Wednesday, September 20, 2006

WAKE UP & SMELL THE NAPALM


Absolutely knackered today. A staff-student consultative meeting, followed by a seminar (excellent) given by a PhD student I co-supervise, a hastily guzzled and impromptu lunch with sociologists, sugarless V, students at door, tutor discussion, a two-hour lecture on two films (thank the gods for V), tech hassles and then more emails to send. Just shattered though a lot was accomplished. Tomorrow I'm immersed in admin duties, some driving chores around Auckland and gearing up for the big push on a chapter about The Smiths that's due by the end of the month. I'm getting an early night.

Made dinner and watched the 52 minute documentary Made in Sheffield about The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, ABC, Heaven 17 etc. Jarvis Cocker is great though he didn't appear in this film that much. His recent track 'Cunts Are Still Running the World' should become a football anthem at the very least.

I loved Cabaret Voltaire so much back in the day when I lived in Ilkley. Always liked that idea of musicians who didn't really play musical 'instruments' much, but messed about with tapes and electronics. I guess because I didn't have any musical ability myself. I've never quite forgiven this friend of mine who in 1979 or 80 went down to their studio Western Works on the train without telling me, even though he knew I was also a fan. Anyway, the documentary wasn't spectacular but it grasped that post-punk feeling of a burst of creativity that may not last long, may not eventuate in a musical career, but still leaves a deep mark on all the participants. The 'losers' and the 'winners' were there but it didn't make you feel sorry for those who didn't 'make it' in the biz. I liked that. But the film could have gone deeper. NME journalist Andy Gill was really banal and lazy with his comments. The provinces struck back but the Sheffield scene was telescoped from 1977 to 1982. Weird to think that The Human League supported Def Leppard when they were both just local acts.

The Cabs music with its chewed up news and current affairs sound bites and Middle Eastern noise seems more relevant than ever.

About a week ago, I finally got around to seeing Scorsese's documentary on Bob Dylan: No Direction Home. I'm no Dylanologist and I've read it's been vetted by His Royal Grumpiness. But it was still moving and really well put together. Amazing old footage and an interesting structure that kept returning to that UK tour when the folk nazis booed him, one shouting 'Judas' at him from the audience. Thank you Pennebaker and all those other filmmakers. The recent interviews with Dylan weren't that enlightening, but much of the material on the folk scene was new to me.

I was struck by how they had workshops for 'topical songwriting' at the Newport Jazz Festival each year in the early 1960s. Dylan eventually reacted against being a spokesman for his generation. The press conferences here make you want to strangle journalists.

I like the idea of a diffuse sort of topical that doesn't depend on being too literal (though I do start this comp with a track called Towering Inferno!). Something more like a structure of feeling is what I try to achieve, not in songwriting obviously, but in the ordinary art of the compilation. The titles may be a bit more suggestive of course. First and foremost the music has to be topnotch.

One of the things about the beats and folkies reminiscing about the late 50s and early 60s was that they felt completely like aliens in America. The Eisenhower Dream and then the Cuban missile crisis seemed so crazy. These freaks felt thoroughly at odds with the way that 'context' was being understood in the American mainstream. Ginsberg is good value in this film, in archival footage and as an ailing man in the near present. He's smarter than the rest. I love his memory of landing in Dylan's London hotel room in 1966 where the Beatles were hanging out. He sat in Lennon's lap and was surprised that these young men with so much power and influence were so unsure how to use their power. He was older and had just got kicked out of Cuba for protesting against Castro's record on gay rights and also Czechoslovakia where he had been involved in carnivalesque demonstrations.

Woodwork squeeks and out come the freaks, sang Was Not Was in their own Vietnam boogie many years ago.

I connect very little to the daily non-fictions that are supposed to make sense of now.

The music is more attuned.

Yesterday or the day before I finished this playlist from borrowed, bought and downloaded music (see links on left) to capture a post 911 paranoid vibe. That doesn't just mean the homeland environment of fear created by the holy trinity of Bush-Blair-Benedict but the Mozzies feeling the surveillance back home in the UK. Paranoid Time, to quote The Minutemen. This keeps me occupied. I know I'm repetitive but as long as the music isn't then that's OK I figure.

There's a bit of dis and a bit a dat as usual: African funk pop, slice-a-life surrealist hip hop, slapping basslines, Londinium glossalalia, reservation revolution, Chicano fatback drums, San Pedro punk slam dunk, explosive surf guitar, 80s lyrical implosion, a fatal bus accident, yearning soul, spare cabaret versions, percussive strings, gospel steel and slide, folkie utopianism, electro-orientalism, a haunting mash-up, croc hunter cover, selassie I, and another Dylan interpretation.

Most of it you can find in the nooks of the network and the crannies of cyberspace, so there's no need to post it in MP3 form here. The title's a nod to USAnian vernacular and Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now. I'm sure that line about loving the smell of napalm in the morning was written by that Nietzschean rightwinger John Milius. He went on to direct the paranoid Red Dawn. I'd expect him to be shooting and editing torture footage for the US government, but don't have a clue what he's up to these days. Probably surfing.


ZEXIE MANATSA & THE GREEN ARROWS--Towering Inferno
MC LYTE--Cappuccino
ESG--Keep On Moving
LADY SOVEREIGN--Public Warning
LEWIS CLARK--Red Man's Revenge
BRONX RIVER PKWY--La Valla
MINUTEMEN--Mr Robot's Holy Orders
MODERN ENGLISH--I Melt With You
BAILEY'S NERVOUS CATS--Devil's Run
BERNADETTE CARROLL--The Hero
THE BAGDADS--Livin' In Fear
LA MAISON TELLIER--Toxic (Rough mix)
THEO BLECKMANN & FUMIO YASUDA--Chim Chim Cheree
DAMIEN RICE--Seven Nation Army
LUCINDA WILLIAMS--Bonnie Portmore
SONNY TREADWAY--In The Garden
CHAD MITCHELL--Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
HOLGER CZUKAY--Persian Love
DOLLAR--Shooting Star
MASSIVE ATTACK FEATURING TRACY THORN--The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game
THE WHO BOYS--In Every Ghost Town A Heartache (The Specials vs. Roxy Music)
MAX ROMEO--Melt Away
THE WHITE STRIPES--One More Cup Of Coffee

Friday, September 15, 2006

MAGGIE'S FARM


The Casino or Foodtown or inbetween?

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

PASSENGERS ONLY

You can only go beyond this point if you are a passenger. Take your shoes off, remove your belt, jacket, keys and wallet in the plastic tray, laptop out of the bag. Raise your arms, please.

If your name is Muhammad, Ali or Khan, more questions at the border or just boarding (even without that t-shirt embossed with foreign calligraphy).

When did you last visit Pakistan? Or should I say Pawkeestawn?
10 years ago for my brother's wedding.
Did he kidnap the bride? Or was it a shotgun wedding?
Ha ha ha. No they're back in England.
Do you have a Pakistani passport?
No, I only have this British passport.
Have you ever had a Pakistani passport?
No I travelled once as a child on my mother's Pakistani passport.
Are your parents Pakistanis?
They have British passports. All my family is British. They don't have Pakistani passports anymore. Not since 1973. We were naturalized as UK citizens.
Do you consider yourself Pakistani?
I have a British passport.
Do you consider yourself Pakistani, Yes or No?
Well...
Just answer the question. Do you consider yourself Pakistani?
No.
I might have to put you on a special registration list which means that the officers over there will ask you more questions. Hmm... But since you've been to the States several times I'll let you go this time.
Thank you very much, Sir.

'Consider yourself one of the family' sang Fagin. This compilation of songs, mainly from the network of audioblogs that I've grown to love deeply and widely, is the kind of mix I'd want to listen to soothe me on the plane or even the train when I know the above can happen at the border. No plans to go far for some months so this is my vicarious travel listening for the easiest ride possible. Well, there are a few unforeseen surprises. Can't always be smooth sailing. You hit 'mild turbulence' once or twice.

PASSENGERS ONLY 09.06

DUKE ELLINGTON--Solitude
MOACIR SANTOS--Coisa Número 9
MARTIN DENNY--Martinique
CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG--AF607105
THE SANDPIPERS--Inch Worm
JOANNA NEWSOM--Sawdust & Diamonds
SUSANA BACA--The Anchor Song
ALFRED AHOLO APAKA--Beyond The Reef
THE GLENRAYS--Egyptian Nightmare
ELVIS PRESLEY--Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce
VAN DYKE PARKS--Blue Snake & Zebras
DENNIS ROLLINS--Fast Car
BOOKER T. & The MG's--Sarasota Sunset
THE STAPLE SINGERS--Slow Train
YUSUF LATEEF--Nocturne
SERGIO MENDES/BRAZIL '66--Chove Chuva
LES INTRIGANTES--Hello Goodbye
ROXY MUSIC--India (Tropical Computer Edit)
L'ALTRA, PHIL RANELIN & SLICKER--Hefty Naked Ninja (Eliot Lipp Remix)
DAEDELUS--Viva Vida

Monday, September 11, 2006

TOWERS OF SONG
























Despite the spin and hype, I wanted to make a playlist that, without irony, was a minor but heartfelt memorial to the victims and those who grieve for them. I was drawn to tunes that carry the United States' churchical traditions.

You'll never walk alone...

The outline of a figure emerges from the dust, the phantom image of Walter Benjamin standing at Ground Zero, surveying the rubble and ashes.

The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the “emergency situation” in which we live is the rule. We must arrive at a concept of history which corresponds to this. Then it will become clear that the task before us is the introduction of a real state of emergency; and our position in the struggle against Fascism will thereby improve. Not the least reason that the latter has a chance is that its opponents, in the name of progress, greet it as a historical norm.


There is a painting by Klee called Angelus Novus. An angel is depicted there who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment so fair, to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the rubble-heap before him grows sky-high. That which we call progress, is this storm.

TOWERS OF SONG 11.09.06


BILL MONROE & HIS BLUEGRASS QUARTET
Wicked Path of Sin
ALFRED KARNES
Where We'll Never Grow Old
CHARLIE HADEN & HANK JONES
Hymn Medley: Abide With Me/Just As I Am Without One Plea/What A Friend We Have In Jesus/Amazing Grace
THE GOSPEL CLEFS
Open Our Eyes
ROSCOE LEE BROWNE, ROBERTA FLACK & RUBY DEE
Roses And Revolutions (extract)
NINA SIMONE
4 Women/Save Me (Live at Antibes 1969)
GEORGE JACKSON
Aretha Sing One For Me
BOHANNON
Save Their Souls
SAM TAYLOR
Heaven On Their Minds
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND (w/ IVAN NEVILLE)
God is Love
THE ROOTS
Don't Feel Right
ALBERT AYLER
New Ghosts
GOLDEN GATE JUBILEE QUARTET
Job
REVEREND LOUIS OVERSTREET
I'm A Soldier In The Army Of The Lord
SWEET INSPIRATIONS
Sweet Inspiration
ARETHA FRANKLIN
I Say A Little Prayer
ALICE COLTRANE
Wisdom Eye

Saturday, September 09, 2006

911 IS A JOKE

So rapped Public Enemy more than five years ago.

'Don't Believe the Hype' might be more appropriate.

Simon Jenkins cuts through the propaganda:

Terrorism is 10% bang and 90% an echo effect composed of media hysteria, political overkill and kneejerk executive action, usually retribution against some wider group treated as collectively responsible. This response has become 24-hour, seven-day-a-week amplification by the new politico-media complex, especially shrill where the dead are white people. It is this that puts global terror into the bang. While we take ever more extravagant steps to ward off the bangs, we do the opposite with the terrorist aftershock. We turn up its volume. We seem to wallow in fear.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

PSYCHEDELICATES (4 Syd & Arthur)














SHARON TATE--Speaks For The NRA
THE BEACH BOYS--'Til I Die (alternative mix)
KRZYSZTOF KOMEDA/MIA FARROW--Rosemary's Baby (Main Title)
CLAUDINE LONGET--Until It's Time For You To Go
HARPERS BIZARRE--Cotton Candy Sandman
LOVE--She Comes In Colors (Stereo)
SIXTO RODRIGUEZ--Sugar Man
VINCENT PRICE--Pickled Mushrooms
JUNIOR PARKER--Taxman
SLY & THE FAMILY STONE--Color Me True
PETER COOK--Bedazzled
PINK FLOYD--Lucifer Sam
OS MUTANTES--Bat Macumba
LOVE--Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale
JIMI HENDRIX--Like A Rolling Stone (Live Spoken Intro)
THE ARBORS--Hey Joe
THE FOUR SEASONS--Like A Rolling Stone
BILLY TAM--Happy Together
LOVE--Wonder People (Do I Wonder)
BOBBY DARIN--Darling Be Home Soon
RICHARD TWICE--If I Knew You Were The One
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE--Today
SYD BARRETT--Bob Dylan Blues
HARRY NILSSON--Many Rivers To Cross

ANIMAL TERRORISM


A reality check on the death of the Crocodile Hunter from Germaine Greer

BOMBAYROOTCAUSE













BIBIO--London Planes
PINCH--Qawwali
FUN^DA^MENTAL--Cookbook DIY
GOTAN PROJECT--El Capitalismo Foráneo (Antipop Consortium Remix)
CHEB I SABBAH--Toura Toura (The Medina Remix)
RACHID TAHA--El H'Mame
BRIAN ENO & DAVID BYRNE--Regiment
FAIRUZ--Ana La Ansake Palestine
UNKNOWN BAILE FUNK ARTIST--Rocky Theme
BIKRAM SINGH & GUNJAN--Kawan (Drum'n'Bass Remix)
CSS--Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above (Spank Rock remix)
QUANTIC--Bomb In A Trumpet Factory
CAPTAIN PLANET--The Don
PIGMEAT MARKHAM--Here Comes The Judge
DJ GREEN LANTERN FEAT. JUST BLAZE, M-1, SAIGON & IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE--Impeach The President
DJ HONDA FEAT. JERU THA DAMAJA--El Presidente (Dirty)
D-STYLES & DJ FLARE--Turntable Circumcision
DR OCTAGON--Al Green (Chapter 2, Verse 908 remix)
M.I.A.--Sunshowers (Surkin Remix)
KODE9 & DADDI GEE--Spit (vox)
THE HUMAN LEAGUE--Once Upon A Time In The West (Funeral March)

Monday, September 04, 2006

ATTA BOY

Underwhelmed by Martin Amis's fictionalization of Mohammad Atta's last days. I guess the white boys get a hard-on imagining the cool nihilism and depilation/ablution regimes of suicidal mass murderers. In cold blood. If only they'd shagged more, there'd be peace in the valley of death. Yep nice n easy reasons. 'T were only so simple. More 911 BS to follow I'm sure as we approach the day. I remember on September 11, 2002 I was shopping in Selfridges with Shuchi and Mama. We suddenly realized we were the only ones talking in the food court. Everyone was stumm due to two minutes of official silence for the dead in the USA. Two minutes of silence for Pinochet's victims? Two minutes for Srebernica? Two minutes for Sabra and Chatila? Let me pick up that designer sandwich and talk about it puh-leeze. Heard someone has published a graphic novel of the 9/11 Commission's Report. That should be better reading than Martin's literary jihad. AllahuAkbar Martin. I like how 'Amis's' sounds more like the London Jewish diction of Alec Guiness's Fagin than just plain old English Amis'. Martin remiss. You're no Truman Capote.