hey guys,
we are so happy to let you know that , as a result from our SXSW showcase and US trip, we are featured in one of the most important music magazines worldwide: Billboard!! We are featured in the SXSW Special that you will find in March 21st issue ( FLO RIDA on the cover ); there's an amazing article written by AYALA BEN-YEHUDA about the new wave of English Speaking acts from non English-Speaking countries. You should definitely buy the issue asap!

from "BILLBOARD MAGAZINE":
The Electric Diorama is on to something. A pop-punk wave is sweeping the
band's native Italy, and who better to blow up than a quintet of guys with
cute haircuts, infectious melodies and energetic guitar playing as tight as
their pants? Only one thing could derail their dreams of becoming the
Italian Interpol‹the band sings in English.

Signed to the Rome indie Nerdsound and distributed in the United States by
Oceanside Records, the Electric Diorama decided not to pursue a relationship
with a major label in Italy when one such company asked the band to sing in
Italian, bassist Helio Di Nardo says. With 30 Seconds to Mars and Panic at
the Disco among the group's influences, Di Nardo says the choice to sing in
English was a natural one‹even if it meant struggling career-wise.

"Italian people don't speak English and they don't understand English so
they won't sing along unless they are big fans," Di Nardo writes in an
e-mail. "But I could never imagine our songs in Italian." Since childhood,
he and his bandmates have dreamed of performing in the States, the United
Kingdom and Japan. "Our biggest musical influences come from those countries
so we don't want to miss the chance to be able to spread our music to people
from all around the world," Di Nardo says.

The Electric Diorama is hardly the only band from a non-English-speaking
country approaching South by Southwest with that ethos. The Right Ons, the
Moog, the S.I.G.I.T. and the Black Box Revelation (who hail, respectively,
from Spain, Hungary, Indonesia and Belgium) are just some of the bands
playing SXSW that perform in English  (....................)

-------------------------------------------

Here you can find the full text of the interview:
1. Is it more difficult to sign to a big label or get on radio in Italy if
you don't sing in Italian?

Well, I would say that you are NOT going to sign with a big label if you
don't sing in Italian. We have really few exceptions , bands like Lacuna
Coil are now pretty famous worldwide but they really had to wait a while
before starting to sell a lot of copies of their record. Usually Italian people do not
get interested in Italian bands that don't sing in Italian , but if
those bands make a big hit abroad, then they can come back as the big
succesful artists and all the radio and tv start playing their music.
But now, we had a really massive dose of pop/punk Italian bands singin
in Italian, and this seems to be the trend of these past 2 years: so
there's a lot of people now getting closer to this genre but it's mostly
little kids and they're probably more enthusiast that the singer looks
cute than the music being good. So we happened to have contacts with
major label, but they started saying that wheter the band was awesome,
they would have need us to sing in Italian to break into the Italian
market. That's the reason why you won't see us on a major label now, or
never if nobody is going to accept that we won't sing in italian :)

2. How does it help your career to sing in English?

Well I guess that the only help given from the fact we are singin in
English is that the songs and the words actually sound good :) I could
never imagine our songs in Italian, I think our language won't fit with
the music, it's too different cause we have different accents on the
syllables and we felt very stupid when we tried to translate or to adapt
some Italian lyrics into our songs. So if on one hand we aren't having a
easy career in Italy because of that, the real PRO of singin in English
is that you can reach to everybody in the world. We had this dream to
travel and to bring our band and our music in as most places as
possible, when we all were kids we always dream to perform in foreign
countries and someday to have a show in USA or UK or Japan. All our
biggest musical influences come from those countries so we don't want to
miss the chance to be able to spread our music to people from all around
the world. That's why we believe so much in our project and, even if
sometimes it feels like taking the hard way, it always pays you back in
the end. Now we have a US release for our record on March 3rd for
Oceanside Records and we will be performing at SXSW in Austin and San
Antonio, I mean, just the fact we're taking a plane, going somewhere to
promote our album it's a payback. A big one :)

3. When the band was starting, how did you decide to sing in English?

You know, all the setting up process of the band was quit messy and
complicated. We didn't start as a real band, me and Francesco (
keyboards ) own a recording studio and we were writing some songs about
a very bad period of our lives. As we tracked the first 2 or 3 demos, we
thought we really had some good stuff and we thought it was worth to
take a shot and record it professionaly. So we called some talented
friends with whom we shared some experiences in the past and we called
Andrea ( singer ) , who was recording in our studio with his band cause
he seemed to be pretty in tune and to have a good voice. After we
recorded the first 4 songs, we got an indipendent record deal and
everything started to happen all of a sudden. That's why we didn't
really decide to sing in English, we just wrote those songs like this
and in 3 months, everything has changed and our career as a band
started. So we kept the English language and we tried to become
professionals :)

4. Do you think there is a limit on the level of albums or concerts a band
can sell in Italy, if they don't sing in Italian?

Well , there is a limit, I would say there is a huge limit. And if
anybody will ever tell you that it's because the business has a great
crisis, because only the kids are buying the albums and so on, well,
that's a lie. You will never make something good if you sing in English
because Italian people don't speak English and they don't understand
English so they won't sing along unless they are big fans. And this is
because we are one of the few European countries where people don't get
a proper education in English and where we don't have the possibility to
hear the language from any media: if you go to the cinema all the movies
have been translated and you will hear voices of Italian actors instead
of the original voice. If you do a statistic and ask how many people in
Italy have ever heard Tom Cruise's real voice, you will be amazed to
know that's about 10%. So in this kind of culture, that I personally
hate, it's normal that people , and with people I mean the big masses,
will consider you best if you sing in Italian, cause English is just a
bit more common then German or French, but most of the people, overall
over 30, don't really speak a word.

Buonaseeeeera :D

Qui è Dude e tutti i Diorama che tra Fast Food, vacche, ranch e statali infinite
possono dire di essere sopravvissuti a questo assaggio di USA.

Spero stiate tutti bene, almeno voi.

Noi al momento siamo al bagno, in cinque, uno sopra all'altro :D

Se volete sapere di più sulla nostra esperienza da cowboy
vi invitiamo a leggere il nuovissimo ed eccitantissimo
blog di Fratello Helio, nel quale con estrema cura, ogni santo giorno,
ha riportato video, foto ed impressioni sul "fare" gli americani :D

E' esilarante, e ve lo dice uno che al massimo ride ai funerali.

Dunque questo è il link:

http://helicus.blogspot.com

COPIATELO E INCOLLATELO E DITECI CHE NE PENSATE :D

un abbraccio e un bacio
e a presto, per piacevoli novità :)

il Vostro LadyBoy.

Dude.

"10. What are the documents required for P-1 petition for entertainment groups?

A petition filed by a U.S. employer must be accompanied by:
Evidence that the group has been established and performing regularly for a period of at least one year
A statement from the employer listing each member of the group and the exact dates for which each member has been employed on a regular basis by the group
Evidence that the group has been internationally recognized in the discipline for a sustained and substantial period of time. This may be demonstrated by any three of the following types of documentation with evidence that the group has:

• Performed, and will perform, as a starring or leading entertainment group in productions or events which have a distinguished reputation as evidenced by critical reviews, advertisements, publicity releases, publications, contracts, or endorsements
• Achieved international recognition and acclaim for outstanding achievement in its field as evidenced by reviews in major newspapers, trade journals, magazines, or other published material
• Performed, and will perform, services as a leading or starring group for organizations and establishments that have a distinguished reputation evidenced by articles in newspapers, trade journals, publications, or testimonials
• A record of major commercial or critically acclaimed successes, as evidenced by such indicators as ratings; standing in the field; box office receipts; record, cassette, or video sales; and other achievements in the field as reported in trade journals, major newspapers, or other publications
• Achieved significant recognition for achievements from organizations, critics, government agencies, or other recognized experts in the field. Such testimonials must be in a form that clearly indicates the author's authority, expertise, and knowledge of the alien's achievements
• Either commanded a high salary or will command a high salary or other substantial remuneration for services comparable to others similarly situated in the field as evidenced by contracts or other reliable evidence"



Cambio di programma.
Tutti probabilmente sapete quanto sia importante per noi andare negli Stati Uniti per promuovere il nostro lavoro e a quante rinunce siamo andati incontro con la prospettiva di trascorrere molto tempo fuori dall'Italia. A quanto pare non è ancora tempo che i nostri desideri vengano completamente esauditi.
Quello che leggete riportato sopra è la ragione per cui la nostra richiesta di ottenere i visti per esibirci negli USA è stata respinta, per di più a soli tre settimane dalla partenza.
A quanto pare i prerequisiti per accedere al conseguimento del visto P1 ( essendo l'unico che permetta di esibirsi in terra americana percependo denaro senza il rischio di incorrere in provvedimenti penali ) sono al momento fuori dalla nostra portata; a nulla è valso l'anticipo con cui ci siamo mossi per la consegna della documentazione necessaria e la nosta costante sollecitudine. Un tour negli USA è perciò , almeno per adesso, impraticabile.

Tuttavia,
ciò non significa che gli Electric Diorama non andranno negli Stati Uniti.
Grazie all'organizzazione del South By Southwest ci è stata fornita una lettera di invito valida per un periodo sufficente a salvaguardare alcune tappe molto importanti di quello che avrebbe dovuto essere il nostro tour americano: il 18 Marzo suoneremo ad Austin (Texas) presso il Cedar Door - dove tra l'altro si esibiranno nei giorni successivi artisti come Anberlin, Saosin, The Devil Wears Prada. Il 19 Marzo saremo invece ospiti di un Hot Topic a promuovere l'uscita americana del nostro disco "Lifemale" (Oceanside Records).
Il 20 Marzo ci sposteremo a San Antonio dove saremo fieri di aprire lo show Sing It Loud, Friday Night Boys e Artist Vs. Poet.
Il restante tempo libero lo trascorreremo tentando in tutti i modi di farci arrestare per "Sexual Harrassement".

Nonostante le numerose e dolorose modifiche che siamo stati costretti ad apportare ai nostri piani, Milano, Roma e Cesena rimangono veramente le nostre "ultime" date:
spariremo infatti dalle scene per un po' per dedicarci alla produzione e alla registrazione del nostro nuovo album riguardo al quale, per scaramanzia, preferiamo non dire altro.
Torneremo attivi nel periodo estivo, avendo già alcuni show confermati tra cui Etnika Rock 2009.

In attesa di ulteriori sviluppi e notizie di cui mettervi al corrente, vi lasciamo con una nostra personale visione artistica di questa vicenda:




XOXO

Dude, Toby, Helio, Katoo, Luca

Ciao ragazzi,
siamo ufficialmente confermati al South By Southwest di Austin ( Texas ), conferenza/festival a cui parteciperanno gran parte dei nostri artisti preferiti! Ci troveremo a condividere quest'esperienza con: A Day To Remember, Alexisonfire, Bedouin Soundclash, The Devil Wears Prada, Dredg, Enter Shikari, Ben Harper, Emarosa, A Skylit Drive, Alesana, Head Automatica, Nevertheless, Starsailor, 3oh!3, in nostri conterranei Afterhours e molti altri! Potrete trovare una lunga e infinita lista qui http://sxsw.com/music/shows/bands . Grazie a tutti per il supporto che ci sta portando ad intraprendere questa bella avventura americana! A presto!

-----------------------

Hi Guys,
we are officially confirmed at South by Southwest, Austin ( Texas ), festival/conference where most of our favourite bands will participate. We will happen to share this experience with: A Day To Remember, Alexisonfire, Bedouin Soundclash, The Devil Wears Prada, Dredg, Enter Shikari, Ben Harper, Emarosa, A Skylit Drive, Alesana, Head Automatica, Nevertheless, Starsailor, 3oh!3, our Italian fellowmates Afterhours and many more! You can find a long and infinite list of the acts here: http://sxsw.com/music/shows/bands . Thanx to everybody for the incredible support we are receiving and we can't wait to start this new US adventure! See you soon!

Ciao ragazzi!
Abbiamo news sulle date con i Funeral For A Friend:
a Milano suoneremo alle ore 20:00. Il concerto dei FFAF comincerà alle 21:30 e la serata terminera prima delle 23. Nn so se siete abituati ad orari di questo tipo ma ce li hanno comunicati e di conseguenza li comunichiamo a voi.
A Treviso invece suoneremo alle 21:00, indi per cui anche li vedete di arrivare presto!

Inoltre nn ammetteranno nel locale le persone prima dell'apertura cancelli quindi, anche se ci avete ben abituate a farvi vedere molto prima dell'inizio concerti, questa volta purtroppo nn potremo stare con voi se non appena apriranno le porte.

Detto tutto cio, ci vediamo li, noi gia nn vediamo l'ora! :)

Ciao ragazzi!!

In tanti ci state scrivendo per poter venire oggi a Milano fuori da gli studi di MTV. La risposta è decisamente SI , Venite Numerosi!! :) Purtroppo non avremo la possibilita di farvi entrare negli studi a meno che non vi siate già messi in contatto con lo staff di Your Noise, ma compatibilmente con il nostro orario d’arrivo ( dobbiamo entrare verso le 17, ma credo che arriveremo li davanti verso le 16 ) e di partenza, ( la trasmissione finisce alle 19 ), sia prima che dopo ci farebbe un casino piacere vedervi e fare due chiacchiere. Quindi , per fare risposta cumulativa a tutti, si certo che è possibile venire e certo che ci troverete li e certo che resteremo li per un po!! Per qualsiasi cosa messaggiateci al 392/9165913 !

Ci Vediamo Domani!!!!

THIS MESSAGE IS TAKEN FROM OUR BRAND NEW LIVEJOURNAL ( You Can Visit It @ http://electricdiorama.livejournal.com ) . FOR ANY COMMENTS GO TO THE LIVEJOURNAL PAGE!
WE WILL KEEP IT CONSTANTLY UPDATED!!!

Hello guys and girls,
this is Helio typing at the moment, bass player of the band The Electric Diorama, but if you happened to get here probably in a way you already know :)

It’s kind of weird writing at the moment cause it’s 2 AM and this LiveJournal still isn’t online already, as for our new Myspace profile. But I happen to be working on it ( Myspace ) afterhours since 3 days so I hope that when Wednesday will come and the space will be launched you all will be very surprised and happy to find out we decide to create another way to interact with you. We actually didn’t tell anybody about the Myspace restyling, and overall about all the new contents you can find on it, because we wanted to focus all your attention on the day we will hit the MTV Italy studios for the second time in 3 months. So it’s already probably Wednesday when you read this stuff so I can start talking about what’s new in The Electric Diorama small universe :)

First of all we signed a management contract with a US agency called "The Diesel Management Agency". It’s something we’ve been working on for a while now and we are so happy that it’s finalized: from April on we can start working a real way to bring our music outside Italy too. It’s very soon to make big plans and announce great achievements, it will be a long and hard way to get our music to the other side of the ocean, but we believe in it and we are putting all our efforts into it, so hopefully, whatever will come will be a great satisfaction for us. As proof that we’re don’t want to stay with our butts just on some random Italian chairs, we are planning an interesting trip for the summer, as the band Phantom Planet says in his famous hit song : "California, here we come".

BUT, we are not giving up on Italy at all. We loved the past few months touring around , we met the best people and we were so overwhelmed by the affection and the appreciation we received. So we actually signed a management deal with our label boss, Americo Roma, that will be dealing specifically with the Italian market. As for the shows, let’s say you will have more than enough of us cause we will be busy on the Silverstar Tour that will start from the end of the month. We will be around for a couple of months with our great friends Airway and I guess we couldn’t go for better tour-mates at all. So here’s when the idea of having a LiveJournal begins to be more interesting:
during the whole tour we’ll keep the journal updated every single day with comments about the shows, the trips, pictures and videos and everything needed to make you feel at least just a bit of the atmosphere. So we hope to be constantly in touch with you and we definitely hope to receive a lot of comments!!! :)

After the tour is done we will be busy on some Summer Festivals but we will be overall busy in the studio. And yes, third major announcement: at the end of July we’ll be back at Fear Studio ( Alfonsine, RA ) to record some new songs. True to say, we ran out of copies of "Lifemale" and we thank you so much for buying’em all :) But since we have to reprint the album we thought about making it a Full-Lengh with 5 or 6 more songs. I guess you all be surprised about how the new songs , we were in the first place: expect a hell of a music mess cause we didn’t put a single rational thought in them, just whatever came out from our too Powerpop and 80’s oriented minds.

And last but not least our man Toby officially joined the band on the guitar, after having been on the road with us for the whole "Lifemale Tour". We are so happy about it and well, you have no idea how good it feels to be a six-piece band again!

I guess it’s all for now, I hope that all our Italian friends will be able to see us today on MTV Your Noise ( starting at 18:00 ) , and enjoy the acoustic performance of "Oh Dear, Now I’m Sure, I Hate You". And since from now on we will be comunicating with friends and fans from all over the world, I hope that our Italian friends will forgive us for writing everything in English but you know, we aren’t that good with the language so you probably won’t miss a single word :)

Everybody, thank you so much. You are really making a big deal out of a small band with no purposes but playing the music we love.
We’ll see on these pages very soon.

Helio
The Electric Diorama

SPECIALE MESSAGGIO IN ITALIANO:

Ciao ragazzi, sono le quattro del mattino, tra poco piu di 4 ore partiremo alla volta di Milano ma, come avrete potuto notare, non ci scolliamo mai da qui davanti :)
Volevo solo lasciarvi un messaggio ora che vedete il profilo nuovo e tutto e dirvi che speriamo che il fatto che da ora in poi il Myspace sarà interamente in inglese non rappresenti troppo un problema per tutti voi. Davvero questo periodo abbiamo zero tempo e pensare di tradurre tutto ogni volta sarebbe davvero impossibile, ci dispiace davvero , ma purtroppo dobbiamo fare così :)

Spero che il nuovo layout vi piaccia e per continuare a leggere le news vi rimandiamo al nostro LiveJournal che potrete visitare all’indirizzo http://electricdiorama.livejournal.com/ , andateci spesso perche lo terremo in costante aggiornamento!!! Per commentare questo post andate sul livejournal, cosi trasferiamo tutti i commenti direttamente li :)

Grazie tantissimo per essere proprio li dove siete! :)

The Electric Diorama