Godspeed you, Dr. Kiko Loiacono

When I met him, the first thing he told me was that they wanted to make a film about his life. One way gigione to create empathy, immediately move everything onto a other floor. That film was never made, but now unfortunately we know the ending. So I think it’s right to pay love and honor to the greatness of the script, to the wonderful human quality of its lead actor. Domenico Loiacono, Dr. Kiko. Tall, imposing, sinuous. Long thick white hair. Fascinating, distant, histrionic. Of a sidereal Mediterranean beauty that came from other galaxies.

His was a life above all standards. To afford it, you have to earn it. The phisique du role those who have the courage to go on stage have it, otherwise it’s just a projection of your head. And for him who never went on a stage – he instead put the records behind a console or drove vans around the globe – the stage was every place at all times: from his home in Wansteadwith the cat Mercury dominating the scene, to the streets where its colorful presence contrasted with the gray of the leaden sky.

After graduation and a few years running in the family pharmacy a Bari, in love with sounds that came from the UK, he moved to London in 1999 (he told me he helped launch Vitaminic’s London office). The Apulian province was too small for a cosmic man. He pursued a principle of freedom that for him came before anything else. Radio host John Peel had changed his view of the world. Tony Wilson – the cult agitator of the Manchester Factory with whom he produced Joy Division and Happy Mondays, as well as founder of Hacienda – was his legend; he worked on it for several years.

Pharmacist in fact, hence the “Dr.” in the name that he also used as a moniker for his DJ sets, they suspended him from the order because he prescribed drugs with disinhibition. In the backstage she was talking about her and he laughed at her, he enjoyed her. So at least he told me, always gigionescamente, when that period of his life was now archived. Undoubted the interpersonal skills, the ability to create a network on the basis of a click aesthetic and energetic. It was the nineties. His life was already a rocket set off for hyperuranium.

In 2009 she was at home on the sofa with Martin Bulloch of the Mogwai and he saw me on TV wearing a Scottish band shirt. She wrote to me. She wanted me to go up to London to make me meet them in person. In 2011 I went to the presentation of Hardcore You’ll Never Die But You Will Hoxton Square Bar And Kitchen, a very small place that I am very fond of. On that record the voice of You’re Lionel Ritchie it’s his, reads a strange fable about a wolf. He hosted me in Mercury’s House, a house full of objects and records, T-shirts and trinkets. Warm, psychedelic.

On that occasion it was the first time he spoke to me about Daniela, whose silhouette against the light stands out on the cover of Batcat. It had been a terrible loss for him. He rebuilt a life, changed jobs. He reinvented himself as a tour manager. He bought a legendary bus with which he took cult bands for a walk: The Growlers, Shame, The Kills, Factory Floor, Tim Burgess, KVB, Bobby Gillespie. Just to name a few, but the list is really long.

To make you understand the character better, he once credited me at the Visions in London with the name Isis Menthet. It was the period of Islamic terrorism. When I named the entrance they grinned badly in my face. Another day he sent me a picture of him with Eddie Green from Shame. He was wearing a fictional t-shirt A Place in the Sun, which on him looks like fine vintage material that comes with the flavor of Williamsburg. He wrote me: “The type of worries (once called Vietcong) says to me: ‘hi I’m xyz, I see you all over the world, but what are you doing?’. And I: ‘I’m the manager of an Italian group which is called the Payer ‘. I swear on mercury Carlo “.

In recent years he had intertwined relationships with Asia Argento, Joan As Policewoman and with the daughter of Nancy Sinatra and nephew of Frank, AJ Lambert. He had become manager of the latter, a new role for him. Working on it was a mess, but how could you not love him.

Communist as only those who have received a bourgeois education can be, anti-fascist, Lazio fan. Nail polish for at least three generations before we started using the word fluid. Generous and loving, loyal. Smiths and Morrissey fans, a lot; of the Spiritualized and the Spacemen 3. Nico was his muse. Music that has a wound inside. From that wound he let in the light, along with a laugh. He could talk to you about Giangiacomo Feltrinelli and Enrico Beruschi in the same sentence, seamlessly. It passes away in a tragic week for the community of Anglo-Saxon alternative and rock music fans: Keith Levene (The Clash and PIL), Mimi Parker by Low.

To Amelianna and Antonello, his sister and brother, to his mother and father, to those who were close to him and those who loved him, our condolences. We will meet again at concerts, around the street, where there will be a system that plays his favorite piece of the Clash:

An ‘I’ll never forget the smile on my face
‘Cause I knew where you would be
An ‘if you’re in the crown tonight
Have a drink on me

But go easy
Step lightly
Stay free

Godspeed you, my friend.