I DON'T LIKE YOU

By Angelo Ruggiero

Featuring

MARCO FERRARESE of the Nerds

and GIACOMO of No Name No Logo Records 

The alternative to the conventional way of releasing music is to do it yourself, taking your own decisions, recording songs, and issuing them on small independent labels outside the mainstream.

Every generation of punks have always made an effort to openly announce their principles.  

For the majority of the bands, doing it yourself has not been an option but a have to.
Since the seventies, it has not been so difficult for bands to make recordings and get them pressed on vinyl.
Thousands of bands have been doing it at an underground level. Seven inches, albums, and CDs are still being sold by bands at their concerts, and traded with record distributors or other small punk labels.

One of those bands was the Nerds from Voghera, Italy. Late in the nineties, they started doing some of the rawest, hard to resist lively punk rock. Their very first recording, the split E.P. with Orange Juice from the Crypt, was released in 1998 on the Italian underground punk label, Saucer Rex Records. The Nerds' side consisted of the songs "Kill All The Boyscouts," "Teddy Flaunts His 25 cm. Dick," "You're An Asshole," and the Authorities' cover of "Radiation Masturbation."

Shortly after, it was recorded the Don't Like You 7'' E.P., which was comprised of the tracks “I’ll Kick You In The Balls,” and “I Don’t Like You”on side A, and “The Todd Killings,” and “The Hermit Wanna Eat Me” on side B.

The Don’t Like You 7'' was released on No Name No Logo Records, punk rock label owned by Giacomo Francioni, who was in charge of punk bands Nicketeen and Highschool Dropouts.

I would like to thank Giacomo, who has recently revealed his thoughts in relation to his label’s first release: “I wanted to start NNNL mainly because of the Nerds. I was friends with Marco [the Nerds’ guitar player] at the time, and his band sounded very fresh and raw... they caught my attention and I thought they deserved to release a 7" EP. Their 1997 demo cassette was awesome. Actually, their 7" on NNNL came out in 1998.”

The cost to press vinyl records in the late nineties, was still affordable. Giacomo spoke about pressing the Nerds' Don’t Like You 7’’ single, “the record was manufactured at a pressing plant in the outskirts of Milan. It was released in 1000 copies without test pressings or colour variations. I don't remember where sleeves and inner bags were made but it all costed 900.000 Lire which means less than 500 Euro.”

I also can't thank enough to the Nerds' leader and guitarist Marco Ferrarese, for letting me know some of his thinkings about the band's beginnings. “Don't Like You was recorded for a friend's label [No Name No Logo], he [Giacomo] was the guitarist of a pop punk band called Nickyteen, like the pornstar. We were really into 80s calipunk and the Angry Samoans, that's why we covered Todd's Killings,” told Marco. 

“I will tell you an anecdote from the Don't Like You 7". The song "The Hermit Wanna Eat Me". It does have a sense: the "Hermit" was a nickname me, Boss and Pollios gave to the now deceased grandfather of our bassist, Taccio.
We were kids, ahaha.. When we usually went to buzz Taccio to ask him out, his grandfather would sit on the porch, wearing a white singlet, and smoking cigarettes.
He would always tell us off in some impolite way, like "Taccio's not here", "Taccio's studying", or "Ring the bell don't let me get up and find him for you."
We were kind of intimidated by the man, so that's how the song came about. It's a great song.

One thing is, I'm not very happy with the guitar sound on that single," accepted Marco. 
"It's too slurred... Probably a problem due to the engineer's lack of competency with analog tape. Anyways, "I Don't Like You" was a great song too. 
Those were some of our most melodic songs, before we turned a bit more towards early GG Allin & the Scumfucs, and the likes.

Don't Like You EP

Don't Like You came out before our I Wanna Kill Your Plastic Slut 7", which I believe defines our early sound."

As guitarist of the Nerds, Marco Ferrarese provided a powerful sound to the band. The follow-up to Don’t Like You was the 4-track 7’’ EP I Wanna Kill Your Plastic Slut, released by Italy's Scarey Records. It included killer tunes like “Kill,” “Go Fuck Yourself,” “Slut,” and a GG Allin’s potent cover of  “I Wanna Rape You.” 

Early concerts by the Nerds were really wild. I remember all those energetic teens exploding into pogo dancing while every song was reaching its climax.

After signing to Holland’s Stardumb Records the band released their first full length Just Because She Didn’t Wanna Fuck, in December 2000.
A split 7'' with Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 came out in 2001, followed by a split 10'' with Tunnel Rats. In 2003, the band delivered another split 7'' with Hammercocks. Their second album, A Black Star Burning Trails To Nowhere was released on Scarey Records in April of 2004.

Besides being a terrific musician, Marco Ferrarese also is an excellent writer and journalist. In late 2013, his first novel, Nazi Goreng: Young - Malay - Fanatic - Skinheads, was published by Monsoon Books in Singapore. The book examines the Malaysian drug traffic and racial furies. He's also the lead guitarist of hardcore band WEOT SKAM.