a less cohesive work, that ran the gamut from Middle Eastern music to a rock version of the Soviet anthem, from Catholichymns to feedback workouts.
In the same year, CCCP released the single "Tomorrow (Voulez vous un rendez vous)", a cover version of a song by the singer and painter Amanda Lear; Amanda Lear sang on both the two tracks of the single.
In 1989 CCCP, Litfiba, and Rats went on tour in the Soviet Union (Moscow and Leningrad). In Moscow they played in a palace full of soldiers in uniform. The soldiers stood up when the band played at the end of the concert the Soviet hymn "A Ja Ljublju SSSR".
During this year guitarist Giorgio Canali, bassist Gianni Maroccolo, keyboardist Francesco Magnelli, and drummer Ringo De Palma (the last three left the Litfiba because of some artistic differences of opinion with band's manager Alberto Pirelli) joined and transformed the group.
The group, now composed by eight members, recorded their fourth album Epica Etica Etnica Pathos in an abandoned 700' villa. This album signals another musical evolution for the band. CCCP reached their zenith[citation needed] with this album, a Frank Zappa-esque stylistic puzzle which also stands as a personal musical encyclopedia, with complex suites such as "MACISTE contro TUTTI", their "swan song", and a transition to the new sonorities of the Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti (C.S.I.), the new band born from the ashes of CCCP.
CCCP effectively disbanded the 3 October 1990, in the same date of the German reunification, and the members went on to other projects.
Post-CCCP
When the Soviet Union collapsed, Ferretti and Zamboni decided to shuffle the line-up and adopt a less political stance. The renamed Consorzio Suonatori Indipendenti (C.S.I.) debuted with a set of songs from Ko del Mondo (Polygram, 1993). They rapidly evolved towards a form of chamber rock music with the mostly drum-less Linea Gotica (Polygram, 1996) that moved towards alternative rock in the following, and final, Tabula Rasa Elettrificata (Polygram, 1997) whose acronym is T.R.E., the number three in Italian. The album, born after a long-desired trip to Mongolia that some members of the band took interrupting the Linea Gotica tour is "probably the only rock album in the history of CCCP-CSI" according to the leader Ferretti,[2] and became a unique case in the Italian recording industry, being able to climb the charts in a few weeks topping commercial giants like Be Here Now by Oasis.[3]
When C.S.I. disbanded in 1999, Ferretti debuted solo with Co.Dex [it] (2000), then formed Per Grazia Ricevuta (PGR) and released PGR (2002) that steered towards world music.
