Friday, April 29, 2011

Remmy Ongala: We Lose the Greats Too Soon

Late last year the music world lost one of its great lights. On December 13th, Remmy Ongala passed away in his home in Dar Es Salaam. The Tanzanian guitarist and singer gave Congolese Soukous a distinctly Tanzanian flavor and was beloved by his countrymen. He was known for the intricate and soaring guitar lines that infused his songs.

Toumani Diabate and his Symmetric Orchestra

I've never been to Bamako, but this would be such a great place to see the master and his band!

If you missed it back when it came out, I highly recommend the album Boulevard de L'Independence. Toumani is amazing on the kora, and his band lives up to his high musical standards. Very satisfying release. I missed the chance to see them live in Seattle a few years ago, I've regretted it ever since.

A Quick Side Note

In addition to my music and drawing, I love talking about politics and related issues. And since 2002, I've been doing just that at a great forum called America's Debate, where I am a moderator. The site is run by Mike and Jaime, a couple from Savannah, Georgia, and I think the site is unique among the many political debate sites out there. It's different because it is tightly moderated. Not in a way that stifles opinion, though. The moderation is geared at keeping debates on topic, and for keeping debates from devolving into flame wars. The discussions get heated, but because of our rules about sourcing our opinions, being civil, and keeping on topic, it's just a great place to find mostly intelligent debates about current issues.

If you like to discuss politics, and value intelligent and thoughtful debate, come check us out!

Femi Kuti: Africa For Africa

I don't remember exactly when I first discovered the music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti; but there was a powerful mojo about his music that pulled me in right away. I had come to African music through the same door as so many other Americans - Paul Simon's Graceland - but unlike many of them, I took up residence. I couldn't hear enough. Still, it took me a while to get to Kuti. I went through Mbaqanga, Soukous, Shona, Mbalax, Makossa/Makassi... but eventually I got to Nigerian Juju music, and through that, found Fela. 

Fela was, in my opinion, one of the greatest artists of the 20th Century. He combined the electric charisma of Bob Marley, the endless funk and soul of James Brown, and the political urgency of a revolutionary. He was certainly a musical genius. His band was often huge, often 15 to 20 musicians or more. And at its base was an interconnected groove that belied the ego stroking approach of much American music. Listen to a 20 minute Fela song, and you might notice a subtle guitar line that repeats for the entire time. A percussionist might hit the cowbell every measure for the whole song. Sounds repetitive when I write it here, but it wasn't. It was beautiful. The musicians contributed piece by piece to a massive, unstoppable groove. It wasn't unusual for a song to play for 10 or 12 minutes before the vocals even came in.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Making "Division Street," Part Seven: Division Street

Listen to the song HERE 
 
 In Which We Transplant and Explore

We moved to Spokane in the middle of June last summer. I came across Division Street the first time I drove around to get my bearings. It's hard to miss, really. It's the big North-South line running down the middle of the city. On the East side of Division is Gonzaga University. On the West side, our little neighborhood is nick-named "Felony Flats." We found this out the day we were moving in. But it really isn't bad. It's just got character! There's all sorts of entertainment. Once, we saw a whole mess of police cars scream up to the apartments opposite our house. Police were spreading out, running around, obviously trying to find someone. [I haven't lived here long enough yet see much for myself, but I've heard reports of problems with police brutality here] Another time we woke early one weekend morning to find an inebriated man in our back yard. He was standing, leaning in a corner beneath a tree, apparently dozing. I went out back to send him on his way. He was quite confused and wandered off. Needless to say we installed a lock on the gate posthaste! But we've never been bothered or felt threatened. Our neighbors are nice.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Interlude: Brett Dennen's "Loverboy" (Review)

Today I downloaded Brett Dennen's new album, Loverboy. It's probably one of the first times I've ever bought an album so soon after it came out. I'll admit, I don't tend to keep very current with music news. There's a number of artists, Dennen included, who I keep an eye out for, but it's often a month or more before I'll see a new release is out. But this time around, Brett did something that got me engaged in the process leading up to the release. I follow his page on Facebook, and a while back, he posted a link to a video clip, which I clicked on out of curiosity. It was a short snippet from the recording sessions for Loverboy. Ever since I started putting my home studio together, I've been especially fascinated by film clips from studio sessions. Then he posted another one. As easy as that, I was hooked into the process. So here we go. This will be my third listening of the album, so these will be fairly fresh impressions of the songs, not studied critiques!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Making "Division Street," Part Six: Alibi

First, here's the song: Alibi

I've always admired writers like Steve Earle and Randy Newman. They are both masters at "story" songs, something I've never been good at. I tend to write what I call "concept" songs, where the meat of the song is an idea or a "feel." My lyrics are often abstract; my natural voice just doesn't lend itself easily to story lines and characters.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Making "Division Street," Part Five: Stone

It All Started...

About two years ago, I sat down in my studio, plugged in my guitar, and started noodling. In my recording software, I have a practically unlimited number of sounds I can get with my guitar. And sometimes, one of those sounds will be the impetus for a new song. On this particular day, I was feeling mellow, so I started dialing through some sounds that would fit my mood. I liked the sound of the heavy tremolo, so I started messing around with it. Pretty soon, I had the verse and chorus that would become Stone. Once I had the chord changes working to my satisfaction, I added in piano. It sounded nice, now I just needed some lyrics.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Why do we write songs?

I often wonder why I write songs. After all, I don't make much money from it, and I have a fairly small audience. I'm often less than satisfied with the results; there's so many amazing songwriters out there whose output leaves me feeling inadequate. So why do I persist? I wish I knew. But it's an incredibly strong drive - strong enough that I classify my need to make music right up there with the need to eat, drink, or breathe.

Writing songs isn't about coming up with new ideas. In fact the songs that work best speak to the feelings and concepts which all of us share and can identify with. What makes a song great is that it speaks to these universal feelings in a novel or poetic way. It might provide some imagery that makes us say "that's exactly how I feel, but I haven't been able to put it into words so well."

Friday, April 1, 2011

Making "Division Street," Part Four: Lovers Left Behind

Here's a link to stream the song: Lovers Left Behind

Of all the songs on this album, "Lovers Left Behind" went through the most stylistic changes during its evolution. For a long time I was sure it would be a very acoustic song - just acoustic guitar and ukulele with vocals. At some point during the recording sessions, I experimented in a new direction: I added electric guitar, drums, bass, banjo, and was writing horn parts. It went from an acoustic first verse to a pretty rocking, kind of worldbeat groove. I still like it - and it's what I'd want to do if I were to play the song with Baaba Seth. But it was going to add a huge amount of time to the recording process, and I was really trying to get all the recording done by March 1st. So I scaled it back a bit. I might still go for the full-on version for another project, but bringing it back down a few levels was the appropriate choice for the context of Division Street.