Domino (Alessandra Mirka Gatti)

Domino was born in a small town in the province of Mantova – Quistello – on November 19th, 1969. Three days later her mother – without her father’s knowledge – christened her and registered her in the Registry office as Alessandra Gatti. Her father, who was away for work that day, on his return discovered this ‘deception’ and decided to give her a nickname: Mirka. As a child Domino was a tomboy, preferring the nickname her beloved father had given her ‘Mirka’ to the elegant ‘Alessandra’. Therefore, Domino adopts the nickname and everyone knows her by that name, and her mother can do nothing but accept this… Her career as a singer began very early in her life. When she was just 9 years old she was the ‘official’ soloist of the parish in her small town. The curate at the time was a real innovator; two or three times a year he would organise a sort of show he called a ‘recital’ which involved all the youngsters in the small community. Mirka, with her penetrating voice that enthralled old and young, became the small ‘star’ of the village. She was extremely shy in front of the microphone – she would sing holding it but looking at the floor… she just could not look at the public. In 1986 she met Dave Rodgers who asked her to work with him on the Eurobeat productions of his group: Aleph. Domino started off as a vocalist in the chorus for the pieces ‘Fly to Me’ and ‘Fire on the Moon’. Dave Rodgers understood the extent of young Mirka’s talent and straight away decided that her stage name would be DOMINO. He started writing pieces suitable for her which resulted in ‘FEVER’, the first piece sung by Domino distributed by the record company ‘DiscoMagic’. Domino remembers when she first stepped inside the recording room in Dave’s recording studio… He had all the lights switched off because she was so embarrassed. Over the years she learnt to relax and give her best without blushing! Dave Rodgers and Domino began collaborating by working with various record companies some of which were: Disco Magic (Severo Lombardoni), S.a.i.f.a.m. (Mauro Farina and Giuliano Crivellente), Time Records (Giacomo Maiolini) and Flea (Tony Verona). At the end of 1989 Dave Rodgers and Domino, after having worked with the said record companies decided to break free from them completely; and in 1990 they decided to set up their own record label together with the unparalleled Alberto Contini: ABeatC. This lead to an adventurous collaboration with the newly established independent Japanese record label AVEX headed by Tom Yoda and Max Matsuura. This is when Domino was able to express herself without limits and give the best of herself both as a singer and as an author and composer. This led to her first hit: ‘Tora Tora Tora’ from an idea by Andrea Leonardi (Bratt Sinclaire) who was then actively collaborating with ABeatC. ‘Tora Tora Tora’ became a springboard for success when the winner of many awards, MAX, decided to sing it in Japanese. It was the first of many hits by the artists. Domino’s first album was released in 1994, with the title ‘TORA TORA TORA’. She began working with various Japanese pop groups such as: ELT for whom she sang the cover song of ‘FEEL MY HEART’ and ALFEE meets DANCE where she sang ‘FUNKY DOG’, ‘PROMISE’, ‘BABY COME BACK’. On August 29th, 1994 Domino and Annerley Gordon accompanied by Jennifer Batten (Michael Jackson’s historical guitarist) and performed before 50,000 people in the Tokyo Dome at the AVEX RAVE, singing the song ‘HOT LOVE & EMOTION’. Many artists from all parts of the world also performed that same evening: The Prodigy, Bananarama, 2Unlimited, Cappella, m.c.A.T., John Robinson, and many others. Domino was enthralled by Japanese culture; she read, consulted and studied an incredible number of books: history, customs, fashions, design, work etiquette, psychology, anything that concerned her ‘second homeland’. She began a Japanese language course that she was unable to finish due to lack of time, but her teacher did say that she had a remarkable Japanese pronunciation. This led to the idea of singing in Japanese. With Alberto Contini and Dave Rodgers she decided to write Eurobeat songs in Japanese; the lyrics were written with AKIKO KOZATO (an opera teacher living in Milan). Before Domino, no-one had thought of singing such a ‘fast’ musical genre, in Japanese. One summer afternoon, while she was playing with her beloved son Federico, she was inspired to write her first song entirely in Japanese: ‘Spinning Like a Top’. With determination and great passion, Domino, Akiko and Sandro Oliva concentrated on the creation and production of other songs with the artist’s same bizarre, different style: the songs that Domino likes most are certainly ‘Play With the Numbers’ played as a cover by Japanese pop groups and ‘I Wanna Dance’ used to advertise the ‘7-ELEVEN’ chain of supermarkets. Domino’s many hits have crowned her the ‘Queen of the Land of the Rising Sun’.
Her collaboration with Jennifer Batten led to the creation and production of ‘Woa, Woa, Woa’. The song ‘POPTEEN’ was written and produced for a monthly adolescent magazine, and was quite successful. Domino performs on stage in Tokyo discotheques, but also in: Sapporo, Kyoto, Yokohama, Nagoya, Fukuoka, and Osaka… where she performs every year in February as a guest and artist at the ‘OSAKA AUTOMESSE’, in front of an audience who are lovers of anything that is connected to the world of cars. In 1999 AVEX organised a grand event at the ‘Fuji Speed’ circuit at the foot of Mount Fuji with the participation of Japanese pop singers and Eurobeat artists. Domino promoted the hits: ‘Gotcha!’ created purposefully for the mascot of Fuji TV television channel – also remixed by ‘Y.& Co.’ – and ‘Para Para Paradise’ really successful amongst lovers of ‘Para Para’. Many songs written and sung by Domino appear in various video games: Including Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution, ParaPara Paradise and IIDX. In 2000 AVEX decided to propose the soundtracks of the most popular Disney cartoons in a Eurobeat version; ABeatC was the record label chosen for this complicated job. The first song, ‘MICKEY MOUSE MARCH’ sung by Domino, climbed to the top of Japan’s official hit parade only a few weeks after its release. In 2001 Domino received the prestigious prize ‘The Japan Gold Disc Award’ for ‘MICKEY MOUSE MARCH’, as the best song of the year representing the compilation ‘Super Eurobeat Vol. 120’. Domino sang other Disney songs as a soloist and in duets with Dave Rodgers and Lolita.
In 2000 her second record was released, titled ‘DOMINO’, which included all the hits of the previous two years.
In the meanwhile Domino and her friend/collaborator Sandro Oliva created the duo ‘GO GO GIRLS’ i.e. Domino and Lolita. This resulted in songs such as ‘One Night in Arabia’ and ‘My Sweet Banana’ – which are real successes for lovers of Eurobeat. In 2006, due to misunderstandings with Dave Rodgers, Domino and Sandro left the AbeatC team and set up their own record label, ‘GOGO’S MUSIC’ with which they are still working and creating pieces studied purposefully for each individual artist.
Domino is now a full-fledged producer!
Until now Domino has sung 2500 songs, either as a soloist or as a vocalist and it is not over… she has worked hard to get to where she is today… Information, comments? Write to Domino: domino@gogosmusic.it- you can write in Italian, English or Japanese, we well reply as soon as possibles.