The 1969 Gottlieb pinball machine that Elton John kept at home for years, one of Jimi Hendrix’s rings put on sale twelve years ago by his manager’s daughter Bob Levine, Sting’s bass, Jimmy Page’s amp or harmonica played by Roger Daltrey in Quadrophenia. There is an embarrassment of choice in the collection of rarities of young music that marked the second half of the last century among the more than 45 thousand pieces collected in forty years of research by a relic hunter.
The house of the toys of rock is on the outskirts of Piacenza. To open this treasure chest to enthusiasts and nostalgics is Mariano Freschi, who with his association ‘Made in Rock’ has the dream of making it the place in which to tell that special world that has entered the collective memory also thanks to the three days of the Woodstock Festival of 1969, fusion of notes, hippie culture and non-violence under the banner of Peace & Love. To do so, however, he launches an appeal to find a space of at least a thousand square meters compared to the 200 of his home in San Giorgio Piacentino, where today he is able to show only 20/25 percent of the collection.
“The idea – he explains to Ansa – is not to open a museum where once curiosity is exhausted you never come back but to create a real Italian study center to make people understand how much and how rock has influenced music, society and on fashion. A lively place in which to present books and records, to host musicians who tell their experiences. Objects are a pretext to talk to all lovers, in their twenties or seventies, of progressive, hard & heavy or one of the countless souls that make up the wonderful galaxy of rock ».
Freschi, 67 years old, born as a bassist in the beat masses of the seventies and then smooth, has chosen for his permanent exhibition 400 historical objects including instruments, amplifiers, and pedalboards that have been on the most prestigious international stages. But also memorabilia that belonged to the unforgettable stars of rock, and tens of thousands of photographs, posters, tour books, picture discs, books and magazines. “From 1966 to the 90s the most important publications, from Rolling Stones to Melody Maker, are all there”, he says proudly.
Alongside the iconic pieces, here is Tom Petty’s hat, Steve Vai’s guitar, Keith Richard’s amplifier, King Crimsom’s drums, the system used by Paul Rodgers’ Free at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. Among the sea of guitars, basses, t-shirts, records signed by rock stars, one of the most loved pieces is the Pearl that Colosseum founding drummer Jon Hiseman played for 30 years in his studio before selling it to him in 2014.
The bulk of the material – also due to the size of the walls of Marshall amplifiers and of the systems bought at British and American auctions or by the owners – is kept in two warehouses and is waiting to be exhibited. The heart of Mariano Freschi obviously beats for the golden period, between the end of the 60s and the following decade marked – Beatles and Rolling Stones aside – by the sacred monsters of hard rock and Heavy metal, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath .
«The greatest for me are Deep Purple – he says -. Led Zeppelin were more fortunate because their manager took them to the US, causing their cachet to skyrocket. But until the nineties the percentage of people playing was very high among the Deep Purple audience. All of their concerts were of exceptional quality, unlike many other titled groups who weren’t always up to par. “
Freschi knows well Ian Paice, the drummer. “He’s been here with me many times. The current music does not interest him, he listens to that of his period, the classical and the big bands of the forties. He told me ‘If after fifty years they still pay us good money to play’ Smoke on the water ‘there must be a reason’ “. The current panorama is scarce, the collector comments, and for this reason the Casa del Rock looks to young people: “Knowing and appreciating the past can help build the future with more awareness”. New rockers are warned.