Stereo Sanctity

The year's best

2007-12-31T13:19:00.000+01:00

Well, 2007 is over, and there was an enormous amount of good music this year. Sure, I was in Brazil for a lot of it, but I managed to keep up pretty well. Thus I'd say I listened to more new music this year than any other year, actually. So without further ado...

My top 20 albums of the year:

in no particular order...

Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil
Future of the Left - Curses
Moving Mountains - Pneuma
Maserati - Inventions for the New Season
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
Beirut - The Flying Club Cup
Frog Eyes - Tears of the Valedictorian
Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound
Battles - Mirrored
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
65daysofstatic - The Destruction of Small Ideas
Liars - Liars
Grinderman - Grinderman
Akimbo - Navigating the Bronze
Jesu - Conqueror
Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
No Age - Weirdo Rippers
Do Make Say Think - You, You’re A History In Rust
Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement Of The Decline

Disappointments:

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Living With the Living. Not bad by any means, but it's the first Ted Leo album to have bad songs on it, and the production is rather bad. That said, it's still probably in the next ten best albums after that list.

Pelican - City of Echoes. Ugh, the less said the better.
The Stooges - The Weirdness. I had such high hopes for the reunion! They even had Watt on board.

Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. More of the same, just more stale.

Best album of 2006 I didn't hear till this year:

Caetano Veloso - Cê

Best album of 2008 I've already heard:

This Will Destroy You - This Will Destroy You

That's about it. See you in the new year.

Been a while...

2007-11-22T23:37:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been out of touch for quite some time, haven't I? I'll try to make up for it with a good post, but no promises. Also, my English has been suffering recently since I`ve not been using it much, so bear with me. Only a few pictures since this connection is slow.

The big thing that's happened since my last entry has been travel. I was first of all on excursion for a bit over two weeks. The first destination thereof was Recife – which is in fact where I am now, but we'll get there in good time – which is one of the older cities of Brazil, with a history stretching back to the early Portuguese colonial days. It's got a beautiful old town with some incredible colonial buildings, which looks at times like Amsterdam more than anything to me (the presence of canals doesn't hurt there, either), and a thriving social-movement community. The majority of the week was spent visiting with said social movements, and in fact the structure was very interesting in that it was organised by a women's group (Grupo Mulher Maravilha) with whom a former student did her ISP and thus with whom SIT has a connection. Of course, the list of visits had many affiliates of theirs and activities with them, but that was fine, seeing as they are an excellent group with some great connections, as well.

Their own activities range from staging vigils in solidarity with victims of domestic violence (one of which we attended, which was both powerful and refreshing – seeing a Brazilian usage of a familiar form of social action was nice, and the issue is universal yet specific enough to be compelling) to holding seminars with women from poor neighbourhoods on making arts and crafts from regularly discarded items (as evidenced by the many plastic bottle sculptures, mosaics, and so on I've encountered), and they have a whole host of affiliates. Of these, the most exciting for me was EMAUS, of course, considering I'm now doing research with them. EMAUS's program here in Recife is really interesting, and I'll discuss it more a bit later. We saw a good amount of other signs of solidarity in action, the most interesting of which was a street fair of solidarity economics – arts, crafts, projects, and so on. We also saw evidence of the legacy of Helder Camara, the liberation-theologian archbishop who did a huge amount to bolster social movements during and after the dictatorship, including the humble museum and documentation centre that occupies his former residence. Basically, our visit to Recife was an affirmation of the immense effort social movements are putting forth in the Northeast currently.

Our second stop was a city much adored by tourists, activists, and Brazilians of the likes of Jorge Amado: Salvador. The original capital of Brazil has as rich a sense of culture and history as any European capital, and is home to likely the most vibrant African diaspora culture around. Having been the capital, it enjoyed quite a bit of prosperity, and as a centre of African population it has suffered rather a lot of in justice. One way or another, it is a fascinating and beautiful city, with a striking sense of history and topography to rival any European capital. This is in large part due to the fact that it lies on what is basically a cliff – there is a low city and a high city, with practically a sheer drop between the two in most places, with a rather impressive elevator being the most tourist-friendly way to get between the two (and for only 5 centavos, at that).

Beyond that, though, the impact of the African diaspora is much more palpable in Salvador than in the other two cities I spent time in. This starts in the most basic things: food in Bahia is significantly spicier and more aromatic than typical Nordestino rice-beans-and-meat fare, with a heavy touch of palm oil. But the influence extends beyond simple things, in large part due to it having been promoted as a way to attract tourism (in the sense of providing exoticism and mystery, which has worked). The culture aspect of our program really kicked in in Salvador, with a healthy emphasis on social justice at the same time. We started with a series of race-oriented sessions at the Steve Biko Institute, an educational program aimed at humanistically and conscientiously helping black students to surmount the obstacles laid in front of them by a racist society – as despite the relative openness of Bahian public life to African culture, Salvador remains a terribly racist (and worse, subtly so) society when it comes to real social power. The race issue and its mask of racial democracy was the key topic, with respects also given to how it relates to issues such as women's issues and homosexuality.

We also had several real cultural events as well: for me, the most exciting was our visit to OLODUM, a music school for impoverished and disempowered youth and quite an amazing program – in fact, the school provided the Brazilian component to Paul Simon's Rhythm of the Saints, which comes with its own whole new pot of cultural-appropriation and exploitation issues, but that's another topic. We had a sort of silly participatory workshop on samba-reggae drumming, which was incredible fun, and brought back serious memories of Ghana (and made me a bit sad I'm not actually doing music for my ISP). Granted, what was learned varied broadly due to the nature of the teaching and people's different inclinations toward drumming, but we had fun. The same can be said for our samba class – some people demonstrated an obvious talent for and grasp of what was going on. I was not one of them; I spent most of the time working out the drum patterns and so on. But regardless, fun was had.

When it comes down to it, though, we had one opportunity in Salvador which was absolutely fantastic and significantly more special than anything else we did. We had a rare opportunity to go to the Terreiro Bogum Malé Rundô, a Candomblé community of great importance and history, and generally a quite closed place. We had an incredible two-part lecture there on the history and significance of Candomblé and its role in the development of black society in Brazil, in the context of general black history in Brazil. Beyond the feeling of having an experience few can claim to have had, beyond the excellence of the lecture itself, the feeling of really getting insight into a highly misunderstood tradition (which many Brazilians, especially Evangelicals, still consider devil-worship) which is of vital importance to the genesis of Brazilian society was absolutely incredible.

All in all, I really wish I could have spent more time in Salvador – it was beautiful, fascinating, and full of things I would love to learn more about – but we had little time, and I had already decided to do my ISP in Recife. Oh well, it's just another reason to come back.

I have plenty more to say (particularly about my ISP!), but that sums up the excursion nicely, and it's a reasonable place to stop for now, I think. Expect another post fairly soon (by my standards at least).

This Land Is Their Land

2007-10-08T04:01:00.000+02:00

Well, I've been away, ill, and lazy. Here's a big, picture heavy make-up post.

Last weekend – because the excursion only lasted from friday till monday – was something that will definitely be one of the more memorable components of the program in the long run, and a great experience in itself. Going to visit the MST was really something worth doing, and our follow-up was fascinating as well.

The first thing I noticed on our way on friday was the stark contrast between being within Fortaleza and without. For all the poverty present in places in Fortaleza, there is a veneer of development and order within all of it. As soon as we left the municipality, and even before we got into what would be described as the interior by locals, things looked different. In Caucacia, the small city that's just outside of Fortaleza, the roads were wretched, ridden with potholes, devoid of any attempt at vegetation, and often littered with garbage. It only got more intense as we left the cities and moved into the interior, and specifically the sertão, the hot, semi-arid region that makes up most of Ceará's backlands.

The sertão is lined with dry bushes and palm trees, but still feels desolate and withered due to its extreme dryness this time of year (as it only rains from february to may at most), and civilisation as we would think of it is rather lacking there. Houses are made of mud or, at best, clay bricks. Roads off of the major highways are lucky if they're paved. Water, where it occurs, is dirty and fiercely hoarded. Signs of the way the interior has been neglected to force people into the cities where they participate more in the games of wealth-extraction and aggregation is excruciatingly apparent. I couldn't help but recall my host brother's words: “I don't understand the MST here – the land is so dry and infertile, why would they want it?” Yet the land still has a rugged beauty, a charm that made being out there fascinating.

We rolled into the city of Canindé late in the morning; it was somewhat odd, since our visit came during the festival of St. Francis, to whom Canindé is a massively important pilgrimage site – but I'll discuss that in detail a bit later, since we had more activity in Canindé later. On friday, Canindé was a waypoint. We stopped in the monastery-run training centre we would be staying in there later on to meet an important figure in the MST leadership around Canindé, and get a preparatory lecture from him before we went to the settlement. The lecture was focused on the municipality of Canindé, working with a structure of zooming in from the macro aspects of our previous lectures that I found very apt. we talked about the pertinent issues in the region, including the control of water, the violent practices of the two families that are by far the biggest landowners in Canindé's area, and so on, so that we had a base of knowledge before heading to the settlement. After eating lunch, we continued on to the settlement itself. It involved a two-hour drive down an unpaved, rocky, steep road, which went to show just how harsh the conditions are out there – if someone gets injured, they have to be taken down that road on a motorcycle to Canindé, and bringing in supplies requires the same kind of arduousness.

Once we actually got to the settlement, we were greeted by a number of community members, including a small mob of children, as MST is very oriented toward settling full families. We had a little downtime when we got there, while things were being organised, and we began this by setting up hammocks in the building we had been given to use, which we later learned was previously the lodging for the fazenda's guards, who terrorized the workers there – and now serves mainly as an education centre. The settlement itself in this case was not immediately identifiable as an MST settlement: it looked like a normal fazenda, with farmhouses, animal corrals, and a reservoir being the main features. Because of the way the land was obtained (to be discussed), there are no signs of occupation or struggle – really, it could be taken for just another farm by an unwitting ubserver. Fortunately we weren't.

During this time, I semi-wittingly started a bit of a saga. I had brought a football (of the proper European kind, not the American nonsense) for a gift, but I'd brought it uninflated, and hadn't brought a pump or told the staff I might need one. Thus it stayed uninflated for a while. But when mentioning it I'd shown it for a bit, and the kids got excited. They first went to look for a pump in the immediate surroundings. Then they inquired in the closest houses. Eventually they got a pump, but it lacked a needle valve. One of the kids then asked his dad, who arranged to bring one when he returned for our upcoming meeting. Eventually, after a lot of community effort, we got the ball inflated, and played for a while in a wide open field alongside a whole lot of guinea fowl. That wasn't the end, though – I'll return to the topic soon enough.

After a bit of relaxation and pump-hunting, we got together for an introduction and some information on the circumstances surrounding the settlement. After some introductions and exchanges of thanks, we heard some key facts about the settlement. The history of the settlement, in brief, is that it was formerly an exceedingly brutal fazenda where a small number of families were practically enslaved – forced to work nearly constantly six days a week for the right to live on the land. At this time, the land was producing very little, and so the families got in touch with MST and with their help petitioned INCRA, the government's agrarian reform agency, to investigate it. This is how MST acquires most of their land: the law says that if land is being used to less than 50% of its productive ability, it must be used for the public good, which usually means giving it to local families. Through petitions and occupations, MST forces INCRA's hand and has them investigate specific plots of land, as there is an enormous amount of unproductive land in Brazil. At the time of the petition, 10000 MST workers were marching from Goiana to Brasilia, so the pressure was on INCRA. Thus the fazenda was handed over within a year, as opposed to the four years it can occasionally take. Now, 35 families live at Essetamene Cancima Nova, arranged as a communal MST operation.

We also touched on some issues that affect the settlement. Chief among these is land depletion – the land in the sertão has a quite low capacity, and often when fazendas are expropriated they are very depleted and hard for families to sustain themselves on. This is particularly problematic considering that fazenda owners are paid for land and improvements thereof expropriated, which can give them an incentive to have INCRA expropriate it. Combined with the constant instability of water, this leads to some troubling situations where the survival of settlers is concerned.

The night rounded off with what the settlers referred to as a mistico, basically a cultural evening. It started with a number of skits, readings, and songs related to the struggle, mostly performed by the settlement's children, and eventually turned into a couple guys playing guitar and triangle. Fun was had. The night itself turned out to be pretty interesting: the building we were using was quite open, and the sertão gets cold and windy at night – it's a desert, after all. Underestimating this, several us made the mistake of hanging our hammocks outside. Besides them acting like sails and flapping loudly even when we were sleeping in them, it was freezing. Sleep was not very doable. Eventually, some of us gave up and crawled into our bus, which worked out alright, really. A lesson was learned that night.

In the morning, one we'd all recovered, we went on a bit of a tour. We saw the way the fazenda is laid out, the animal facilities, the reservoir (which serves as the main way water – though not potable water – is available during most of the year), the barn – which was formerly a centre of worker abuse on the land – and some additional houses. Most importantly, we saw cistern constructions in various stages of progress, a critical issue on the settlements. Cisterns are the primary way families can gather drinking water in the rainy season, but they are expensive and their size is limited. Thus, getting grants from the government for them and using water efficiently are hugely important on the settlement.

After some coconut-tree hijinks, we headed back to the central buildings. We had a bit of downtime, which I personally used to play some football with the kids – who were by this time completely enthralled by the ball and starting to ask me about it. We had a get-together with music, readings, thanks, and so on after lunch, at which we exchanged both thanks and gifts, and that was it. We left soon after, but not before group pictures and not before I could formally give the ball to the kids of Cancima Nova, no doubt amusing them for quite a while to come. The visit, incredibly short as it was, felt truly rewarding.

But we weren't done with MST yet. We'd seen a taken-over fazenda with a good deal of infrastructure in place; we were off to see the encampments more typically associated with MST. Whereas a settlement is a crucial institution for building communities that can sustain themselves, the encampments are where the heart of MST's struggle takes place. By camping just outside a fazenda in unbelievably rough conditions, MST pressures both the owner and INCRA to get it expropriated. They also prepare a group of families to take the land as soon as it becomes theirs. In this way, the core battle of MST is fought. Many occupations are accosted by violence from the fazendeiras and the military police. Many have casualties from exposure and lack of clean water. Many are frustrated by fazendeiras putting up the appearance of using land for cattle ranching. But many more succeed and push land reform further in rural Brazil. We saw a successful one, close to Canindé. Its situation is a bit different: it was established after the fazendeira himself called in INCRA to judge his land unproductive. The MST camped in order to prepare and to accelerate the process, which ended up finishing in six months – pretty much record time. There are issues, though: the biggest is that the fazendeira negotiated a strip of choice land, including the one house on the fazenda, for himself. Nonetheless, the incredible turnover to MST was heartening. Seeing the encampment, though, was intense: it consisted mainly of plastic-and-palm-leaf structures with no drainage or ventilation, and thinking about how families sometimes have to live in them for two years under constant threat from fazendeira thugs made me really appreciate the depth of the struggle. We didn't spend much time on the encampment, but it was enough to have some serious implications.

After that, we had a similarly interesting time in Canindé, but this is already a bit of a literary dreadnought so I intend to make that a new entry. Anyway, MST was a phenomenal experience. Given the amount of discussion, abstraction, and working with movement leadership involved in grand struggles we do, it was eye-opening to go to MST locations and seeing the palpable, small-scale victories they have achieved in their struggle to affect real people's daily lives. It was also extremely heartening. Seeing the difference that can be made made a huge difference.

Moving the body, moving the grassroots

2007-09-28T04:11:00.000+02:00

Well, I haven't been to the MST yet (that's tomorrow morning), but a couple really interesting things have happened in this week, so why not write about them before I go?

First off, I got to go with my portuguese class to an Umbanda ceremony on tuesday night. Umbanda is of course the more blended of the two prominent Afro-Brazilian religions, mixing elements of Christianity, West Afrfican orixa worship, and indigenous beliefs. It was a fascinating affair, even if I didn't quite understand what exactly was happening. Actually, that was an overall theme – there always seemed to be at least four or five things going on on the floor of the temple, which was pretty clearly a converted house with a big shrine containing images ranging from Jesus on the cross to an indigenous Brazilian deity I wasn't familiar with. What's more, the ceremony seemed fairly unplanned – whenever one dance, song, or bit of worship ended, someone would chime in the beginning of another, all while the drummer pounded away at the single kpanlogo-like drum that held everything together. At a certain point, people started putting on hats and headdresses to represent different aspects of Brazilianism, from cowboy hats for the vaqeiros of Rio Grande Do Sul to tall plumed indigenous headdresses. And all the while, most of the assembly was drinking something and/or smoking cigars. It was quite the spectacle.

The other event was somewhat less lighthearted, but no less fascinating and perhaps more hope-inducing. In preparation for our MST visit, we went to see the MST's activities in Fortaleza. This is however a key time for the MST: they are on the verge of making a big breakthrough in negotiations with the government; they have a packet of demands on the table. To put pressure on Lula to accept them, they've taken a pretty major action: in all the state capitals of Brazil, they're occupying the INCRA (the government organ for land reform) buildings – just taking over, having 1500 or so people living there until the government acquiesces. Well, thanks to organisational connections, we managed to get inside the building. It was packed – the grounds were covered in mats and hammocks, people were eating everywhere, there were a ton of babies, the works. What's more, the building has been occupied since sunday, so it's pretty organised and will be sustained if needed – occupying places is the main way the MST lays claim to land, so they know it well. We had a lecture in there on agrarian reform, but really the main thing was seeing direct action at work, and it was very, very impressive.

Anyway, that's all for now. Until I return from the MST...

Funland at the Beach

2007-09-25T04:27:00.000+02:00

Yeah, I've been slacking off, I know I know.

Anyway, I guess my big news is ISP-related. I now have a very concrete question (though I'm not sure it's quite at the problem phase yet – I need to refine it slightly more). From my topic of EMAÚS, I've moved to the network of social groups in Recife which EMAÚS is among the most major of, which has a pretty fascinating structure. The key point for me is that these organisations are put together around philosophical frameworks, rather than a simple “this is what we do”. Instead, they take an organic approach to organisational development, using applied philosophy as a primary element of their strategy. This is very interesting to me, since I've been to move beyond the practically useless irresolvable arguments of epistemology and determinism and so on which fill most philosophy classes and this helps me both apply philosophy in a constructive way and think of useful strategies for what I feel is important. This way, when I get back, I'll hopefully have learned enough about how to work on social change to do more than just be an angry young man, but we'll see about that. Regardless, I'm very happy with my topic, and it seems like our professor for this current FSS segment, Eduardo Oliveira, is likely to be my supervisor, which is great news. Eduardo is this incredible educator, philosopher, capoerista, anthropologist, radical, and more. He's one of the three people (along with Gilano, who I mentioned before, and Zé, who I'm still writing about) we've met so far that I just feel like I'd like to either be or be an adherent to. So yeah, I'm happy with the way my ISP is shaping up.

The biggest other thing that's happened recently is significantly less academic. This weekend, fellow program participant Mike and I went to his parents' (my aunt and uncle) house at Taíba, a beach town about 70 km outside of Fortaleza. We arrived there at night, which certainly changed my first impression. We passed by the town and into the outskirts with without me seeing much, so the first thing I really saw was an unpaved road through an almost completely empty field of sandy soil, with incredibly high winds and a few donkeys and dogs roaming the streets we passed through. It seemed pretty off the beaten track. The house was nice enough, and walking down to the water (maybe five minutes) with Mike, Cleyton, and his girlfriend Priscilla was quite beautiful.

We didn't swim that night – not in the ocean, at least, since it's a little rough and we didn't want to risk anything at night. Instead we hung around the house and took a very short swim in the freshwater pool at the house, which is mainly used for washing off salt and sand. The swim was short because the windchill was unbeleivable. It honestly felt at least 10 degrees colder there than in the city, even though the actual temperature is about the same. So in order not to freeze, we only swam for a few minutes – but long enough for me to hang my swimsuit up since it was wet. However, I hung it on a hook outside, and when I woke up (from my very comfortable hammock) it was gone – and I didn't manage to find it. That's how intense the wind was. Regardless, I borrowed some athletic shorts from Cleyton, and went swimming for real. It was very nice – the Atlantic is very warm there, and has smallish waves that are a lot of fun. After a while on the beach, we decided to walk a while to Taíba proper. What I saw surprised me. Rather than the remote, impoverished fishing town I imagined from the wasteland around the house, it was almost a picture of stereotypical tropical, cultureless tourism. Palm trees, fancy beachside cafes and little hotels, inflated prices, Italians and Portuguese everywhere – it was a bit surreal. I don't know if it's that Brazilian beach towns are the prototype for that kind of tourism or it was totally transformed, but it really felt like a centre of cultural subordination, and it gave me the creeps. Sure, it was pretty and we walked around a while, but I was just as glad to head back to the wasteland myself.

The afternoon was pretty chill – eat lunch, hang around, swim a little, get a drink in a local place, head back. It was a good ending to an enjoyable, but ultimately quite strange, day and change.

Coming up, I'm going to be visiting the MST (landless peasants' movement) for a few days. It'll be fascinating, but I'll lack net access. Oh well, you'll just have to wait longer.

Just getting up to speed...

2007-09-19T17:09:00.000+02:00

Well, yesterday turned out to be way too long, so here's the update, finally – now with pictures! (but only a couple since my upload speed is horrendous)

Things have gotten into full swing in the last week and a half, needless to say. On the one hand, I'm doing a lot, so there's a lot to say. On the other, I don't have much time to write. I'll try and strike a balance, since I'm sure people will want to hear all about everything. For now, I'm going to summarise what's been going on.

I've now had the chance to familiarise myself a bit with Fortaleza. The city is pretty interesting: fairly concentrated, but spread out into neighbourhoods, and heavily split between the richer areas (including the heavily tourist-frequented bits) and the more poor spots. While the beaches are very pretty, none of the ones within the city proper are swimmable, so I haven't actually been swimming yet (no time!). There's also just a bustle of activity – lots of small shops and street vendors, people going every which way... it's pretty intense to be here, but I'm enjoying it. Except for the buses, though – not only are they packed all the time, but they're unstable roller-coaster rides. At least I'm probably getting muscle development from hanging on all the time.

My family is great. I've been spending a lot of time with Cleyton, my 24-year-old administration-student brother, who's an all around good guy and a lot of fun. I've also spent a good amount of time with Cynthia, my 20-year-old sister, too; the three of us, plus both my siblings' significant others, plus my fellow student Mike (who's my cousin here) went to a forro club (forro is the popular dance here in Ceará – Samba's not the thing here) this weekend, and it was great fun. I have only good things to say about my family. Oh, and here's their picture.

I've been having Portuguese lessons since last week (it's up to about 15 hours now), and I'm liking them as well as learning a lot. Our teacher is pretty fun, and she often sends us out to places to talk to people and report back, which is much more interesting than sitting in a classroom. I think I've learned quite a lot by now, and I've been using it pretty heavily with my family and many others. Just last night, we (the higher Portuguese class) visited a local university where our teacher teaches English, and had a long discussion in Portuguese with her class. It was interesting, to say the least – and I'm pretty glad I avoided identifying as American, as some others got yelled at for their perceived complicity with Bush, which I just didn't need.

We've been having courses in our Culture and Development Seminar too, and they've been pretty decent. Right now, they're mostly in Portuguese with Bill translating, which slows the flow a bit and makes interaction hard, but it's necessary. None of them have been massively enlightening yet, but they've been good for getting a feel for issues in Brazil and Brazilian perspectives on global social justice issues. We had a good spirited globalisation debate yesterday, too, which was enjoyable as always.

I'm also working hard on getting a topic together for my research here. I've changed gears a bit, and instead of shoehorning music in like I always do (I may likely do something music-related for my other term paper), I've found something very concrete I want to do. Specifically, there's a movement here called EMAUS (which actually exists in many places, and was started in France) which focusses on sustainability through reconsumption. Specifically, they accept donations of all sorts of used and/or broken things, fix them up, and sell them off for relatively low prices. The money goes to running the organisation, and whatever isn't needed for that goes to a wide variety of social projects. I really like their premise, and I'm probably going to work with them in Recife, where they have a strong presence and a wealth of social initiatives developing from their core values.

There's lots more happening, and I certainly have more to say, but that's enough for now. Last friday merits its own post due to being long and excellent, and I'll probably put that up tomorrow. Til then.

Review: Vip InMusic Festival 2007

2007-09-18T04:10:00.000+02:00

(this has been written for a while, actually. Real update tomorrow, I think. Enjoy this in the time being)

I must admit, when I first saw the advertisement for the VIP InMusic Festival, I was a bit incredulous. Zagreb gets quite good shows once in a while, but we rarely get much serious star power from outside the region. This festival was either an exception to the norm or the end of that trend, depending on who you believe. While it wasn't quite the Croatian answer to Lowlands, it did draw a number of very important names in punk/indie, and ended up having quite an impressive lineup. The obvious highlights were advertised well in advance: Sonic Youth, The Stooges, the New York Dolls, !!!, Asian Dub Foundation and The Hold Steady. That alone would be a solid lineup, and the promise of several more outside bands and a host of locals made it sound like a great deal. I was not disappointed.

Day 1, I arrived fairly early, but not quite at the very beginning of the festival. As a result, I ended up hearing a significant chunk of The Bluejays' set as I walked around the lake to the actual venue. These Norwegians sounded pretty decent: fairly energetic indie rock with garage undertones, from what I could hear. By the time I actually got into the site, they had finished, and No S3ings (“No Strings”) had played most of their set. They finished up a last couple songs while I was there, which again sounded good from what I heard – upbeat Croatian punk rock, no more no less. Regardless, after them it was time for me to see my first full set of the night, which was Varaždin's Messerschmitt. They were yet another garage rock band, this time with heavy blues tonality, sounding like a combination of a slower New Bomb Turks and very early Rolling Stones (they even covered “2000 Light Years from Home” to drill that in). They put on an excellent and enjoyable set, though they pulled the gaffe of covering a band they were effectively opening for (playing the Stooges' “Down on the Street” isn't wise when you'll obviously be blown away by the Stooges themselves later), and served as just another reminder of Croatia's fun and thriving local music scene.

When Messerschmitt had burned themselves out, I went over to another stage to catch the tail end of The Beat Fleet's set. TBF drew a sizable crowd for how early they were on, which wasn't surprising considering they're one of the most beloved groups in contemporary Croatian music. Their hip-hop, which is far closer to singing than most western hip-hop and utilises mainly dub reggae beats, is really quite fun to listen to even for someone as nonplussed about hip-hop as me, and their set reflected that – not to mention the great dynamic between their crew of a fat guy, a skinny guy, and a guy with a hat. Since they had started just after Messerschmitt, I only heard about three songs, but I still enjoyed it. I then made my way over to where Superhiks were just starting, with no expectations. I ended up not being very impressed, as they really sounded like a Macedonian version of the Generic Third Wave Ska Band. The only interesting thing they did was a cover of “Ace of Spades” with the main riff played by the horn section, but that novelty aside I was rather bored, especially since I didn't have energy to dance. I ended up leaving and checking out Roisin Murphy, formerly of Moloko, who I'd honestly never heard of before. I wasn't impressed by her slightly world music-inflected dance music either, so I decided to instead pass the time till the next act at the DJ tent, which at the time was under the control of Ras Tweed and Bass Culture, spinning choice dub cuts. While their actual DJ work was relatively minimal, their choices of tracks made the soundsystem top notch, and I enjoyed my 45 minutes there greatly.

The time to move on came when Obojeni Program came on. Serbia's current second-best band (after the inimitable Darkwood Dub) played right at sunset, just as things began to get crowded. More than anyone else at the fest, they showed the prowess of Balkan music, playing a fantastic set while pulling of their own distinct style. Their basic sound, which combines simple, Ramones-style punk with post-punk flair from sources ranging from the Fall to Mission of Burma to Hüsker Dü and infuses it with a very Balkan sense of melody, comes off incredibly well in a live setting, and their stage energy is exceedingly impressive. They have a somewhat odd presentation – their frontman carried what was apparently a book of lyrics the entire time – but that serves only to heighten their stage presence. Their set drew a significant crowd, and they showed that Croatians and Serbs can share music with the best of them. Their set was easily the best of any band from the region all weekend.

I took a look at the other stage once Obojeni were done to see what I thought of the recently-reformed Happy Mondays, and I was less than impressed. I wasn't familiar with their old output, so there was no sense of nostalgia for me, and they just sounded like a tired 80s pop band who hadn't quite realised they weren't relevant. I left quite quickly. There was a break at this point with no sets, leading into the headliners – and some of the worst organisation I've seen. The New York Dolls were scheduled to go on at 9:45, but didn't come on till 10. David Johansen looked and sounded more like Joey Ramone than ever, but Sonic Youth were put on a mere 20 minutes later for no fathomable reason other than “headliners should be on around 10.” Having seen both before, the novelty factor of the admittedly fossilised Dolls wore off quickly, and after hearing “Looking For A Kiss” and “We're All In Love” I went to get a good spot for one of my favourite bands of all time. I stand by my choice, but I feel like a very large number of people would have liked to see full sets from both acts, and I'd say that scheduling fiasco was an esxtremely bad move, which cheated both the audience and the band. Regardless, I got a fantastic spot for SY – third row in, dead centre – and anticipated an unbelievable set.

I got even more than I'd hoped for, amazingly. Even having seen Sonic Youth before and expecting even more this time, my expectations were blown away. There were a lot of factors involved, but really the key feature was that it was simply a better set. SY seemed more “on” this time, between their sound being better, their improvisation more impressive, and having better stage antics (the highlight of which was their behaviour toward the giant beach balls thrown into the crowd by event staff [how cliché!] at the end of their first song: Thurston Moore had us pass them to him, then he and Lee Ranaldo batted them back and forth with their guitars until they popped. It sounds silly in words, but it was amazing in practice.). What's more – and probably most importantly – their setlist was better this time. Since it's been over a year since Rather Ripped came out, they've cut back on the songs from it, leaving only the best tracks and making room for crowd-pleasers from throughout their career. They played songs from nearly all their crucial releases, with the main exceptions being EVOL and Washing Machine. Highlights included inevitable opener “Teenage Riot”, “'Cross The Breeze”, “Schizophrenia”, main-set closer “Pink Steam”, “Kool Thing” (disappointingly without anyone playing the part of Chuck D), and final encore “Shaking Hell”, pleasantly introduced as a ballad. The large number of well-known songs they played fed into the other big aspect of what made the show so damned good: the crowd. Croatian crowds are always great, especially compared with ones in Holland, but this one was particularly great. Not only was there more applause than I've ever heard from the number of people assembled (probably about 1500), not only were people singing along to every single song, but people were just astonishingly excited, like they really appreciated the privilege of seeing Sonic Youth at their best. And they certainly were at their best. I would personally rank that as the single best performance I've ever had the privilege of seeing.

After that stunning spectacle, it was all but impossible to be interested in any more music, but I gave it a shot anyway. Sadly, while I appreciated Banco De Gaia's spacey electronica, I didn't have the energy for it, and all it did for me was make me want a joint. I ended up leaving for the night soon after SY finished, listening to Valetudo as I walked and liking their roma-blues style. All in all, even if the highlights really amounted to Messerschmitt and Obojeni Program opening for Sonic Youth, day 1 was a great success.

I arrived slightly later on day 2 than on the previous one, but I saw just as much really. Day 2, generally speaking, had more known names than day 1 – besides the Stooges, !!!, Asian Dub Foundation, Gilles Peterson, and the Hold Steady were all playing, as well as a number of major local bands. I arrived at the start of one of those locals' sets: Dubrovnik's own Majke started their set of good old rock 'n' roll just as I reached the stage. Majke truly sound anachronistic, with their heavy, bluesy rock sounding like it came straight out of 1972. The fact that their frontman was trying his best to look like Axl Rose did nothing to dull that perception, but fortunately their music is good enough not to be a problem. Needless to say, Zagreb loves them, and their set went over well. They were, by default, the best local band I saw all day – but that's because all the rest I made it to were internationals.

The first of those internationals, and perhaps the band that exceeded my expectations the most over the course of the two days, was The Hold Steady. Even though I love the Replacements and so on, The Hold Steady's work has never done all that much for me on record. Fortunately their live show was leagues more exciting. First of all, the sound: their records really don't capture the strength of the guitars, in particular, that's so central to the band. Songs like “Massive Nights” and “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” sounded a lot more powerful live, rather than the oddly muted tone I get out of the record. Plus, watching them play was hoot. But most significant was their audience interaction. All the slightly-cheesy “whoahs” and handclap moments on record turn into massive audience-participation events live, and the crowd loved it. Craig Finn put it very nicely at the end of the set: we're all the Hold Steady. Speaking of Finn, he was the most endearing frontman I've ever witnessed. More than anyone else I've encountered, he gives the impression of being a regular guy, “full of joy” as he puts it, who could just as well be in the audience as on stage. It's partly the incredibly friendly banter, partially the overexcitedness manifesting itself in arm-flailing and word-mouthing, and mainly just a real charisma. The rest of the band help that too, tossing beer bottles around, drinking shots of Jim Beam together, and generally showing camaraderie. And of them, Franz Nicolay came the closest to upstaging Finn, with his brilliant moustache, deadpan humor, and harmonica antics. The fact that he was dressed as if he were playing with his other band (the inimitable World/Inferno Friendship Society) didn't hurt. All in all, the Hold Steady's set was exceedingly solid, and above all exceeded my expectations. It was a major highlight.

The next act was one that's something of a fixture in the Zagreb show circuit, but a welcome one: Asian Dub Foundation are probably the most enjoyable hip-hop show I've seen. Part of the appeal is their excellent blend of live and sampled music – it comes off as super-energetic, but yet not hugely overdependent on the DJ; their enormous drummer with even more enormous drum is particularly entertaining. Their racial makeup is another major part of their style, in that they they represent a wide gamut of immigrants to England: Indian, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, Polynesian, Chinese and so on. This plays into their lyrical themes, of course – they tend to rap about social inequality, racial unity, political hegemony, and general solidarity. Of course, their music sort of speaks for itself: they have an irresistible energy that makes even someone as lukewarm on hip-hop as I am jump up and dance. Of course, this raises the question of whether all the Croatians dancing to ADF actually cared about their message, but at a certain point one has to just stop analysing and dance.

The headlining acts of day 2 had the same unfortunate scheduling as day 1: !!! started at 9:45. I came over to see them, and found what little I saw to be fun, but when it came down to it, I left after a song so I wouldn't be stranded in the back for the clear biggest name of the fest: The Stooges. I have to admit, I was a little apprehensive after having heard the incredibly weak new album, not wanting one of my favourite classic bands to ruin their legacy. Fortunately, what happened was about as far from that as it could get. Basically as soon as Iggy, Watt and the Ashetons ran onto the stage, I knew I'd be in for a hell of a time. And when Iggy yelled “we are the FUCKING Stooges!” before launching right into “Loose”, I knew I was right. Iggy, for all his apparent boredom on The Weirdness, was as wild as I imagined. Almost immediately, he was writhing on top of the amps, throwing himself across the stage, yelling his lungs out, and of course dropping his pants. As the group blasted through 80% of the songs on Stooges and Fun House, they showed that they were hardly overshadowed – Mike Watt's bass and Ron Asheton's guitar were incredibly powerful, and Scott Asheton's drums were simply crushing. The crowd was, too: the front was a seething mass of people shoving, moshing, and crowdsurfing. It was a bit painful and a bit distracting, but it still made the experience all the more intense. The set list was damned good, too: although the lack of Raw Power tracks was a bit of a (understandable, with the different lineup and so on) downer, they played all the great tracks from their first two albums, and only two songs (“My Idea of Fun”, “Electric Chair”) from the new album, along with a solo Iggy track (“Skull Ring”). Basically, the Stooges were an incredible experience due to the “I can't believe I'm seeing them!” aspect, but also because they put on a hell of a show. Say what you will about The Weirdness, Iggy and company can still rip it up.

I was pretty beat up after they finished, but I still went to the night stage to see Kultur Shock. They're a pretty interesting band: two Bosnians, two Americans, a Bulgarian, and a Japanese, all based in Seattle. The best comparison musically would definitely be Gogol Bordello: energetic punk rooted in Balkan melodies. However, their music is a lot less goofy than Gogol, with more robust guitar parts and better vocals. They put on a hugely energetic show, but I couldn't stay very long, what with hardly being able to stand and all. Regardless, they were a fun closer to a great festival.

All in all the fest was a huge success. The big foreign names put on great shows, the locals gave them a run for their money, and a whole lot of people showed up. Other than the incredibly foolish organisation choice of overlapping headliners, the fest was a massively good experience. Hopefully this will entrench the VIP inMusic festival as an event, and next year will be as good or better, though that would be quite a feat.

New Country, New Life

2007-09-10T01:26:00.000+02:00

Well, it's finally time for a real update from Brazil. I guess I could theoretically have posted during orientation, but I was rather booked up and waiting for any number of the 20 people on this trip to finish with the one computer wasn't enticing. Regardless, here's an introductory update.

I've been in Fortaleza just under a week now. Actually, that's not true: I've been in Fortaleza proper about a day. The rest of the time, I was sequestered in a guest house just outside the city. Thus, I have only a few things to say about the city: it's big, flat, chaotic, coastal, and has a stark division between modern skyscrapers and ramshackle, well, everything else (meaning it ends up looking a lot like Accra). It's not as hot as you might think: the temperature's only around 27 Celsius most of the time. It's humid, though, and so the mosquitoes are out of control – fortunately, there's no malaria here. I'm sure there will be a lot more to say about the city soon enough.

Orientation week was fairly enjoyable. Being in a small compound outside town was a little confining, but the reasoning is clear enough. We got a good chance to learn essential facts about our location and our course, get acquainted with the people sharing our experience (who are a great group, I have to say), and do some introductory activities. There were two main highlights. First off, the “drop-off” (in which a group of people gets deposited somewhere to find out about the place) I was on, to an organisation called EDISCA. They're a school dedicated to giving children from very poor backgrounds an opportunity to develop themselves – humanisation, in Freire's terms – via the arts, primarily dance. They also serve as a wellness centre for those kids, in that they give them hearty, healthy meals (which their families often cannot afford) and provide health services. Their purpose is nice enough, but their practise is even better: they have fascinating experimental dance performances, some of which are composed by the children themselves; they provide reinforcement for basic school teaching, and they have programs to teach mothers ways to supplement their incomes. We spent a long time talking to Gilano, one of the members of the family that founded EDISCA, and an extremely interesting fellow. Besides being an excellent dancer and choreographer, he has a lot of ideas about aesthetics and their place in the world, humanisation, and international culture; he's the sort of person I feel I could spend the entire program just talking to. Between his fascinating discussion and the excellence of EDISCA itself, the visit was great.

The other major highlight was a capoeira performance, but not just any performance. This was put on by a group which works with “risk kids” from the favelas, children who are in danger of being sucked into violence and so on. The performers were mostly rather young kids, and they were excellent. They performed three parts: a very West African-styled dance piece, a fire-dancing bit (which was far more exciting than the baton-twirling found all over Europe these days), and the well-known fighting/dancing capoeira style. Eventually, they had us join them in their mock-fights, with us knowing nothing of what to do, which was rather amusing and very, very fun. After that, they taught us a few raw basics of capoeira, which would have been nice to know when doing it, but oh well. Besides giving us some highly needed exercise, the night was simply massive amounts of fun. We're likely to get one of the instructors to continue to teach us as the semester goes on.

Anyway, the biggest noteworthy factor is of course moving into my homestay family. I got here last night, and already I feel extremely welcome and extremely happy with my family placement. My family is relatively middle-class: they have a car, a large house, and a fast internet connection. That doesn't bother me that much: I've lived in poor conditions before, and it's good to see the side of things opposite to the one we're studying intensely. Besides, the family is wonderful. The mother, Iris, is exceedingly good-humoured, the father, Carlos, is simply a massive character, and three kids are all great. Most of my interaction has been with Cleyton, the 24-year-old brother, and Cynthia, the 20-year-old sister, who both speak quite decent English (though we've agreed I shouldn't rely on it too much, so we always start with Portuguese) and are very fun, and the 13-year-old Carolina is nice in a 13-year-old's manner, too. We're in a great neighbourhood: it contains a stadium, two universities, several lively squares, a military base, and much more. I should have an excellent time. And the fun is just beginning, believe me.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, etc.

2007-09-02T23:47:00.000+02:00

Next post will be from Brazil.
(and no, I didn't get the review up. I'll do it from Brazil)

Housekeeping...

2007-08-29T20:18:00.000+02:00

So hey, I'm back. I kinda let this die, I know, but I was bored and unmotivated, plus all I would have written was more music reviews, which is fun but ultimately not all that useful. I did see some great shows in the meantime, but oh well. Regardless, the time for updates has come again. That's because, as I'm sure you know if you're bothering to read my blog, I'm going to Brazil in a few short days. I intend to do exactly what I did in Ghana - write updates on my status and amusing/noteworthy events. Before that, I've got a review of the festival I attended this week in the works, complete with snarky remarks about the organisation and unbridled Sonic Youth fanboyism. It'll be fun for everyone involved (by which I mean me).

I've changed the name of the blog because I was bored, and the tagline because the last one was cheesy. I probably won't change much else, since I've got other things to do. Anyway, just enjoy the return of activity.

Record Review: Channels - Waiting for the Next End of the World

2007-01-19T19:35:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm back after a great winter in Ecuador, and writing again. I know I still have a small backlog of shows to talk about, plus perhaps something about my exploits in Ecuador, but in the meantime I've written a record review, which is today in the top review slot on punknews.org. Here it is in its published form:

Channels - Waiting for the Next End of the World
2006, Dischord
J Robbins’ bands have often played second fiddle to the various projects surrounding Ian Mackaye and his Fugazi bandmates, with Jawbox rarely being mentioned without D.C.’s most venerated post-hardcore band being close at hand. Yet Robbins, who has carved a niche for himself as a rather renowned producer, has been one of the strongest stalwarts of the Dischord roster, making his new project, Channels, an obvious necessity to Dischord purists, and a strong group in their own right. Now that Fugazi’s members have drifted in somewhat different directions, Channels remain as the most direct evolution of the sound of `90s Dischord as purveyed by both Jawbox and Fugazi.

Robbins has said the tastes that brought Channels together were XTC and the Jesus Lizard, and Channels’ sound can indeed be labeled as an application of these two acts onto the sound of Jawbox and Burning Airlines. What this means is that Waiting for the Next End of the World is simultaneously grindingly forward-pushing and full of upbeat energy. Generally, the rhythms are pounding and intense, while the melodies are quite catchy and intricate. This leads to an overall evocation of both angry resolution and giddy energy, and the album works best when that tone is maintained, with the best examples being the infectious opener “To the New Mandarins” and the overall strongest song on the album, “Chivaree.”

While “Helen Mirren” provides some nice relief to the otherwise frenetic first part of the album, it and its slow compatriot, the closing “Mercury,” definitely feel like the weakest tracks -- the latter seems to be an anticlimax to the energy infused by the rest of the album, with “Little Empires” being a much more satisfying finish. Overall, though, the album is coherent and energetic without resorting to being obviously “fun,” allowing for some rather intense moments and even more poignant lyrics.

Robbins has always written some great lines, and his songwriting is if anything at its strongest here. The album is littered with gems like “I grew up on science fiction / Doesn’t mean I want to live in it,” but the real lyrical standout is “New Logo,” framing the end of the world as commercial entertainment. Never has the end of the world sounded so disturbingly cheerful, thanks to lines like “Crows are crowding every open wire / the starting guns all turn and open fire” and “test audience prefers the fire to flood in every demographic, ten to one.”

Robbins’ vocal technique has also improved, with his range sounding great. His fellow vocalist is a bit less impressive, though: Robbins’ wife Janet, while possessed of a nice-sounding voice and a capable backup singer, disappoints when she takes the lead for “Hug the Floor,” sounding a bit flat but more pressingly slipping into the mix so that her vocals seem to lose the focus of the song. This may be more of an aspect of Robbins’ production being so closely linked with his voice, but regardless makes the otherwise good song fall short. Fortunately, the two following songs are the two strongest on the album, with the urgent and accusatory “Mayday” being a great example of the band at its best. And when they’re good, they’re really good.

Of the twelve songs present, nine are incredible, and the three weaker tracks are still strong enough to make this a very good album, and with all due respect to both Ian Mackaye and Joe Lally, that makes Channels' Waiting for the Next End of the World Dischord’s best album of 2006.
9/10 [note: this is inflated about one point due to punknews'tendency to hand out high reviews. I made sure to give it a score equivalent to that of the new Evens allbum]

End Year Music Roundup

2006-12-28T01:19:00.000+01:00

Now, I have show reviews to write still, but I haven't gotten to them and I don't know how my net access will be over the next couple weeks (I'll be in Ecuador), so I'll post my top albums of the year now.

Here's the quick roundup. Top 14 albums of the years, since there were 14 I thought worthy, and in no particular order:
World/Inferno Friendship Society - Red-Eyed Soul
Mission of Burma - the Obliterati
Mono & World's End Girlfriend - Palmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain
the Evens - Get Evens
Channels - Waiting for the Next End of the World
Ef - Give Me Beauty... Or Give Me Death!
Envy - Insomniac Doze
the Thermals - the Body, the Blood, the Machine
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Red Sparowes - Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun
Fucked Up - Hidden World
Young Widows - Settle Down City
Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
Boris - Pink

Show of the Year: State-X New Forms with Sonic Youth, Mono, Magik Markers, Circle, No Neck Blues Band, Clark, My Cat is an Alien, Danielson, and many more in Den Haag.

Album I'm most excited for next year: Iggy and the Stooges - Weirdness (What the hell are the Stooges doing releasing a new album anyway?)

Have a good new year, folks.

Here's Your Future

2006-12-02T21:59:00.000+01:00

The last time I saw the Thermals, they were opening for Mike Watt and as such were more than a little eclipsed by my awe at seeing the elder statesman of jamming econo, and even so I had a great time. This time, I was more familiar with their material and they were in a well-deserved headlining slot, so I was prepared for a far more impressive showing. I got all that and more. The Thermals really know how to put on a fun, intense, and inclusive show.

The opener, Feverdream, were a Dutch band I'd happily avoided seeing at ZXZW, and they showed exactly why this time. They played hackneyed, whiney emo, with no interesting or redeeming characteristics other than a fairly good drummer, and had absolutely nothing Dutch about them. I spent most of their set either at the bar or at the Thermals' merch table, and I was hardly alone, with more people being outside the stage area than in. It was a shame about the weak opener; I tried to not let it mar the rest of the show experience. They finished quickly enough, anyway.

The bad taste left pretty much as soon as the Thermals arrived on stage, though. The band, grown to four members since I last saw them, wasted no time after Hutch Harris exclaimed “Hi, we're the Thermals”, lashing out immediately with “Our Trip”. They followed with “Every Stitch”, replicating the one-two punch of the beginning of their album before last, Fuckin' A. This wasn't a sign of things to come, as “St. Rosa and the Swallows” began what would eventually lead to the entirety of their most recent (and best) album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine being played. The new songs sounded particularly great live, despite the lack of the organ that made the album such a change from their previous sound. Instead, they played with an additional guitar for a far fuller sound – a huge improvement from their previous show, exchanging forced rawness for far more volume and intensity.

That intensity wasn't just a consequence of the instruments, though – the Thermals themselves obviously put all their energy into the show, and were one of the most enthusiastic bands I've ever seen while doing it. Because of their sheer happiness, I felt awful when someone in the crowd threw beer at Hutch Harris during “No Culture Icons”, leading to him stopping and saying “if anyone throws anything at anyone on the stage, the show's going to end” after the song – the only significant stage chatter except for “thank you so much” the entire show. They were obviously put off, as the next song (“Let Your Earth Quake, Baby”) was significantly less good than the rest of the set. Afterward, though, the crowd behaved itself and the show returned to being a good time for everyone involved. By the end of the show, when rather say “good night” or so forth, they said “OK, we'll go offstage for a couple minutes, you go through the ritual, clap and so on”, everyone was back to having enough fun to clap enormously until the band came back on, rounding off with a four-song encore including the subject of the infamous Hummer solicitation, “It's Trivia” and the rarely-heard single b-side “Everything Thermals”. At that point, it was obvious that everyone involved had had a great time that night.

I have to knock a couple points off for the atrocious openers, but the show was still great, easily deserving of a 8/10.

Setlist:

Our Trip

Every Stitch

St Rosa and the Swallows

A Passing Feeling

Brace and Break

Born Dead

How We Know

I Might Need You To Kill

An Ear for Baby

A Stare Like Yours

Test Pattern

I Hold The Sound

Here's Your Future

Back to the Sea

No Culture Icons

Let Your Earth Quake, Baby

A Pillar of Salt

Returning to the Fold

Back to Gray

Power Doesn't Run On Nothing

Encore:

God and Country

It's Trivia

Top of the Earth

Everything Thermals

I Heard a Rumor...

2006-11-28T23:45:00.000+01:00

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of the Rumor mini-festivals that happen at random intervals here in Utrecht, so of course I jumped at the opportunity to see the 47^th edition thereof. There was a complication, though: the biggest band involved, Grizzly Bear, got robbed a few days before and cancelled their entire tour, so they failed to appear. However, there was an intriguing-sounding replacement, so I went without hesitation, and I was even more glad than usual that I went.

The night began at Theater Kikker with a pair of modern classical pieces performed by the LOOS ensemble. Now, I'm normally pretty ambivalent to modern classical, in that I appreciate the composition and musicianship, but it never really grabs me. This time was a bit different, though – the piece was more enjoyable to me than most, primarily because of the instrumentation involved. Both pieces included significant amounts of percussion, with the second involving drums, glockenspiel, and a wooden xylophone in addition to bells – and I, being a percussion junkie, loved it. It still didn't quite connect the way other types of music do, but it was a considerably more enjoyable modern classical performance than most I've seen.

Next up was a trip to Rasa for what turned out to be the most interesting act of the night. Susie Ibarra, a Filipino composer, played a number of pieces from her current project, Electric Kulingtang, which consists of a fusion of traditional Filipino music, led by the namesake instrument, which is a sort of xylophone-esque series of differently pitched cup-shaped cymbals, with funk-jazz drumming and trancey electronics. The result was an ethereal yet rhythmic, hypnotic yet funky soundscape made unique by the rather beautiful sounds of the kulingtang. She was joined by drummer Roberto Rodriguez, who played both a jazz drum kit and a gome-like frame drum, both in full funk-jazz style. There were a couple songs where Ibarra switched to a wood-block vibraphone, and a dreamy keyboard number, but those simply didn't stand up to the kulingtang pieces which were the mainstay of the set. The unique mix of sounds made for a very compelling listen, and I'm a bit sad I couldn't afford the associated CD.

Thirdly was the replacement for Grizzly Bear, over at EKKO. It turned out to be Mohammed “Jimmy” Mohammed, a blind Ethiopian jazz singer. He was joined by two fellow Ethiopians he was touring with, along with two locals. All in all, his ensemble consisted of a pair of clay Ethiopian drums with a rich, deep sound, a lyre-like instrument amplified so that it sounded oddly similar to an electric piano, an oddly set up drum set (with a leather-bound tom instead of a bass drum, and a very large drum hanging from the ceiling, plus a frame-based shaker next to it), and a horn player alternating between sax, melodica, and bass clarinet. Their style could best be described as avantgarde afrobeat – think Fela Kuti with random bursts of Thelonius Monk, all permeated by “Jimmy”'s oddly nasal voice. It was a very lively, exceedingly energetic performance, and certainly the most fun of the shows at this Rumor. They even played the first encore I've seen at a Rumor. I'm not too familiar with Grizzly Bear, but I doubt they would have been as good.

Last was the weirdest act of this Rumor. Sir Alice, a young French woman, put on a bizarre audio/visual cabaret at SJU, going through such a dizzying array of disjointed parts that it's really rather difficult to concretely describe her act. Basically, she put on a weird show with strange caricatured images and disjointed electronic music, all designed to be very provocative. It was intense; the sort of thing you have to witness to have any chance to understand – and it still left me befuddled, in a good way.

Overall, this was an extremely good Rumor; most that I've been to have had a couple decent acts and one incredible one, while this one had three very good acts and one good one. On average, this one probably has the best overall quality, and there wasn't a single relatively weak act. That's how such things should be.

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

2006-11-21T01:50:00.000+01:00

Thursday's show was the one I'd been waiting for for quite some time, the one I'd had tickets sitting around for for nearly two months, the on for which I had to find an additional attendee since Tim bought one too many tickets: Yo La Tengo. I was pretty excited to see them, since I've been enjoying their music quite avidly for a while now. The thing that concerned me was what side of them would show. Yo La Tengo has a few modes, with the two most prevalent being the soft, atmospheric vibe of much of their more recent output and the oddly laid-back noise of their early stuff. Needless to say, I'm an aficionado of the abrasive yet soothing early material, so when I listened to the new album I was a little worried by the predominance of the softer tones there. As luck would have it, I found that my fears were hardly justified – and Adam, who prefers the other side of Yo La Tengo, had his fill of “his Yo La Tengo” too.

The first noticeable thing when Yo La Tengo took the stage was their odd stage presence – despit their subdued air, which was heightened by Ira Kaplan starting behind a keyboard and James McNew being seated facing ¾ away from the audience, they still had an easy charisma. It seems to have something to do with the air of comfort they exude – they seem to always know what one another are doing, and every one of them plays any given instrument (each band member played every available instrument over the course of the night, except that Georgia Hubley didn't play bass). Further, the little bit of banter they had with the audience was remarkable down-to-earth and friendly, adding to the placid, easygoing projection. Their music took on some of the same qualities, but went far beyond. While there was plenty of presence from the quiet atmospheric side of things, the noisy, improvisational tracks really carried the show. This became readily apparent as soon as they got to the opening track off their new album, “Pass The Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind”, a 10-minute mess with exactly two bars of bassline repeated over and over under increasingly wild guitarwork. It was simply stunning, and I was a bit amazed McNew didn't show any signs of boredom after ten minutes of the same two bars. The excellence went on throughout the long set, which was structured to stay in style for a bit, then flow to the next. They began mellow, cranked up the noise for a few songs, then played a long mellow interlude before using the absolutely perfect “Sugarcube” to transition into a final noise segment, including two lengthy, chaotic jams that were the highlight of the show. They rounded off with a chill encore, followed by a second encore of a rousing cover of the Silver Jews' “Bad Politics” and what they claimed was a doo-wop number by Sun Ra, though I was a bit incredulous. Regardless, it was a truly great show.

Setlist:

Let's Save Tony Orlando's House

I Should Have Known Better

Pass The Hatchet, I think I'm Goodkind

Stockholm Syndrome

Sometimes I Don't Get You

The Weakest Part

Beanbag Chair

Mr. Tough

I Feel Like Going Home

Nowhere Near

Sugarcube

Artificial Heart

Watch Out For Me Ronnie

The Story of Yo La Tengo

I Heard You Looking

Encore 1:

(not written down, included "Autumn Sweater")

Encore 2:

Bad Politics

Blues for Godzilla

2006-11-19T17:56:00.001+01:00

It's been a busy week for shows, and I'm behind here goes the first of three reviews.

On Tuesday, I headed over to Tivoli de Helling to see the BellRays, who are best described as “rock 'n' soul”, or by analogy as Aretha Franklin fronting the MC5. More on them later. First off were the Flash Express, who were trying their best to actually be the MC5 – fast, loud, angry garage rock with with howling vocals. They did a pretty decent job of imitation, though, with a lot of energy, fun songs, and a frontman who did a very good impression of Rob Tyner, down to the scream-howls at certain points. They were fairly unremarkable, though, as they did little but ape the MC5, even if they did that well. They still managed to be a fun opening band.

As the BellRays took the stage, I found myself in the presence of the largest Afro I'd ever seen in person. Lisa Kekaula, the owner of that Afro, is what makes the BellRays so unique: they're an energetic garage rock bend fronted by a large black woman with an enormous Afro, with the sort of vocal style you'd expect from that description: soulful and powerful. She also has a simply great voice. She was of course the star of the night, from the kick-off with a simple “we are the BellRays...” to the last moments of the show. Her voice works rather well in combination with the rest of the band's sound – it's not what you'd normally expect with gritty, bluesy MC5 rock, but the combined effect is extremely enjoyable. Basically, their set was raucous and incredibly fun, even when they slowed down to play some more funk-laced numbers, and it put me in a very good mood for bartending later that night.

On the US midterm elections...

2006-11-10T15:34:00.000+01:00

I think this sums it up quite well.

Ghiwale Jazz

2006-11-09T19:32:00.000+01:00

A quick blurb on the show I saw on friday, to put me up to speed. They were a Moroccan jazz ensemble, and played a mix of classic jazz and traditional Moroccan music, with a guitar, drums, standup bass, keys, two singers/hand-drum players, a guy on two clay tom-toms, and a wind instrumentalist alternating between sax, flute, and a brassy clarinet-type thing. The music was quite good, though it was a litle bipolar in that it usually sounded really jazzy or really Moroccan rather than a fusion. I also found the constitution of the band quite interesting. The guitarist, who was the most charismatic of them, was in a wheelchair but played some pretty excellent guitar, which I really respect. There were several white guys among the mainly Moroccan band, which was good. And one of the singers/drummers looked like the stereotypical shoarma chef - balding, moustached, with a white shirt and black pants/shoes - which was highly endearing. It was an enjoyable show all in all.

Rumor 0 Summary

2006-11-05T23:04:00.000+01:00

Here's a quick write-up of last sunday's Rumor, which was a free matinee-type thing due to it being a big cultural sunday.

First off, at Ekko, were Spires That In The Sunset Rise, an all-female free-folk band from Chicago. They played an odd mix of string instruments in a with a psychedelic vibe to it, including guitars, a banjo (played with a bow?), cello, and some exotic instruments which are apparently called mbira and bul bul tarang. They were extremely intriguing, and I really liked the music, but the vocals were a bit questionable at times. Still very good. Interesting fact: I noticed at least five small children (under 8) there. I wonder what they made of it?

Second was a trip to Theater Kikker to see "Co-Incidents", a dance/music piece by someone whose name I can't recall or find right now. It was basically four things: a trumpet player, an electronic music manipulater, an interpretive dancer of sorts, and bizarre lights. The music was novel, the dance was odd, and the lights were mesmerizing. All in all, I wasn't sure what to make of this, but the lights sure were cool.

Lastly, we went to SJU to see Brown Vs Brown, who Tim and I had missed out on at Rumor. They proved to be a wild funky noise jazz band. They ended up spunding like a cross between the Minutemen and the Flying Luttenbachers to me, which was certainly a good thing. Their sax/guitar/drums/bass lineup put out an impressive wall of sound while still managing an incredibly intricate rhythm. They were definitely the highlight of this Rumor.

All in all, a good Rumor, and a great free show.

Samiam/The Draft, 2 weeks later

2006-11-05T20:10:00.000+01:00

Samiam/The Draft, live in Utrecht @ Tivoli de Helling, October 23 2006

I have a confession: I was never a big Hot Water Music fan. While I appreciated them, I never reached the level of veneration they seem to enjoy at punknews.org, and I've barely listened to their successor band, the Draft, at all. I also never got into Samiam that much, even though they seem to be the favourite band of the scene here in Utrecht, judging by buttons alone. Still, I enjoy both bands enough that the choice of whether or not to see them for a low price in a nearby venue was a rather easy one, and my rather ambivalent expectations were far exceeded by both groups.

Opening the night were Note To Amy, a local hardcore group who seemed to fit the style of the night pretty well. To a large extent, they played standard clean-vocals hardcore with all the standard trappings, but sported a significant Hot Water Music-esque emocore slant to their sound. Their set was decent enough, but pretty unremarkable other than the fact that their vocalist had a rather good voice. Still, they were decent if not exciting. The same can't be said of The Draft, who were up next. Though there was little obvious reaction from the typically restrained Dutch crowd, there was still a palpable air of excitement when they took the stage, and little encouragement was needed to get the crowd to move all the way forward (though a hole was left in front of Chris Wollard, prompting him to wonder several times if he stank). The band, after a short introduction and a “we hope you have as much fun as we do”, went straight into “New Eyes Open”, the start of a great set. They proceeded with energy and gusto, going through about nine songs within forty minutes. They were fairly focussed on the music, stopping only to make a few remarks on such subjects as Epitath and Gainesville; nothing interesting enough to repeat, really. But the music was well worth the focus – having listened to In a Million Pieces only a couple of times, I was amazed by the quality of the song I hadn't let sink in. The Draft are indeed a lot more melodic than their predecessor, but that doesn't detract at all from their intensity – they put on a very powerful, energetic and downright enjoyable show. I didn't get the setlist, but I know they played “Let It Go”, “Bordering”, “Longshot” and “Lo Zee Rose” (the closer) as well as the aforementioned “New Eyes Open”.

After the Draft went offstage, the scene was set for Samiam. By this time, the crowd was in full swing (or as much as can be expected from a Dutch audience, which wasn't really that much), so it was definitely a good thing that they took to the stage quickly and started with relatively little complication, though Jason Beebout made a pause to yell “Hello Czechoslovakia”, which got a bit less reaction than it warranted. They didn't hesitate before bursting out with “Sunshine”. The obvious instinct then was to compare them with the Draft, what with them being right after one another and playing fairly similar styles. There was a fairly marked sense of differentiation between the two, which boiled down to the Draft being more energetic and aggressive, while Samiam were more melodic and emotive – basically, Samiam felt more mature. That doesn't mean they lacked energy or force, though – their set was captivatingly intense from start to finish, as they went through 14 songs with even less of a pause than the Draft had given. There weren't reallt any interesting antics or happenings to report, just a good solid set, including such standouts as an exceptionally desperate-sounding “Mud Hill” and of course the only charting single Samiam released, “Capsized”. The band was fairly static throughout, unfortunately, so the kinetic energy of the set was a bit lower than it could have been. One of the better moments of the show came when the time came for their encore, when Johnny Cruz came out alone, prompting Draft drummer George Rebelo to yell “Drum solo!” from the audience, at which point Jeremy Bergo, who had joined Cruz on the stage, grumbled “no one asks for a bass solo...” Alas, no solo was forthcoming, only a three-song encore. It still provided a good end to a good show.

Samiam setlist:

Sunshine

Factory

Bad Day

She Found You

Mud Hill

Get It Right

Come Home

Stepson

No Size That Small

Take Care

Capsized

Mexico

Dull

Full On

Encore:

When We're Together

Wisconsin

Super Brava

I Don't Need A Cure, I Need A Final Solution

2006-10-23T16:47:00.000+02:00

Words cannot describe how amazing Pere Ubu were last night. It just might have been the best show I've seen this semester (though it has some stiff competition!). Plus, seeing one of the first and most important bands in post-punk (which formed before "punk" was really founded!) felt like a real honour. Sure, their lineup changes constantly, but that's sort of a key feature of Ubu - it's not about who's in it, it's about the entity of Pere Ubu itself. And damn, did that entity ever put on a great show.

The opening act, Gagarin, was actually Ubu's soundman, and as one would expect he worked with sonic manipulation. He used a ton of reverb and distortion on a soundboard to make hauntingly bizarre tunes, which was interesting but somehow not all that engaging. Still a worthwhile sight, though. The real attraction began when David Thomas and company took the stage, with him dressed like a classic noir detective in a fedora and trenchcoat. They went right ahead, with an energy that belied the odd experimentation of their recorded work. Make no mistake - their music was crazy, bizarre, experimental, but it also really rocked. the effect was anything but rockist, though - it felt more like performance art than a typical rock show.

Their setup did a lot to add to this. First of all, as Ubu apparently specifies for every show, the lights were "theatrical rather than rockist" - they accentuated the band's presence and drew attention to their actions rather than being bombastic. What's more, Thomas had a chair behind him to sit down whenever he wasn't singing - giving the impression of an actor waiting for his cue more than anything. And some of the instruments were completely bizarre themselves - most notably, keyboardist Robert Wheeler not only had a soundboard attached to his keys (complete with 4 oscillators, as Thomas explained at great length), but had some kind of apparatus of two metal, and presumably magnetic triangles which he would move his hands around near to generate crazy high-pitched squeals. Also, Thomas has a distortion-wrought telephone in addition to a regular mic.

Let's face it, Thomas was the star of the show. Besides being the only permanent member of Ubu, and his trademark nasal singing voice, his showmanship really made the night. From rattling off ridiculously fast speeches about ghost towns, explaining that a song was "called 'Love Song' because it's about love, so it's a love song which is why we call it 'Love Song'", he was hilarious the whole time. Other highlights included him saying "this is a song Mr. Elvis Presley wrote for me about a year ago, and I'm trying to work on the vocal technique", talking about how a song was "for all the women in the audience, but only the men will understand", and of course his "conversations" with certain celebrities. These last were all in the following format: "I was talking to Kylie Minogue last month, and she told me '(in falsetto)You know David, I really dig your music, but there's one thing you should add to your show: a costume change.' And I thought about it, and decided, sure I'll put in a costume change Here it is." He then proceeded to put his hat and coat back on. The second was Sting (with the same falsetto voice) saying he needed social relevance, to which Thomas replied "Well, Mr. Sting, I just prefer writing about guys and girls in bars." Last, during the drawn-out pause in their last song, it was Bob Dylan (once again in falsetto) telling him he needed shorter songs, which drew the comment "Well, Mr. Dylan, I really respect you, but what the hell were those last two albums? Seriously, does anyone think the last Dylan album is worth mor than dogshit?" priceless.

Of course, the music was amazing too. They played a solid hour and a half of material from many different points in their career, though I neglected to get the setlist. Basically, it was an incredible show and will be a very hard act for Samiam and the Draft to follow tonight.

Friday Random 10, "I should really be working right now" edition

2006-10-13T15:06:00.000+02:00

1. Gang of Our - Why Theory? (Solid Gold, 1981): One of my favourite drum patterns, and a cool minimalist song to go with it. The melodica is great, though the lyrics are a little pretentious at times. I'm a big fan of "too much thinking makes me ill - I think I'll have another gin" though. 8/10.
2. Happy Go Licky - Twist and Shout (20 Years of Dischord, 2002): It's hard to go too wrong with Dischord bands, and this song's no exception. It's a bizarrely structured experimental instrumental from the sort-of-reunion of Rites of Spring, and the sly title is amusing. A very interesting listen. 7/10.
3. No Em Pingo D'Agua - Assanadho (Brasil 500 Years): Funky Brazilian jazz from a random compilation. A great track which I actually hadn't gotten around to listening to before, with a strong Brazilian flavour but also a great funk bassline. 8/10.
4. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra - Jon Lord (live) (Full Tension Beaters, 2002): A nice fun dub from everyone's favourite 10-piece Japanese Ska Band. The vocals are totally unintelligible - and probably aren't words anyway - but the horn section really stands out. 7/10.
5. Ciccone Youth - Silence (Whitey Album, 1986): 1:05 of silence, from the weird Madonna theme album by Sonic Youth and Mike Watt. What the hell? 0/10, I'll do an extra track to make up for it.
6. Cheb Balowski - Paloma (Bartzeloona, 2001): I'm now in love with this band. Their mix of Spanish, Arabic, and Balkan folk with reggae, funk and rock influences is great. This a particularly excellent track, with a back-and forth between a very Arabic section with a great beat and a Spanish section with absolutely gorgeous vocals, both of which are excellent. The transitioning is what makes this song great. 9/10.
7. Sonic Youth - Nic Fit (Dirty, 1992): SY covering the Untouchables, in their best impression of a short hardcore song. Amusing, but not too great musically. 5/10.
8. Gogol Bordello - Passport (Voi-La Intruder, 1999): Gogol Bordello are hilarious in their gypsy-punk stylings, but they're also quite good. This song is a great Slavic ballad with a brilliant accordion part that explodes into a punky midesction before returning to form, and is a lot of fun from beginning to end. 8/10.
9. The Doors - Not to Touch the Earth (live) (Absolutely Live, 1970): Jim Morrisson at his most pretentious, but a rather good song once you get past it. A bit different from their usual bluesy stuff, but that guitar part is wonderfully forboding. 8/10.
10. Deerhoof - The Eyebright Bugler (Reveille, 2002): A strange 40-second pop song from the masters of bizarre pop. Amusing and fairly pleasant, and the use of electronic is cool. If this were a full-length song it would be great, I think. 7/10.
11. The Stooges - Ann (The Stooges, 1969): Iggy and the gang at their most brooding. A brilliant rambling guitar part and excellent lyrics leading into a standard issue Stooges solo, over simple but emphatic drumming. Not bad at all. 8/10.
Overall: 7.5, discounting the Ciccone Youth red herring. A pretty strong selection of solid songs I'd never think of at first when looking for good songs, which is nice.

We'll Inherit The Earth...

2006-10-13T02:14:00.000+02:00

An actual record review!

V/A: We'll Inherit the Earth... A Tribute to the Replacements

1-2-3-4-Go! Records, 2006

The tribute album concept is a tricky one for me. I like the idea of hearing reinterpretations of songs by great artists, and that of current artists paying respect to their influences, but on the other hand... well, I'd generally rather just hear the originals. Thus I was both excited and uneasy about the news of a tribute to the Replacements, one of my personal favourite bands of all time. Sure, if there's an artist who deserves it, it's the 'Mats... but yet there's the possibility that a mediocre tribute could colour my fondness for the originals. Plus, the 'Mats are a sort of tricky band to cover – their simplicity makes most songs easy to play, but they have a certain disarming honesty and intensity that makes a lot of covers just not stand up.

Fortunately, the cast of contributors here is particularly excellent. Between heavy-hitters like The Draft, Strike Anywhere's Thomas Barnett, and (the controversial?) Against Me! and lesser-knowns with strong 'Mats tendencies like the Modern Machines and the Obsoletes, this disc promised some great covers, and didn't disappoint. There's not a single song here that Westerberg and the boys would be ashamed of. All 23 contributors put in very competent 'Mats impressions, though certain ones are a bit weaker (I'm looking at you, The Queers – could Joe sound any more bored and monotone on a more angst-charged song?). While there's only one song that surpasses the original here – Almighty Do Me A Favor's version of the originally jokey and minimally-played “Treatment Bound” – that's no fault of theirs, it's just that the 'Mats are basically an impossible act to surpass at their own game. There are still some great renditions of classic 'Mats tunes, like the Modern Machines' stumbling version of “Mr. Whirly” and The Ergs!' even speedier “I'm In Trouble”. In fact, of 23 covers, there's about 17 I would call very good.

Of course, it isn't all good. There are two main issues with this tribute: first, the track choices. The 'Mats' unquestioned masterpiece, Let It Be, is only represented with two tracks – the aforementioned “Unsatisfied” and the Druglords of the Avenues' “Favorite Thing” – in favour of a lot of tracks from the relatively weaker late releases. In this shuffle, plus all over the other records represented, a lot of key 'Mats tracks are absent. Where's “I Will Dare”? “Alex Chilton”? “I Hate Music”? “Swinging Party”? My personal favourite, “Take Me Down to the Hospital”? Also, most of the bands don't really do much besides do their best to imitate the 'Mats – which is reasonable considering it's a tribute, but most of these bands can't match the 'Mats at their own game, so some more reinterpretation would be interesting. Most tracks sound like a slightly worse 'Mats at a different tempo and with a different singer (Against Me! are particularly guilty of this – if you discount Tom Gabel not sounding like Westerberg, it would be pretty much an exact replica), so those which add a bit of a distinctive touch, like Thomas Barnett and his former Inquisition bandmate Rob Huddleston's ethereal version of “Here Comes a Regular”, are particularly appreciated. Still, a passable 'Mats impression is pretty damned worthwhile, so I can't fault this comp too much. All in all, it's a very good tribute to an incredible band, so I recommend it to fans of any of the bands involved, especially 'Mats fans. This is a good example of what tribute comps should be like.

Rock Action

2006-10-10T17:20:00.000+02:00

Two days after seeing Mogwai, my ears are still ringing. That's how loud it was. It was particularly striking because you don't really expect it - unlike a band like, say, Cougars, whose music exists to be played at absurd volumes, Mogwai's music is soaring and atmospheric, with some more chaotic points, but I wasn't prepared for just how loud they would be. It was very impressive.

I arrived at the Melkweg fairly late, and missed most of the opener, Eugene Kelly. He was a solo singer-songwriter type, with an acoustic guitar and a heavy Scottish accent. I only caught two songs, but he seemed pretty good, with the description of a song about the time he took too much LSD and thought he was a horse being pretty amusing. For his last song, he proceeded to jump off stage and wander around the crowd, almost hitting me on the way down. I can't really say much about his set, but it seemed good from what I saw.

It took Mogwai a while to set up, considering all the fancy lights and the synth with "MOGWAI ... MR BEAST" written on it taking up lots of stage romm, not to mention all the pedals and miscellaneous effects equipment. Regardless, they finally got on stage to massive applause from the completely full floor of the Melkweg (it was one of the biggest and most applause-happy crowds I've seen in Holland) and broke right into "You Don't Know Jesus". I was immediately floored by the intensity of the show. Not only was it loud as hell, like I described above, but it was also incredibly intricate - if anything, more detailed than the album cuts. And let's not forget the lights - though I don't think that would be possible. Mogwai added at least 15 additional lights to Melkweg's already formidable setup, and constantly made crazy apperns and effects with the, in all sorts of insane colours. More on specifics later.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about the show was the way Mogwai worked their dynamics. Their songs tend to alternate beween hypnotically atmospheric numbers and crushing discordance. They fluidly segued between the two, giving the whole show an ebb-and-floe feel. Perhaps the most intense example of this came at what I'd call the climax of the show, when they seamlessly went from the mesmerizing end of "Mogwai Fear Satan" to Mr. Beast's most powerful track, "Glasgow Mega-Snake", at full, crushing volume and speed. That moment was one of the most intense in my showgoing career - be in a trancelike state from from the previous cut, and then being pummeled over the head with one of the loudest songs of a loud show was quite the jolt, and they took advantage of the situation by turning every light in the house on strobe in different colours! They did so for what felt like an eternity, and I swear the entire crowd had a collective epilectic seizure. It was insane.

The band rightly thought their music did enough talking - they said a total of two different sentences through the course of the show, those being "We're Mogwai from Glasgow" and "Thanks a lot". Touching on the first of those, they certainly seemed to want to make it clear they were Scottish: an amp and a guitar each had a Scottish flag, the bassist had an Arab Strap shirt with the same flag, and a Scottish crest on the drumset, so I think they got the point across.

The show really made me lose my sense of time - in a way, it was like an incredibly intense, focussed trip of a caliber I've never had with anything but music. Regardless, it seemed to go on for a long, long time, but then ended seemingly as soon as it got going. It was great regardless, and Mogwai have just replaced Godspeed You! Black Emperor as my favourite post-rock band. 10/10.

Setlist:
You DOn't Know Jesus
Friend of the Night
Travel Is Dangerous
Ithica 27-9
New Paths to Helicon Pt. 2
I Know You Are But What Am I?
Acid Food
Hunted by a Freak
Mogwai Fear Satan
Glasgow Mega-Snake
New Paths To Helicon Pt. 1
We're No Here
Encore:
2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
Folk Death 95

Shoddy Photos here.

You Got It While It Was Hot

2006-10-08T19:44:00.000+02:00

(woo 30 posts)

New York Dolls – Like in Amsterdam, Oct 4, 2006

The first New York punk band, the last proto-punk band, freaks, transvestites, heroes – call them what you will, but the New York Dolls need no introduction. David Johansen seemed o agree as he took the stage at the Melkweg,barely pausing to grab the mic before opening with those oh-so-familiar words: “When I say I'm in love you'd best believe I'm in love, L-U-V!” From that moment, it was easy to tell this would be one hell of a show. Sure, there are only two original members left. Sure, Johansen is close to 60. But when they blazed into “Looking for a Kiss”, the crowd forgot all that and just took in an incredibly energetic show from one of the most influential bands of all time – certainly the most important band I've ever seen. Their immensely dirty rock and roll, which so many bands revered within the punk community were created by, sounded incredible in person. The only nod they made to their egos was after their second song, when Johansen declared “They say the New York Dolls influenced a lot of people. Well, I dunno about that, but our favourite band is Janis Joplin” before launching into a staggering cover of her “Take Another Little Piece of My Heart” (it was the 26^th anniversary of Joplin's death). This turned out to be only the first tribute to a fallen comrade, as they followed by dedicating “Private World” to Killer Kane and even played Johnny Thunders' “You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory”.

All the while, the band seemed to be having loads of fun in their unsurprisingly flamboyant, uniformly pink and black attire. Johansen engaged in his trademark freakily-sexual dancing, Syl Sylvain joked around, and they generally seemed very honest and energetic, especially at downright silly moments like the entirety of “Dance Like a Monkey” and Syl Sylvain's wondering if the crowd's huge applause to the announcement of “Trash” meant they though his band was trash. Speaking of the crowd, they were superb – one of the most energetic I've seen in Holland, and fittingly eclectic for the show they were at. This brought Johansen to reminisce the last time they were in Amsterdam, 33 years prior – it sounded like he enjoyed himself. It was mutual – by the last song of the regular set, I certainly didn't want the show to end. Of course, the end of the set brought the obvious encore of “Personality Crisis”, which the crowd naturally loved. They finished on one more encore, consisting of a song from their new album (from which they had been playing quite a lot of cuts, all of which sounded great, especially “Fishnets & Cigarettes”) announced as “Go Fuck Yourself” (not the real title, I'm not sure what it's actually called) and “Human Being”. Then it was finally over, and we left feeling awed. I think I can safely say that I owe Morrissey thanks for getting the Dolls to regroup, as this show was incredible, and deserves no less than a 10/10.

Partial set list (sequential but missing songs)

Looking for a Kiss

We're All In Love

Take Another Little Piece of My Heart (Janis Joplin)

Fishnets & Cigarettes

Private World (To Killer Kane)

Plenty of Music

Pills

Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano

Rainbow Store

You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory (Johnny Thunders)

Gimme Luv & Turn on the Light

Dance Like a Monkey

Trash

Encore: Personality Crisis

Encore 2: “Go Fuck Yourself”

Human Being

Friday Random 10, one-day-late edition

2006-10-07T23:41:00.000+02:00

Between working on my essays for both philosophy and political science and the Tribal committee party last night, I didn't get around to a FRT. Here's the compensation.

1. Japanther - Second Hand (Wolfenswan, 2006): Weirdness from one of the more amusing bands I saw at ZXZW. While this track shows their odd mix of lo-fi garage rock and recorded noise, it's lacking in substance and rather dull even for its short duration. A shame, really. 4/10.
2. Pavement - Price Yeah! (Westing (By Musket and Sextant), 1993): Super-early pavement, at their most listener-unfriendly era. Sounds like early Sonic Youth put through a college-rock blender, which is a good thing. And behind all that abrasiveness, the guitar line is very good. 7/10.
3. Dead Kennedys - Funland at the Beach (Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 1980): The last of of three consecutive, basically interchangable songs, the least interesting of the songs on a classic album. Still solid, but a bit boring, considering its company. 5/10.
4. The Skatalites and King Tubby - Fugitive Dub (The Legendary Skatalites in Dub, 2001): One of the best reggae producers and one of the great ska ensembles, united to creat an incredibly groovy dub with wonderfully unusual instrumentation in the flute lead. Very enjoyable. 8/10.
5. Elvis Costello - No Dancing (My Aim Is True, 1977): Elvis is king, and this is great if slightly soppy song from his classic debut. The lyrics are particularly great, even for Elvis, and Clover are in their element on the backing instruments. 8/10.
6. Black Flag - Damaged II (Damaged, 1981): How many versions of "Damaged" did they make anyway? This is the midtempo one, with Greg Ginn's grinding guitar taking the forefront with Rollins' black-lung growl as usual. Typical Black Flag, which is a good thing, but not terribly special. 7/10.
7. Ramones - You're Gonna Kill That Girl (Leave Home, 1977): Semi-sappy Ramones, with particularly half-assed vocal harmonies. Worse than most Ramones songs, though the dynamics are good. Still solid, as the Ramones never made a bad song, even in the 80s, but below average for them. 6/10.
8. Sonic Youth - Shaking Hell (Confusion is Sex, 1983): The best thing about early Sonic Youth is that the songs really sound like the insane titles attached to them. The intro to this song, in particular, is guitar-based onomatopoeia at its finest. Kim's vocals are weird, and the lyrics even more so, but they're also incredibly evocative, particularly combined with the creepy dynamics in the background. I'm not so sure about her playing backup vocals to herself though. 8/10.
9. King Tubby and Soul Syndicate - Ethiopian Version (Freedom Sounds In Dub, 1996) - More Blood & Fire dub, and some of Tubby's best production. He layers on the production while avoiding overproduction somehow, and on top of Soul Syndicate's fine musicianship provides an incredible dub track. 8/10.
10. The Velvet Underground - Pale Blue Eyes (The Velvet Underground, 1969): DO I really have to explain why the Velvets' best downtempo song is just that? Lou Reed's voice, so heartfelt he sounds like he's really about to cry, does a far better job. A clean-cut 10/10.
Overall: 6.3 average. Slightly less than usual thanks to the lackluster Japanther and DKs songs, but still solid.

We Don't Torture, We're a Civilized Nation

2006-10-03T03:44:00.000+02:00

Shed a tear for the ideal that America stands for freedom and justice, it's now officially dead.
I've always had my issues with my country of birth, but there was always that fundamental good principle behind it. Now, though, it's been compromised beyond any hope of regaining my trust. When a government can betray the very founding principles of democracy and the country itself in pursuit of a bullshit "war" on a tactic, and the so-called opposition party let them get away with it, something is horribly, horribly wrong. The US governmental system has failed me, the American people, and the world. All my talk of not wanting to be identified as an American is coming back, and I mean it now. I refuse to be aligned with with a nation that condones torture.

I'm a couple days late, but this is still the biggest political miscarriage I've seen in my short history of observing politics, so there you go.

On a Scale of 1 to 10, it was a 49.

2006-09-30T18:11:00.000+02:00

ZXZW Festival, Tilburg, September 23-24

Warning: extremely long review follows.

Apparently Brabant is the Dutch Texas, making Tilburg Austin: the Zuid Bij Zuidwest festival is a hardly-subtle name-clone of the better known South by Southwest (SXSW). And while there might be fewer cowboy hats, gun racks on pickup trucks, and obese people in Tilburg, the principle is the same: a festival spanning the majority of the local venues, with a wide lineup and a flat admission fee. Tilburg is convenient for this kind of thing, as there are an awful lot of venues clustered in the middle of town. Of course, the scale of ZXZW pales in comparison to its American counterpart, and lacks the label showcases and big-name indie royalty that characterize SXSW, but it was still a fairly impressive lineup – more so during the festival than when looking at it in a vacuum, really. I came into the fest knowing only a couple of bands, so it was a bit of a journey of discovery for me, but that only heightened the enjoyment.

We arrived on saturday night around 9, as the first full wave of bands began. We intended to go see Vuur, a Belgian noisepunk act, but by the time we got our tickets traded in for bracelets, their set had started and gone for about 15 minutes, and we were at 013 (the biggest venue for the festival, with three separate stages) while Vuur was playing at Little Devil, the most far-flung from our location. Plus, the music coming from 013's Kleine Zaal sounded promising, so we checked it out. It turned out to be Daturah, a German post-rock group. They basically sounded just like Mogwai, with similarly soaring ambient textures spiralling into crushing chaos at their apex. Their drummer was both good and incredibly loud, lending a slightly more intense sound to the percussive side and feeling more like Explosions in the Sky to me. Even though the guitarist had awful whitey-dreadlocks and they played some sort of unattractive video of Frankfurt in the background, they put on a good show. We missed the last bit, as we went off to the tiny “muziekcafe” (literally a bar with a stage in the back) Cul De Sac to see the silly-named Uw Hypotheekadvies (Your Mortgage Advice) play a set of their Dutch noise. The trio began with blasting Lighting Bolt-style noise whirlwinds with very little pause for mercy on the ears, and as the set went on, they gradually shifted to a groovier, jazzier, almost stonerish vibe via subtle alterations in their sound. This was a great show – they had a ton of character, energy and pure skill, managing to make their aural pummeling actually sound extremely musically proficient. I later decided they were one of the highlights of the night, but at the time there was no time to dwell, as wel were off to the Batcave at 013 to see Bronze. This bunch of Belgians played intricate indie instrumental, along the lines of a more restrained Hella with some Tortoise in their sound. We were only there for the tail end of their set, but what we saw was both impressive and compelling.

In the absence of anything particularly fantastic in the next timeslot, we went through the door to the adjacent Kleine Zaal to see Toner Low, as Tim has a certain nostalgic affection for stoner metal. And these locals played the part – they were basically a typical stoner metal band, complete with meanderingly heavy riffs, reverbed vocals, and a singer in an Iron Maiden shirt. It wasn't really my thing, but it seemed solid enough, and Tim intimated they sounded exactly like Kyuss. I guess that's a fairly good thing, since they're the founders of the genre. We shoved off a few minutes before they finished to head over to Little Devil for the band I was most excited for that night, Gravity Records founder Matt Anderson's current project, Space Horse. They served up some incredibly loud, wild 80's-style hardcore along the lines of a slightly less melodic Minor Threat, with the added touch of an audio sampler to grab bits of vocals and loop them in bizarre distorted fashion, used most amusingly on the drunk fools in the audience. These guys were ridiculous – three people basically tried to start a pit with no one else wanting to, pushing each other across the room and eventually pulling Matt into the crowd. At the time, it was kind of annoying to have people constantly being thrown onto you, but it was pretty amusing, really. The band's mocking approach to them made it rather enjoyable, and the same can be said of their set as a whole. They were easily the best band of the night.

Since the three of us all had work to do, we decided to skip Causa Sui, who sounded pretty good, and take the last train back. This turned out to be a bad idea. We grabbed the last train to 's Hertogenbosch, and had a pleasant enough ride accompanied by one of the co-owners of Little Devil, but when we got to den Bosch there were no trains to Utrecht left; the only remaining train went o Eindhoven. We considered various options, including going to Eindhoven and staying with someone who lived outside of town, but that would have required us paying for a taxi, and we were broke. A taxi back to Utrecht was dismissed for the same reason, as was getting a hotel room. Instead, we wandered den Bosch for a while, had some decent food at a snackbar, and headed back to the train station to stake out a good spot. We holed up by the parking garage to sleep until the first train to Utrecht left. It wasn't terribly comfortable, restful, or warm, but we survived without being disturbed or pickpocketed, and had an experience to remember. Though I won't be seeking out train stations to sleep in, it suited the underground spirit of the fest and wasn't all that bad, really.

I was the first to return the nest day, since I managed to get my work done. I missed a couple things I wanted to see earlier in the the (The Bend Moustache, Machinefabriek, Odal) but got there in time to see lots more. First up was a trip to the basement at V39 to see Kunt, who are best described as raunchy sampled-noise cabaret. Basically, it consisted of two Australian girls in pink dresses and weird body paint (with such things as “SATAN” and “Cop Killer” written on their arms) manipulating sound into combinations of dancy beats and blasting feedback, then performing a cabaret-like dance/song (well, more like wailing than singing...) routine on such subjects as cocaine, stepmothers, police (and specifically blowing up police), and more. Audience interaction was high here, with the girls alternating between taunts and come-ons, and at one point stepping into the crowd to wrap a microphone cord around someone's neck during their self-announced “love song”. The climax of the show came at the end: one of them pulled an audience member onto stage to help her put on something halfway between a saddle and a strap-on, with a pointy bit sticking out of the front. Shoving him back into the crowd, she proceeded to pull out a pair of goggles and a blunted circular saw, and ran around the stage sawing at the pointed front to the tune of the bizarre music, kicking up massive sparks. It was a sight to behold, that's for sure – this was one of the craziest sets of the day. The next show, at Kleine Zaal, was pretty weird and fantastic too: Brooklyn's Japanther, one of the only bands at the fest I'd ever heard of, blasted the crowd with their idiosyncratic no-wave insanity. The first thing that struck me when seeing them, actually, was the fact that instead of mics they used pastel telephone receivers plugged into they PA. After that was the fact that they used tons of samples from things like old movies, disco songs, and political speeches, fed through absurd effects and distortion, and added what was almost typical two-piece garage rock, except with a bizarre set of time signatures and effects. They were highly entertaining, and when the end came with the drummer standing on the snare, knocking over the floor tom and the sampling machine, it was too soon.

Next I headed over to The Choice, 013's big stage, for Volt. These Germans turned out to be decent but unexciting sludgy, slightly experimental metal. At this point, Tim called me to tell me he made it to Tilburg, so I left to meet him and Roel and have a quick bite to eat. Once we did, we returned to Kleine Zaal just in time for Officer Jones and His Patrol Car Problems. The police-jacket-attired band of Belgians dished out some highly technical, mathy hardcore that was augmented by recordings of sirens, clips of police raids and a guy saying “I don't like cops, and they don't like me”. At the very end of the set, they played a song that sounded a lot like Envy, and that song was incredible. Their whole set was quite strong. The next show at The Choice was even better: Creature With The Atom Brain, two thirds of whom are from Belgian heroes Millionaire, was impressively loud and even more impressively talented. Their music was fairly unusual: it combined noisy metal with jagged post-punk, with the noise being the linking point. They were very intense and yet very detailed at the same time, putting a surprisingly intricate structure under the crushing noise they were burying us in. This was one of the most interesting and yet most exciting shows of the fest. When it ended, we popped outside to see some of the ongoing spectacle that was Masonic Youth's windowshow. Basically, they'd set up a window display of weird objects, indluding a black version of the golden arches, a Star of David, and massive numbers of speakers, and set up drones playing weird, spooky ambient noise. Then came the Youth themselves, dressed in uniforms most resembling the Knights who say “Ni” but each with some random everyday object – one had rearview mirrors on his helmet, one had a plunger on a staff, and the best one had Mickey Mouse ears. They kind of stood around looking weird, occasionally doing things like throwing things against the window. It was... strange.

We went back in to Batcave with the intention of seeing V/VM, but he was apparently a noshow, so instead there was a bizarre interlude with a guy in an Elton John mask playing mangled remixes of Elton John songs on a laptop and miming singing. Then a guy in a chicken mask ran out, knocked Elton John into the audience, and followed him to engage in a rolling fistfight which ended with the chicken on the floor and Elton backstage. A guy came out to recite some odd text, but was stopped by Elton returning with a pig mask this time, who was joined by the recovered chicken. They handed out waffles to the crowd, and then just stood around drinking beer. That was it, so went through the Kleine Zaal door to see Orange Sunshine instead. Their MC5-meets-Sabbath stoner-garage rock was extremely fun and proficient, and they had great cohesion and energy. The drummer was particularly impressive, between using double bass and singing at the same time. He also had very impressive facial hair. They actually sounded most like Blue Cheer, down to covering their cover of Eddie Cochran's “Summertime Blues”. Once again, it was a great show.

We left Orange Sunshinea little early to get some air and see some more Masonic Youth antics before getting a good spot for the show we'd really been waiting for: the headliner, the only name band left after 65daysofstatic's cancellation, touring together after almost 30 years, Australia's finest, Radio Birdman. They took the stage to one of the biggest reactions I've seen from the typically sedate Dutch crowds, though it still seemed a little restrained and weak for the band's stature. Nonetheless, they burst into “Burned My Eye”, exhibiting more energy and intensity than any other band I'd seen that weekend. Their garagey proto-punk is incredibly catchy yet powerful, and it turned out all the better during the show, as the band moved more than the crowd and showed a level of enthusiasm that would be incredible in a bunch of 20-year-olds, much less such a venerable group. The lead singer, Rob Younger, was of course the main attraction, with his long leather jacket and equally long whitish hair, but the rest of the band had personality to go with their presence as well. The fatherly bassist had his mouth open in intense concentration the whole time, especially on songs like my personal favourite Radio Birdman song, “I-94”. Both guitarists were great, with a lot of contrast between Deniz Tek's loose, messy-haired, casual-attired stage wandering and Chris Masuak's shaven-headed, sunglasses-at-nigh-wearing pose-striking. Best of all was when they stood back to back for the solo in the always great “Aloha Steve and Danno”, ripped out of Hawaii 5-0 as it might be. But the most amusing was Pip Hoyle on keys, with a bright yellow tie, formal shirt with a pen sticking out of the breast pocket, and a generally serene demeanour. His handiwork showed well on songs like “Alone in the Endzone, a song which never impressed me recorded but turned out incredible live. The best song of the set, though, wasn't any of these, or even the much-loved “New Race” (which was still great), but “Hand of Law”, which they played with blistering speed and intensity, plus several great solo moments. They also played a decent number of cuts from their excellent new album, Zeno Beach, which stood up well to their classic material. “Hungry Cannibals” was particularly outstanding. As a whole, their show was by far the best of the weekend, and one of the best I've ever seen, really. I'm glad I had the chance to see them.

Radio Birdman setlist:

Burned My Eye

Do the Pop

Non Stop Girls

We've Come So Far (To Be Here Today)

You Just Make It Worse

Alone In the Endzone

Hungry Cannibals

Heyday

Hand of Law (spelled “Hand of Lar” on the setlist Tim grabbed)

Die Like April

Zeno Beach

Anglo Girl Desire

Locked Up

Aloha Steve and Danno

New Race

When the all-too-short set finished, we grabbed some ZXZW posters and headed out. First, tough, we talked to a guy who was following the tour through Europe about the band, other shows they'd given, the crappiness of Dutch crowds and the like. We then had a brief chat with the bassist and singer of Radio Birdman, who were great guys and signed our posters to boot. Then we really left, and this time we actually got the train back to Utrecht. A good end to a great weekend: I paid 10 euro for 14 shows, none of which were bad at all. Standouts were Uw Hypotheekadvies, Space Horse, Kunt, Japanther, and of course Radio Birdman (who would be worth more than the price of admission alone!). This was truly a great festival, and any rating less than a 10/10 is hard to justify.

I had my camera on day 2, and you can see my pictures at http://s99.photobucket.com/albums/l284/epicentric_zxzw2006/. I'll edit some into this entry soon, too. Cheers.

Amusement Parks On Fire

2006-09-23T02:46:00.000+02:00

Ekko is a favourite venue of mine, and it certainly didn't disappoint tonight. Amusement Parks On Fire delivered a great show. We got there a bit early, so had plenty of time to hear the soundcheck, watch the merch stand get put up and generally waste time. By the time the opener took the stage, we were very ready. You Slut!, a side project of APOF's guitarist, put in a strong performance, with their instrumental, almost mathy wall of sound rumbling the entire place with intense precision, while the razor-sharp drums punctuated the phrases perfectly. They had a bit of a stoner/desert rock feel to them, though that wasn't their main focus. Regardless, it was a solid opening act.

The interesting thing about Amusement Parks is that, within the crushing walls of distortion they put up, each song is at its core dreamy, spacey pop. In principle, it's not unlike My Bloody Valentine, but the sound is fairly different, in that it really sounds like a skin of distortion protecting the fragile pop inside. It works extremely well. This was obvious from the opening chords of "Blackout" all the way up to the closure of "Cut To Future Shock". Throughout, they showed an incredible amount of focus, with the former one-man band, current five-piece clearly getting really into their songs. It was a great show, and I'm very glad I caught it. On to ZXZW!
Amusement Parks on Fire setlist:
Blackout
New One (obviously a new song)
In Flight
Out of the Angeles
A Star Is Born
Eighty Eight
Venosa
Venus in Cancer
(Encore) Cut to Future Shock

Big weekend Coming

2006-09-22T16:24:00.000+02:00

Tonight: Amusement Parks On Fire at EKKO (Any band name gets better when you set it on fire, right? Maybe I'll start a band called the Burning Flames on Fire.)
Tomorrow and sunday: ZXZW. The Dutch take on Austin's SXSW festival, it's 2 days of underground music in various venues in Tilburg; I only know two bands: Machinefabriek, who I saw at Rumor, and Radio Birdamn, who are randomly back together and playing at this festival. Oh, and it's all for 10 euro. Huzzah!

FRT:
1. Iggy and the Stooges - Gimme Danger (Raw Power, 1973): Iggy is one guy you really can't talk shit about. Doubly so with the Stooges - everything they put out is fantastic, and this song is one of their best - brooding but powerful, raw but tuneful, and laced with Iggy's typical bile. The acoustic guitar rounds it off into a 9/10.
2. Bob Dylan - Shelter From The Storm (Blood on the Tracks, 1975): From one musical titan to another, though Dylan and Iggy have almost nothing in common. Regardless, Dylan speaks for himself. Blood on the Tracks is a bit underrated, and this song is one of the better ones there. As usual, not much more than an acoustic guitar line and brilliant lyrics, plus some basic harmonica, but that's worth an 8/10 easily.
3. Ramones - Time Bomb (Subterranean Jungle, 1983): And another incredibly important artist! This is late Ramones, though, and just doesn't stand up to their early stuff. Hardly bad, but still... 6/10.
4. Film - Zona Sumraka (Zona Sumraka, 1982): Yugoslav Novi Val at its best. Midtempo, buzzy guitars, a great bassline, great lyrics in Croatian, and surprisingly unsilly "ooh"s in the background - what more could one ask for? 8/10.
5. The Dismemberment Plan - Gyroscope (Emergency & I, 1999): The best song on the best album of the best post-punk band of the late '90s. Fun-charged yet hard-hitting, with interesting but unobtrusive effects, incredible guitar work and some of my favourite lyrics around. An easy 10/10, since it's one of my favourite songs.
6. Dead Kennedys - Viva Las Vegas (Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 1980): One of the most hilarious covers of all time, maybe best known for appearing in the credits of Fear and Loathing. Jello's Elvis impression is brilliant, and the beginning of the chorus, where he breaks into his signature warble, is a great moment. The DKs do rather good americana/rockabilly, shame they never did it unironically. 8/10.
7. Jawbox - Livid (Jawbox, 1996): The verses, with their haunting guitar and tumbling drums, are rather good, but the rest isn't quiet enough to mesh or powerful enough to really explode the song into greatness. J. Robbins sounds a little forced at that speed, too. Plus the backing vocals are weak. Jawbox is great, but this is only a 6/10.
8. Hot Snakes - Reflex (Audit In Progress, 2004): Hot Snakes are lots of fun, but there's not all that much to say about their songs: if you've heard the Hot Snakes, you know what "Reflex" sounds like - fast, jaggedy guitars, repetitive lyrics in John Reis's abrasive grimace, and pounding drums. The guitar line is great here, but not different enough to be unique. Still a solid 7/10.
9. Bad Religion - Walk Away (Against the Grain, 1990): Standard Bad religion. There's absolutely nothing interesting in this song as compared to anything else BR's done; the lyrics are worse than most, even. A very mediocre 4/10.
10. Bad Brains - Re-Ignition (I Against I, 1986): The sludgiest Bad Brains song out there, and a good one at that. For all the rhythmic repetition, the guitar parts are so fantastic that they carry carry the song extremely well. And even if they're repeated, the drum and bass lines are strong enough that you want to hear them again and again. The lyrics aren't half bad either. 8/10.

Overall: 7.3 average. Pretty strong, and overall a very good 10. The crappy BR song is the only low point.
That's it for now; tune in tomorrow morning (hopefully) for a blurb on Amusement Parks, and sunday night/monday for ZXZW stuff. Enjoy Your lives.
-S

In the interest of having a photo on my profile...

2006-09-14T03:47:00.000+02:00

In my full Ghanaian, to--much-facial-hair glory.

(Scroll down for Skapara review)

From Tokyo With Ska!

2006-09-14T01:30:00.000+02:00

Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Live in Utrecht (Tivoli de Helling) Sep 13, 2006

An “orchestra” of Japanese guys playing what sounds like a mix of traditional ska and spaghetti-Western soundtrack music? It doesn't get more incongruous, yet it comes out incredibly well. I've been enjoying Full-Tension Beaters for a while now, but that couldn't prepare me for the way their unique brand of orchestral-cinematic ska translates to a live show.

Unfortunately, it was in the most inconveniently located (and ugly)venue in town, certain people were late to arrive from Amsterdam, and there was no opener, so we missed the first song (gasp!), but our timing turned out pretty well, as we entered just as the ten-piece (!), dressed in white tuxedos, launched into the opening strains of “5 Days of Tequila”, one of their best and most recognizable songs, and from that point on I didn't stop dancing. After that song, the baritone saxophonist (one of three, including a ridiculous bass sax that looked like a brass bassoon) launched into surprisingly good Dutch and then asked the crowd for an “energy exchange” - “give us great power so we can give you great power”. And there was no lack of power from either end. The band put on an incredibly lively show, with musicians flying everywhere and wild tempos and soloing. Three band members in particular stood out: there was the saxophonist in the porkpie hat constantly making random announcements, and then the pianist with silly ecstatic facial expressions and absurd whistling solos. But the show-stealer was the long-haired, immaculately-bearded trombonist, who wielded his instrument like a weapon while wearing a white under-tux vest. He ended up playing with the trombone pointed straight up several times, and got into an amusing duel with the trumpeter when the latter accidentally hit the trombonist. The victim bided his time until his trumpeting foe had a solo, then knocked him aside and took the solo for himself. Good stuff. The crowd did its part too: energy level were intense, with lots of shout-alongs and arm-waving, and even an impromptu circular conga line which I got drawn into. As for myself, this was my first show completely sober for quite a while, and I really enjoyed it. I haven't gotten that into a show in a long time, and had huge amounts of fun, even if I ended up starving, melting, and exhausted.

Musically, there were a ton of highlights. Most of Full Tension Beaters got played, but the real fun of Skapara is the “what'll they play next?” factor. There were odd interludes like the pianist's 8-bit Nintendo-esque solo, and then there were the covers. They ranged from the intro of “California Uber Alles” to a segue from “Frere Jacques” to a merry-go-round theme to a cavalry charge bugle call, all as a duet between trumpet and trombone. Other great covers included “Guns of Navarone” and the “let's go” clap-anthem familiar to anyone who's ever been to a baseball game, but the single best moment was when the trumpeter pulled out a neon-lit melodica and played “Old MacDonald” with the whole audience shouting along. Plus, at the end, after the saxophonist closed the set by jumping from the drum set, the single-song encore was none other than the Tetris theme. A ridiculous end to a ridiculous show. It was great but not mindblowing, and so deserving of an 8/10.

Online at last.

2006-09-13T15:25:00.000+02:00

My internet connection is finally working, so expect an increased flow of random crap from me. New of the day is that I've got three shows in the next three days: Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra tonight, King Louie One Man Band tomorrow (for free - always a plus!), and the Slackers for the third time on friday, in Amsterdam, which promises to be great as always. Also, I'm starting to upload Ghana pictures; expect a link when they're all up. That's it for the moment.

Oh, and the new World/Inferno Friendship Society album is the best new album I've heard this year, with only Mission of Burma anywhere near. "Let's Steal Everything" alone makes album of the year, even if I've acquired a bad habit of randomly singing it, and "Only Anarchists Are Pretty" couldn't be more true.

Rumor 46

2006-09-01T21:43:00.000+02:00

Well, here I am in Utrecht two weeks later, without an internet connection in my room, so I haven't gotten around to posting lately. The first couple weeks have been fairly eventful, classes are pretty good, and so on, but that's a story for another time. Right now, the topic returns to shows. I've actually seen two since my return, having seen MDC at dBs last Sunday, but I'll be discussing the show(s) last night here.

Last night was the 46^th iteration of Rumor, a “festival for adventurous music” which happens at random intervals. I was at Rumor 44, which was excellent, particularly the headlining-ish band, Deerhoof, and 45 happened while I was in Ghana, so it's safe to say Rumor is a quite frequent fest. This time, it consisted of four shows spread over three venues, all for 10 euro with a student card. Not a bad deal, especially with interesting international shows. This was a particularly exciting occasion because it was my first time going to a show with Tim, the Indian-Singaporean exchange student with music taste remarkably similar to mine who's quickly becoming my new show buddy. Anyway, the proceedings commenced at Rasa, the great multicultural performance space in the centre of town.

The first act was, like last time, a modern classical piece. This was a lengthy violin piece by Sciarrino called “6 Capricci”, performed by Barbara Luneburg. It was just like I normally think of modern classical shows – interesting in composition, impressive in technique, and hard to appreciate beyond that. The piece was very obviously a product of quite a lot of musical talent, but to my untrained ear it sounded incohesive and a bit repetitive due to it only being in one key. I'm no expert on modern classical, though, so I can't judge it well. It was a fine start to the evening nonetheless.

The next show, still at Rasa, was rather more compelling to me. Push the Triangle, a French three-piece, opened up with weird, ominous prerecorded noise before setting in with winding minor-key jazzy foreboding on a high-pitched, serpentine sax and highly distorted guitar. This erupted suddenly into thundering, almost funky free jazz crescendo, propelled by fantastic drumming by Michel Blanc. He held everything together remarkably well, between providing a rhythmic base for the experimental looping interludes and hammering away in the intense moments. The overall dynamic was quite impressive, as the instruments all worked in very different ways, often even in differing time-signatures, yet managed to be very consistently cohesive and rhythmic. The many effects included, most often mid-note guitar volume shifts and odd turntable artistry, didn't seem forced or artificial either, so the overall impression I got was very favourable. An enjoyable show by all means.

The big attraction of the night was up next, at the fantastic volunteer-run venue Ekko: Sunburned Hand of the Man. Their crazy bandname has nothing on their crazy music and performance art. They started with most of the band sitting or lying down, obscured by darkness, with odd psychedelic sounds emerging from the few visible instruments. It was a trippy experience from the start - “how many of them are there? What are they all playing?” was augmented by the fact that a completely ridiculous film, “The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda”, which they described as the only psychedelic film ever made, was playing on a projector in the background, and the music was timed to go with it. The music itself was equally wild: brooding psychedelic-folk-noise-funk insanity, with 7 members on stage switching instruments seemingly at random. I observed at least the following, and probably more: bass, guitar, drums, synths, sax, handclaps, maracas, a tarbuqa, a small terracotta drum, several bells, shakers, prerecorded sounds, reverb-laden spoken vocals, and something that resembled a tin kazoo. Needless to say, the music was bizarre and approaching mind-blowing, with segments of sludy noise accelerating into near-funk at times, and breaking down into total chaos at others. It's hard to describe such a unique sound in words; the best comparison I can make is the Pop Group minus any traces of punk influence or song structure, with additional layers of noisy psychedelic insanity overlaid onto it. This was only accentuated by the way the band switched places, donned white opera masks, sat down at random points, waved huge reflector plates, and at the end picked up the snare drum and waved it around while playing a marching rhythm. This was an experience. This was incredible. This was unique. This probably would have been even better had I been stoned.

After that, nothing could have held up the standard of craziness, but the next act did well anyway. We arrived at SJU, the more avant-garde jazz venue in town, to see a guy with a guitar and a big board full of electronic devices setting up. This was Machinefabriek. He created a dreamy, laid-back wall of sound from several pulsing sounds emanating from the electronics he had in front of him, which looked more like a prop from an awful old sci-fi film than a synth or computer. He wasn't too active – he spent all his time adjusting dials and poking his guitar with a stick to get it to make odd sounds - but he produced a wonderfully ebbing and flowing sound collage that resembled something like Mogwai or My Bloody Valentine with all the standard instrumentation stripped out. It made me a little sleepy, but was quite enjoyable. A good cap to a great night, which ended up with a party at Wall 1 for a friend's birthday, so it was an even better night than I expected. I'm certainly looking forward to the next Rumor.

The Return of the Friday Random Ten

2006-09-01T21:30:00.000+02:00

Courtesy of iTunes again. Let's get straight to business.

The Clash – Spanish Bombs (London Calling, 1979) – A true classic, despite Joe's horrendous Spanish. That guitar part is great, even if it's not all that amazing technically. 9/10.
Hüsker Dü – Don't Know Yet (Flip Your Wig, 1985) – Scintillating, spacey instrumentals from Minneapolis' finest. Good drums, interesting guitar, but nothing really compelling. A dull 5/10.
The Skatalites – Split Personality (Hi-Bop Ska, 1997) – Relatively recent Skatalites, with the usual jazzy feel, rock-solid rhythm section, and a great sax hook, plus very good production on this recent release. A rare song with full lyrical content, but the lyrics are sort of repetitive and irrelevant, though the singer's voice is nice enough. The horns carry this to a 7/10.
X – White Girl (Wild Gift, 1981) - One of the best hooks X ever wrote. Billy Zoom is truly exceptional, and Exene and John's questionable vocal harmony plays its part well. DJ Bonebrake speaks for himself. Not X's best, but an easy 8/10.
Stiff Little Fingers – Hits and Misses (Go For It, 1981) – The title covers SLF's output pretty well, and this is on the weaker side. Fairly inoffensive poppy stuff, though the rhythm on the chorus is quite strong. The sliding guitar midway doesn't pan out well, and this is only a 6/10.
Meat Puppets – Hot Pink (Up On The Sun, 1985) – Spacey alt-country escaping its punk origins here, but still an enjoyable listen, with great guitar and bass interplays. The ranting about hot pink stuff is goofy but endearing, earning it a 7/10.
Melt-Banana – Shield Your Eyes, A Beast in the Well of Your Hand (Cell-Scape, 2003) – Oh god, that song title... that's an automatic point off, I think. That guitar part, though... it's incredible, and the bass and drums are no slouch either. But it's Melt-Banana, so the damned vocals kick in soon enough. There's endearingly ridiculous, and then there's fucking Melt-Banana – perhaps the worst vocals around, and totally unintelligible too. In my eternal Melt-Banana debate, the amazing instrumentals beat out the awful titles and vocals, but just barely. A compromise at 7/10.
Mission of Burma – Peking Spring (Peking Spring, recorded 1979) – Burma at their best. Intricate guitar, incredible bass, thunderous drums, and clever lyrics. The mix isn't great, but that's the only fault here – this could be a perfect track if recorded well, even with the oooh-ee-ooohs. The bass is the real story here, but the transition into the slower end of the song is one of my favourite Burma moments. This would be a 10/10 with better production, but it's only a 9/10.
Pavement – Brinx Job (Wowee Zowee, 1995) - Sometimes Pavement songs are great, sometimes they're inane guitar noodling and random wails without much to recommend them. This is in the latter camp, and deserves no better than a 4/10.
Iggy Pop – The Passenger (Lust For Life, 1977) - Somehow, the Pop stopped being sarcastic here, but I can't fault Iggy for it. The la-la-las are funny, but the song coheres rater well, the guitar part is really catchy and Iggy's voice is at its best here. Needs a better bassline, though. Still gets an 8/10.

Overall: An even 7 average, which isn't too ridiculous. I managed to avoid over-high scores, but didn't get any awful songs either. Pretty representative, too.

On Returning

2006-08-16T00:04:00.000+02:00

Yeah, haven't written in a while, oh well. Zagreb makes me lazy, and that just compounds the fjaka attitude I got in Hvar. Anyway, I'm putting the Ghana reflection on hold for an IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! (OK, maybe not that important...)

Despite all my talk, I'm going to end up back at UC this coming semester (read: next week). There are a few reasons: mainly, I the logistics for volunteering weren't working in the short time I had, and I didn't want to go leaping blindly into a several-month abyss considering I've just spent a while in Africa, which was quite a bit of experiential overload in and of itself. And with that experience, I think I'm prepared to go back in a different mood and state, and maybe have a better time of things. Plus, spending some time back in "civilization" will be useful for comparison and for several other things I want to accomplish (like maybe taking Portugese in preparation for my putative trip to Brazil at some indefinite time in the future). Summary: I'm coming back to UC, and not too unhappy about it. I'm scheduled to arrive on sunday (wow, that's really soon...) so as to be able to do some stuff before the semester begins. That's all.

Madness and Hurrying

2006-07-30T17:22:00.000+02:00

The last bit of time in Accra was one big sea of crazy situations, nervousness, rushing, and randomness. It's easy enough to ascribe this to the necessity of writing our moderate-sized paper and preparing our rather short performance, but there's more to it than that. There's the fact that we'd not prepared for the paper nearly at all, the fact that it was our last week in the country and thus our last chance to see and buy stuff, and of course the actual events. For one, the day we got back to Accra was the day that our chief drum teacher and all-around awesome guy, Francis, had a massive party for the outdooring of his new son and his 30th birthday, which was a rather raucous affair with lots of live music (Hewale yet again), crazy quantities of people and alcohol, and of course dancing. It lasted all day, and by the end it had gotten rather awkward for us, what with the entirety of the staff being drunk since it wasn't program time, most of the guests having been shooed out, and it being just us and Francis's close friends sitting around eating while our AD and such were rather incoherent, so we got out of there eventually. It was... intense. Then there were certain... group issues... which tied up most of monday - nothing I'm discussing here, but a bit of an issue. That basically left tuesday and wednesday to research and write a 10-page paper, while at the same time playing drums four hours or so a day in prep for my performance - at this point I picked up my (amazing) djembe, and inadvertantly ordered a kpanlogo drum, which I'm very happy with. Needless to say, those were a few days of nervous agony, with me finally finishing on wednesday night at 9:00, but the printer in the internet cafe didn't work and their Word didn't spellcheck for some reason, so I only had the final version 20 minutes before it was due, which was still better than some. That was quite the relief.

That left the rest of the day to complete my performance prep, which was actually fun due, as one would hope. The next morning, we all performed, all very well. I did a djembe piece called fumefume; the other performances were:
-Atsiagbekor dance and drumming
-Kpanlogo dance
-A xylophone piece
-A calabash drum piece
-A dance whose name I still can't remember (sorry Mysteena!)
-Palmwine-guitar-arranged jazz standards
-Ghanaian dance move choregraphed to a piece Kristen brought with her, followed by miscellaneous spontaneous dancing
-The song Jordan recorded in a studio in Kumasi (he stood there and hit play)
All were very good. The rest of the day was mostly market-going; the next day was a mad market splurge followed by the leadup to our homestay party, a great affair even though my host mother couldn't make it (she was going to London!) complete with yet another Hewale show, this time with all-stars from all manner of other people we met over the program. And then it was over. I found myself at the airport saying goodbye sadly but speedily (they'd called boarding and I was outside security), and then on a German airplane, and that was it. Despite the free Warsteiner, I couldn't quite register it was all done. I guess it's still a weird feeling a week later.

Next up, reflection. Till then.

Holidays in the Sun

2006-07-28T11:19:00.000+02:00

Well, I failed to update at the end of the program for very palpable reasons: I had a paper to write, a performance to prepare, and a lot of affairs to finish up with, not to mention the craziness of the goings-on in that last week. Suffice to say, I couldn't manage a proper entry and didn't want to waste time putting up some lackluster crap. Thus I waited. Now I'm on my sunny, sedate island with nothing pressing to do other than go to the beach, chill out and think, so I have a decent amoun t of time to write. I don't have an internet connection at home, though, so it'll still be a bit sporadic; such is life. Expect some final descriptive entries followed by reflection, and eventually I might get around to putting up some pictures.

So Kumasi... I think it was my favourite place we stayed over the course of the program. It's a sizable city, but not as big, sprawling, overwhelming and smelly as Accra, but we were more spread over the city and less provided for, thus we got more acquainted with the city. It's lovely - rolling hills, not too many ugly modern buildings, lots to do - including West Africa's largest market, which is the most intensive sensory overload I've ever experienced. My homestay was great too - a big extended family all in one house, with the father being a junior secondary maths teacher and three kids (8, 11, 13) always hanging around me. Plus it was adjacent to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, so the surroundings were interesting enough. I had a great time, even if I never got much peace.

The actual program in Kumasi was a bit of a mixed bag. For one thing, we saw a few great performances, most notably a show of the choral Nnwomkoro style. We also met Koo Nimo, a titan of palmwine guitar, great music scholar, and all-around cool guy. He organised an amazing show for us, gave us lots of literature and information, and was generally nice to be around. But our actual classes... well, they weren't quite as amazing. The rhythms seemed easy and static compared to the previous ones (order effects...) and the instructors were clearly good musicians but inexperienced teachers - classes simply weren't organised in such a way as to let us all learn all the parts well. They were still enjoyable, but the knowledge that they copuld have been considerably better was frustrating. Overall, though, I liked my time in Kumasi a lot.

More soon; next is summary of the last week, then lots of reflection and miscellany. Enjoy your life. S.

What A Day That Was

2006-07-14T17:39:00.000+02:00

Well, looks like my plan of updating more from Kumasi was a bust, between problems with Blogger and just general business, as Kumasi is a crazy crazy place. I'll probably summarise Kumasi in my next post (from Accra, as we leave Kumasi tomorrow after what feels like a really short time), but now I want to relate the madness that was yesterday.

The background: We had a free day, and a few excursions were suggested. Along with 6 others, I decided to go to lake Bosumtwe for what was intended as a chill day. It ended up being a bit... wilder than expected. It began with us taking an hour to get on a tro-tro out of Kumasi, as Jordan's host brother Kwame takes the longest possible route anywhere. The hour-long ride out to a town near the lake was simple enough, but when we got there... well, Jordan and Kate got put in a shared cab with some locals, while the other six of us took one more cab (four in back, two and a guitar in front). As soon as we got going, we were stopped by a guy asking for us to buy "tickets" - even as lots of cars went by without worry. We argued with them for quite a while, but made no headway other than learning that it's supposedly a toll for the maintainence of the lake, and our driver was in cahoots with them, so we had no choice but to pay the fifty cents. We then proceeded to drive at 80 kph down a breathtakingly gorgeous cliff, with no seatbelts or anything, which was intense, to say the least.

We got to Abono fine, and got sat down by a local bigman who talked it up as a tourist site and really just wanted a "contribution" from us, as the district apparently puts very little into that community. We decided to skip town rather than get involved in local politics, which worked well enough, and then we realised that the lake is huge and undeveloped. We went in search of a calm spot, and ended up being unable to progress at one point on land, so we got our feet wet and waded through half-meter-deep, refreshingly cool fresh water for maybe 40 minutes (at this point, I took off my pants and was very happy for it). We emerged at a tiny village with nothing more than a dozen or so houses and a central clearing, which was nice, but by then we began to get hungry. They told us that, at the next village, there was an old white man (?!) who sold food and drinks, so we pressed on.

At the next village, they told us the guy was further down the road, so kept going, and promptly ran across a very pretty, very secluded, very chill guesthouse called Rainbow Garden Village, appropriately staffed by mainly Rastas, with a big portrait of Marley over the bar. We stopped there, played Scrabble with a German set (James and I won on the back of "jive" on triple word score among others), had some beers and lunch, to an utterly absurd set of background music (Sinatra into Boyz 2 Men into hiplife into samba, for instance), and went swimming at their great beachfront, which was incredibly relaxing, particularly as we had our own guitar and they had one we borrowed so James and Jordan jammed a bit over the PA and got beers in exchange. We then realised we should get back, so we inquired about the tro-tro tey claimed to have.

It was really expensive at first, so we bargained them down by half, which seemed good, until we boarded the tro-tro. This wasn't a passenger tro-tro - it was a supply van, with no windows and plastic chairs in the back. Lawn chairs with the "except God" symbol, at that. We went for it, of course. It was the most absurd ride ever - six of us bouncing back and forth in plastic chairs, looking out the barred windows in the back and hanging on for our dear life. Several times we almost fell all over each other... and then my char broke. A leg just fell off, and I almost died - not from falling, but from laughter. Here I am in a windowless tro-tro, at a lake, not wearing my pants (I did have a bathing suit, of course), on a plastic chair that just broke. Completely absurd. I sat on the wheel well the rest of the way, and made sure to grab the chair leg as we left.

We proceeded to wait half an hour for a taxi, for no discernable reason (though it gave me a chance to put on my pants), and when a cab arrived we all took it. 8 people - three in front (Kate on Jordan and Elena's laps), four in back (Kristen lying across Lea, Kwame and me), and James in the trunk with the luggage (it was at least a hatchback). That almost topped the previous ride in absurdity, especially since we were speeding up a switchback trail on a cliff. When we got out, we boarded a tro-tro back to Kumasi that looked like it had been a hearse: it had a gloomy blue light and that pseudo-wooden piping on the top. It also had a TV, which didn't work. The ride was actually easy, and we finally got back to Kumasi around 8, with dazed looks on our faces after such a day. I'm not really sure what my host family thought when I walked in late carrying a chair leg, bit to me it signified the end of one of the most memorable days ever. Ever.

Catching Up

2006-07-07T18:21:00.000+02:00

Well, I obviously didn't get net access in the last week in Klikor, so its been a while... Im in Kumasi now (homestay #2, at that), so I'll update more. More on Kumasi next entry; i'll finish up on the events of Klikor here.

The second week in our Volta hideaway turned out much, much better than the first, I'd say. There are a lot of good reasons for that - the simple fact that we adjusted to the schedule, the fact that we moved past boring supporting rhythms and did the actual lead part, and many others. We got to see a series of performances of all sorts - most associated with shrines, actually - that were absolutely fascinating and quite enlightening even though they were out of context at times (a fact that's bothering me in general due to the cultural emphasis of the program). Perhaps the most fun aspect of any of the performances is participation - we constantly get pulled up to drum or dance, regardless of our talent (and when it comes to dance, I have none) and everyone has a great time. It's a great atmospheric thing.

Speaking of playing, I feel like my drumming is really progressing. And not just the local rhythms - I think my overall technique and feel for tempo is improving with the amount of practice Im getting. I've got a good grasp of the various rhythms we've done, and hopefully I can make use of their principles in my drumming, both African and otherwise. Gahu has a particularly cool lead part, which should be handy. The guitar thing is going OK too - I haven't practiced enough to be terribly good yet, but Im getting a decent grasp of how it works, and i know a few chords now, plus I can play a few things (most amusicly, the bassline to Psycho Killer and most of Blister In The Sun). Hopefully Ill have a few songs down when I return.

There are two specific incidents from the last weekend at Klikor that bear mentioning, simply because theyre really interesting (great reason, I know). The more intruiging was right next door: the building next to us was a shrine in which an old woman was a medium for a spirit (which apparently came from India?) which she used to read people's stars (that is, a fortune teller). I was kind of skeptical at first, of course, but after a couple people did it I found it didnt sound like the typical hocus-pocus, so I decided to give it a shot. It was an Experience. I won't talk details, but the process by which she did it was highly fascinating and the results were even more so. Some were quite correct, some seemed right but not at the right time, and some were bizarre and mystical, like the commandment not to go to India in search of powers, because if I do someone will give me bad spirits. Curious, and highly worthwhile.

The other noteworthy occasion was more of an outing. Several of us decided that sunday to go to the beach, but to try somewhere unusual. We ended up at Keta Lagoon, the largest in the country, and the strange town of Keta. The lagoon was amazing. it was huge, and looked even more expansive and infinite thanks to the overcast day. There were points when we were on a narrow strip of land between the sea and the lagoon, and it honestly felt like the ends of the earth, in a breathtaking way. That only heightened when we reached town - the waterfront is mainly composed of early-20th century British colonial houses that have crumbled into decay, between abandonment and wavefronts. There was also a Danish slave castle in even worse repair; the entirety of the place felt like a study in entropy. The fact that the Tourist Entertainment Centre consisted of four empty huts on the beach was a nice touch. The beach itself was weird but great- the wave broke near shore, but hit a sandbar so became more like rushes of water except for the crushing breakpoints, and the current was huge, so huge the undertow formed what looked like backward waves in a perpendiculare direction to the shore. That made for a good time, to add to the rest of the strange but low-key day. Luckily, we ended up not going to the town of Woe while we were there.

So all in all, Klikor turned out well. Hopefully now that Im in Kumasi I'll have more time to write, so I can get more analytical. Till next we meet, S.

Wilderness

2006-06-25T18:35:00.000+02:00

Well, as the last week has shown, the Volta region is pretty spotty when it comes to internet access. Today we finally managed to get online from an internet cafe at an incredibly beautiful beach basically at the Togolese border, but we've obviously been out of access for a while. That's because, despite the "urban" in our program's name, we've been in the tiny town of Klikor, in what amounts to our private compound. The purpose of that is pretty clear - we've basically been spending day and night learning music intensively. Every day has been including four solid hours of drumming (or dancing, but given the choice I'm always going to choose to drum), on two Ewe rhythms called Gahu and Atsiagbekor. They're both played on a wide ensemble of drums, most of which are played with sticks, and both include several simultaneous supporting parts. It's very intensive, and very rewarding - I can feel my technique improving enormously, and I now now 6 supporting parts and how they all fit together, not to mention the bell and rattle parts which form the base of the rhythm. Tomorrow we start learning lead parts, which excites me rather a lot. The lead drum is both beautiful and interesting - it's very long, and tapers from a very wide middle to a crazily small head. The beats are played half on the head and half on the side. Should be great. I'm also getting Jordan to teach me some guitar basics in our considerable amount of downtime (in exchange for some drum technique pointers), which opens up a whole new dimension.

The other aspect of our relative isolation is lots of bonding time. And by "lots of bonding time", I mean ridiculous amounts of time with nothing to do but sit around, talk, and play music. So the thirteen of us are getting to know each other rather well, I'd say. I'm not spilling any gory details here, but it's been interesting, to say the least. We have a great group; I'm planning to write a whole entry about this crowd sooner or later. Safe to say, this is one of the best unaffiliated sets of 13 people one could put in this small of a proximity for this period. I'm enjoying it greatly.

I've also gotten a good deal of reading done; I just read a local book by the name of The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, which is absolutely amazing - seriously one of the top two or three African books I've ever read. The blurb on it compared it to Sartre, and I wouldn't say it's wrong. Highly recommended. Also, I've somehow managed to read a sizable chunk of the Hardt and Negri tome Empire, which is incredibly frustrating yet rather rewarding. Not for the faint of heart, but if Neo-Marxist global vision interests you and you have serious time to kill, check it out.

Gotta go; will write again when possible.

Do You Remember the Days of Slavery?

2006-06-19T11:58:00.000+02:00

We've just returned from our weekend at Cape Coast, and it was quite the amazing time. We had a wide variety of adventures, but the clear standouts were the visits to the slave castles at Cape Coast and Elmina. It was incredibly effecting - seeing the pens in which hundreds of people were held at a time with no light, food, air or water was intense enough, but then seeing the church which was directly above it and the bargaining table at which local chiefs exchanged their own people for guns with which to kill others was an incredibly poignant lesson as to what brutality lies in our past, and indeed what our economy was built on. It was truly intense, and extremely worthwhile.

On the lighter side of things, Cape Coast is absolutely gorgeous. It's all gentle hills dipping toward a beautiful sandy coast, with an intriguing mix of colonial buildings and current shanties. We swam a couple times, which served to remind me of how happy the sea can make me, and was a nice break from the intense cultural/historical experience we've been having. Along the same lines, we visited the national park at Kakum forest, and went on the canopy walk. It wasn't all that different from the one I was on in Peru (the engineering was identical), but it was still incredibly gorgeous and very relaxing.

We also had the luck to be on the street in Cape Coast when Ghana won their first World Cup match ever, and indeed Africa's first match this World Cup, against the Czech Republic. The madness was incredible - people were dancing their hearts out, Taxis covered in people escorted enormous crowds down to the beaches, flags flew everywhere... it was a great time to be had by all, even us foreigners who don't really care all that much about football. Unlike the riotous events of the sort in Croatia, I felt both safe and uplifted there. A great addition to an overall wonderful weekend.

I know all this would be greatly augmented by pictures, but I'm still on a really slow connection so I can't do that. If and when I get to a better internet spot, I'll load some up.

And speaking of different spots, today's our last day in Accra for now. It seems like our time here has been really short, but yet really long. I'm fine with moving on, even though I'd love to see more here - the Volta region awaits.

Snippets

2006-06-16T17:43:00.000+02:00

-I'm getting a djembe made, to my specifications, by a guy I was introduced to by Kendra (who's been here a month already, so knows a thing or two). I'm getting a good deal, and it looks to be a great piece of work judging by what I've seen of his wares. I'm also getting the chance to help him out with it a bit. Colour me excited.

-We're going to Cape Coast for the weekend, for what's going to probably be the most touristy thing we do. Should be amazing, though, especially as it's our first time out of Accra.

-I'm probably not going to post pictures here any time soon, since the connection is ungodly slow. Sorry.

More at a later date.

Sound, but no fury

2006-06-15T11:40:00.000+02:00

We've been getting rather intensely into the music here, as you might expect from the subject of this program. Both the theoretical and practical parts are pretty major - we've had several great lectures on various aspects of Ghanain music, from the influence of the African diaspora to the significance of the church. This is all new to me - I haven't really taken any proper music courses of this sort before, so I'm learning the approach at the same time as the content. I feel like it's going well, though - everything makes a lot of sense, with the exception of a visual representation system I argued with the teacher about for a while today. But all in all, I'm learning a huge amount - far more than I can put into writing right now. In fact, I feel like I've learned more in the last week than in some of my courses at UCU last semester (gee, I wonder which?)

Perhaps more exciting has been the practical aspect. We've had a good deal of instruction by now, including both group and private classes. I've learned atenteben bamboo flute, kpanlogo, gome and djembe hand drums, as well as cowbell,and xylophone.Of course, the drums are my focus - right now, I'm focusing on kpanlogo and fumefume rhythms, but it'll be changing a bit as we move from place to place. My callouses are developing quite nicely. That and I'm going to learn how to make some of the drums if possible.

We've also been to a couple performances recently. Saturday was particularly crazy in this respect - we went to three neighbourhoods, each of which had a short performance for us. First was Nima, a mainly Muslim community, who gave us a Northern dance with marked similarities to Saharan and Senegalese styles when compared to most of what we've been hearing. Then was the Centre for National Culture, which contains a huge and wild cultural market; we saw a performance from a drummaker and puppeteer by the name of Ras Kobe, which was rather entertaining. Lastly, we went to an area called Russia for reasons unkown to me to see a ritual dance at a shrine of Tigari, a folk religion with an emphasis on anti-witchcraft ceremonies. This was probably the most elaborate of the performances till then, and was clearly spiritual in nature.

That night we ended up going to a big Ga funeral, marking the 6-year anniversary of a chief's son's funeral. It was a big spectacle, with a sound system, at least four dance groups, and us even being called up to perform to the audience\'s delight. That was probably the most exciting night so far. The next day we actually went to another funeral, which was rather different. It was in a poor neighbourhood, and put on by an Anlo-Ewe funereal society. It was thus far more ritualistic and somber, but still fascinating. We had a couple of performance-free days, but last night went to the Alliance Francaise (how colonial!) for a really great highlife show, which was a good time.

There will be lots more to say soon, I'm sure. Till Later, S.

Surrealism and Me

2006-06-13T18:21:00.000+02:00

This is gonna be a short and focussed update since I've been drumming for 5 hours today and it feels like someome dropped a house on my hands. I just want to relate the tale of this friday night, which was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.

It all started with Francois, my drum teacher, drummer in Hewale sounds, and all around good guy. He tells us "Hewale has a performance tonight, why not come?", and tells us the venue - a hotel, which we didn't find remarkable at the time - without much more info. We say it sounds good. So, at 6:30, off we go to La Palm Royal hotel, which turns out to be on the beach. What's more, when we get there the size of the gate alone tells me it's a fancy hotel. And how. When we get inside, we find that it's the sort of place that could be anywhere except for things like the patterns on the curtains, withe prices like it's America or Holland. I feel like something's odd here, but we're there for Hewale so we push forward. Oh, and it's important to note that it's hurricane-esque weather outside.

So after going through a rather long corridor to the conference hall (it was a damned big hotel!) we get there and realize that this isn't really a Hewale Sounds concert. No sir, it's a fashion show, and a rather highbrow one too. The tickets, we're told, are 250000 cedis (25ish euro) - a hell of a lot here. We decide it's not for us, and start to walk away... and this busybody type guy comes up and asks us where we're going, offering to get us in. I feel like something's even weirder now, and like we'd be intruding, but I'm in the minority so we end up getting in for free(!) after promising to give him some contact info. So we're escorted into a fancy conference hall, which is mostly empty at that point. Our friends in Hewale are secluded in a corner, not really on a stage - I guess they were sort of a side attraction - so we move from the seats we were put in to that corner. By this point the situation seems kind of comical - we're a bunch of scruffy western college kids sitting in a classy hotel getting free drinks and watching neotraditional African music before a big fashion show. I feel more out of place there than in any unfamiliar Ghanain situation - I know this kind of place all too well, and avoid them mostly. I probably wouldn't have been let in if this were somewhere else - I'm wearing a T-shirt from the band who recorded "Let's Steal Everything", for god's sake!

So we're sitting there, acknowledging the absurdity of the situation but enjying the free drinks and the fantastic music. The music is a bit off though - it's a good lesson about the importance of context, really, what with the acoustics dulling the interplay of the xylophones with the guitar, the microphones making the atenteben sound really artificial, and most of all the lack of dancing and audience excitement. It's weird, but still great. Then the lights go out. That's right, the big fancy hotel had its power knocked out in the storm. You'd think they have a generator, but there's just a few emergency lights on. Hewale continue playing like nothing's changed. I actually feel more comfortable in the dark - that way I can forget where I am and focus on the music. Soon enough Hewale slow down a bit (probably getting bored with the stale atmosphere) so we decide to head out (skipping the fashion show). Somehow our busybody benefactor notices us going, and gets us to write down names and email addresses (claiming he wants to watch the world cup with us or some such). I slip out with James when he's not looking (without giving my info) and wait out front so James can smoke a cig, getting wet in the insane wind and rain.

The lobby is a weird scene - people running in soaking wet, others not sure where to go since the lights are out, but the reception absolutely normal, people arriving for the show, and the pianist at the restaurant and the restaurant itself going on like nothing's happening. We wait a bit, and then Jordan comes out and finds us, saying Rachel and Mysteena are hungry so we're going to sit at the restaurant a bit. We go and sit a bit, with those two apparently having ordered bread; it's really feeling like some bad movie concept at this point. We order drnks, and wonder where the bread is, so we ask. We're told "We don't serve bread here, try the other restaurant", so we're a bit perplexed - Rachel goes to find some. We start on a very odd conversation - topics include the physics of the atenteben and why James is blind enough that he probably shouldn't be allowed to drive - and Rachel comes back with some bread she was able to scrounge up. A few minutes later, after we've been in this crazy conversation long enough not to be weirded out by our surroundings, the lights suddenly come back on. Turns out we're sitting in the middle of a fancy Asian restaurant - sushi buffet and all - with just a bunch of drinks and a plate of bread, looking incredibly lost. We want to get out of there ASAP, so we drink up, and the waitress gets mad at us for being in the restaurant and not ordering food. We eventually get out and have to brave the storm to try to return home. We first try to get a taxi, but we need two and none are stopping so we decide to relocate. We cross the road, which is more of a lake by now, and almost get hit by an empty tro-tro (minibus) which we then hire to take us home. After another crazy conversation, I realize we're at my junction and hop out just in time to narrowly avoid getting run down by a police car. I make my way up to my house, and manage to get by the guard dogs, and finally can relax. It feels like it's been an eternity, but it turns out the whole thing finished before 10:30 - before I'd even be going out in Utrecht.

That was a night to remember.

I'll post a more substantive update tomorrow; I just wanted to record the madness of Friday night. Saturday was quite wild too, but that's a story for another day.

Too Much Too Young

2006-06-09T17:47:00.000+02:00

So the last couple of days have been a huge flurry of activity. Homestay, lectures, performances, lessons... It's hard to say where to begin.

I guess the most immediate thing to discuss is the homestay. My family is wonderful. Three generations actually live in my house, which is more like a complex than a simple house. The main hous has two wings: the grandparents (and heads of household) live in one with their cook/maid (who as far as I can tell isn't related to them), and the other houses guests - they apparently put up a lot of people, though there's only an Ethiopian guy other than me right now. One of their daughters lives in the other house (the entirety is maybe sic times the size of my house in South Africa) with her family, who I haven't actually spent all that much time with yet - I've mainly been getting acquainted withthe grandparents so far. They're very interesting - both used to teach at the university, him economics and her fine arts. They've traveled a good deal, and always have something interesting to say. Generally, I'm really pleased with my family and look forward to getting better acquainted with them.

The ethnomusicology aspect is also absolutely incredible, both theoretically and practically. We've had several great lectures, mainly from Dr. John Collins, one of the foremost scholars in the field of African popular music, as well as several other topics such as Ghanaian history and so forth. I've been learning a lot - I feel like these last few days have been as informative as several weeks at UCU. That also has something to do with the experiential part of our music component - we had our first proper lesson, in the atenteben bamboo flute, today, which was an interesting experience considering the last time I tried to play a wind instrument was the recorder in 5th grade. This isn't actually that dissimilar - it's like a more resonant, organic recorder with far more style. It's not really something I see myself playing much, but it's fun and we got our own from Gavin with no extra cost. I'm probably starting private lessons in a day or two - I'm learning a type of peg drum whose name I constantly forget and the Gome, which is a frame drum that doubles as a seat. I'm also hopefully going to learn at least some of the process of drum-making. I can't wait.

The performances have also been fantastic - we've seen two scheduled ones, a neotraditional group called Hewale Sounds (who we may be seeing again soon) and the Ghana Dance Troupe. There have been a few spontaneous drum sessions which have been amazing. I'm running out of credit at this internet cafe, so I'm not going to add details now, but I'm having a great time and it only looks to be getting better and better. 'Till next I write.

You May Find Yourself In Another Part Of The World

2006-06-06T17:41:00.000+02:00

One full day later, here I am blogging from Ghana. This isn't like South Africa - no ultramodern city to ease one into the experience of being Elsewhere. No, this is Africa proper. In a way, it's less shocking - there isn't the experience of driving out of the airport and seeing the city, looking like it could easily be western Europe, on one side, and the townships, in all their raucous poverty, on the other. This is fill-immersion - rather than a nice Westernised hotel, we're staying at the Ghanain Registered Nurses' Association hostel. We've done a day of orientation at the University of Ghana, and tomorrow we venture out into the realities of Ghana - in fact, we're already starting homestay. The excitement is incredible, yet I'm pretty clam - I guess I have an idea of what to expect, plus in a way I welcome the promise of the Unknown. This will be an experience.

Into the Unknown

2006-06-04T23:38:00.000+02:00

Excitement builds. Almost gone.
Tension subsides. Preparations done.
Time shortens. Not long now.
Mind fills. Things to remember.
Dreams build. What comes next?

Ghana tomorrow.

Live Show Review: Buzzcocks

2006-06-03T14:35:00.000+02:00

June 2, 2006, Live at Močvara, Zagreb.
I had the luck to be in Zagreb at exactly the right time to see the Buzzcocks, with no real margin of error - two days later and I would have been in Ghana. Needless to say, the prospect of seeing one of the few remaining '77-vintage bands was pretty exciting, and the fact that I was going with my father made it all the more amusing. That's actually a good example of the character of the crowd: it looked to be mainly split between older people, who had listened to the Buzzcocks in their heyday, and younger folks who think of them as "classic". This led to perhaps a slightly less animated crowd than Močvara usually draws, but everyone was very engaged by the show regardless of their energy.

Unusually, there wasn't an opener, so the show started rather late - the doors only opened at 10:30, and the show an hour later. Despite the excellent pre-show Djing, which was mostly '77-'8o punk, the crowd was visibly impatient by the time the band took the stage, cheering wildly in anticipation every time a roadie showed his face. But the wait proved well worth it, as the Buzzcocks took the stage just when it looked like the crowd was getting genuinely annoyed, and after a huge round of applause and a quick exchange between Steve Diggle and the soundman, they broke directly into the title track of their new album, "Flat-Pack Philosophy". Being mainly acquainted with their early material, circa-Singles Going Steady, I was pleasantly surprised by how solid their new material sounds, considering that they've been around so long. On that note, I was particularly impressed by their sheer energy level - they had far more energy at an average age of 45 or so than the majority of 18-25 year old bands out there. Pete Shelley was all over the place, which was particularly wild since he's this short, chubby good-natured looking guy with incredible energy and a maniacal voice. For his part, Diggle was flailing his guitar like a weapon, and took a lot of pleasure in interacting with the crowd during songs - holding out the microphone, engaging singalongs, and so on. There wasn't really any other time for them to banter with the crowd; no pause between songs lasted more than ten seconds, with almost all of the hour and a half-long set being filled with consecutive songs.

And what songs they were. The band played a good deal of newer material - I didn't recognize many songs other than "Flat-Pack Philosophy" and "Sell You Everything" - but leaned heavily on their early material, a move which the crowd adored. The thing about hearing those songs live is that they really bring out the punkiness of the Buzzcocks far more than any recording. Recorded, Singles Going Steady sounds poppy and almost harmless, but live, songs like "I Don't Mind" and "Autonomy" sound downright ferocious while still being extremely tuneful. The band performed incredibly - the trademark high-pitched guitar lines propelled the songs with incredible energy, Tony Barber's bass was a force of nature, and new drummer Danny Farrant was spot on. The crowd played their part well too: the entirety of the nearly-full club was clealy ecstatic, with a lively and well-tempered pit forming, but never turning too wild. Unfortunately, I'd spent most of the day coughing my lungs out, so I didn't venture in too deep, but it was a great crowd nonetheless. And the band deserved the response - they played their hearts out, blasting through a huge amount of material in quick succession. They took a break for about a minute in the middle, dividing the night into two sets rather than a set and an encore. This worked well, as they never suffered the loss of momentum a pre-encore break might cause. Instead, they constantly built up force, culminating in the highlight of the show, a full-throttle rendition of "Noise Annoys", complete with the entire band going spastic on their instruments for an interlude that was very noisy indeed. They wound up with "Boredom, which was even more ironic than usual considering how contrary that sentiment was to the mood of the show. Afterward, Shelley and Diggle must have shook hands with half the crowd, and retreated in a mass of applause to get some well-deserved rest. Though the crowd of course wanted more, we were clearly well-satisfied with the fantastic show we'd gotten.

And it was just that, overall - an amazing show put on by a band that's been going for two and a half decades and is still incredibly strong. I would say "catch these guys while you can", but they're not going anywhere. Instead, catch them for the incredible show they put on. While it of course wasn't absolutely perfect - they excluded certain favourites, and an opener would have made the show all that much better - this was one of the best shows I've seen recently. A 9/10.
Partial setlist, in vague order:

Flat-Pack Philosophy (opener)
Sell You Everything
I Don't Mind
Harmony In My Head
What Do I Get?
Autonomy
Why Can't I Touch It?
Love You More
Ever Fallen in Love? (First set closer)
Promises
Breakdown
Noise Annoys
Orgasm Addict
Boredom

(Also submitted at Punknews.org)

Friday Random 10 #1

2006-06-02T13:52:00.000+02:00

Stolen with utmost respect from any number of superior blogs, here's my first Friday Random 10 and self-audit.
1. Mission of Burma - "Academy Fight Song" (1980 Single) - What a way to start off! I was obsessed with this song for a long time; still am, really. It's a fantastic piece of poppy post-punk, arguably the most accessible Burma song, and it's the sort of song that sticks in my head forever and I want to listen to again and again. And again. 10/10.
2. Darkwood Dub - "Prostor Između Nas" (O Danima, 2005, B92) - Ah, Serbian psychedelic dub. In all seriousness, I rather enjoy this band's weirdness, and their unique sound is very relaxing while still energetic. Plus it's amazing music for getting stoned to. This is probably the best song on their new album, which is generally a little toned-down and too fascinated with repetition. 8/10.
3. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "First to Finish, Last to Start" (Hearts of Oak, Lookout!, 2003) - I love Ted Leo's brand of upbeat, happy indie/punky rock, especially in the summer, but this song is weak. It lacks energy or expression, and the melody doesn't really go anywhere. 5/10.
4. Gang of Four - "Damaged Goods" (Return the Gift, V2, 2005) - Possibly the best song the post-punk innovators ever wrote, full of clever lines and with a bassline to die for. But this is the rerecorded version from their recent reunion, which just doesn't quite have the visceral power of the original. The drums gain a lot of force, but the guitar seems almost self-indulgent, and the whole thing lacks the clculated minimalism that mde the original so well-crafted. Still a fantastic song, it only pales in comparison to the 1979 version. 7/10 (original would be a 10)
5. Grateful Dead - "Operator" (American Beauty, 1970, Warner) - Yeah, I have a bit of a hippy-dippy streak, it's my upbringing. The Dead have a special place in the mythos of contemporary music, and I have mixed feelings about them. They're a bit too cult-ified for my taste, really. Still, they're of classical importance, and this song is pretty decent. 5/10.
6. The Ramones - "Mama's Boy" (Too Tough To Die, 1985, Sire) - Th Ramones. Enough has been said about them. They're amazing and incredibly important. This is a really late song, though, and a bit too close to hard rock and far from their simplified roots for me - Joey's attempt at sounding tough is just a bit much. It's still a good song, and the lyrics are great in their moronically confrontational way. 6/10.
7. Black Flag - "Clocked In" (Everything Went Black, 1983) - Black Flag are legendary enough in hardcore crcles, and deserve it. This isn't them at their best though - it's an outtake, and it shows. Basically, this is an early version of "Clocked In", a song which I never particularly liked at its best, with Keith Morris (my second-favourite BF singer, after the obvious Rollins) singing like he never tried the song before. It sounds awful, honestly. 4/10.
8. The Velvet Underground - "Sweet Jane"(Loaded, 1970, Warner) - Hey, another over-mythologized band! They deserve it, though - they basically shaped all underground rock-ish music that's come since. This is perhaps their best song, with a classic riff and brilliant lyrics presented so perfectly in Lou Reed's idiosyncratic speak-sing. 10/10.
9. Desmond Dekker - "Tips of My Fingers" (Shanty Town Original, 1994, Drive Archive) - RIP. Dekker has perhaps the most beautiful voice Jamaica ever produced, and used it incredibly well. His dying just a week ago colours my rating a bit, I'll admit, but this isn't on of is better songs. It's simply soppy, and the backup vocals suck. Dekker's vocals alone make it a 5/10, though.
10. Wire - "Pink Flag" (Pink Flag, 1977, Harvest) - More post-punk perfection. Pink Flag is one of my favourite albums ever, because it took punk to its extreme - where punk cut down on everything unnecessary in rock and roll, cutting back on the excesses of the dinosaurs of their their time, Wire minimized punk - few songs in Pink Flag go over two minutes, many have only a single chord, and all of them sound amazing in their simple glory. This is the longest song on the album, and it's rather dynamic while including only the most minimal of guitar and drums. The tempo goes crazy over the course of the song, and it has one of the only extravagant moments on the album (the additional drum roll closer), but it's rather iconic nonetheless. 9/10.
Overall: 6.9 average. Pretty high, mainly due to the presence of three absolutely brilliant songs. I may have to work on controlling my high ratings in the future.

Music Rant #1 - Civilize Reggae

2006-06-02T00:31:00.000+02:00

Harken unto the first of God knows how many installments of my Music Rant.
As anyone who knows me can confirm, I have opinions about music. A lot of them. You could easily call me a music geek, or an elitist, or an annoying audiophile. As such, I like talking about these opinions, mainly because there's no better feeling than getting people to broaden their horizons or try new music based on your recommendations. That and venting my musical frustrations is very soothing. So without further ado, here's Music Rant #1.

Reggae is a genre which gets hopelessly misunderstood by a lot of people in the circles I end up in. Too many people's knowledge of reggae ends after Bob Marley. Or worse, they listen to slow stoner music made by white guys with a slight reggae-ish rhythm, and think it qualifies as actual reggae (you know who you are!). Don't even get me started on derivative-of-a-derivative dancehall. That kind of lack of knowledge is a shame - reggae, at its best, is one of the most soulful and resonant genre-sets out there. Marley really doesn't capture the spirit of the genre well, which makes sense since he was always the tame, white-accessible artist who most Jamaicans considered behind the times. There's a whole list of greats that anyone with real interest in reggae should check out, but I'm going to start out with the man who recorded the first roots reggae single: Burning Spear. Born Winston Rodney, the Spear has been setting the standard for roots since 1969, when his single "Door Peep" basically invented the style, with a lot of help from the legendary producer Coxsone Dodd. Rodney has one of the most distinctive and strong voices in reggae, and his backing instrumentals are no slouch either. He may be rather less accessible than Marley for the average listener, especially since he's far more confrontational politically (he dwells upon subjects like Marcus Garvey, pastoralism, and slavery), but listening to him is incredibly worthwhile, throughout his 35-year career. Enough talk, though, here's a song:
Burning Spear - "The Ghost (Marcus Garvey)"; off his "Marcus Garvey" album (1975, Mango)
I know the upload sucks, but I'm looking into a better format for the future. Enjoy, and expect many more Music Rants in the future.

Coming soon...

2006-06-01T22:32:00.000+02:00

I started this blog at this specific moment for a reason. That reason is travel logging. Seeing as I'm about to go to Ghana, I figured that rather than send annoying group emails which would invariably exclude people, I might as well just consolidate my observations and experiences into a blog. Saves effort, after all. So expect my next two months of updates to mainly be travel-based.

So I got a blog...

2006-06-01T22:12:00.000+02:00

...How conformist of me. And yet how cutting-edge and innovative at the same time. Eh, it's not about cultural significance, it's about convenience and expression. This is not a political blog. It's not an MP3 blog. It's not a travel blog. It's not an art blog. It's not any kind of specialty blog, really - it's just a place for me to post whatever the hell I feel like so that people who are interested can see it. Any of the above may be included. If you are reading this, enjoy, but don't make any assumptions about what you'll see, even if I mention something upcoming. If you know me at all, you know that around me, the only safe assumption is that nothing can be assumed. Oh, and [insert nonsensical prize here] for whoever figures out the reference in the blog's title.