Midweek Mention... Mixed by Erry

Mixed By Erry

Dan: Right. This was a choice that I made. To watch. A bit random. We were looking around for movies. Everybody was just absolute edge lords on the chat and nobody had chosen anything. And sidey well, he's just disappeared, isn't he? So we haven't seen him in months. And we thought, well, we best do

Pete: and this is what happens when we're left to fend for ourselves. We make, we make wild, reckless choices. What, what drew you into this, Dan?

Dan: It was. And this Italian movie that was about music and I thought, okay, I'll give it a go. I, I'd seen a couple of times on Netflix as you do when you kind of burn through them and you think, oh, and I'd watched the trailer or a small clip of it a couple of times.

And

I just thought, why? Okay. I, you know, when you're just looking around for it. It was my kind of movie. I thought, right, I'll this was a story based on a true story.

Reegs: what it tells us,

right up

front, based on a true story. The true story of the Frittasia, Frittasia brothers?

Dan: Yeah,

Frittosia. Frittosia.

Cris: I don't know. I've not watched it. So I'm just here participating.

Reegs: participating. Yeah,

I It's Flatacio. Flatacio.

Dan: probably right, Pete. Yeah,

Reegs: I, I was not aware of this story or this

movie. So it was a nice surprise.

Dan: Yeah, well, it's, it's kind of about cassettes and mix tapes and the, the piloting of them. Back in, we're talking about probably 1980s,

Reegs: Well

it's, yeah, it starts in 1991.

Dan: That's near 80s,

Reegs: Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, well the bulk of the story takes place over the, the middle to late 80s and the early 90s, yeah. But it starts with some

guy being taken into prison. And They're like lobbing toilet

rolls and stuff at him, and

Pete: like there's a party going

Reegs: Yeah.

It's like,

and they're welcoming him in like he's royalty. maestro. they're calling him, and, have this bed, it's the best one,

Dan: Yeah, he's not that old, he's he certainly doesn't look that dangerous. But yeah, he's been afforded this welcome by all these hard men in the prison. Given the bed, asked which one, and a guy kind of sits down, an older boy next to him and he says,

What did you

do to get all this money?

Like, because somebody else is coming to give him a message and about

Reegs: Some guy in a, like a yellow tracksuit comes in you

Enrico Baieri, he

says And Angelo's got a message for you about

the money is safe

it's hidden in

concrete because

we'll come back to that, I guess. at the end of the movie and You know he says to him

Who are you that you've

got all that money and I have

to bring this message to you in prison? And then we cut back to 1976 I think,

and it's he's listening to

Jackson Five. I Want You Back on the radio, isn't he?

And

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: yEah.

Dan: Yeah, he's, he's in, he's in love with kind of music from a, a young age.

He's, he's been drawn into, to it or it's connected with him in some part, but then it, it, it skips on, doesn't it? We move, we

Reegs: Well, We get the kids, we get the kids so we get an introduction to the three brothers, right? Pretty much we learn everything we want about them really early on. that Enrico is really into music and Angelo is the slightly unhinged one and Giuseppe is

the kind of more Entrepreneurial,

but the Del Boy,

type, of them. And

we're properly introduced

to them really?

Making tea.

To reload

Jack

Daniel's bottles.

Pete: This is the family

Reegs: Yeah, it's his dad's

business. He takes down

to the local market stalls. He brings

a sucker in. He pours

him a, drink.

Here's a real

Jack Daniels. Oh, buy a case. Switch the bottle out. With,

The kid comes and causes

a distraction. You switch the bottle.

So he thinks that he sees

the one that he's already drunk out of go in the case. It's all very clever The guy's paid however many 10, 000 lira for a case full of tea. and Off goes the scam so you can see

It's,

like played lighthearted, but they don't have a lot of money.

There aren't any jobs. You know, this is kind of his dad's way of

Dan: Making make it and do and he's actually quite proud of They're an honest family.

Pete: Yeah.

Dan: Even doing that, it goes to show some of the, the other kind of people getting up, what they must be getting up to if this is an honest way to make a living or at least not that bad.

So yeah, the, the story goes on as, as these young boys kind of grow up and start. wanting to find some work for themselves. There's one part where there's a fight and one of the brothers is getting beaten up.

Reegs: Yeah, Enrico. So Enrico Rie as we'll come to know

him, he,

he's an aspiring DJ. That's He's

like a

human Spotify as we'll come to, to know before that sort of thing existed. And he's makes mix tapes. And he, you know, he's making one for Francesca.

Pete: Yeah,

who is, who's Beppe's.

Reegs: love interest. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Pete: well. So

Dan: he's got a reputation.

Pete: Francesca is clearly, you know, fed up with Beppe's behavior or whatever, but he's gone round there with this mixtape that the areas is put together. And he, he manages to kind of beckon her down and, and give her the take and everything.

This is his, like, way back into, into her

Reegs: And he's tried it as a, as a local DJ,

but like, he hasn't really got the charisma

or, he goes

off to a club and he's kind of knocked back for

having a bit of a shit

DJ name and just not being

a,

Dan: doesn't stand out.

Pete: Yeah, that, that, that scene, he, he, he basically, he's been there since like five o'clock.

It's getting towards the end of the night and he, he says to the, to the owner, like, when am I gonna go? And he's, oh, no, sorry, these guys have overrun, you're not getting on. But then the guy kind of gives him in a nice, nice way. I mean, he's quite a big imposing like bloke, but he says that you haven't got a great DJ name.

You're not exactly full of charisma and so on. And he's like, what would you do for work? And he's like, Oh, I work in the music store. He's like, Oh, right. That's interesting. Like, what'd you do? Like sell records? He's like, Oh, no, I sweep the floor. But and he's like, right. Oh, that sounds like a good job. I wouldn't.

Yeah, don't quit that one. Yeah, yeah.

Reegs: yeah,

yeah.

Pete: So yeah, he's already hit his first kind of like hurdle in life with

Dan: Yeah, and there's going to be a few more hurdles because he keeps getting knocked back and he keeps staying into the store until one day the store isn't there anymore.

It's it's being cleared out. Guy's taking a deal. He's going on holiday. He hasn't thought to mention this before him

Pete: turns up for work and he hasn't got a

Dan: So, yeah. And then he says, look, keep the records. Go and make your own business. Go and do it and it's still a long way from ever becoming anything viable at this

Reegs: Well

pretty quickly they work out that they haven't

got the sort of

technology to

so

right.

Eric and areas pushed into, effectively, a life of DJing and selling these tapes that he has the ability to somehow get the, like, cutting edge of

music onto

them.

But he, and he can, they can sell them at markets and stuff and Giuseppe is pretty quickly onto

this idea, but they

don't have the scale of

the operation.

They can't

get enough tapes. They can't distribute it they can't make them quickly

enough, and all

that sort of thing,

So,

Pete: it they can't make them quickly enough, and all that sort of thing, so

and

we've, we've already done it.

He's like slightly more unhinged and he just sees his brother getting beaten up. So takes his, takes his shoe and his sock off, gets a rock, puts it in the sock and then ends up like doing some serious damage to some fella and ends up doing, I think it's 18 months stretch for

Reegs: He's

in juvie,

isn't he? 'cause they're still pretty young.

Pete: gone to Juvie.

So he's out of the scene

Reegs: ends up, he ends up on a sort of day release to go to his brother's wedding. This is where they come up with the plan

of pushing the the

Yeah, so he turns up, you actually see the police in the background when he turns up, and they're chatting away in the background while Giuseppe's getting married.

Yeah,

Pete: But yeah, like you say, all Harry wants to do is be a DJ, but, but Bepi sees an opportunity there. So all they need to do is, is get the equipment. They're talking about the equipment that they would need.

Reegs: It's

a brilliant scene when they talk about teletext. Did that

Pete: get you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was amazing.

Yeah, there's like a magazine on the TV, but it's funny. They're sat right outside this, this vendors, this like magazine, what do you say? It's like a news agent. So like in the middle of the square and they're just sat there reading through all the magazines, looking for like inspiration and what to do.

And like the. The guy, the shopkeeper's getting the arse with them because they're not buying any of these magazines. It's like, well, we have to look to see what's in them before I know whether I want to buy it or not. But they see there's this like

tape deck or I think it was the, the

Reegs: duplicated graph.

Pete: There we go.

That's it. Yeah. Which can, which can yeah.

Reegs: copy an hour's

tape in two minutes.

but It costs an absolute

fortune. So they have to go to a local, a family

friend in

inverted commas, Don Mario. And they go to him for the money and

he's like, he just looks like an accountant.

He's like in his sixties and mustache mustard

shirt,

I

Pete: shark, isn't he,

Dan: Yeah.

Pete: I like, I like the terms. I like, do you, like, do you remember the terms of the loan, which was like, so if you borrow this, you know, you borrow this, month one, you pay back. So if you borrow ten, One, you pay back 11. If it's not paid back in month two, it's 13. If it's not paid back in in three, it's 15.

And if it's not paid back in month four, then the, the debt's like wiped out. You don't owe me anything. Intimating exactly what that means. And they get, they get the message straight away that, you know, they don't want to get to month four.

Reegs: And

this is where erry then sets up his record shop.

And this is where he is

the human Spotify and he has a nerd off

with a girl, his love interest,

which I never caught her name throughout

the entire movie, I'm ashamed to say.

And Because he's recommending different songs pretty good soundtrack in this we've already had frankie goes

to hollywood. in there and a few others

Dan: That's right. Yeah. And he's just kind of suggesting songs to people's preferred album. So there's 15 minutes left on the end of each cassette.

So he wants to put on his suggestions then and it's going to sell more music and, and put in this different kind of suggestions based on their, their interests. As you say, like human Spotify.

Reegs: Spotify

and they've made Teresa, is it? They've made money, enough money to pay back Don Mario, but it's not really enough area and He pretty quickly

wants to use the, we've seen a sort of,

counterfeit cigarette operation

being run out the harbor and He uses

that smuggling

network as a distributor for his tapes

across.

Italy. And

some of it is about bringing music to people.

this is at least how, what he claims. Within the framework of the

movie about bringing music to people that wouldn't otherwise have access to it.

Dan: movie about bringing music to people that wouldn't otherwise have access to it. But nobody's really cracking down on the

Pete: really cracking down on the And there's a great scene where there

Reegs: low risk. Exactly. Yeah. There's a great scene where they're so they've used

this counterfeit smuggling operation

and these local Moroccan are

pissed off about it and they've tried to threaten them. So they

Pete: well, so the, the threat scene is quite. Chilling, isn't it? Because the guy goes into their record shop,

um, takes their phone, rings the number, and then hands over the phone to Eri, I think it is, behind, and he's like, Hello who am I? And it's like, it's basically like the trauma ward at the hospital.

And they're like,

I think I'm going to speak to someone here and they're like, Oh, we've just had 15 Moroccan guys come in and they're all fucked up. Like we haven't got the time for this. And it's, so that was the threat and the guys like, yeah, you don't do that with, on my patch with my guys and all of that.

so

Reegs: Pretty chilling. Yeah but Angelo has, he

says they should politely but firmly

say no to the guy

and they cook up this operation, it's really quite incredible. that You see them going off to talk to friends and getting some props and stuff. So,

You know, that it's not quite what

it Anyway, they,

They go

to this

guy's place and they cut

down their

TV aerial.

And he goes outside and

he's like, and it's just being inch pulled along by a

wire. And there's just

these two nerdy guys there and this big

badass.

He's like, what are you doing?

And He said,

well I cut

down your antenna and I'm

dragging it with the wire.

It's

quite a funny scene, isn't it?

And

then turns out

Pete: a death

Reegs: he says, no, but we've got a third brother. And he turns around and there's Angelo, Definitely the more

unhinged one.

playing an absolute psycho with a gun

to the guy's, head.

and,

Dan: And itching to pull the trigger.

He's like, just, I'm just excited to

Pete: oh, oh, I hope you say the wrong thing so I can shoot you in the head.

Reegs: It was

a prop

though.

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: they'd been to a, they'd been to a thing beforehand. That's where he got the fireworks.

So I understood it was

a prop. Because we're supposed to

think they're not too horrible,

these guys. Anyway, they do

end up

destroying

the guy's warehouse or whatever. With some fireworks.

Pete: Well, it tells them to get out of, I don't know if it's get out of Naples or get out of Italy.

But yeah, the message is, is like

Dan: You've had,

Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you don't see those guys again.

Dan: No, that's right. And then business starts to boom because they make another connection about the cassette tapes and they meet this

kind

Reegs: they

Pete: Before, before they,

before they get to the to the tapes guy, they, they go, they get invited to this party.

And, you know, they're getting this really, like, bizarre, lavish party with, you know, it's,

Dan: Mafioso and,

Pete: and there's, like, ridiculous furniture and stuff, there's, like, I think it's, like, the hot tub has got, like, a little, like, a clamshell, kind of, like, lid on it, and and there's a photographer there just taking pictures, Polaroids of everybody.

And eventually they get invited into the room and the guy's name escapes me, but

Reegs: It was Don Lyon or something. It was

Pete: yeah. And so again, in, in a kind of like pretty chilling way, he, he's like, Oh, I really like what you're doing. I've heard of you guys, you know, it's really interesting. Tell me more about it. And then he's like, Oh, how, how many brothers are there?

And he's like three. He's like from now on this four brothers. So again, this film does it quite a few times where it's just like.

Reegs: They're

portrayed as being Quite naive. and

being like, But, yeah, it's one of the problems I have with the movie.

but

yeah. Anyway, they're, they're, they're sort of buffeted

along by

this. I think they

go off in the

car, having sort of tacitly

agreed to this, and they're like,

shit, what are we going to do? We're in with this, like, fucking nutter, basically.

And it looks like it's really bad, everything's gonna go wrong. And then, fortunately for them A gang war breaks out and just completely overshadows that threat and

there's, like, they're all taken

out, the guy who was threatening him, he's

just involved in some horrible gang

Dan: it also kind of overshadows the whole spotlight on piracy right at that moment so they get another few months and years while

Reegs: Well,

except for one guy.

Because

Pete: it, does there is that little breadcrumb Yeah.

That ties them in, which is the, the Polaroid of them three at the party, right? Yeah. And this, fuck it, this, this cop who's brilliant, like with his glasses, with those like,

Reegs: the, flip

Pete: the sunglasses bit flips up and so on. And he's like, who the fuck are these guys? Because he's never seen them before.

They're not connected to, to the mafiaa activity or whatever. So he gets a little, he basically, he's like,

Dan: he's got

Pete: find out who they are.

Dan: yeah.

Reegs: out who they are. And then next, with 1987, Napoli are

champions.

Maradona and,

Pete: wigs on, and yeah. Yeah,

Reegs: good times. But the cops are after them as pirates, definitely.

this, now actual ideas about intellectual property and counterfeiting. These things are

now being discussed

as proper discourse in the movie as Well, And there's busts and things where they're narrowly avoided.

They're tight laboratories starting to be raided on a regular basis.

Pete: think the key is that they need to get in order to prosecute, they need to get them there actually in the act of pirating. This stuff this this content Whereas they've got loads of lookouts.

They've created a network They've got hundreds and hundreds of people like on the payroll in inverted commas It's all cash in hand and stuff But they always get a tip off or a heads up and so they're able to boost out the window and get away And because they got so many of these like

Dan: they

Pete: they can

let one of them and the whole stock like go and they've still got another, you

Dan: Well, that's it. They just roll into another one.

They got in a van, didn't they?

Skipped round about a kilometre into another place and started again.

So they were just agile, they were just moving through and all this kind of money is being generated. I think by this time they've had that tape connection where they've got a deal to get, you know, a billion kind of

Reegs: Well, they start buying up tapes.

in bulk. There's a great scene where they go to that guy's warehouse and like, can we buy some tapes? Say, how many do you want? 15? 000? like, no,

all

of

Pete: them. Everything. yeah,

Reegs: well, how many do you want? A hundred thousand? No, all of them. Literally, every. And then, eventually, I mean, we can skip to this bit, it starts

to get to the attention

of, like,

The

Bambacini was

his

name. I think the

Dan: type politician.

Reegs: Well, he, he, he's a sales executive at

the tape

manufacturing company.

And suddenly

realized something like 70

percent of their blank tape Sales are coming

from this like

one

source

and they he winds and

dines.

Pete: For him he

Dan: and And, for, For him he knows

what they're going to do with it, but he, he's selling blank tapes.

So he doesn't give a shit.

Reegs: But on the

way home, actually, from this

meeting Enrico stops the car, shocked, and you don't know why he's doing it,

He runs across the road, and then he sees something that

chills him to the

bone.

in the window.

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: A

CD!

Dun,

Pete: in the window, yeah.

Dan: yeah.

Reegs: the end is nigh.

Dan: that's it.

You know, their whole kind of set up is built around. They've got these huge walls of tape decks, haven't they? They're producing hundreds of tapes, and they're on to him. They're in one of the meetings that we go to. In the exec lounge, they realized that they're the biggest selling,

Pete: Well, they're the biggest record label.

Reegs: that, Yeah. So we skip ahead to 1991 where the movie started and they are the biggest record label.

That

Dan: In South Italy or

Pete: No, in in Italy. And yeah. And they've got, so let's say 40% of the market in, in Italy, but they're like 85% in the south of

Reegs: And he's constantly

getting this, there's this

compilation that

he's making

Pete: that that's,

Reegs: ahead of Like,

before it's even being released.

He's got this compilation

out on the market.

Yeah. And the

business has become so successful that there are people now copying

the copiers.

They're are co copying mixed by

Dan: Yeah, they're saying that their pirated copies, the original, and copies of that are the pirated

ones. And

Pete: like market, people who run these market stalls are freely admitting that to the policeman

Dan: No, this is original. Yeah, this

Reegs: This is the original. pirate

Dan: Mixed by Eri,

Reegs: yeah. What's

Pete: say, what's the name, what's the name of the concert or whatever it is?

Dan: Sacramento or

Pete: something like that.

Reegs: that?

Pete: That's it, yeah that's it. And so, that's the theme because that's kind of It's obviously this, this massive, almost what's, what's the word? Festival that, that happens every year and mixed by areas is like the, the tape or, you know, the, the, the mix that will come out from that is, is their biggest seller and, and so on.

They, they, they routinely sort of talk about, oh, we, we, you know. Make quarter of our yearly and annual income just on that alone or whatever. But then the the police or the investigators are talking Talking about saying well, they must have a mole They must have someone inside that because effectively that if they can catch that person that catch that interaction Then they know that this is something that is like Should be like covered by legislation being leaked to the, the pirates.

Yeah. So I mean, what are we going straight to the, the, the setup? Well,

Dan: Well, the, yeah, go on.

Pete: 'cause we've had, we, we, we've had a little bit more, like, they've had a couple of kids and they've had a wedding. The, the wedding

Dan: quite light. It's quite lighthearted, isn't it? And you, you talked sort of a little bit about the boys and the brothers being, you know, that was a prop.

And when they blew up that, and there's a couple of interactions with heavy dudes, but apparently they were just fine. You know, they were, I'm, I'm sure it was a little bit. You know, rough and tumble and words were spoken and a bit hairy and that

Reegs: than that because you're talking

Dan: you know, the amount of money that was going through and because it was just cassette tapes or it was just piracy, then it was a community thing.

You

Reegs: a community thing, you know, there was Also, in Italy

in the early 90s, in the south of Italy,

Cris: actually

Dan: but anyway, in this, it doesn't really go into all that. This is a, a, a kind of

Cris: Light hearted,

Dan: look

Reegs: well, other things are happening. Like Italy's

now apparently got a strong anti counterfeiting team and anti piracy thing going now in the

in context of the movie.

The technological things are coming to shut Eri down as well because it all, you know, that's swirling around him, not just, not just the law, the fact

that technology is about to change and you won't be able to play these

tapes anymore cause CDs you know, you can't,

can't pirate

CDs.

can't

Pete: Yeah, can't copy CDs, but so it's sort of like crescendoing towards like the the the main kind of like the sting operation, which is your man, the the godfather to one of the kids. I've forgotten his name. He said it just before he sells. He's the Milan sales exec. He's he's been at a meeting where he knows that the.

That the, you know, like, the circle is closing, right? So he then goes down to warn Harry, and Harry just dismisses it and goes like, Yeah, no, you know, nothing to worry about, it's all fine. And then, to cover his own arse, basically he does a deal with the prosecutors. He's like, look, I'm, through immunity, I'll tell you absolutely everything that you need to know about this and so they know that it's gonna, it's gonna culminate at this festival where he's gonna, you know, give up who his contact

Dan: He's gonna meet him. He's gonna,

Reegs: That's it.

Baron

Pete: they know that. The brothers know that. They know that they've been sort of sold out by, by this guy. So they

Dan: He's told them, hasn't he? Did he give them the, the tip Because he, he met him,

Reegs: There's a few times where they've exchanged knowing glances. There's

like that music festival where Erie's just alone outside and he sees him and

they nod at each

other.

I think He does understand, he's made it pretty

clear A few times

Pete: They already know that their phones are being tapped because they do the setup. I think the crazy brother Angelo is in Japan, I'm guessing, to look

Reegs: Buying a CD copier

Pete: technology. And he's like, oh, they've got this amazing pasta. It's like see through.

But on that call he, or sorry, straight after that call, he puts in a call to his wife, knowing that the phones are being tapped, saying like, oh, we should go to the festival this year and we're going to stay, we should stay at this hotel

Reegs: it really weirdly. So me and you and Jeff.

Pete: She's like, you're, you're talking in a really weird way.

He's like, no, I'm not. Yeah,

Dan: But they're so hungry to catch him, they decide, Right, well, we've got to go all in.

And so they're, they've rented rooms. They've got watch outs everywhere.

Pete: But then that, that scene that, that Riggs was talking about there where he's in the, he's in the foyer. He goes up to make a call in the hotel and you have like, they're all listening in and they're like, right, okay, he's making a call from the hotel.

It's like, which phone? It's like, you know, there's four different like pay phones in the hotel. They don't know which one. It's a race against time so that they can tap it. He's calling the, he's calling the mole now. He's calling the mole. So they eventually they catch up with the conversation and they get an address.

So the guy, the, the, the chief police investigator, whoever's like, okay, right, we'll send all the squads to this address. And then he's like, hang on, hang on. Say that address again, says it. And he's like, he's just called his mom and that's all it is. And it's a big kind of distraction or to let them know, really, that, that they know that you're onto us, but there's not really a great deal you can do about

Dan: harder than that.

And they are a little bit oblivious because each time he's gone and told him the exec and he said, look, it's.

It's,

over, you know, you need to get the fuck out of here and he's going, you know, you're the biggest record label in Italy, you know, you need to, they're coming for you. And all he can hear is the biggest record label in

Pete: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Reegs: That's

Dan: the only thing that he's not heard any of the danger. And when he recounts that story back to his brothers, again, that's all he's kind of telling them. And, and they can't see that they're doing anything wrong. He thinks just by mixing different people's songs together, it makes him a DJ.

Reegs: But it is becoming much bigger

politically in the background.

News reports and that sort of thing

about anti

piracy and anti

intellectualism. That's why Baron Beeney, the Businessman sort of

bargains for immunity and

he gives up crucial information about the companies they were operating and who the staff that were involved in the invoices and

Everything they

need to put a

Dan: But even the

Reegs: together because they're all arrested then.

The three, the three

brothers

are arrested at various,

Dan: but e even the girlfriend at one point is kind of had that conversation and said, do you think you're, you know, you're doing is, is right or it's and he's, yeah. Don't you.

And she kind of just looks at him and thinks, well, yeah, I suppose so I'm with you. I like you. I'll accept it or whatever. And they go along with it and yeah, they're making more money than they can shake a sticker

Pete: But they've also gone like sort of lavish with their they're all like the Angelo, especially he's got like loads of girls on the

Dan: A yellow

Pete: Ferrari yellow Lamborghini and stuff.

And, but like markedly, I noticed it that like Beppe, the one who's always like, he's the one that always sees the angle. He's literally got a Del Boy coat. Now he's got like the

Reegs: he a sheepskin coat?

Pete: he's got that coat on, so that, that was quite amusing.

Reegs: Nice. They get arrested towards the climax of the movie, and then that rejoins us with what happened at the beginning with now we understand eri in jail, the sort of,

And

he paints this, like, Robin Hood

type figure of him bringing music, for barely

anything, to the masses, and

maybe that, maybe that is the truth of the story, I

don't know.

And anyway, he's going off to trial, and he's getting dressed up in a suit that his wife has sent him, and his lawyer's talking to him. but All he's bothered about is math script and whether or not the vote has gone through. And

it was puzzling me until it ties in

Pete: ties in later. Yeah, because, so the newspaper that the parcel is wrapped in has got the headline about the Maastricht Treaty and, you know, whether it's going to be signed and everything.

And then the impli But he understands the implications of that straight away.

Reegs: I Honestly, right, the movie to, I was on a knife

edge a bit with

this movie about

how what it was saying until it,

like, literally, this

bit of the movie where he's his lawyer is telling him

When they're going to read out a

long list of crimes and you say one thing,

you say you're innocent.

That's it. It's the only thing you say and that's what happens. He goes into the trial

and he reads out the long list of crimes,

and he says, How do you plead? He stops, and he starts

to say innocent, and then he says, I'm

a DJ, and it flats

out. And then

it sort

of stops, leaving that question of whether he feels he's guilty or not, you know.

Yeah.

all that

stuff. That's almost where it redeemed

me, this movie,

At least it

knew that there was something because, because it's painted almost as

legitimate the whole way through, and it's not

fucking legitimate. It is like,

Dan: yeah, I mean it's, it is time and a place because there was probably more loopholes until they closed in that legislation up and, and you know, was able to put in those things.

I'm not saying it was right or wrong, but you're talking. What 70s, 80s this time that they're starting to mix tapes and everybody mixed tapes. Everybody

Pete: what I took from They're

Dan: all doing them on industrial standards.

Reegs: 180 million tapes? they were making. How I

took

Pete: it was that it's, they got into something that at the beginning there was no legislation for and it was, and they went into it, certainly Eri went into it with completely honest intentions, which I think is why he gave the answer I am a DJ. As opposed to saying I'm innocent or I'm guilty, I am a DJ because it's, it's him just basically going, I'm just a

Reegs: I'm just making music.

Pete: don't, like, I don't know what any of that means or, or whether it's legal or not, but all I do is, is make music for, for the masses. But I think that they got into it at a time when it was, and you can see that there are probably things that, there are things that we all do now, whether, you know, or, or, you know, you go back 15 years ago and you want to, Use a picture for something in like a, a, a, I don't know, like a bit of work, something to do with work or whatever, you just take it off the internet and stick it on the, and now you get like, you know, massive fines for that because people own that intellectual property and it's like, if when you're in it and you've done it and you're, now it is your life and it's funded this, this lifestyle and everything you've got around you to then just all of a sudden go like, Oh no, okay, I better not do that anymore.

It's, I don't think it's as simple as that. You just go switch off and go, no. Okay. Because there's still a lot of gray areas. It's still evolving as you know, it basically needed it, it culminated how it would do, which is they're going to get caught. They're going to get stopped. They're going to get a load of stuff seized, but I only got like three or four years for it.

Reegs: they got four years and six months, each.

Pete: But, but then the, the main kind of like, well, like the, the.

Dan: hidden money under a tennis court.

Reegs: loved

this It was great. That's why he was wanting

to know about Maastricht, obviously, because of the change of currency, that they, they were, talking about burying

under

some tennis courts, billions of Lira.

And when they come out,

it will be worthless, I guess.

is their

Pete: is Yeah.

And I guess for the people who were less comfortable like yourself, Riggs, with the You know, with what they were doing, that's their, I guess, their comeuppance. I know it doesn't sort of erase everything that's been done in the life that they'd led up to that point, but there is that kind of like, final sort of slap in the face that they've got all this wealth, but it is literally going to be

Reegs: It's a good story though, innit?

Dan: and that's what it was I mean it was based on a true story it wasn't kind of a documentary it was

It was made to be fun, the characters were, you know, probably very different to how they're portrayed on screen in real life, but it was an entertaining film, I thought, and it was a nice story, and I, you know, the, the fact that it was with cassette tapes and mix tapes and things was something that I

Reegs: Did you make a mix tape before

Dan? Oh,

Pete: a hundred, Of

course we did.

Dan: Did you ever

Reegs: you ever did you ever record yourself as like being your own DJ as well?

Between

track,

Dan: own DJ as well? Tracks. I mean, you're no more a DJ than Air. He is here. Really. I mean, you would record and put it on, but I think were

Reegs: on the top

Dan: tape? Oh no,

Pete: no,

no,

1. No, because we, we were sound and had friends and stuff. So, like, yeah.

Dan: I didn't have one of those little plugin microphones into my

into

my

Pete: But that's it. Like, it's, I mean, I'm not sure I did. My, I remember my grandad used to just, like, record. There's something that'd be on the radio, and he'd just get his shitty old cassette player out and plug it in and just hit, like, record on it. So That's, that's what people did until you weren't allowed to do that

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: How long

Dan: record over those

Reegs: movie becomes completely incomprehensible to anybody else? Like, you know. kids who go growing up now be like, couldn't

Dan: don't know, there's a bit of a revival on some of this stuff. You know, with cassettes, vinyl came back quite strong. And, and it's never really gone away.

Cassettes and CDs are probably. The most defunct

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan: they just scratch so easily don't they and dvds won't be far behind you stream everything

Reegs: Would you like some unique insight

into the

Italian intellectual

property

Dan: property office,

Reegs: Cause I actually did have some dealings with them back in my

former,

Profession. And I feel

like

the fact that it's, you know, irrelevant to the story. they're, they're terrible. They're terrible, like known for being particularly awful, awful,

like overly bureaucratic

Cris: But it's the same with everything in Italy. It's not just like that office. It's any, any, any part of it. The school system, the hospitals, the infrastructure, that if you want to get planning and approvals and anything, anything that has to do

Dan: there

Reegs: I went to see

I went to see a,

a,

Manufacturer of a car that operates out of Germany.

And they had on the wall of their intellectual property office, they have a signed,

like, Italian patent

office. It's the only certificate

they've ever had back from the actual

patent office. And they've got it framed on the wall just because,

lols, Because it's known

for how ridiculous it is there, so.

There

you go. Yeah,

Pete: okay.

Dan: I enjoyed yeah.

Reegs: I enjoyed it, yeah. I enjoyed it It's

Dan: two hours

Pete: it's nearly two hours long because I remember literally pausing it and 55 had gone and 54 was, Yeah, well, it's yeah, no, do you know what? When you said, when you suggested it on the group, like the name of it, I was like, what the fuck's

Reegs: Yeah, I was a

Pete: This is gonna be bollocks. And I'm a little bit, I'm in a little bit of a rut with Netflix at the moment. It's like, I feel like we, not just this group, but everyone, like society is just falling into the trap of like, Oh, it's on Netflix. So it must be brilliant. And

Reegs: Watch Fall of the House of

Usher, that is

brilliant.

Pete: Well, okay, well, there will be good things on it, but I'm like, I've lost faith in its ability to give me brilliant content all the time, if you know what I mean,

Dan: Well, I, I found actually on, on that point that they, these foreign language films that seem to be fairly new as well with. You know, different actors, different stories is where Netflix is investing a lot of money. It's probably, you know,

Pete: so many gems out there that we, we know,

Dan: so many gems. Exactly. So many new directors and new actors and things.

And yeah. It's,

Pete: Yeah, I mean, it said it was a comedy.

I was entertained. Definitely. I don't think I laughed out loud. Maybe maybe once if if that I

Reegs: more like it's a good story,

Pete: is it is a good story. I mean, I I'm more on the I take these things at face value. I'm not looking at their life. Like the undercurrents that they're not telling you about, like they might have been involved in drugs and guns and so they may or may not have been, I don't know the story.

I'm not going to just leap to that conclusion, but I'm also not going to be naive enough to think, Oh, it's just this kind of like harmless thing as well. I take it at face value. Like,

you know, like plenty of flawed characters, you know, we've just talked about bond and how we liked him and he used to shoot people and stuff like, so I'm not going to get all uppity about a few drugs and stuff.

But. I enjoyed the film.

Yeah. Anyway, we won't get into that. But yeah, there are flawed characters and flawed people that you can like. I like only fools and horses and they're basically getting stuff that's been stolen and selling it and fly pitching it, which is illegal. And so, and so, and this had that kind of like, I've, I've mentioned it a few times.

It had almost like a And only falls in an Italian, only falls in horse's vibe to

Reegs: Well, And it was complete like, you know, Italy

in the eighties, there wasn't a lot of money or jobs or opportunities for pit for young people.

Dan: People People are going to do what they're going to do, you know, and this would have been a lot less harmful than, you know, potentially getting into other things.

He's, he's a bit of a geek, just wanted to mix tapes. It's just a DJ. I'll check it out. ​