Sempre in Bilico: January 2012

When you grow up in a dead-end seaside town in the upper Adriatic Sea, which in summertime is completely invaded by low class turists (the definition of low class is as follows: young people of the nearby areas whose main activity is working 500 hours a week in order to spend 7 days a year in the mentioned village, doing pretty much nothing; families and aged tourists from Germanic countries) whilst in wintertime the population is wiped out and the few locals find themselves living in a deserted place, miles away from any hint of civilization, only two options occur to you, young man.

1. Spending your nights and days at the only open bar, drinking (good and cheap) red wine, while embracing a future of alcoholism.

2. Drinking flavoured orangeades in a rehearsal room and playing fast hardcore.

If a Straight Edge scene developed in Lignano, the said uncomfortable area, it's no surprise, or maybe this is just a romantic interpretation of some incidental occurrences.

'Each day we dare to express our potentiality by staying drug free, we take a stand against what has got the power to reduce this youth's will to slavery and so I'll show you that there is more than just an X on the back of my hand. '

Until 1998-1999 there was just a band in Lignano called Silen playing some sort of new school hardcore ala Unbroken and Chokehold, then the firestorm spread, originating two music waves within the same circle of friends: the hardcore metal mosh wing (From The Dying Sky, that later will become The Secret abandoning the xedgex in a forgotten drawer) and pursuing a more drastic vegansxe attitude, and the smoother but still politically committed old school hc wing (Best Of Times).

Not One Word was born in 2000 from the ashes of Best Of Times when Nicola from To Die For joined the band.

They had some line up changes and released a 7" in 2002 on Head X On Rec, worth to circumnavigate the whole peninsula from east to west and to reach the civilized hinterland, before calling it quits in 2003.

Fond of Magnum, P.I. (the last song on the B side, Aloha State, is a revisited cover of its theme song), their splitting up featured an anecdote worthy of their favourite detective tv show.

"The day we decided to split up, Fede, Nasty and I [Pier] met up to talk about the actual state of the band. It was a dark and foggy evening and we were hanging around along the docks in Lignano. All of a sudden we heard a thud, something fell down the water, and straight after a woman screamed: a man slipped in the sea while trying to take his previously-fallen-into-the-sea dog back. We run there and saved the guy by grabbing him with a makeshift rope, whilst the dog managed to get out the water by itself. The woman never stopped screaming, it was a pleasant background noise during our heroic act."