On Christmas Eve news of the death of Alfredo Fiorito started to come through via social media and an outpouring of remembrances, thanks and sorrow for a man who did as much as any to change the musical culture in the 1980s and afterwards. Alfredo may not be a household name but he was very much a person who, playing records in Ibiza in a time before it became what it is today, altered the landscape.
Alfredo left Argentina in 1976, fleeing the military junta who were responsible for thousands of left wing and counter- culture figures being disappeared (murdered). He pitched up in Madrid and then Ibiza where he got a job collecting glasses and serving drinks at Amnesia, a club with an open air dance floor where partygoers could dance under the stars until the following day. He saw the twin turntables and mixer and after a bit of playing around, instinctively understood the power of playing music and mixing tracks into one another. He took on the role of Amnesia's DJ and began to play a mixture of records he liked that took the revellers on a journey, in his own words' telling a story with music'. 80s pop, soft rock, leftfield indie, Belgian New Beat, the nascent house music records, reggae, disco, funk, electro- a seamless blend of music united by not much more than Alfredo's ears and the heady euphoria of mid- 80s Ibiza.
Amnesia and Ibiza was a playground- working class British kids rubbed shoulders with Italian princesses and pop stars, locals and holiday makers. The lack of snobbery in the playlist was reflected on the dance floor. At least, so I'm told.
This played a key part in inventing acid house in the UK. One of the versions of the acid house origin story is that four London DJs visited Amnesia and when they returned to London, they were determined to do what Alfredo was doing in Amnesia but in London. Danny Rampling, Paul Oakenfold, Nicky Holloway and Johnny Walker took Alfredo's spirit and record collection and created London's acid house scene. People from the north will give you a different version of the birth of acid house but there's no doubt that Alfredo gave the four London DJs a vision under the stars at Amnesia that they took home with them.
In 2022 Jezebell (Darren Bell and Jesse Fahnestock) released a track called Jezebellearica, Alfredo's voice put centre stage in an eight minute tribute to the man, with soft drums, washes of synth, nods to various 80s songs, and Alfredo talking about music, the role of the DJ, freedom, the all ages, mixed race crowd, 'real nightlife people' and how that to make people dance 'you have to tell them a story'. Find it here.
By the late 80s Alfredo's DJ sets incorporated a range of records that didn't necessarily seem like they had much in common but worked together as a whole, repurposing tracks. British indie bands that didn't quite fit into the NME/ Melody Maker controlled indie world at home found themselves rapturously received under the night skies at Amnesia- The Woodentops, Fini Tribe, Nitzer Ebb and Thrashing Doves (Jesus On The Payroll is below) all found a place in Alfredo's sets along with oddball, reclusive avant garde types from the USA such as The Residents (Kaw Liga is below).
Jesus On The Payroll (Street Groove)
Kaw Liga (Prairie Mix)
The anything goes spirit of Alfredo's Amnesia sets is very much something that influenced me, at several degrees of separation- I never went to Amnesia, never danced under the stars or sat at the Cafe Del Mar at sunset but what happened there filtered through and the way that walls came down in the late 80s, the blurring of genres and boundaries, affected a lot of us hugely. Over at Ban Ban Ton Ton you can read an interview Dr Rob did with Alfredo in 2014 where Alfredo took us through a Top 25 Amnesia Classics. Read it here.
Alfredo had a stroke in 2021 and had been unwell ever since. Several times online fund raisers were set up to help pay for his care and rehabilitation. When he died, aged 71, his reputation as The Father of the Balearic Beat had long since been established, the sounds he played and records he selected forty years ago sending ripples out into the world. RIP Alfredo.