New Blue Scholars EP: OOF!

Hey folks. So it's been a summer since I posted. Took some time off from the hectic life and reflected a bit. More time reading, chilling with peeps, and cooking and less time in front of a screen is my goal. But even as I've grappled with what to do with this space, I realize that I want to keep some semblance of this space alive because it's been a minute since I started it (2003?!) and I still have to find the right spot to call home for new writing. So thanks to anyone who's still reading, and hopefully there will be something interesting here once in a while still...

For now - the new Blue Scholars EP OOF! came out at the end of last month. Check it and stream below:

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API* Heritage Post #17: Cornershop's New Video by Prashant Bhargava

This year, in an actual attempt to really observe API* Heritage Month, I'm trying to put up a post a day about what that means to me. Click the tag for API* Heritage to get the whole series.

Rather than bore you with my missives into the ether, check this out. Via Cornershop's Myspace blog:

Well before the current interest in India as a different locational source for film, Chicago's award winning Grafitti artist turned award winning Film-maker and Designer Prashant Bhargava put together his film Patang -- this feature length drama is set during the jubilant atmosphere of India's largest kite festival. Luckily for us he also did a video for "The Roll Off Characteristics"

You can catch Bhargava's short film Sangam on Netflix View Instantly, and get onto the Facebook fan site for Patang, which is due out at either the end of this year or beginning of 2010. Support our arts, ya'll.

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Video: Blue Scholars "Coffee and Snow"

Hey ya'll. Here's a new video from the Blue Scholars with a little track they pulled together while snowed in from some homecoming shows last week. I like Sabzi's beat, and I love the video, actually.

Wishing all of my comrades and friends, family and strangers alike, a happy new year. Let's all wish for peace in the Middle East.

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Music: Flobots

Looking for more progressive/radical music to fill your music player? Check out the Flobots album Fight with Tools. I only got to hear a few tracks from the live at that Scholars show on election night, but imagine a slightly looser, younger (!) Rage Against the Machine. Really good politics, and they were awesome on stage right after the election, stating that Obama's selection was a great symbolic victory, but it was time to make it mean something by pushing the issues we care about: healthcare for all, a fair and humanitarian immigration policy, the end of Guantanamo, and a host of other issues.

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Film: No Direction Home (2005)

Finally got around to watching Scorsese's long doc on Dylan that revolved around his emergence as a folk artist and then the incredible Newport Folk Festival moment in 1965 when he pulled out an electric blues band, played only 15 minutes as the headliner to massive booing, and never looked back.

I don't really know Dylan's music that well beyond the big singles, but I've heard a lot about how brilliant and encyclopedic his knowledge of old American musical styles and traditions. I think I read that in the assessment of one of his latest series of albums (which folks have said are a remarkable run on their own). Watching this film is an introduction in some ways, but Scorsese does not focus on the chronological assessment of Dylan's ever-changing, ever-expanding musical persona, nor of his recorded output. I think it wisely looks at him from different angles and perspectives, including those of Joan Baez, whose heart he obviously broke, Allen Ginsburg in interviews that were late in his remaining life but quite riveting and dynamic, band members and producers, and other fellow artists like Pete Seeger and Peter Yarrow.

All I can say about the collective impact of the more than 3.5 hours of this documentary (took up two picks on my netflix rotation) is that it really made me think about bucking expectations, staying true to what you have inside, and trusting your voice. Baez has a really telling segment where she described what it was like to be active and political (and linked to him) once he'd moved on from topical songs and traditional folk, when she performed at protests and sit-ins and people asked for Bob: she had to say "he's not coming. He's probably never shown up, you poor fools."

It was so interesting to hear her talk about it - particularly because she's still doing that circuit more than 40 years later. It made me wonder about political art, actually, which I value so much in the Asian American context. Dylan's path gives us the rare opportunity to look at both forks in the road for artists (particularly with Baez or Seeger as a foil)... and activists, actually. He wrote some of the finest songs of his generation that captured the mood, inspired other great work (Sam Cooke wrote "A Change Gonna Come" after hearing "Blowin' in the Wind" and wondering why it was a white man who wrote it), and are still sung today. He then just had to move on.

Should we take note of this - not just in a creative context, but in movement work too? Sometimes I come across folks who haven't reinvented themselves and are still using the same rally chants and tactics (like street protests and petitions) as they've been using for decades. It seems like sometimes folks get so locked in, even when they're not that good at something, that they don't evolve or they stay the same to meet the expectations put onto them by followers or admirers. I wonder if that's true in a lot of contexts, actually, including civil rights leaders who still seem locked into a vision of America from the 50s and 60s, one that is not as diverse nor as complex as that which we work in now. These outdated models, and the people who continue to push them, may stall the evolution of movements for progress. And those are people who were actually once effective.

As a related aside (jumping back to the artist/activists thread) maybe the Two Tongues crew closed shop at the right time. They remain powerful (one of their tracks just came up on my Shuffle last night and the passion rocked my consciousness all over again), and they continued to evolve as individuals. It's a good lesson to keep in mind, and the film definitely hits that point for me. Strongly recommended for music fans and fans who consider the balance of consciousness and the creative process.

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A New Day

So he won it after all. I was in DC the night everything was declared, at a Blue Scholar show in fact, and first off, it was amazing to be with the Scholars when the declaration was made. But after that, it was so inspirational to see how the majority of Ethiopian and other African folks in the city were just jubilant about his election. People were dancing in the streets, ya'll. I never thought I'd see the day in the U.S.

This is the first day, so while I voted my conscience and have much to share about what that means, I'll keep other thoughts until later. For now, I think we should just take a collective deep, and tired, first breath. It is indeed as if the pallor of the last 8 years (or 16 or 40 depending on what marker you use to designate "when things were hopeful or better" if that's objectively possible when talking about American politics) has finally lifted.

People had a bit of spring in their step, really. Morning in America, and it was a new day. Maybe for one day, maybe for a brief stretch beyond that, this victory gives a little seldom-found relief to black men throughout this country. Plagued by negative images, stereotypes, and most every deck stacked against them, I will not make the audacious claim that this election is a game-changer in any way. But self-worth does not arise solely from what we have inside ourselves, and it's got to be hard to carry all that heaviness if you're conscious of it. While nothing has changed physically yet, I definitely felt optimism in people's hearts today, and just taking it at face value, more people of color, and in particular men of color, were smiling.

Not to mention the lines in front of the little corner stores that sell 2,000+ magazines and papers from around the world. Everyone wanted the papers that had cover stories. Everyone wants to keep that souvenir, that I was there, that memento that says "it's not just a dream anymore!" It's morning in America, and with this dawn came the promise, at least, of a new brighter day, if not in what actually happens, then at least in people's perception of what is possible.

But just to keep this real, here's a little perspective. There's much work still to do.

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Film Recommendation: Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Finally got to see this film (bless you, Netflix!), and I highly recommend it, particularly to metalheads of color and those against this (or any other) senseless war. The film tracks "the only Iraqi metal band" through it's struggles to just play the music that they love in their home country as it blows up around them. The insight of some of the members about what life in Iraq was like before Sadam, just after the overthrow, and in the years afterwards (portions of the film were shot in 2006 and 2007), is something else. And getting a video look at life both in Iraq during the war, and in the refugee communities in Syria where the band finally reunites is kind of mind-blowing.

One of the most amazing things is that the band had been together since 2002, but until their "reunion" show in Syria, they'd only played 6 times together. Their rehearsal spot in Baghdad was blown up by a rocket. They had nothing left, and yet they still push ahead to try to make music. It's phenomenal and really sad and triumphant all at once. Even if you're not a fan of the genre, you have to see this film. It's just very moving to see these young guys who have seen so much yet keep on pushing. And again, like that monk from Italy, they say that Metallica is an influence, but they kick Metallica's ass all over the place: their playing really rips.

On top of all of this, the film was co-directed by a South Asian Canadian: Suroosh Alvi - he has a welcome perspective that made me much less suspicious of it from the get-go (seeing the film-makers wearing kevlar vests just so they could make the trip out to Baghdad from the airport to meet the band in 2006 was pretty striking). They had to travel in an armored SUV and hire 2 gunmen and a fixer/translator.

You know, when I was talking about the film with a friend over breakfast yesterday, I realized that beyond the music element, the story personalizes the very real heartbreak playing itself out over and over again for people who have been forced to leave their homes as refugees, seeking asylum in places that are not as war-torn or dangerous. But it also reminds me that the story never ends with their entry into the accepting country: asylum seekers do not have it easy, and the band's travails and sharp observations of life in Syria (and to a lesser extent, Turkey) was quite telling. On the flip side, the way that the global metal community, upon watching the film and hearing that the guys had to sell all their gear to eat, came together, and raised money to get them more gear. Regardless of what people think about this subculture, there is a community here, and reading that just reminded me of that fact.

Anyway, not your average documentary about metal. Check it out. You won't be disappointed.

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Comfort in the Home Stretch

I am a more than casual listener of music. But it gets in the way sometimes, especially when I'm trying to learn a bunch of legal concepts for this exam.

At long last, and not a moment too soon, I've finally found the right sound to carry me through: Filmi songs from the 40s - 60s, featuring Lata and any partnering male (at this point, I'm listening to her with Mukesh). I don't understand Hindi, but that's the charm: these songs immediately speak to me of home - I can almost smell my mom's cooking, and I can hear her singing along. I know the melodies like old lullabies that you've heard a thousand times before. But I don't get lost in the words - I just hum along.

There's something about the way that these songs are hardwired into many of us: our parents because of the way the songs linked them to memories of home and gave them a lifeline in their new, immigrant lives (I touched on this once before) and us because we grew up with the songs playing all the time.

I feel like I should make a cup of tea and have some dhokla or something. All I need now is the rain.

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Springsteen Speech at Induction into New Jersey Hall of Fame

I just came across this. The man has a gift. And it makes me more proud of being born in New Jersey than before. Can't really claim it, or my Newark credibility even, but this is just wonderful. Can't wait to see him live again the night after this damn exam is over.

BRUCE'S SPEECH AT THE NEW JERSEY HALL OF FAME
Bruce Springsteen was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame on May 4. Here's a transcript of his speech:

When I first got the letter I was to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame I was a little suspicious. New Jersey Hall of Fame? Does New York have a hall of fame? Does Connecticut have a hall of fame? I mean, maybe they don't think they need one.

But then I ran through the list of names: Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen... my mother's going to like that. She's here tonight. It's her birthday and it's the only time she's going to hear those two names mentioned in the same sentence, so I'm going to enjoy it.

When I was recording my first album, the record company spent a lot of money taking pictures of me in New York City. But...something didn't feel quite right. So I was walking down the boardwalk one day, stopped at a souvenir stand and bought a postcard that said "Greetings from Asbury Park." I remember thinking, "yeah, that's me."

With the exception of a few half years in California, my family and I have raised our kids here. We have a big Italian-Irish family. I found my own Jersey girl right here in Asbury Park. I've always found it deeply resonant holding the hands of my kids on the same streets where my mom held my hand, swimming in the same ocean and taking them to visit the same beaches I did as a child. It was also a place that really protected me. It's been very nurturing. I could take my kids down to Freehold, throw them up on my shoulders and walk along the street with thousands of other people on Kruise Night with everybody just going, "hey Bruce...." That was something that meant a lot to me, the ability to just go about my life. I really appreciated that.

You get a little older and when one of those crisp fall days come along in September and October, my friends and I slip into the cool water of the Atlantic Ocean. We take note that there are a few less of us as each year passes. But the thing about being in one place your whole life is that they're all still around you in the water. I look towards the shore and I see my two sons and my daughter pushing their way through the waves. And on the beach there's a whole batch of new little kids running away from the crashing surf like time itself.

That's what New Jersey is for me. It's a repository of my time on earth. My memory, the music I've made, my friendships, my life... it's all buried here in a box somewhere in the sand down along the Central Jersey coast. I can't imagine having it any other way.

So let me finish with a Garden State benediction. Rise up my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We, of the state that will never get any respect. We, who bear the coolness of the forever uncool. The chip on our shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know that there's another bad Jersey joke coming just around the corner.

But fear not. This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what imbues us with our fighting spirit. That we may salute the world forever with the Jersey state bird, and that the fumes from our great northern industrial area to the ocean breezes of Cape May fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face. Theory of relativity anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? And that is why our fellow Americans in the other 49 states know, when the announcer says "and now in this corner, from New Jersey...." they better keep their hands up and their heads down, because when that bell rings, we're coming out swinging.

God Bless the Garden State.

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The Formation of Damnation: Testament

The new Testament drops next week, but they have (graciously, awesomely) put up the whole album for free streaming on MySpace this week. They totally convinced me through this awesomeness to buy the CD on the spot directly from them. And you know, I'm through about half of the songs and this album RIPS. I am really excited to get my copy and play this thing to death. It sounds like a very good mix of their old style and the newer, more aggressive stuff they'd been playing since.

Testament are the best of the best. No one else has this much talent and ability to change tempo so effectively. I think having a real singer on the mic, instead of just a screamer/Danzig wanna-be, makes all the difference. And Alex Skolnick writes leads that fit. I really hope I can catch them after the bar this summer, if I don't go away. They're on tour with Priest, Motorhead, and Dio-Sabbath.

If you listen to metal, buy this album.

5/02/08 Update: So I put in my order the day that I put up this post, and I actually got my CD in the mail on 4/30, which was a day after it was available in stores. That means the Testament crew popped it in the mail on 4/28. On top of that, they gave me the original CD in full shrink wrap plus an extra copy of the booklet that was signed by the band (the signatures were the pre-sale promotion through the website, but I didn't expect the extra booklet). Damn cool. Wish I could say that the album was my favorite, but it just isn't. I'll do more of a breakdown once I'm through finals, but I realized a few things about the band through looking at the booklet (I think I haven't owned a real Testament CD in a long time, so I haven't really looked at the lyrics). It isn't the slam dunk I was hoping for, but you should still buy it.

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Taiyo Na: Love is Growth

I heard about Taiyo Na through the feedBACK collective, APA poets and musicians who came together in the late 90s at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and even put out a cool CD with some of their work.

Taiyo Na has finally finished his debut album, which started out as a wholly hip-hop joint, but now fluidly integrates soul and a range of other kinds of music into the vibe. I heard him in an interview on Asia Pacific Forum (where, incidentally, I first learned about Blue Scholars, who I can't even imagine my life without at this point). The album was put out/produced by Issilah Productions, one of the many projects of former Queens laureate (and damn good singer/scribe herself), Ishle Park. Man - there's talent oozing out over all the boroughs!

So check out some of the tunes, and show the brother some love - I've ordered up my copy, and have been listening to the tracks on his MySpace patiently until the disk arrives. You should too. I mean, the man wrote a love song to his immigrant moms. That's keeping it real.

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The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!

You know, it's amazing how even the underground has its levels of hype and overhype. Not to say that Radiohead is "underground" by any means, but their decision to put up the new album, "in Rainbows," as a digital download for which listeners could pay what they want has been heralded as a move that will change the face of the music industry. Meanwhile, a remarkable collaboration that went further than radiohead (with big names of its own, but maybe not names that stack up against the unlikely combination of stadium-filling grandeur and art rock that is the radiohead phenomenon) hasn't gotten much play. Well, maybe real music heads know about it, but I sure didn't.

It's a collaboration by Saul Williams, poet, MC, and voice, and trent reznor. Yeah, that trent reznor. Called "The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!", an obvious tip of the hat to Bowie's Stardust album, it was made available in two formats online in November 2007: a $5 version that comes in either 192Kbps DRM-free MP3 or FLAC (lossless), or, completely free, which comes in the 192Kbps DRM-free version. Both come with a beautiful, 33 page PDF of lyrics and intricate artwork that's worth the $5 alone. I still have to listen to most of it, but it's an edgy piece of work - Reznor's production shines, unhampered by his usual attempts to rewrite his angst from his first 2 albums in new and interesting ways. Williams is a powerful MC, and he even pulls in a cover of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday for good measure.

I strongly recommend this album to anyone looking for something new and interesting, and in the interest of supporting artists who aren't afraid to take on the record companies and distribute their own music at a far more reasonable price than what you get for packaging at a big box store. And this album, unlike the Radiohead album, will not be available on CD after the fact (which folks didn't know when the rh album hit the net).

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Bruce on the Today Show

Bruce Springsteen has a new album coming out next week. He's given one song away for free already, and I'd be surprised if he didn't do other interesting promotions with the album. But what's even more amazing is that he played for a NYC crowd for the Today Show this morning, a typical venue for commercial acts, but not heavyweights like Bruce. We wondered what he was thinking - was he selling out too much in his old age?

He started the set with "The Promised Land" - an old song with oodles more depth than you can imagine a twenty-something mustering nowadays. And then he talked for a little while, making what seemed to be small talk with Matt Lauer and company. He said that the feel he was going for with the album was a throwback in musical style to the great pop singles of the 50s and 60s - he name checked California and Pet Sounds in particular. But then he said that the album was also about subverting the music with lyrics that come at the audience on topics they weren't expecting - more current things about what's happening now.

And then, before he intro'd a song, when he had his own mic, he proceeded to say (I'm paraphrasing here): "This album is about things we love about America - you know, cheeseburgers, french fries, the Yankees beating the Red Sox, the Bill of Rights..." Wait a minute, say what?! Yeah, he said the Bill of Rights. And the crowd didn't cheer as much for that as they did for cheeseburgers, but he didn't seem to skip a beat.

He said then, "in the past six years, we've had illegal wiretaps, suspension of habeas corpus, the abandonment of the great city of New Orleans, and thousands of our young men and women dying in this war." It was unreal. He basically listed out a whole set of reasons why this administration and the status quo have to go. The crowd didn't get it, but he wasn't talking only to his die-hard fans in the audience or watching at home. He was talking to the largest audience he'll ever get to speak to directly. I don't know what the viewership of the Today show is, but if people kept it on and didn't just say "oh this guy" and switch the channel, maybe some of them said "hell yeah!" and will get involved or plug into his message. There was a reason for this move, and I'm incredibly impressed that he used his cache as a rockstar to get a microphone in a way most politicians wouldn't.

Magic drops on Tuesday, and we're seeing him for two nights on the tour. We couldn't be happier. Unless you have more tickets to share.

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Iron M.I.A.den

Okay, so things have been a bit silent here for a spell, enit? I haven't had a chance to breath, and don't anticipate one until after this month has nearly been spent. That said, life remains good, I'm flying a bit, and enjoying the new workload. Working to find that rhythm.

Speaking of, I got the new M.I.A. in the mail today, haven't listened to it, but was immediately dumbstruck by the girl's choice of font on the back of the CD case. I mean, this summer, I was surprised to see a little icon that she or someone else came up with that basically took up the whole metallica logo and played with it a bit. I'll post it up here if I can later.

It was a bit of a trip, but I was shocked to see her turn it around and use the Maiden font in her track listing on Kala. I don't know what she's pulling here, but someone has a metal hat on, and it's driving me crazy! It's like little hints that she's dropping around for folks to pick up - I guess it would be more likely in the U.K. where the lines between the genres (or at least what's acceptable as top 40 music) are not so clearly defined by the record companies as they are in the good ol' US. But if anyone's heard that she's a metal head, that would be really interesting. Actually, come to think of it, I think I read something in which she was talking about Sabbath (may have been a back-o-Rolling Stone, "what are you listening to" kind of section).

So I shouldn't be so surprised. but it's cool when the hybridity of music tastes actually includes a bit of my own crazy multi-hued, mega-decibel faves.

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Thrash Retrospective.

I've been filling out my collection with some of the albums that I remember the most from my thrash days which I'd either sold or never upgraded from my tapes. While doing this, I've been thinking about thrash as a genre of metal, especially in relation to other genres. It hasn't fred quite as well, with most bands unable to present resilient shelf-lives, that are comparable to the more "classic" metal like Maiden or Priest. Also, the genre as a whole stagnated quickly, unlike more extreme metal genres like death and black, which seem to continue permuting to this day.

What was it about thrash? I won't go into a long exposition about the subject, leaving that direction in the capable hands of folks like Invisible Oranges (an outstanding music blog, by the way. Dude is well-informed, a good writer, and funny to boot). While there are plenty of classics in the genre, it didn't seem to extend a lot further than the die-hards, and the formula either got too tired too quickly, or people moved on.

Within thrash, everyone talks about the "big four" - Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. I started my journey with Metallica, as a lot of the not-quite-underground folks did. I really liked their first four albums, to varying degrees, and it fit the mood I was in when I found them. But looking back, there are only a few songs after Kill 'em All that remain classic to me. The majority of the non-Mustaine/Burton stuff just feels too long-winded, winding, and ultimately, boring. With only one guitarist who could pull off leads (which all ended up sounding the same), an obsession with Sabbath riffs that only becomes more apparent when you go to the source material, and the inability to turn truly clever or deep lyrics, Metallica has always been more of an emotional thing for people. The songs I love, I'll always love, but that list gets shorter over time. Don't believe me?

Try listening to one of the albums again if you're a fan. One of the "real" albums. It's okay. But did the songs *really* have to be that long? I used to love long tracks. I don't know what's happened to me, but maybe it's the obligatory 20-30 minute long track that most "progressive" metal bands put out nowadays that feel like they're trying so hard to wow me that the soul of the song got up and walked right out the door. Call it Dream Theater-itis. Only a few bands can really pull it off: with Fates Warning remaining at the top of the list because of the textures they bring to their songs, and Ray Alder's rich, full vocal delivery. I guess that means I should give Redemption another chance, even with the long long tracks. Oh, and Opeth. Opeth is amazing. Thanks burnedouteyes for the intro on that tip years ago.

Anyway, so on to Anthrax. The New Yorkers (what what!) in the crew, I'm surprised that they are considered one of the "big 4." I like that they didn't take themselves so seriously, most of the time. I like that they were such big Stephen King fans (to a fault, almost). I just found out that they covered 2 Police songs (and every cover they've done has been awesome). But I haven't really felt them enough to buy albums. I really like John Bush's vocals, where Belladonna got on my nerves, but I got tired of Anthrax somehow. Dan Spitz didn't do it for me either, with his pretty spastic leads.

Megadeth. Gotta either love or hate Dave and whoever he's roped in with him. I wasn't a big fan, following the Metallihype, but then someone kept feeding me the old stuff, and I realized why people liked Dave and his shit. First, he wrote some mean and aggressive music. Second, to a kingdom of misfits and outcasts, he was king - cast out of the band that would later rule the metal kingdom, put on a bus in NY to go home, cross-country, tail between his drunk, high legs. Okay, the metaphor crawled under something to die there, but you get the point. For those of us who have been bitter, upset, rejected, dejected, low and kicked on, and desirous of revenge, Dave was our patron saint. His snarl said it all, and his words helped. In retrospect, In My Darkest Hour is the real thrash dirge. Fade to Black, Sanitarium, and One just don't hold a match to it. If you're feeling angry and betrayed, there's nothing like it on repeat. Over. and Over. and Over.

But Dave has always teetered on the path of self-destruction, and listening to United Abominations, the new one, I don't think I like his politics, to boot. While I thought Rust in Peace was great, I'm more inclined to stick with the first two albums, which featured Chris Poland on lead and Dave's own good guitar work. Dave's been on a mission to prove that he's back for about 15 years, and it's not sticking. He can't hold onto a band for very long, making Megadeth an obvious one-man show with extras. His singing voice leaves a lot to be desired (while Hetfield has been nursing a not-as-hip version of Danzig's demonic Elvis for 2 decades, you kind of miss Dave's snarls from the first albums. His singing isn't anything to speak of (especially when it's supposed to be emotive). He has talking and samples of himself speaking on almost every album. I can't deal with it. Why not just go the books on tape route if you want to talk so much? And one-upping Metallica, who only have one that I know of, he's up to 2 sequels on his songs already, with more possible down the path. I'm sorry, Dave, but sequels to songs in thrash suggest that you're out of material. Power metal? Progressive? Fine. Expected, even. But thrash? Live hard, play fast, don't repeat.

And now we're at Slayer. Listening to a lot of Slayer again was what prompted this little trip down memory lane. I wasn't a big Slayer fan in the beginning of my metal days. "Too extreme" was what I thought. But again, a friend, who if I remember correctly, carved some Slayer lyrics into one of my trees one day, introduced me to them in a more substantial way. And when Seasons in the Abyss dropped, and I heard the first songs on the weekly metal show that I tuned into every Monday night on Vassar College radio, I was hooked. I actually don't even remember if I heard the entire Reign in Blood album until after Seasons came out. But no one in the big four brought it like Slayer did. Tom Araya's voice, when he was on, had a hypnotic quality to it. He got you thinking that he was inside your head, urging you forward, singing your words (sometimes). The production team that made it feel like he was whispering in your ear in Dead Skin Mask and a few other songs was brilliant. Slayer makes you feel like the rain is going to fall when you play it hard and loud. I wouldn't be surprised if I lost my hearing thanks to them. But why does Slayer even bother with guitar leads? They aren't melodic or interesting, sound like a kid had a seizure while picking up the instrument for the first time, and distract me from the punishing rhythm. Slayer's leads are just annoying (although the better paced stuff on Seasons really works). Song after song, King and Hanneman just go at it again and again. Must be nice to just show up and play whatever comes out, taping it, and going home. Not that I could do better. But with Lombardo behind the drums and Araya screaming bloody murder, why do you need lead breaks? The latest album, Christ Illusion generally doesn't bring much that's new to the scene, although a couple of songs just punish, but I don't like Araya's new vocal delivery - he doesn't have a lot of range, and now he really sounds like he's in a hardcore band. It's not my cup of tea. Either I can understand your singing and sing along, or you should scream the hell out of it. None of this in-between stuff.

I've always been a fan of the smaller bands below the holy quadruped, from Forbidden and Defiance, to Death Angel, Exodus (sometimes), Vio-lence, and a range of others. Testament wins the prize, though. They've grown over time, and Chuck Billy is the consummate thrash vocalist - mixing up the bluesy singing on rock numbers with thrashy yells that still show melodic control, to all out death growls in the later material. I don't know anyone else who can blend the way he can, and still sound aggressive, and yet solidly Testament. Eric Petersen is riff-master, and I think he got out some of his darker tendencies in Dragonlord, his black metal side project. James Murphy is an *awesome* lead guitarist, who I didn't really know much about because I wasn't a death metal junkie, but hearing his ability to take Skolnick's leads and make them sound *more* like Testament than the originals is amazing. I didn't know Low aside from a few songs, and I'm really feeling the album - it's quickly becoming my favorite.

With all this said, I don't know if I can still listen to thrash the way I used to. It's familiar, but it's somewhat boring now. Death metal is still not particularly attractive, but it's a lot moreso with all the different elements that groups have brought forward, from the elements of songs and structures from other musical traditions (Sepultura's Roots) to the jazz influences and interludes, to the extreme/beautiful dynamics of unique groups like Opeth. It's a little more dramatic than thrash - there's more texture there, and more to sink into. And the song structures vary a lot more than the typical thrash set.

But really, Slayer, lose the leads. Or get James Murphy to guest on your next album. And Dave, just stop trying to sing. It's getting embarrassing.

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Hallowed Be Thy... Delight?

Woah. While studying for my imminent exam, I was just checking out some music through An Aquarium Drunkard, a great music blog for a wide assortment of stuff. Anyway, in this post, he talks about the vocal delivery of Paul McCartney in a track from his second solo effort, Ram, called "Monkberry Moon Delight." I'd never heard it - not really a big fan of McCartney's solo stuff. But I played along and listened. While I agree that the vocal performance is interesting, the meandering melody line that starts up... which becomes more pronounced over time, is frightening close to a theme that arises in Iron Maiden's classic "Hallowed Be Thy Name." I can't post tunes here at this point, but it's shocking. Did Harris bite this bit from McCartney's song, which preceded it by at least 10 years? Eesh.

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I for India: On Lata, Leaving, Longing, and Losing Our History.

I recently had the very good fortune to see I for India - a family documentary that touches on the emmigrant experience of a particular family that settled in the U.K. If you can see this film, I highly recommend it. It's a very personal look through the eyes of the family itself, because they used the medium of film to keep in touch with the family they left behind in the United Kingdom. The loving arrangement of these fragments was made by the youngest of three daughters and interspersed with amusing and illuminating BBC and other clips, as well as present-day segments with the filmmaker's parents, the emigrants who straddled two worlds in their quest for a new life, and even tried to return to India.

I'm not going to go into the play-by-play on this one. Just check it out. However, there were a few scenes that really touched me. There's a scene that has the filmmaker's father in the present day, going through his morning routine (and at other times going through mundane, home-owner chores like property maintenance) with his headphones on. The filmmaker smartly takes us inside the 'phones, and gives us a blast of old school filmi music from the greats of Bollywood. I couldn't name the song, but I'd heard it countless times before while growing up, and as the images on the screen segued from a small town in the UK in the 21st Century to older 8mm film from India, I felt like I was traveling down the winding road of memories with him.

And it was at that point that I started to think about my parents, and by extension, many emigrants from India and Pakistan who left bright-eyed and ready to study or work in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I don't know a lot about their stories beyond the touchstones ($8 in my pocket, going to Chinese markets to get Indian vegetables) that we always take for granted. But I do think that there are some things that lie just beneath the surface about their big trip out here, into the unknown and away from their loved ones and the reassuring feeling of belonging just because you look like everyone else.

It's nothing like what immigrants to urban areas in the UK and the USA face now. Even though the earlier generation was well-educated and/or relatively affluent, I imagine that the predominantly bachelor population had a bit of a shock having to do many of the household activities for themselves. They didn't have the option of going out for food and conveniences from home that most H1-Bs take for granted now, and had to either cook, or adapt to the new environment (with many bringing a less than climactic end to the countless generations who preceded them without taking drink, cigarette, or meat).

Nor did they have the regular communication back home in the years predating low-cost and accessible internet (or even international long distance). Forget that, getting the news of back home was probably quite difficult in the UK and nearly impossible in the United States of the 50s and 60s. So they were on their own, and left to their own devices to survive, to make a home for themselves, and find some comfort in what was likely a cold place. Imagining that time, and thinking of how much was changing in the United States, especially with Kennedy's election, his assassination, the war in Viet Nam, and the growing importance of political protest in the culture of the time, I just wonder what it was like for that generation of people who came to the U.S. to study or to work. What was it like for folks who came from inherently conservative backgrounds to be in the United States at the time when it was arguably at it's most liberal? When revolution was actually something more than the rhetorical exercise its become in the States. Many of my friends speak of the 60s and even early 70s as the time they wish they were around, and active, because of how many things were coming up at that time, and how much (at least in our looking back at their history) it seems like people were actually engaged and willing to be more engaged. But it seems that many of us forget that we likely know folks who were here during all of it. Our parents, our uncles and aunties, a family who we've been in touch with through our many informal desi networks. But have we ever asked them of their impressions, when Watts and other urban centers were burning... when the 4 students were shot at Kent State... when Fred Hampton was killed by the FBI? Or do we fear that nothing beyond the big assassinations really registered?

Anyway, aside from the context in which they came, they were probably met with curiosity in the U.S. (or downright racism), and I can't even imagine the range of reactions in the UK where the scar from the colonial "umbilical cord" was still fresh. Still, as curiosities, they were probably spared the virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric that bleeds into most mainstream media in the present day. But without their own media outlets, the earlier wave of desi immigrants missed out on more than just the news: they also missed out on music and the simple comfort of turning on the radio and hearing songs that would remind them of growing up, of their parents, of home. But for whatever reason, and in whatever way, their connection to that music is incredible. Songs that they haven't heard in decades come flooding back when happen upon them, and their memory of when they first heard the song, or when they first saw the movie, is often impeccable. Somehow, the ability to recall the year of release seems to be very prevalent with a particular generation, and it's not limited to just the men - the aunties can bring it too.

Perhaps their separation from their homes and the music that enveloped them through much of their formative years (whether consciously or not), and the shock of arrival created a more developed connection with that music. But is that explanation sufficient?

When I think of my family members and uncles and aunties I know from India, and their depth of recognition of popular songs from Hindi films, and the emotional ties they have to that music rivals anything I know from my friends or myself. The music and love of the songs from that particular time (40s, 50s, 60s) is not a casual exercise for many of these folks, even though they did not own much of the music while growing up. It was radio, maybe more than the movies themselves, that soldered the songs to their memories, creating a link that has stayed with them through the great journey over the ocean and into America.

And the amount of music that they know off the top of their heads, and the connection between those songs, their memories, and who they are is astounding. For a long time, as an American/British popular music enthusiast, I scoffed at the relative paucity of music in India that was independent of the film industry. The link between the movies and the music, though, is making more sense to me, especially in the context of immigrants who are removed from the lives and worlds that they remember. While folks listen to songs/music many times, especially when linked to their emotions or memories, there's something more profound about the way that songs from Indian films end up having both a very personal connection for our folks, and also a visual element because of the films in which they were housed. It's difficult to separate the soaring duets by the famous singers from the actors/actresses who were likely in mind when the songs were conceived for the films in which they appeared. Take the interplay between emotional weight of the song from within the film, and then the emotional pull of that song within the listener's own life, and suddenly, you have emotional content that's far more potent than most pop music in other contexts. I guess the best analogue we may have is musical theater in the United States, for the folks who have the privilege of seeing really good shows and being affected by them - Rent is the obvious choice for me, but I have similar feelings for songs from Les Miserables, Sunday in the Park with George, and a few others. It's the combined effect of the music, the lyrics, the delivery, and the context. And getting context beyond the song itself is helpful to bond your emotions to those songs.

I remember going through my Dad's records while growing up, and just passing right by all the desi records to get to a Muppets 45 that we had, or later on, to discover the copy of Abbey Road that he'd bought, which now hangs on my sister's apartment wall. But I went back home recently and dug out the records that Mom had stored carefully, even though we hadn't had a working record player in the house for well over 15 years. I was amazed at what was there - more than just for the retro-cool of having Bollywood paraphernalia that didn't reek of the new schmalzy palette of the 21st Century, but because these records represented, for folks who were pretty modest in what they bought and kept, some kind of connection to home, to belonging, and perhaps even to their childhoods and adolescent years. I was suddenly filled with more regret that I didn't take the chance to go through these records and garner some of their stories when I had the chance.

Maybe some of the 45s actually came with my Dad from India when he first came here in the early sixties to study, though given how little money he had, that's pretty unlikely. Maybe they came with his brother, who he sponsored in the early seventies. Some of the 45s are in thin plastic sleeves that have a record store's name printed on them - a store from Bombay. Maybe some of the records were part of some prized collection that he took care of when he studied in Bombay. But that's incredibly unlikely as well, because he wouldn't have had a record player in India.

But sadly, the possibilities of where these records were from, and how they fit into the puzzle of my father's life in India and in the United States are not comforting to me. They are pieces of a relationship that I didn't put together quickly enough, when the time was in front of me. And I don't want to create fiction about something that is so hardwired into who I am. I want to collect and understand where these things fit in the past. I want to recreate what really happened. I want to see my father eye-to-eye through the few things that he left behind of who he was.

Ignoring our own histories in the effort to emphasize the injustices felt by newer economic migrants doesn't really help them. It just makes the middle class activist more likely to ignore stories of early immigration, acculturation, and resistance that don't fit the mold of "the most oppressed" group within the community or direct action or organizing. The motives for their resistance to discrimination and misunderstanding may not comport cleanly with our goals for critical analysis and desire for a break from the capitalism that brought them here to begin with. Their "making it" (economic assimilation, if not cultural) after initial difficulties may seem to argue against the whole project of discussing their history to begin with.

But denying their history or its personal import makes us somewhat rootless. Rootless in way that is unlike those people in poor communities with whom we want so much to identify, to work with and on behalf of (for non-organizers). We deny these stories from within our own families because we perceive that the minor injustices and difficulties that we think our parents faced register as less immediate, less pressing than what people are dealing with now. But I'd argue that we need to ask these questions. We need to document these stories, if not for some larger movement, then at least for our personal histories and to pay the proper tribute to our parents who made it through cultural upheaval in a way that few of us will ever experience. So even when we're talking about middle class privilege, and while we keep their experiences within the broader context of the different waves of immigration and the difficulty that poor and uneducated immigrants have in this American society, we should keep in mind that the stories of our parents are still interesting, affecting, and part of the mosaic of our communities in this country.

And I think that more than anything, I for India really recognized this, without overemphasizing their struggle in the UK or anything else. It was clearly a labor of love to her parents, and it made me think of how much time I've lost without asking some of these questions. Some of which I will never get to ask.

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Afro-Punk & Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

I've been promising, among other things, a quick take on the really interesting documentary Afro-Punk that I picked up through NetFlix. I've not gotten around to it until now, and in the interim, I checked out Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, which definitely merits some airtime as well.

There are two very different docs, but both take on genres and subcultures that are altogether unknown to the mainstream. Afro-Punk isn't trying to be a retrospective history of punk - it's really looking at the intersection of race and the genre, primarily through a bunch of interviews with a bunch of young and long-time fans, as well as a few punk veterans. For someone like me, who is so new to the genre, and not a convert to punk, though punk elements in the metal that I love definitely appeal to me (early Maiden/NWOBHM, etc), it was an eye-opener.

Also, because the film kept race front-and-center, I found the questions, approach, and gems that they uncovered incredibly interesting. The filmmaker had a light tough, enough so that you didn't feel like he was trying to make some profound statement from the film. It asked a few questions, found a bunch of interesting people, and just gave us a brief introduction to their place in a genre of music that's so often associated with unhappy white kids that you forget that some of the real trailblazers, like Bad Brains, like members of a bunch of groups, were actually black.

My favorite part was when he had a bunch of the interviewees, in rapid succession, saying that they were the only black kid at punk shows growing up. It's just awesome to hear like 10-15 people say the same thing. And you think "I wish I could have them all meet each other!" There's also something refreshing about the do-it-yourself aspect of punk - I was pretty inspired to see/hear folks talk about it - the race didn't really matter - it was the attitude. And finally, one sister was really deep because of the way that she identified the music, and the culture of punk - from the haircuts to the tattoos and piercings, with specific traditions in Africa. It was quite powerful to hear her talk about it, and talk about how much she was mocked or told that she was "acting white" by folks in her neighborhood, when she flipped it and said "actually, I'm getting closer to a culture that we lost."

It's pretty powerful, and I appreciated her take on it. Regardless, the film moved smoothly, there was enough cool stuff that was known and stuff that was unknown (at least to me, a neophyte to the culture), and I have to say, some of it was damn funny. Not to ruin the film, but there's a moment when the guys from TV on the Radio are asked to name all the groups that had black members, and they went through a list, and eventually said "The Clash... because they *had* to be black" and quickly followed it up with, "the whole scene is full of them!" I guess you have to see it.

So with that rave review of Afro-Punk, which was very satisfying as a film, I have to move on the Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, which suddenly found itself high on my Netflix list and in my DVD player quickly thereafter. What can I say? This is my genre, my first love in music, and the first true community that I felt like I was a part of while growing up. The filmmaker is an anthropologist who was a metal-head while growing up in Canada, and he has an easy, welcoming style of narrative that draws you in.

The film starts with shots from Heavy Metal Parking Lot, a short film taken during a Judas Priest show in the heyday of crazy metal fans (sometime in 1984, I think) and just showed a bunch of kids waiting for the show to start. I rented that DVD, was not really impressed by the film itself and less impressed by the dozen or so extras, most of which were quite a bit longer than the actual film (though I have to say, the filming of the demolition of the arena where the show had taken place, as well as the metal fan who went through a quite detailed LP-by-LP review of each of the Judas Priest albums as he showed off his collection were precious).

Anyway, so the filmmaker, Sam Dunn, a fan of the music, went on an exploration of metal culture and history in his film, and I thought that it was well done. He looked at the roots of the music, without talking about it for too long, interviewed people like Alice Cooper, Ronnie Dio (who kept making fun of Gene Simmons), Tommy Iommi, Dee Snider and a number of other respected folks from the beginning of the movement. He also did a one-on-one with Bruce Dickinson, in the Hammerstein Ballroom, which was pretty incredible, and a mind-blowingly funny interview with one of the most controversial black metal bands in the genre.

All that said, because I know the music fairly well, I wanted more. I thought that his exploration of controversy, from the Norwegian church-burning black metalists (and the way that Alice Cooper laughed at them) to the PMRC and Dee Snider discussion, were great. He even dealt with gender (and gender bending) in the genre. But he didn't open the question of race - which may seem like a non-issue because it seems like such an overwhelmingly white male genre and culture.

But it's not, the crowds around the world that turn out for metal shows is incredible (look at Brazil, Japan, and other places where metal shows can sell more than 75,000 seats easily), and even within metal, there are a good number of thrashers and others who are not white. Tom Araya of Slayer is Peruvian. Testament's Chuck Billy and Eric Petersen (at least) are American Indians. There are plenty of others. And the lyrics - from Anthrax's numerous songs to many others - also look at intolerance and hatred in interesting ways. [note, when posting this, I went to the website for this film, and realize now that Dunn is en route to making a follow-up that looks at the world metal phenomenon called: Global Metal. I'm impressed by this dude!]

I would say that the fan base in the United States is similar to punk - there aren't a lot of us, but probably more than you'd find at a typical country show. I haven't seen the extras from Metal but I'm not sure if there's anything there that looks at race either, and I think it remains an interesting angle for an aspiring filmmaker: "Gold, Bronze, Brown, and Red: The Many Colors of Metal"

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Explosions in the Sky.

Texan indie-rock band Explosions in the Sky has quickly exhausted my free listens on Napster. I heard of them in a (gasp) Rolling Stone article, and was intrigued because instrumental guitar rock that I listen to is generally pretty abrasive or acrobatic stuff by solo artists with studio musicians. This is a band. And let me tell you - they are worthy.

Take Sigur Ros without the nutty vocals, but keeping the cresendos and dropping some of the orchestral embellishments, and you've got a decent idea of what these guys sound like. It's just good music - plenty of clean tones mixed in with more lively full band arrangements. It's a soundtrack to our lives, in many ways. Actually, for probably the first time that I can recall, I'm interested in seeing a movie because of who did the soundtrack (EitS did the soundtrack for Friday Night Lights).

I just missed them in the area, but I'm hoping to at least check out a few of their disks. I don't know what the live show would be like (shoegazing hipsters? Who knows). If you're looking for disks that can play that wonderful role of either being something that you put on in the background or something to which you are actively listening, Explosions in the Sky seems like a good fit.

Oh, and get this, one of the members, who's often the interview giver for the band, is brown. But the band is just the band. It's sort of like Soundgarden with Kim Thayil (though I guess they had a line in Spoonman about "all my friends are Indian/all my friends are brown and red" so he's not fully stealth.

Anyway, check them out.

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Mos Def.

I know that a lot of white kids got into Mos Def when his first solo album, Black on Both Sides, dropped. But I have to say, I think he's pretty awesome. He's walking this interesting line between mainstream sound, because his stuff isn't unaccessible, and the progressive avant guarde in hip-hop (at least by my estimation) because he's not walking the typical path, is using celebrity, Hollywood, Broadway, and the rest of it to raise consciousness, he's not a hack in any of the things in which he's engaged, and he's not afraid to make some statements. For example, he put out a track soon after the tragedy in New Orleans that slammed the Administration, and he had the conviction to sing the song outside of the (AWARDS NAME) and get arrested doing it.

So I have to give Mos Def some props. On MD's acting. I think he's a great actor, actually, from the soft role in Brown Sugar, to his cameo in Lackawanna Blues (awesome movie that you should check out if you can), to his star turn on 16 Blocks, and I just saw him play a cop with enough nuance in The Woodsman to make you both hate and like him at the same time. Mos Def has acting chops. I haven't seen him as Ford Prefect in Hitchhiker's Guide, but I think my father-in-law even liked his acting in a medical history movie called Something the Lord Made.

I haven't heard his latest album, but I'm finally listening to The New Danger on Napster, and I don't know why I didn't pick this up when it dropped years ago. It's basically an album's worth of proof, taken from his song Rock N Roll on the first album, which said flat out that rock music is black music, and reclaimed some of it from the folks who got famous with the rhythms. Danger is brimming with different aspects of rock, blues, soul with Mos Def switching over to the styles in songs composed with enough conviction to keep you on board. It's not the most cohesive album, by any means, but Black Jack Johnson, which is in itself comprised of members of some of the top black rock/funk/pubk acts (including Living Color, Bad Brains, and Parliament/Funkadelic) can cook.

I have to end here - but I'll pick this up on a post I've been promising about Afro Punk, which definitely gave me more to think about in the race/ethnicity prong of subculture/counterculture analysis. Don't know if I'll be that deep about it, but whatever. It's relevant to Mos Def's ever-expansive performance of what is "black music." Hat tip to Mos. I'm feeling you, man.

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