Lupe Fiasco's vision - a hip-hop anti-racist challenge

"We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them."
-George W. Bush, Second Inaugural Address, January 2005

"George Bush doesn't care about black people!"
-Kanye West, December 2005, in response to Bush's handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster of August of that year.

"I think that an objective analysis of events that are taking place on this earth today points towards some type of ultimate showdown. You can call it political showdown, or even a showdown between the economic systems that exist on this earth which almost boil down along racial lines. I do believe that there will be a clash between East and West. I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."
-Malcolm X, January 19, 1965

I look to the culture - speeches, texts, performances, works of art, works of entertainment, etc. - as a gauge or an indicator of where we are as a society.

I was in college back in the early 1980s, listening to a variety of musical forms, such as 1960s political folk, Afro pop, and post-punk, in between my classes and term papers. This was the era of hip-hop's "old school," that is, of pioneering artists such as Grandmaster Flash, Eric B and Rakim, Afrika Bambaataa and the Zulu Nation, and Boogie Down Productions and of songs like "Rapper's Delight," "The Message," and "Planet Rock." I thought then, and still think, that, following the decadence and mindlessness of the late 70s disco era, rap music breathed new life into Black popular music, just as punk at more or less the same time did so for rock and roll.

When I graduated from college, I then moved to the Bronx, hip-hop's cradle, so as to, like Barack Obama, practice my progressive beliefs as a community organizer. I organized tenants' associations and neighborhood groups in a neighborhood in the border zone between the North and South Bronx. I heard hip-hop playing in the beackground of the neighborhood on a fairly regular basis.

Since then, I have, selectively, made room in my music listening habits for various figures from the world of hip-hop. Most recently, I have discovered a young MC named Lupe Fiasco, an associate of Kanye's, and have been watching a pretty impressive video of his.



What to make of this? And what of the opening quotes by such opposed figures as Kanye, Malcolm X and George Bush?

First off, this song is actually not all that political in terms of its (somewhat surreal) lyrical content, but what is political here, theoretically, is the triadic relationship that the song establishes amongst Lupe, the thug chorus, and the cynical, clowning WASP character. Both the chorus and the WASP tell Lupe to "Dumb it down," and yet Lupe refuses. In fact, the initial chorus

You goin' over niggas' heads Lu (Dumb it down)
They tellin' me that they don't feel you (Dumb it down)
We ain't graduate from school nigga (Dumb it down)
Them big words ain't cool nigga (Dumb it down)
Yeah I heard Mean And Vicious nigga (Dumb it down)
Make a song for the bitches nigga (Dumb it down)
We don't care about the weather nigga (Dumb it down)
You'll sell more records if you (Dumb it down)

and the Wasp's lines

You've been shedding too much light Lu (Dumb it down)
You make'em wanna do right Lu (Dumb it down)
They're getting self-esteem Lu (Dumb it down)
These girls are trying to be queens Lu (Dumb it down)
They're trying to graduate from school Lu (Dumb it down)
They're starting to think that smart is cool Lu (Dumb it down)
They're trying to get up out the hood Lu (Dumb it down)
I'll tell you what you should do (Dumb it down)

are perhaps the key to the song, but, more deeply, a key to what's happening more generally in society, particularly for young persons, including young persons of color. As opposed to the rhetoric, the reality is that this society, with its dumbed down government, wants its young to be dumbed down. It is, in a sense, easier that way. That is, it is easier for those in power - be they local thugs or members of the Power Elite - to maintain control when certain conditions exist, conditions that rationalize holding tightly onto the levers of power.

During the Reagan 1980s, when, again, I was organizing the poor in a poor place, the Bronx, I was perpetually struck by the institutional racism of a conservative government that, for example, allowed poverty rates to rise and to disproportionately affect young people of color. As William Spriggs points out in an article in the American Prospect

During the Reagan administration, the United States suffered its highest national unemployment rates since the Great Depression. In the black community, the effects were devastating: The unemployment rate for adult (over age 20) black men peaked at more than 20 percent in December 1982; during the entire Reagan presidency, the unemployment rate for adult black men remained in double digits. The highest recorded unemployment rate for adult white men was 9 percent in November and December 1982. But for black men, the unemployment rate remained above that mark for 182 straight months (15 years), from October 1979 to November 1994. Because children do not work and need working adults to support them, it is hardly surprising that during that period, black child poverty rates remained intractable above 40 percent.

And then

Under Reagan, who ridiculed antipoverty efforts, the number of black children living below the poverty line increased by 200,000, from 3.9 million in 1980 to 4.1 million in 1988. During the Clinton years, the black child poverty rate fell steadily, from 46.3 percent to a record-low 30 percent, lifting about 1.6 million black children out of poverty. For all children, the poverty rate fell annually during the Clinton's presidency, reaching a 30-year low of 15.6 percent when he left office. But those reduced poverty rates may be the best we can achieve simply by getting jobs for parents. While lower than during the Reagan years, they do not equal the lows America has achieved for its senior citizens, or the general population. And those gains reversed course when George W. Bush became president.

Of course, such reality makes a mockery of Bush's grand quote about "healing" our divisions and underscores, instead, the quote by Kanye West.

Rolling Stone magazine has also recently published a wonderfully comprehnsive report on the failures of our "war on drugs" a war that has taken a heavy toll on America's inner cities, and that "now costs the United States $50 billion each year and has overcrowded prisons to the breaking point - all with little discernible impact on the drug trade." The article points to a lack of poitical will to carry out necessary reforms.

But despite their evident success, the most forward-looking programs remain buried at the fringes of drug policy, featured not in the president's budgets but in academic journals and water-cooler talk in cities like High Point. Experimentation at the community level is more imaginative than programs that are federally sanctioned. "We haven't had the kind of national leadership that blesses this and encourages it," says Caulkins, the RAND researcher from Carnegie ­Mellon. "So this kind of innovation stays below the radar." Thirty-five years after Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs, the most promising ­programs continue to be shunted aside by Washington's unswerving emphasis on law and order.

And as a parallel, the New York Times recently reported on a Big Increase in Black Men as Inmates Since 1980

The number of black men in jail or prison has grown fivefold in the past 20 years, to the point where more black men are behind bars than are enrolled in colleges or universities, according to a study released yesterday.

The increase in the black male prison population coincides with the prison construction boom that began 1980. At that time, three times more black men were enrolled in institutions of higher learning than behind bars, the study said.

The study found that in 2000 there were 791,600 black men in jail or prison and 603,032 enrolled in colleges or universities. By contrast, the study said that in 1980 there were 143,000 black men in jail or prison but 463,700 enrolled in colleges or universities.

Something's not right here.

I certainly do believe that while there is racism and bigotry to be found in many different realms and institutions, I also am hopeful that racism, as a disease of the mind, is curable. However, racism is many things, and in addition to being a subjective attitude, it is also a structural series of positions, one of, as Malcolm X alluded to, exploiter and exploited. Just as exploitive Bush, Cheney and their neocon associates have set forth the conditions for the exploitation of Iraq and its recources for decaded to come, the right wing and all it represents stands for the exploitation of the minority poor, its rhetoric notwithstanding. By disinvesting in progressive government, in meaningful effective education, and by leaving poor and weak individuals to their own devices, the right wing - with George W. Bush as its figurehead - places the profits of a few over the well being of the many. And this is shown in a whole variety of social indicators - crime and poverty rates being up, growing numbers of poor young minorities, suddenly gowing teen pregnancy rates giving lie to "abstenance education," parts of New Orleans remaining unlivable and ungovernable.

Yet, as with the Lupe song, speaking truth to power must be accompanied by some sort of vision. Malcolm X, paradoxically, began to see himself as emancipated from mental slavery, as Bob Marley once put it, while serving a prison sentence. He experienced a paradigm shift, just as we all must if we want to move our society beyond the ugliness of the Bush era.

In the meantime, going back to hip-hop, here is a nauseating reminder of the trivializing of this form of an essentially Black popular culture by those who hold power. It reduces hip-hop to little more than a minstrel show.



Totally whack!!!!

Antiwar scholar denied a visa simply because of his views

(Crossposted on Daily Kos.)

I am a member of the American Sociological Association and teach sociology at CUNY. Yesterday, my copy of the association newsletter arrived in my mailbox, offering this bit of news on scholar Adam Habib and his struggles with attempting to secure a visitor's visa from the U.S. State Department. While Habib has been invited by such organizations as National Institutes for Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Bank, Columbia University and the Gates Foundation to appear at colloquia, somehow his anti Iraq War views has led the State Department to refuse Habib a visa after months of inaction, claiming that he is barred because he has “engaged in terrorist activities.” There is no evidence of this.

The ASA newsletter announces a legal filing on behalf of Habib by the ASA as well as the ACLU.

November 14, 2007

ASA News
Media Contacts:
Sujata Sinha or Lee Herring
(202) 247-9871
pubinfo@asanet.org

ASA and ACLU Rebuke U.S. Government for Denying South African Scholar’s Visa

ACLU Renews Legal Challenge, Says U.S. Unfairly Maligning Distinguished Professor

BOSTON – In response to the unjustified denial of a visa to renowned South African scholar Adam Habib, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Massachusetts today renewed their legal challenge against the Departments of State and Homeland Security. The State Department refused Habib a visa after months of inaction, claiming that he is barred because he has “engaged in terrorist activities,” but the government failed to explain the basis for its accusation, let alone provide any evidence to prove it. The ACLU, in today’s legal complaint, is now demanding that the government substantiate its ban on Habib or grant him a visa.

“In one fell swoop, the U.S. government has stifled political debate in this country and maligned the reputation of a respected scholar without giving one shred of evidence to support its claims,” said Melissa Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “It appears that Professor Habib is being excluded not because of his actions but because of his political views and associations.”

Today’s legal challenge amends a lawsuit, filed in September in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, charging that the government’s exclusion of Professor Habib amounts to censorship at the border because it prevents U.S. citizens and residents from hearing speech that is protected by the First Amendment. The ACLU went to court on behalf of organizations that have invited Professor Habib to speak in the U.S., including the American Sociological Association (ASA), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights (BCPR). The lawsuit asks the court to prevent the government from excluding Professor Habib unless it comes forward with evidence to substantiate its accusations.

Habib is a renowned scholar, sought after political analyst, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Innovation and Advancement at the University of Johannesburg. He is also a Muslim who has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq. Until the government suddenly revoked his visa in October 2006 without explanation, he never experienced any trouble entering the U.S.; in fact, Habib lived in New York with his family for years while earning a Ph.D. in Political Science from the City University of New York.

The ASA press release goes on to add that Habib, in attempting to fly to the U.S. in 2006 "was detained for seven hours and interrogated about his associations and political views" and that "Armed guards eventually escorted him to a plane and deported him back to South Africa. The State Department later revoked the visas of Professor Habib’s wife and two small children, again, without explanation." Habib tried again in 2007, to no avail.

It offers the following conclusions:

“The American Sociological Association has become increasingly concerned about apparent systemic U.S. government interference in scientific exchange and the associated corrosion in the luster of the nation’s democratic face to the world. ASA has become sufficiently concerned about the need to defend our country’s commitment to free exchange. We seek to wrest a long-awaited explanation from the U.S. Departments of State and Department of Homeland Security as to why they refuse to admit internationally known South African scholar Adam Habib into the United States for purposes of scholarly exchange,” says Sally Hillsman, Executive Director of the ASA.

Professor Habib’s exclusion is part of a larger pattern. Over the past few years, numerous foreign scholars, human rights activists, and writers – all vocal critics of U.S. policy – have been barred from the U.S. without explanation or on vague national security grounds. In 2006, the ACLU filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of U.S. academic groups and Professor Tariq Ramadan, a widely respected Swiss scholar of the Muslim world. When the government revoked his visa in 2004, Professor Ramadan was prevented from assuming a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame. The Ramadan lawsuit challenges the legality of his exclusion and the constitutionality of the Patriot Act provision under which he was initially excluded. He remains excluded from the U.S. to this day.

To repeat, Professor Habib’s exclusion is part of a larger pattern. Over the past few years, numerous foreign scholars, human rights activists, and writers – all vocal critics of U.S. policy – have been barred from the U.S. without explanation or on vague national security grounds.

This story has also recently been covered by the Christian Science Monitor which notes

Habib is just one foreigner of many who have faced either strenuous interrogation or expulsion by US immigration officials since 9/11. But his legal challenge shines a media spotlight on a visa process that has become more opaque in recent years, raising questions about the rights of individuals to free speech and to due process.

"This is a problem that is much bigger than just Professor Habib," says Melissa Goodman, an attorney with the ACLU who is handling Habib's case. "Since 9/11, writers, artists, and other have found it much more difficult to get into the US. What they have in common is that, like Professor Habib, they are vocal critics of US foreign policy."

Also, a South African news outlet, Independent Online, did a profile on Habib and found no explosive skeletons in his family's closet offering the following details on the possible bases for this case.

Habib said he was then told by a highly placed South African government official that his exclusion was apparently related to photographs taken of him addressing an anti-Iraq war rally in Durban.

"But the strange thing about that is that I know other people who addressed the same rally, and also had their pictures taken, and they, too, have not been denied entry."

He said that he had "of course" exchanged e-mails with Muslim scholars worldwide: "In the course of my job, I get about 70 e-mails a day from a variety of scholars from all over the world, Jewish ones, Islamic scholars, Christians, Marxists, neo-conservatives, fascists, deists - you name it".

Habib said that, in terms of Muslim practice, he also gave charity ("zakat") to various organisations.

"But I'm pretty careful about where I send my money and I focus on education and HIV/Aids in South Africa. I have also given to the Gift of the Givers, but they operate in co-operation with the department of foreign affairs - so if the US government wants to suggest that the department is also a terrorist organisation, well."

Habib said that, as far as he could tell, his exclusion from the US seemed to be the result of a mixture of "racial profiling" - "I'm a Muslim, after all" - and what the American Civil Liberties Union calls "ideological exclusion".

"It's scary. These days if the US government doesn't like what you say, or the views you apparently hold, well, it just won't let you in.

"But I think," Habib said, "the problem is much bigger than the case of Adam Habib and I think it's pretty serious - and that it's time our government did something about protecting its innocent citizens from being targeted and labelled in this way."

Habib said he had encountered a number of people who were targeted for no apparent reason.

"I have been told of a Canadian dentist of Muslim extraction who was whisked out of New York to Guantanamo Bay. It was all a big mistake, but it took his family nine months to get him out - and he was completely traumatised by then.

"You know, the constitutional court recently found that our government had an obligation to make sure that the mercenaries in Africa were not tortured, murdered, etc. How much more so does our government have a duty to its citizens - those falsely accused [like Habib] - and others?"

Here, too, is what the ACLU says about Ideological Exclusion Here is some further documentation.

Denying international scholars a chance to enter this country and to express their views freely is just a disgusting, totalitarian practice that needs to stop. Insinuating that someone is a "terrorist" because they happen to have an Arabic last name and don't support the Administration's views is part of the reason why we are distrusted by the very Arabic societies whose hearts and minds we are supposed to be winning over. This needs to stop.

UPDATE: Here is a link to a podcast of Habib discussing this case.

Congress and the President can't be trusted. Can the courts keep us free?

Recently, a Federal court struck down a Patriot Act regulation that had allowed the FBI to issue National Security Letters (NLSs) demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court has ruled that the gag rule is unconstutional. The courts have also recently court found that secret searches of a "terror suspect's" house and office violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

Score two for the Bill of Rights.

Since the presidency, at least under the Republicans, and the Congress appear not willing and able to continue bothering to uphold the Constitution, perhaps we need to turn to the courts - as well as to mass movements - as among the only things left to keep us free and living under the rule of law.


Internet Business Law Service has a story that broke a few weeks ago.

NEW YORK - A federal court struck down the amended Patriot Act''s National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.

U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero wrote, "In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual''s personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association - particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies - a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes.

"As this decision recognizes, courts have a constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights. A statute that allows the FBI to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU''s National Security Project.

NSLs may be used to obtain access to subscriber, billing or transactional records from Internet service providers; to obtain a wide array of financial and credit documents; or even to obtain library records. In almost all cases, recipients of NSLs are forbidden, or "gagged," from disclosing that they have received the letters, even to close family and friends. This has been a severe hardship on NSL recipients, who not only have been forced to keep this major event secret, but who have been prevented from meaningfully participating in public discussions about NSLs. The court today held that because the gag provisions cannot be separated from the entire amended statute, the court was compelled to strike down the entire statute. Recently, too, a federal district court struck down two search and surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act as unconstitutional.

This decision was also reported on in Wired which wrote

A federal district court judge struck down two key pillars of the Patriot Act Wednesday, ruling that using a secret spying court to wiretap and secretly search Americans' homes for criminal prosecutions violates the Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Federal district court judge Ann Aiken struck down the government's ability to get orders from the secret spy court for anything other than acquiring foreign intelligence activities, saying that using that court and its lowered standards -- instead of getting a traditional criminal wiretap order -- violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling applies to Patriot Act changes to wiretapping laws and to so-called sneak-and-peak searches, where the government can search someone's home secretly and never have to disclose the search to the individual.

The ACLU commented on this, saying

The Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement is one of the most important safeguards against an overreaching government. By allowing the FBI to conduct searches and wiretaps in criminal investigations without first demonstrating criminal probable cause, these Patriot Act provisions allow an end run around basic constitutional rules. There is no reason why the FBI can't investigate criminal activity - including terrorism - while at the same time complying with the Constitution."

The courts are thus, thankfully, chipping away at aspects of the Patriot Act, though perhaps it may be too little too late. But it is certainly better than nothing and worth celebrating as a victory for the Constitution.

Of course, the Patriot Act still allows some injustices and abuses of powers and these must be addressed by the courts. This includes such provisions as those that allow federal agents to "'shop' for judges that have demonstrated a strong bias toward law enforcement with regard to search warrants. It for the prosecution of those found to be offering "material support of terrorism," with groups labelled terrorist in such a sweeping manner that it could include just about anyone; giving support, for example, to the African National Congress, the anti-apartheid organization, a group labelled a terrorist organization by our government, could very well get a U.S. citizen arrested and sent to Gitmo. Alas, the Patriot Act still allows for indefinite detention upon secret evidence.

These provisions are all apparently indended to be sunsetted, though Bush's allies in Congress, led by Mitch McConnell and no doubt assisted by Lieberman and, likely, by some right wing Democratics, will try to extend it into law, indefinitely. Here, for example, is some classic McConnell dissembling

Unfortunately, some members of Congress have allowed the passage of time and the success of our efforts under the Patriot Act to dull their sense of urgency. Others have caved into the fears of a political base that has become increasingly radicalized in its opposition to anything the president supports. Two senators in particular have recently said they plan to block the full Senate from taking up a FISA reauthorization bill that was reported out of the Intelligence Committee last week with near-unanimous, bipartisan support.

Opponents of the reauthorization bill say they oppose it because it would give phone companies protection from lawsuits alleging they were wrong to share customer information with intelligence officials. This, despite the fact that U.S. businesses have always viewed sharing information to save American lives as being a patriotic duty they were only too happy to fulfill. Opponents also worry about an update that allows agents to listen in on phone calls that emanate from terror suspects abroad. But the Bill of Rights was never meant to cover terrorists in Diyala, Karachi, or Tehran.

Indeed, if there is any criticism at all with the proposed FISA reauthorization, it is that it does not go far enough. Most Americans have the common sense to recognize that FISA and every other tool we have used in this fight are worth making permanent. An open secret on Capitol Hill is that most Democrats do too. If there is one lesson from Sept. 11 that we should have learned by now, it is that the people who protect us from terrorism should have more, not fewer, tools to do their jobs. The Patriot Act and FISA are among the most valuable. It is time we acknowledged as much.
The Democrats, if they have spine for this, should prepare for an epic battle; since we cannot count on this, we need to look to the courts, which may be our best hope for restoring this country, right wing neo-fascictic activist judges, notwithstanding.

Internet Business Law Service has a story that broke a few weeks ago.

NEW YORK - A federal court struck down the amended Patriot Act''s National Security Letter (NSL) provision. The law has permitted the FBI to issue NSLs demanding private information about people within the United States without court approval, and to gag those who receive NSLs from discussing them. The court found that the gag power was unconstitutional and that because the statute prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review of gags, it violated the First Amendment and the principle of separation of powers.

U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero wrote, "In light of the seriousness of the potential intrusion into the individual''s personal affairs and the significant possibility of a chilling effect on speech and association - particularly of expression that is critical of the government or its policies - a compelling need exists to ensure that the use of NSLs is subject to the safeguards of public accountability, checks and balances, and separation of powers that our Constitution prescribes.

"As this decision recognizes, courts have a constitutionally mandated role to play when national security policies infringe on First Amendment rights. A statute that allows the FBI to silence people without meaningful judicial oversight is unconstitutional," said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU''s National Security Project.

NSLs may be used to obtain access to subscriber, billing or transactional records from Internet service providers; to obtain a wide array of financial and credit documents; or even to obtain library records. In almost all cases, recipients of NSLs are forbidden, or "gagged," from disclosing that they have received the letters, even to close family and friends. This has been a severe hardship on NSL recipients, who not only have been forced to keep this major event secret, but who have been prevented from meaningfully participating in public discussions about NSLs. The court today held that because the gag provisions cannot be separated from the entire amended statute, the court was compelled to strike down the entire statute.

Recently, too, a federal district court struck down two search and surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act as unconstitutional.

This decision was also reported on in Wired which wrote

A federal district court judge struck down two key pillars of the Patriot Act Wednesday, ruling that using a secret spying court to wiretap and secretly search Americans' homes for criminal prosecutions violates the Constitution's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Federal district court judge Ann Aiken struck down the government's ability to get orders from the secret spy court for anything other than acquiring foreign intelligence activities, saying that using that court and its lowered standards -- instead of getting a traditional criminal wiretap order -- violates the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling applies to Patriot Act changes to wiretapping laws and to so-called sneak-and-peak searches, where the government can search someone's home secretly and never have to disclose the search to the individual.

The ACLU commented on this, saying

The Fourth Amendment's probable cause requirement is one of the most important safeguards against an overreaching government. By allowing the FBI to conduct searches and wiretaps in criminal investigations without first demonstrating criminal probable cause, these Patriot Act provisions allow an end run around basic constitutional rules. There is no reason why the FBI can't investigate criminal activity - including terrorism - while at the same time complying with the Constitution."

The courts are thus, thankfully, chipping away at aspects of the Patriot Act, though perhaps it may be too little too late. But it is certainly better than nothing and worth celebrating as a victory for the Constitution.

Of course, the Patriot Act still allows some injustices and abuses of powers and these must be addressed by the courts. This includes such provisions as those that allow federal agents to "'shop' for judges that have demonstrated a strong bias toward law enforcement with regard to search warrants. It for the prosecution of those found to be offering "material support of terrorism," with groups labelled terrorist in such a sweeping manner that it could include just about anyone; giving support, for example, to the African National Congress, the anti-apartheid organization, a group labelled a terrorist organization by our government, could very well get a U.S. citizen arrested and sent to Gitmo. Alas, the Patriot Act still allows for indefinite detention upon secret evidence.

These provisions are all apparently indended to be sunsetted, though Bush's allies in Congress, led by Mitch McConnell and no doubt assisted by Lieberman and, likely, by some right wing Democratics, will try to extend it into law, indefinitely. Here, for example, is some classic McConnell dissembling

Unfortunately, some members of Congress have allowed the passage of time and the success of our efforts under the Patriot Act to dull their sense of urgency. Others have caved into the fears of a political base that has become increasingly radicalized in its opposition to anything the president supports. Two senators in particular have recently said they plan to block the full Senate from taking up a FISA reauthorization bill that was reported out of the Intelligence Committee last week with near-unanimous, bipartisan support.

Opponents of the reauthorization bill say they oppose it because it would give phone companies protection from lawsuits alleging they were wrong to share customer information with intelligence officials. This, despite the fact that U.S. businesses have always viewed sharing information to save American lives as being a patriotic duty they were only too happy to fulfill. Opponents also worry about an update that allows agents to listen in on phone calls that emanate from terror suspects abroad. But the Bill of Rights was never meant to cover terrorists in Diyala, Karachi, or Tehran.

Indeed, if there is any criticism at all with the proposed FISA reauthorization, it is that it does not go far enough. Most Americans have the common sense to recognize that FISA and every other tool we have used in this fight are worth making permanent. An open secret on Capitol Hill is that most Democrats do too. If there is one lesson from Sept. 11 that we should have learned by now, it is that the people who protect us from terrorism should have more, not fewer, tools to do their jobs. The Patriot Act and FISA are among the most valuable. It is time we acknowledged as much.

The Democrats, if they have spine for this, should prepare for an epic battle; since we cannot count on this, we need to look to the courts, which may be our best hope for restoring this country, right wing activist judges, notwithstanding.

A bit of surreality, courtesy of Renaldo and the Loaf

I've been exploring music videos recently, including videos made for relatively obscure musical performers, like the Rubinoos, Josef K, the Residents, and one, in particular, that I found surreally beautiful. It's a video for the experimental British duo, Renaldo and the Loaf.

I'm so happy for the existence of websites that allow for such exploration.


Anyway, here's a music video by this group. It's truly bizarre, in a sort of David Lynchian/surrealistic sort of way. I really like it.

Why not a turn - perhaps even just a quick turn - to surrealism, and to its interest in all things absurd, and in the subconsiousness?

It was the goal of the surrealists (and their dadaist allies) in the 1920s and 1930s to challenge the very cognitive and ideological foundations of the modern, western world, and to truly free the imagination. In that sense, the surrealists were truly radical.

Such a radical and subversive spirit - which was reawakened during the counterculture - is probably needed in today's world.

And as an example, we have this one example, a video and a sample of music by a very odd pair of experimental musicians, about whom, the All Music Guide describes their music as something "guaranteed to rid your house of unwanted guests."

Here's Wikipedia's take on this inventive duo.

An English duo active in the late seventies and most of the eighties, Renaldo and the Loaf consisted of a pathologist (David Janssen or "Ted The Loaf") and an architect (Brian Poole or "Renaldo Malpractice") who made music often considered strange.

By their own assertion, they achieved their unique sound in part by striving to get unnatural synthesizer-like sounds using only what instruments they had available (acoustic ones.) To that end they routinely used muffled and de-tuned instruments, and often to striking effect, tape loops / manipulation. The two released four full length albums, one collection, various songs on compilation albums, and several self-produced demos. They were "discovered" by The Residents when Brian dropped off a tape at Ralph Records headquarters in San Francisco, during a visit to the US. After being signed to Ralph, they collaborated with The Residents on Title in Limbo.

By 1989, the collaboration had lost its steam, and the duo disbanded after recording a sea shanty, "Haul on the Bowline," which appeared only on a Ralph various artists release. Brian/Renaldo contributed to sporadic recordings in the 1990s. In 2006 upon the launch of the new Renaldo & the Loaf web site, the duo were reunited for the first time in the better part of 2 decades.

All blessings to the surrealists of all eras!

Fire of Love - the Gun Club

I remember when the Gun Club emerged in the mid 80s out of L.A., as it was a truly exciting time for independent and alternative music. And the Gun Club were a key part of them. I had the good fortune to see them live, at a small, but rather well regarded club in Hoboken, NJ and they had some majestic moments, moments in which they kicked into a great, noisy groove and elevated everyone there. Thinking back, I realize how much I miss them (and various other bands from that golden era).

Here, on their stunning debut, the Gun Club, led by hellbound lead singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce, offer 11 fine tracks of bluesy, countrified music. It makes sense to classify it as "roots punk," that is, as a mix of the underlying elements of rock (i.e., blues, country, rockabilly, African/Carribean voodoo music, etc.) filtered through the rebelliousness of punk. It sounded great back then, and it still sounds great. Highly recommended for listening while driving down a highway, particularly around sunset.

Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To

I was just listening to a bit of the brilliant group, the Spacemen 3, a group, about which, the All Music Guide states the following:

Spacemen 3 were psychedelic in the loosest sense of the word; their guitar explorations were colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s. Instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia, relying on heavily distorted guitars to clash and produce their own harmonic overtones; frequently, they would lead up to walls of distortion with overamplified acoustic guitars and synths. Often the band would jam on one chord or play a series of songs, all in the same tempo and key. Though this approach was challenging, often bordering on the avant-garde, Spacemen 3 nevertheless gained a dedicated cult following. After releasing several albums in the late '80s, the band fell apart after in 1991.

The Spacemen 3 are a band that liked to play with the textures, generally guitar driven ones, of their songs, resulting in a sort of "trance-like neo-psychedelia." And their songs, and LPs, as the above example demonstrates, simulated an altered state of consciousness associated with drug use. The band, while certainly not the first band of counterculturalists to turn to pharmacueticals for inspiration, were to rock music something like what William S. Burroughs was to literature, with the LP Sound of Confusion being their Junky and, I suppose, Perfect Perscription, the record playing on my CD spinner downstairs, being their Naked Lunch. It should be noted that this recording evokes everything from Lou Reed to gospel to Sun Ra filtered through the MC5.

My wife's top 20 rock bands

This is a list that my wife, Jolie, put together a while ago (actually in 2002) of her top 20 rock and roll bands. Pretty good list, if you ask me. She and I got to see, together, live shows by two former Beatles (Pete Best, and Paul McCartney), a Kink (Ray Davies), an Animal (Eric Burdon) a Hermit (Peter Noone) and the reconstituted New York Dolls, as well as the reconstituted Soft Boys and reconstitued Buzzcocks (where we got caught up, for a moment, in the moshpit up toward the front of the stage, and Jolie found herself bumping into the lead singer from Everclear. We also saw, in a packed theater, the T Rex concert film Born to Boogie; T Rex and David Bowie producer Tony Visconti was in the audience then. And another piece of trivia is that my wife works just blocks from where Jimi Hendrix started up a recording studio and recorded Electric Ladyland, and also a slight distance from the building which was photographed for the Led Zeppelin LP Physical Graffitti - two pieces of rock trivia we always point out to visitors when we are showing them around Manhattan.

1. The Beatles 2. The Kinks 3. Led Zeppelin 4. The Ramones 5. The Who 6. The Sex Pistols 7. The Heartbreakers (NOT Tom Petty's Heartbreakers!) 8. Fairport Convention 9. The Incredible String Band 10. Jethro Tull 11. Pink Floyd 12. The New York Dolls 13. The Stylistics 14. Sly and Family Stone 15. T. Rex 16. The Rolling Stones 17. The Jimi Hendrix Experience 18. Deep Purple 19. The Clash and 20. The Misfits

Twenty Five Greats

What makes for rock music greatness is not necessarily commercial success, longevity, or even a great deal of musical ability; rather, greatness seems to emenate from those groups that manage to be very creative and to develop a style and a sound all their own. Bo Diddley, back in the 50s, developed a style all his own, with the underlying basis of his sound being the "bo diddley beat," which Bo himself explained as deriving from a style of dance known as the "hambone," a style involving the stomping as well as slapping and patting the arms, legs, chest, and cheek, and derived from African culture via the Southern plantations and various Caribbean locales. Or, another example is the Kinks, a British Invasion band whose sound was rooted in a more aggressive version of the early 60s British rock but then was refined a few years later through more complex arrangements of their hook-filled songs.

I posted this once before elsewhere a few years ago, and am reposting an edited version of it here. These are arguably the 25 greatest bands in rock history.

1. The Velvet Underground
What made them great: hung out with Andy Warhol and were the Factory's house band, released 4 classic and influential LPs, combined noise/art/drones with well crafted songs, gave us two great talents - Lou Reed and John Cale, influenced punk, post-punk and indie rock from the 1970s on. It has been said that very few people owned the Velvet Undergound's LPs in their time, but that everyone who did was inspired to start a band of their own, or to, in some way, create. Perhaps.

2. The Kinks
What made them great: The Kinks, unlike a lot of other bands of their day, exposed their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, not to mention their utter Britishness - with their music filled with references to village greens, royalty, afternoon tea, to music hall and to various memories of ordinary British life. They perfected the concept album and were also pioneers of the theatrical side of rock band performance. Much of their music is truly gorgeous and moving (e.g., Waterloo Sunset, Days, Starstruck, Hollywood Blvd., etc.). And their leader, Ray Davies, is undoubtedly a genius, one of rock's greatest geniuses, in fact. In short, they made both pop and art and combined the two in a way only they could.

3. The Beatles
What made them great: The Beatles caused the whole world to fall in love with them, and all with a few basic chords and a few well placed "yeah, yeah, yeahs." The Beatles' greatness, in addition to deriving from both their personalities and their music, has something as well to do with how intertwined they were with their decade - the 1960s. Much was packed into a short span of time, particularly from 1964 until around the time of the moon landing and Woodstock.

4. The Stooges
What made them great: The Stooges are a band now understood to be as seminal as the Velvet Underground for punk rock and other forms of modern music. But whereas the VU were something like a group of art school misfits, the Stooges were more a motley collection of trailer park dirtbags and lowlives, from the wilds of Ypsilanti, Michigan (thus also tied to the great Detroit garage band/biker band scenes). The Stooges seemed to thrive on tension and on stage, this consisted of confronted the audience, in the studio, one another, and when not playing music, themselves. Musically, they captured what is essential about rock, namely its noisy, rhythmic power - no surprise that one of their classic albums was called "Raw Power."

5. The Ramones
What made them great (from a personal review of their 1st LP): I first heard the Ramones debut record in early 1977, shortly after reading a review of them in a music magazine (I think it might have been Trouser Press or perhaps Hit Parader) when I was 15, and I was blown away by its stripped down sound. Hearing them made me an instant fan, as I suspect it did for many others. I remember just loving the Ramones' sound and their twisted sense of humor, not to mention their look (kudos to Roberta Bayley and Arturo Vega for the band photos), and beginning with them, embracing the punk revolution as a breath of fresh air. Here indeed was a band for kid who grew up on Mad Magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, comic books, Ed Sullivan, and late 60s bubblegum, and who came of age in the middle of the anomic 1970s. Here the Ramones are sounding extremely stripped down and raw. Recorded for just a few thousand bucks (cheap even by mid 70s prices) the raw sound is a perfect compliment to these songs - some of the Ramones great classics. Songs like Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat on the Brat, 53rd and 3rd, and I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You have well stood the test of time. And with a cover of the oldies song Let's Dance, the Ramones link themselves to rock's glorious past, its transistor radio era. In short what we have here is the start of a musical/cultural revolution.

6. The Who
What made them great: They were tied, at the start of their career, to an anglicized version of Motown/R&B, as well as to the "mod" subculture, and later explored these roots in the LP and (very underrated) film Quadrophenia. They embraced pop art and the swinging 60s, but brought to these things a great deal of testosterone fueled aggression, making their acts of aggression into pop art itself. However, they also balanced their aggressiveness with insightful moments of introspection and reflective insight into the human condition. They were a highlight of Woodstock and released the classic Who's Next, filled with anthems. They then stuck around for several more years, adding to their legion of devoted fans.

7. The New York Dolls What made them great: Not so much their musical skills, which were somewhat limited, as their attitude, one based on their outer boroughs New York personalities, their aggressive androgyny, and their association with drug induced decadence and anomie, all of which made rock music once again seem rebellious, after a long time of not being so. They were the perfect contrast to the corporately sponsored mellowness of mid-70s, Seals and Crofts-era, rock. This attitude and contrastiveness paved the way for the punk scene a few years later.

8. The Fall What made them great: Their droning, atonal sound and the personality of band leader, lead singer and lyricist Mark E. Smith. Even when he's doing things like reading British football scores in the voice of someone with a bad hangover, Mark E. commands the performance space. In short, the Fall, while flirting here and there with commercial success, have been a creative force in indie/underground rock
for decades, and for very good reason.

9. My Bloody Valentine What made them great: They invented/perfected an ethereal style of play, known as "shoegazer." Their music is extremely powerful and seductive and leaves the listener wanting much more.

10. Joy Division What made them great: They captured a moment, when punk seemed dead and the world of possibility was completely opened up, with their music, which is haunting, intense, powerful, and mournful about the various tragic elements of essential existence.

11. T Rex What makes them great: Moved from hippy to glam and thus helped to create the 1970s. And, they are one of a handful of performers/groups (such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, AC/DC, Motorhead, Ramones, and ZZ Top) with a patented sound of their own.

12. Yo La Tengo What makes them great: They encompass the history of rock's critical and indie highlights in its entirety in their recordings and performances, and embody the principle of refraining from selling out. Plus, since I like cheering on the home team, and since I have a bit more of an identification with Hoboken's later renaissance than with its 1940s Sinatra-era glory days, I cheer for YLT as my musical home team.

13. Sex Pistols What makes them great: They took anarchism and made it into a band ethos. And they inspired Greil Marcus to write his great Lipstick Traces, which found connections between punk and situationism.

14. The Raincoats
What makes them great: They managed to combine punk and feminist impulses, and gave us a homey, lovely sound.

15. The Beach Boys What makes them great: The musical genius of Brain Wilson, as demonstrated in the LP Pet Sounds and the song "Good Vibrations."

16. Sonic Youth What makes them great: Sonic Youth represents the triumph of the Lower East Side's early 1980s post-punk "no wave" scene, but whereas most of the bands associated with this scene were producing their music almost as an art project - not necessarily meant to last for very long, SY actually dedicated themselves to their band as a career, and produced an extensive body of work, merging guitar noise and conventional song structures.

17. Guided By Voices What makes them great: They've got bulldog skin and they knew how to make lo-fi rock as hard as a metal band.

18. The Television Personalities What makes them great: Someone had to be the cheekily ironic commentators on the punk revolution. Why not them?

19. Hot Tuna What makes them great: They are the anti-Starship, a Jefferson Airplane spinoff band actually better than the band from which they emerged, and thus a continuation of the ideals of the 1960s and of roots rock. And having seen them live, I can easily vouch for their musicianship.

-also, some bonus points here for the fragile, lovely music of Jefferson Airplane alumni, Skip Spence.

20. Stereolab What makes them great: Marry 50s lounge music to 90s synth-pop, and do so perfectly. Listening to their music always puts me in a better mood.

21. The Buzzcocks What makes them great: they were, as the Spin Alternative Record Guide puts it, a "pop band born in punk heaven."

22. TheClean What makes them great: Their total commitment to lo-fi musical greatness and their pioneering status as New Zealand's first great indie rock band - a further instantiation of Beat Happening's notion of an "international pop underground."

23. The Ex What makes them great: Their idealism and their experimental approach to music.

24. Pink Floyd What makes them great: starting with Syd Barrett, one of the great conceptually oriented rock bands, with a great interest in alienation and dystopia.

25. The Minutemen What makes them great: Their energy, their commitment to truth and to ideas, and the fact that they could really play, in a style like no other band of their era.

It was 40 years ago today....

...according to my copy of The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, that two really great pop tunes were in the top five.

For the week of April 15, 1967, the number 2 song in the country was the Turtles' Happy Together, a song written by Gary Bonner and Allen Gordon (these guys also wrote She'd Rather be With Me.)

And the number 5 song was the Monkees' A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You, a song written by Neil Diamond. (I've yet to hear the Ventures' version, at least in its entirety.)

Both songs - I love them both - bring me back to more innocent days.

It was twenty years ago today....

... that Prince had a top ten hit with the song Sign `O' the Times, which is, in my opinion, one of the great all time Prince songs, from Prince's greatest LP, of the same name.

I remember the release of this, as if it were yesterday. A coworker, Jay R., taped me a copy of this record, and with appreciation, I took it home and gave it a listen. I was already a bit of a Prince fan, and enjoyed his music. But nothing I had listened to could possibly have prepared me for this epic double LP, with its serious expression of social concerns. As I listened to it for the first few times, I can remember thinking how powerful, substantive and deep it was. It represented a major artistic leap forward for an artist who had already demonstrated his originality. And the songs - Starfish and Coffee, Hot Thing, The Cross, U Got the Look, Forever in My life - these songs would just ring in one's ears for hours afterward.

So, this posting is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this classic record hitting the charts. Chart success is not always a sign of artistic achievement, though sometimes it is. It certainly was in the case of this record. I also have long wondered about who Prince's audience is. I gather that his audiences (and I use the plural intentionally) were multiple and diverse, and transcended color. In fact, I can still recall the first time I became aware of Prince; I was in a record shop in Boston in 1979, and saw a large store poster for Prince's For You LP.

And then, along with music listeners everywhere, I took note of such hits as Controversy, Sexuality, 1999, Little Red Corvette, and of course, Purple Rain. And I remember such moments as Prince on Saturday Night Live, during the show's bad era of the early 80s, doing the song Partyup. Prince was certainly a force. But again, Sign `O' the Times was an artistic leap forward.

So, here's to an album and a song which twenty years later still holds up. And here, while it lasts on Youtube, is a video.

Pub Rock in the USA and the UK

Remember "Pub Rock"? It was sometimes marketed as "punk rock," but in actuality, it was a slightly different animal. For one thing, while it shared with punk a penchant for stripped down simplicity, it wasn't nearly as angry, confrontational, absurdist and/or political as punk. It was much more a feelgood music, though perhaps with some exceptions. Essentially, pub rock was, and always has been, crowd pleasing music played in clubs with bars. And of course, while famous, landmark NYC clubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB's and the Mudd Club could possibly have been considered drinking establishment, none, in fact, qualified as pubs. The music played in these places was not pub rock, exactly. In the U.K., pub rock seems to be associated with small clubs out of London, that is, locatable more in small provincial towns.In fact, the two times in my life I've been to London, I noticed that there were a lot more techno dance clubs than bars featuring bands playing live, at least within the London city limits.

[a side note: in NJ, there is a large slew of shore bands that play in the boardwalk bars, from Cape May all the way up to Sandy Hook. Much like their British counterparts, they used to be known for their classic rock/r&b sound. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes came out of this scene as did, of course, the E Street Band (as well as Bruce's earlier bands). Nowadays, I tend to ignore this scene, as my impression of it is that it has gotten a lot schlockier.]

I was thinking a while ago about pub rock, after acquiring a cheapo 3 CD compilation called "I Spit on your Gravy," and one of the tracks is by Eddie and the HotRods, one of the leading pub rock bands during the era of British punk, c. 1976-78. I remember buying their LP "Teenage Depression" right around the time I got into punk and thinking it was pretty decent. They had a really rocking, loud fast version of Bob Seger's "Get out of Denver." On this record, they do Van Morrison's "Gloria," but its not that great a version.

Anyway, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds were also pub rockers, with their power pop and neo-rockabilly. So was Graham Parker and the Rumour, with their stripped down r&b, even though, like the punks, Parker was often edgy. Then there were bands like Ducks Deluxe (who spun off into The Motors, Brinsley Schwartz, and Dr. Feelgood. The Motors then gave us Bram Tchaikovsky, who was something of a hitmaker in the late 70s new wave era. I'd also include Ian Dury and the Blockheads and Wreckless Eric among the pub rock pantheon. My wife, Jolie, who lived for a time in England was telling me a while ago about the Sensational Alex Harvey Band; it sounds, too, like they might have been pub rockers; or at least rockers who spent all their free time at the pubs.

Some scholarly accounts of how we use music

Scholar Tia Denora, in the book Music in Everyday Life, draws upon a series of ethnographic studies, including in-depth interviews with a group of fifty-two British and American women aged eighteen to seventy-seven, and in doing so, examines how the subjects utilize music in a wide variety of different settings. The book is thus a social phenomenology of music, which is something that interests me very much.

Another study, Thinking inside the box: In search of music-video culture is a 2005 doctoral dissertation by Patricia L Schmidt, a scholar at the University of Surrey. Schmidt's dissertation is based upon an ethnography she conducted with teenagers in the eastern United States "to examine the development of music-video cultures and to discuss the medium's overwhelming influence on the adolescent imagination." From this, she put together a "working definition of music-video culture and cultural practice." Her work challenges ethnomusicologists to think differently about participant-observation, fieldnotes, and other traditional anthropological methods.



From Amazon.com Music, Space and Place, edited by Sheila Whiteley, Andy Bennett, and Stan Hawkins, examines the urban and rural spaces in which music is experienced, produced and consumed. The editors of this collection have brought together new and exciting perspectives by international researchers and scholars working in the field of popular music studies. Underpinning all of the contributions is the recognition that musical processes take place within a particular space and place, where these processes are shaped both by specific musical practices and by the pressures and dynamics of political and economic circumstances.

Important discourses are explored concerning national culture and identity, as well as how identity is constructed through the exchanges that occur between displaced peoples of the world's many diasporas. Music helps to articulate a shared sense of community among these dispersed people, carving out spaces of freedom which are integral to personal and group consciousness. A specific focal point is the rap and hip hop music that has contributed towards a particular sense of identity as indigenous resistance vernaculars for otherwise socially marginalized minorities in Cuba, France, Italy, New Zealand and South Africa. New research is also presented on the authorial presence in production within the domain of the commercially driven Anglo-American music industry. The issue of authorship and creativity is tackled alongside matters relating to the production of musical texts themselves, and demonstrates the gender politics in pop.

Underlying Music, Space and Place, is the question of how the disciplines informing popular music studies - sociology, musicology, cultural studies, media studies and feminism - have developed within a changing intellectual climate. The book therefore covers a wide range of subject matter in relation to space and place, including community and identity, gender, race, 'vernaculars', power, performance and production.


Sociologist and jazz musician Howard Becker offers the following analysis called jazz places. This is a starting point for those interested in looking at jazz from a sociological standpoint. Here too are Becker's notes on improvisation.

Finally, here are some links to ethnomusicology.

So bad it's good

From Bizarre Records, Nick DiFonzo's website for cataloguing weird records. Great website, worth several visits. The Friends are simply one of a number of obscure acts to be discovered there.

The Bizarre Records catalogue fits in with the sorts of outsider music that WFMU DJ and cultural explorer Irwin Chusid focuses on in his fascinating book/recording series, Songs in the Key of Z. I read his book several years ago and could not put it down.



According to Chusid, "If you're interested in Outsider Music, it's safe to assume you're a fairly unusual person, inquisitive, perhaps a bit "outside" the mainstream yourself. Because Outsider Music, by definition, offers little of interest to the vast majority of your fellow citizens. They have neither the time nor the curiosity for.it.

- - The spectrum of music to which the average person is exposed -- versus the variety of available sonic art -- is extremely limited. Yet I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about the music industry suppressing uncommercial (or non-commercial) artists; nor do I believe that the government, the Trilateral Commission, Billboard, radio programming consultants, Warner Bros., and agents of the Nine Elder Bankers are in collusion to prevent anyone from exploring the nether reaches of musical marginalia. These lumbering Goliaths aren't concerned with Jandek or Shooby.Taylor.

Most consumers simply do not have adventurous taste in music. They're preoccupied with families, careers, and paying bills, home improvements and car repairs, and getting a good night's sleep. Insofar as music plays any role in their lives, they prefer the comfort of familiar artists and formulas. For that, no one should be faulted. It's a filtering process, necessary to avoid sensory overload. A person who can't appreciate music beyond Air Supply or Jimmy Buffett may have an appetite for exotic food, fine art, or extreme sports. But when they or their progeny get married, they prefer that the festivities resonate with the strains of Billy Joel, Sinatra, Motown oldies, and Madonna. Weddings and Bat Mitzvahs are not occasions for expanding your musical horizons, or those of your guests. And yet music provides an important ritualistic function, and I harbor little doubt that pop standards played or performed at these events have great significance to all involved. Captain Beefheart's "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" or Wesley Willis's "Shoot Me in the Ass" just won't.do.

- - Yet Outsider Music has its place -- an intimate, dimly lit enclave. Songs in the Key of Z attempts to air out the dusty attics and damp cellars of the greater music community, introducing some of the dizzy aunts and eccentric uncles about whom your parents rarely.spoke."

Finally, as an example of pure outsider music, there is the Shaggs. This is a group of sisters who seemingly could not play their instruments; nevertheless, the wrote and performed a bunch of songs, appearing at venues during the late 60s/early 70s. Their LP sold very few copies, but among those who did own it were Frank Zappa, who championed them, and the music collectors at Rounder Records, who signed them to a releasing deal. The Shaggs periodically get together to play, and they were also the subjects of a musical in L.A.

Here is the Shaggs' website



On a certain level, Shaggs' music may seem laughably bad and thoroughly amaterish. However, I must admit, I actually like their records a lot, and from what I have gathered, the Wiggin sisters are very likable people. These recordings are unlike anything else ever recorded. Nothing is in tune. The beats and rhythms are all over the place. The lyrics are very naive and childlike. However a certain sweetness and sincerety comes across. I also don't find it irritating the way I find a lot of commercial music. Is it any wonder that the Shaggs have been the object of cultish devotion for all these many years?

Sons (and Daughters) of the Velvets

Some reviews of some seminal bands that were influenced by the Velvet Underground, starting with The Only Ones



A mini-review of the LP Special View

A great blast of new wave energy is to be found here. Featuring the classic Another Girl, Another Planet, Britain's The Only Ones rocked many rock fans' worlds when they they came to public attention during the late 70s punk explosion. Listening to them, you hear in them a sort of a glam/pre-punk feel, not unlike Lou Reed and the New York Dolls. In fact, I suggest listening to them along with Lou and the Dolls, perhaps on a CD spinner. Their respective sounds are quite complimentary.

Back to the Only Ones; here is what Jim Walsh of Spin says about them: "Live, the band's leopard skin vests, furs, pink top hats, sharkskin smoking jackets, and shades had more in common with glam than punk." Walsh also describes lead singer Peter Perrett's songs as "suggestive, flowery, mystical, debauched," and his voice as "sheated in sorrow, decay, and bliss - nothing short of hypnotic." Ira Robbins of Trouser Press refers to Perrett's "romanticism and artfully decadent stylings."

It's no wonder Peter Perrett and Johnny Thunders hit it off.

Next up, the Talking Heads, with a focus on More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

This is one of those records I associate with a time when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life; it was 1980, and I was just out of high school and taking a writing class at the New School, hoping to learn to observe the world around me and to write well about it. Around this time, the music world, too, was trying to figure out its own direction. Mainstream music felt so bloated and lifeless. Nevertheless, there were various forms of life bubbling underneath. The Talking Heads were one such form. On this, a record from 1978 (punk rock's sophomore year) the band combines the jittery vocals and non ironic observational lyrics of lead singer David Byrne, the minimalist funk-based(particularly on Found a Job) playing of rhythm section Chris and Tina, and a variety of inputs from newest member Jerry Harrison. More Songs then adds something very special to the mix - the production treatment of avant-garde rocker Brian Eno, who helped them to find a newer, perhaps better, sound with which to present their music. It allows them to present their very unique take on Al Green's Take Me To The River, as well as the epic in scope song The Big Country (not to be confused with the song In A Big Country by the band named, what else, Big Country). The Talking Heads song is much more subtle.

One other personal association. I also associate this record and this band, in particular,with the world of lower Manhattan, particularly the area of the East Village/St. Mark's Place, where I was spending an increasing amount of time, going to book stores and record shops and developing a deep appreciation for new ideas and for various alternative cultures/cultural underground. This would be a place I enjoyed observing things going on, a place to inspire writing, and a place with a lot of interesting music and culture, all of which helped me to think.

Turning to the Clean, a band from New Zealand and a leader of the indie rock scene there.

The LP Getaway represents one of my beloved bands playing on a really fine record. While better produced than some of their earlier work, this on again, off again trio continues, over and over again, to deliver music that is a joy to listen to. Combining folkish Velvet Underground-ish three chord rock with various indie rock sonic experiments, including some cuts that remind me of My Bloody Valentine at their most danceable, and featuring the fine accompanying playing of Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan on two tracks, some mighty infectious grooves abound on this, a wonderfully warm, enjoyable recording by a legendary group.

Next up, Scotland's Pastels.

On the recording Mobile Safari, Glasgow, Scotland's Pastels really shine, particularly on the song "Yoga," which sounds something like what the Velvet Underground might have produced had they, like the Archies, had their own Saturday morning cartoon. In fact, the Pastels move beyond the "shambolic," an adjective frequently used to describe their sound and demonstrate why they are, in fact, one of the great unsung rock bands of our day. Long may they continue to shine and to make joyous guitar pop like they do here.

Finally, the band Luna.

Luna, now no longer, were, like all of the bands above, a beloved cult band, but one uniquely influenced by one Velvet Underground LP in particular, their last recording with Lou Reed, Loaded. Their record Bewitched offers a consistent interpretation of Loaded, but not an a derivative way; rather, Luna managed to take a great sound and to bring it forward.

Some possible theme songs for a former hometown

There is a freebie magazine in NYC called The L Magazine

In an issue from a few years ago titled "the music issue," the question was asked, as one of the regular features (the "New York argument," in which two New Yorkers square off on some topic) What's the quintessential NYC song? The arguments were posited by a couple of musicians.


One writer argues for Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side," arguing that the song, about Warhol's Factory, reflects NYC being a collection of scenes: Hip-Hop, Hipsters, Hippies, 1960s Folkies, Antifolk, Bohemians, Beats, Bobos, the Harlem Renaissance, Glam, Broadway, and that New York breeds and imports the talented, brilliant leaders of avant-cultural movements, and stews them in neighborhood cauldrons of endless experience.


The other argues for the song Autumn in "New York," proclaiming that "while New York holds out the promise of every worldly success imaginable - fame, treasure, and young flesh for starters - you're just as likely to find abject failure and cruel heartbreak in New York as you are dizzying success and sweet romance. All of this is poignantly conveyed in `Autumn in New York'."


So, in thinking about this, I ask, what song best describes or conveys something unique about where you live or come from?



Here are three possible picks, and these pertain to Jersey City where I grew up and lived for three different stretches. I couldn't decide between these:


"One of the Boys" by Mott the Hoople
"The Real Me" by the Who
"In the neighborhood" by Tom Waits.

While the first of these tunes, written by Mick Ralphs and Ian Hunter is a classic rocker and is about being in a rock band/fitting in with a group, almost in a tribal sense, the second of these, also a classic rocker, is about not fitting in and feeling alienated. Both of these convey the feel of growing up in a blue collar town like Jersey City. And finally, the third song, the Waits tune, is a nostalgic, somewhat bittersweet ballad, observing/(celebrating?) the eccentric misfits with whom one makes a community, in spite of everything. It has a kind of shaggy dog quality to it, and impressionistically, reminds me of certain aspects of the place in which I grew up. It connects the old to the new, which is how I recall life in an aging post-industrial city which happened to be situated in the shadow of Manhattan. The video for this song is terrific and was directed by Haskell Wexler, the great documentarian.

Anyway, here are some lyrics to the Who song.

The cracks between the paving stones
Look like rivers of flowing veins
Strange people who know me
Peeping from behind every window pane

The girl I used to love
Lives in this yellow house
Yesterday she passed me by
She doesn't want to know me now

Can you see the real me, can you, can you
Can you see the real me, can you, whoa yeah

And here are the lyrics to In the Neighborhood

Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Global impact of music vs. film

I was once asked the question, which medium/art form has reached more people around the world via popular culture: music or film. The questioner specified that they we're talking about 20th century music/film and were excluding literature
from this debate. The question was about which has had the most power to reach the world, that is, to make people react, be it laugh, cry, think, change society, entertain, remain in people's memories etc.

I replied that I lean slightly in the direction of music, but I think, when all is said and done, both mediums are about tied. Film themes and genres and music styles both cross cultures and bring influences from place to place. One musical example that comes to mind is that of reggae, a Jamaican musical genre based on American soul (and later hip-hop), which then, in turn, influenced everything from British punk bands like the Clash, ATV, Buzzcocks, etc., American rappers like KRS-1, various techno artists (particularly dub reggae), Afropop, and probably a whole lot more. As far as the "message" (aside from the sound of danceable "crooked beat" as the Clash once described it) of reggae, it is ambiguous, being an equal mix of feel-good spiritualism (e.g., Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" now used to promote Jamaican tourism) and (gangsta-)rebellion, (e.g., Shabba Ranks) and either message, depending on artist consumed, is what gets delivered. I was recently listening to a tribute record to the Nigerian political popstar, Fela Kuti, and on it, artists from around the world gather to interpret music which is itself a hybrid of forms. Also, in both Jamaica and various African countries, the DJ is still king as a taste maker; something that was the case in the U.S. when Murray the K was spinning Beatles records, before radio became corporatized. In more urbanized parts of the world, the same globalization seems to be occurring, but it seems that music videos are more influential; one could argue that the medium of the music video emphasizes the visual at the expense of the music, but I'm not necessarily convinced that the global audience is now only interested in consuming visual images and not in the music itself. What I think is happening are a series of massive changes by which music is produced, distributed and consumed. It is sometimes difficult to chart these changes.

With film and globalization, one thinks of Hollywood. However, there is, within film, high, low, and middlebrow culture, and it seems that what is most globally popular are either the lower or middle brow style fare; I'm not sure what particular this impact has. In part, I think, audiences can and do read whatever meanings they project onto the screen while watching the film.

The needle and the damage done

Rock, folk, blues, and jazz are genres in which some of the greatest musicians have also been drug addicts; Bix Beiderbecke, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Tim Hardin, Townes Van Zandt, Tim Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, and the Pretenders' Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott were all among the casualties. These musicians were all extraordinarily gifted. Some were visionaries. And not to be overly clinical or reductionist, some may have been inherently unstable as a result of some underlying psychological conditions.While some lost their battle with smack or booze, others managed to go clean, at least for a time. While drinking or drug taking was not necessarily the essence of a Charlie Parker or a Townes Van Zandt or an explanation of the unquestionable beauty of their music, being wasted - and thus loopy and uninhibited - at least some of the time may have had something to do with how they lived their lives and in how they created a music that endures to this very day.

A couple of bands, though, spring to mind as bands that were both drug addled and thus prone to self-destruction but nevertheless perhaps somewhat inspired by the junky existence; brilliant and influentially ragged, these bands, from the world of punk - a world that reveres raggedness and nonconformity - are: The Germs, the Heartbreakers and Flipper.

Here are the Germs doing No God The Germs have recently reformed with a new lead singer and have been out on the "Warped" Tour, playing for kids a few generations younger, and young enough to be their offspring. Many outside of their L.A. base in the early 1980s became aware of the Germs through their appearance in the film The Decline of Western Civilization, myself included.

The Germs were, in my opinion, one of the great and essential American punk bands. Their sound was a particularly primitive stripped down three chord punk; listening to them it sounds as if they could barely play when they started. No matter - neither could other punk legends like Sid Vicious or the Ramones, both of whom were obvious influences here. The other obviously key part of their unique sound is singer Darby Crash. Darby was no poser; for him, punk was a total way of life, one to which he committed his (short lived) life. On songs like What We Do is Secret, Richie Dagger's Crime or Lexicon Devil, you can hear the power of his vocalizing; and you can also hear a deeply buried but inherent tunefulness, deep within the musical muck.

Here are the Heartbreakers doing Going steady and Chinese Rocks. The Heartbreakers were a band formed by guitarist Johnny Thunders, after the breakup/fracturing of his earlier band, the legendary New York Dolls (Here is a really fine Johnny Thunders blog.) I recently finished reading Nina Antonia's book about the Dolls - Too Much Too Soon, and also read, a few years ago, her book on Thunders, In Cold Blood. Both are very good, interesting, informative reads, with both chronicling the rapid rise and hard, grief strewn falls of said musicians.

[Incidentally, the New York Dolls have recently reformed and have an official band website. I've seen this version of them twice live, and while they are a lot of fun and sound decent, it's not quite the same as the 70s version; it cannot possibly be. Everyone knows that. And Nina Antonia's book's has apparently been revised, for the 3rd edition, to cover this recent reunion, as well as the most recent Dolls death, of bass player Arthur "Killer"Kane.]

With the Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders established himself as his own leader of the pack, but in the clip shown above, he shares the stage with bass player/songwriter/singer Richard Hell, who didn't last in this group for very long; (the clip being from 1975, and Johnny here still has his long NY Dolls haircut and not yet his punk hairdo). The classic Heartbreakers lineup was Johnny, ex-Doll Jerry Nolan on drums, Walter Lure on guitar, and Billy Rath on bass. While the Heartbreakers were well known as a band of heroin addicts and were thus inherently unstable (only managing to record one studio LP as a band, and, according to Antonia, sort of screwing that task up. Nevertheless, their recording are filled with hooks, chords, and a type of New York street humor. The Heartbreakers, as well as the Ramones, were also massively influential on the London punks of the 70s, and thus on punk, generally speaking. And yet in their live shows, they were essentially playing for chump change, and were sometimes so wasted that they could barely hold their instruments.

And not to overly romanticize their use of potentially deadly substances, but an argument can and should be made that the use of such substances as speed and heroin by such bands helped to fuel their creativity, by fueling their alienation from much of the world, essentially all of the straight (i.e., non partaking) world, and also by altering their perceptions in ways we may not fully understand. It made their performances ragged and messy, and this actually and authentically added a certain textural quality to their otherwise in many ways conventional music. None of this is to rationalize drugs; rather, it is to look at the use of drugs by certain artists with a sense of honesty.

Finally, here is Flipper doing Way of the world

These performances are truly sloppy and pretty great, with Flipper's showing a particular intensity. Bruce Lose is quite the charismatic front man/lead singer and looks healthy here (that would change in later years; Flipper would also suffer a band casualty - in their case, bass player Will Shatter. In the early, classic lineup, Flipper's two main songwriters were a kind of yin and yang, with Shatter known for writing the "optimistic" songs like "Life" and "Way of the World," and Lose writing the more "pessimistic" songs like "Life is Cheap" and "Living for the Depression."