:h&m history

HARLEY & MUSCLE® are two House Music artists living in Milan, northern Italy. The friendship between William 'HARLEY' Cataldo and Flavio 'MUSCLE' Romaniello started in 1982, when the twelve-year-old William 'HARLEY' arrived in Italy from Toronto (Canada), his birthplace, and met the eleven-year-old Flavio 'MUSCLE' through some mutual friends. They were instantly bound by the same passions for Music, Harley-Davidson bikes and girls !

Whilst still in their teens, in 1985, these young guys began to hear the first real House Music of the early 80's from Artists such as Farley "Jackmaster" Funk, Mr. Fingers, Tyree, all the DJ International label productions and the great house music coming out of Chicago, NYC and London.
All this provin' a great disappointment to their friends who were listenin' to mainstream Pop and Rock artists (Duran Duran, Prince, U2, Queen, Wham!, etc.).

In 1988 HARLEY & MUSCLE® were invited to a New Year's Eve party and listenin' to the DJ (a real nerd !) they understood that this party wasn't going anywhere, especially without any kind of House Music.
So after 2 hours hearin' boring commercial songs, William 'HARLEY' saw a piano (which he had never played before), and said to Flavio 'MUSCLE': "Hey, let's rock this fuckin' party !"...

...he sat down on the piano stool and began instinctively to play some classic house tracks, such as Rickster "Night Moves", Sterling Void & P. Brightledge "It's alright", Royal House "Can u Party ?", Phortune "String Free", Richie Rich "Salsa House", Bobby Konders "The Poem" and suchlike showin' an amazin' natural talent. In that moment Flavio 'MUSCLE', ex-violin and trumpet player, understood that the world of house music had opened up the gates for two new talents.

In 1990 the Canadian native William 'HARLEY' bought a Yamaha keyboard and with Flavio 'MUSCLE', joined forces in order to compose some very mellow deep house songs. A mutual friend Andrea 'SUS 4th' Mongini, a famous DJ in northern Italy, looking at them one night in a disco, where Flavio 'MUSCLE' was working as a Bouncer, said "Hey Guys, you look like HARLEY & MUSCLE®.......!". This classic comment saw a new crew emerge into the House Music World, namely 'HARLEY & MUSCLE®'.

In 1994 William 'HARLEY' put his hand in his pocket and bought a Sampling Station Roland DJ-70. In this way, this dynamic duo recorded various demo songs on MC and started goin' around credible record shops in Milan buyin' house CD's - Flavio 'MUSCLE' has a collection of over 3,000 House Music CD's - and getting to know many other DJ's.

At the end of this year Flavio 'MUSCLE', started to work in an Italian record Company, as an Accountant dealing with International royalty accounting, so he started lookin' for a studio to let them realise some HARLEY & MUSCLE® projects.

In June 1995, after they found a suitable studio, they began to compose their first record: "ANOTHER LONELY DAY" issued on 'Making Music History' label, a division of the Do It Yourself company (you will find more details on H&M's Discography). During 1996 this record was played by many DJs in different discos, it was presented on 101 Network radio in the underground music program "Dance Village" and it was continuously played in the famous radio House program 'Italia Network Satelite' on the same radio network.

At the end of the summer of 1996, HARLEY & MUSCLE® started to work on various projects with various collaborators and studios in Milan. Since that date many records and remixes have been released on many record labels all over the world.

Among the others, HARLEY & MUSCLE® collaborated with singers as Robert Owens, Gerideau, Dawn Tallmann, Billy Preston, Jimi Polo, Duke Brown and Nicole Graham, they remixed Artists as Gloria Gaynor feat. The Trummps, Loleatta Holloway, Dj Spen, Jocelyn Brown, Alexander O’Neal, Dan Curtin, Axus feat. Naomi, The Rurals, Julius Papp, Physics, Dino & Terry, Troublemen Dj Fudge, Spanka and Miguel Graca, just to name a few, releasing their productions & remixes with all the most appreciated labels as Guidance, Distant Music, Bombay, Diaspora, Peng, Bumpin’ City, Deep Touch, Black Vinyl, Kif, NeoDisco, Spanka, Irma Unlimited, Slip’n’Slide, Waako and Purple Music (you will find more details on H&M's Discography).

Up until 1999, HARLEY & MUSCLE® were 'Special Guest DJs' in the italian radio House program 'Italia Network Mastermix' meanwhile.
In the year 2000, they begun to release their compilation called ‘DEEP HOUSE – HARLEY & MUSCLE IN THE MIX’, other compilations as ‘ADDICTED TO HOUSE’, ‘HI JAZZ’, ‘A LOUNGE SUPREME’, ‘SAVANNAH’, ‘SOULSHINE SOULFUL SESSION’, ‘ORIENTAL GARDEN’ and other cds for various fashion shops & clubs as “CAFE’ SOLAIRE” and “G LOUNGE” in Milan with their own label called SOULSTAR RECORDS distribuited all over the world. Furthermore, they created their own label called LITTLE ANGEL RECORDS to release albums of their artists as Island Groove, Desansis, Monodeluxe or Pc Synergy and also their first 12 tracks Deep House album called ‘Respected Everywhere’

No one will ever stop them! :-)