Musicians Make Music With Mafia Trash

Posted on Apr 14th 2008 12:00PM by James Sullivan
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Like everything else in this world, the cost of enjoying music just keeps going up. If you're interested in attending the rock festival outside Naples, Italy, this month, it will set you back five plastic bottles, two glass bottles and four newspapers. We remember when you could get in for just an empty matchbook and an old pizza crust.

The festival is part of a wider cultural movement to protest a garbage crisis that threatens the historic city. With almost four million residents in its greater metropolitan area, Naples is running out of places to dump its trash, and the local Mafia has created illegal landfills that are contaminating the food chain. High dioxin levels in mozzarella are causing panic in the city that invented pizza.

To raise awareness, local musicians have been making music with trash from the landfills, including wash tubs, tires, bottles and old mattresses. Festival organizers came up with the idea of charging recyclable goods as admission. The junkyard style even has its own genre -- Monnezza Sound, loosely translated as "Garbage Sound."
"Naples is an irreverent city," said one musician whose band has released an album encouraging residents to stand up to the Mafia. "It doesn't suffer in silence."

They may be knee-deep in garbage, but it can't be any messier than Woodstock '94.

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