I love how Kano has a little cult with the techno fans! You can hear the influence in stuff like Metro-Area, Random Factor, I-f, Legowelt, etc. Eric Rinon's description of Kano = "Gap Band meets Earth, Wind & Fire in little italy" had me laughing, good one! Kano to me the essesnce of the electronic eurofunk / Italian Disco 80's sound (along with Alexander Robotnick) and still very popular in Chicago, even during Saturday night hotmix shows on theradio stations you will hear Kano thrown in the mix now and then! You have to get into the tiny bit of cheese that goes along with Italo, listening to it now in 2000 you can really crack up at the funny words. Very synth-heavy and funky, "electronicized" kind of sound.
Gramaphone has lots of Kano usually, even a "best of Kano" LP that is pretty good. I just have "I'm Ready/Holly Dolly" and It's a War on 12" (Emergency). I like them all so much I can't even pick a favorite, but to be fair "I'm Ready" was played at my wedding. :) And yes, Klaas-Jan I threw it in during my set at the 313 party at Science, (good memory). You can totally hear how the detroit stuff would have been impressed by it in the 80's, that's how Sharevari was born, etc. as was already mentioned several times. I have been wanting to do an all-italo mix for awhile now, I just need to get organized... I've been buying it up whenever i can find it. I really got heavily into the stuff when I moved to Chicago 3 years ago and found a lot of it just sitting in secondhands bins, readily available, Gino Soccio, My Mine, Doctors Cat, Moroder, grab anything you can find on the Fuzz Dance label (they guy who did the Robotnßick record also worked recorded other names and you can hear the 'straight laced' 303 all over the other stuff too). The guy who owns C.A.P. Imports on Lake St. also runs the label called Dancia and has rights to repress the My Mine stuff I believe, so those are easy to get and it's a labor of love that they're still available. His name is Walter I think and he does come into gramaphone to do stocking of the classics here and there so if you want pointers ask him., he knows all that stuff and can tell you when it first came out in the 80's and what was really huge here, what was big, what flopped and what are the lost treasures. As a movement, Italo seemed to be really popular in Chicago w/ the house crowd and also Japan, but didn't get as strong of a foothold in Detroit except for the more well-known cuts. Anyway, I'm rambling. I did a radio show in Evanston last summer and played all kinds of Italo during the shows thrown in here and there, the shows are archived in Real Audio here: http://www.macqueen.com/radio peace
