Leap In The Dark

Normally it's a pretty simple process to write a critique or review of somebody's work. I listen to, read, or watch whatever the item is, and try to judge it on it's own merits as objectively as possible. That usually means trying to place the item in a context that will allow me to judge it based on how it stacks up against others of a similar ilk. It sounds pretty good in theory, and I like to think that I'm able to carry it out in practice more often than not. Of course I've also got in the habit of not reviewing anything that I know I wouldn't be able to stomach - so I've never really had to test the limits of my objectivity in that way.

Where it all falls apart though are the occasions where the work touches me personally in some manner or another. When something strikes an emotional chord that resonates deep inside me I find it extremely hard to hold onto any semblance of critical detachment. How do you write a review about something when all that comes to mind when listening to or reading it is, "Holy Fuck, that's great!" The obvious thing to do of trying to itemize all the reasons why I think it's so great seems next to impossible as each time I go back to the piece my critical faculties seem to desert me. I just can't seem to get beyond the awe that I felt the first time, no matter how many times I watch, read, or listen. So, I apologize in advance for any and all gushing, and the decided lack of critical detachment in the following review - you can turn back now before it's too late, or take your chances and read on, but don't say I didn't warn you.

The first time I listened to the Australian musician Xavier Rudd I was impressed not only with his musical virtuosity, at the time he was nearly a one man band playing guitar, kick drums, and didgeridoo, but his abilities as a songwriter. He could not only write songs about the state of the world, but he could look inside and write a song about the way his children made him feel that was so unsentimental that even a childless person like me could appreciate the emotion. Underlying all his music was this strange, but wonderful combination, of a deeply felt spiritual connection to the planet and the laid back attitude of a surfer boy.

Musically he'd been playing a reggae influenced world beat style when I first heard him, but flavoured with some really sharp lap, slide guitar. That sound has gradually been evolving, and on his 2007 release, White Moth, it began to change from something that was identifiable as any particular genre, into music that was an extension of what he was feeling at a particular moment in time. White Moth contained everything from traditional indigenous music from Australia and North America, hard rock, and simple yet eloquent acoustic music. As he was singing about coming out of the cocoon to be in the world around you, he was also spreading his wings musically.

Now, on his forthcoming disc, Dark Shades Of Blue, being released on August 19th/08 on the Anti record label, he takes the next step in synthesizing the elements that have made his work so distinctive in the past and continues his evolution as a musician and a songwriter. While initially, compared to his earlier work, the temptation is to say this is a dark, almost brooding recording, calling it introspective would probably be closer to the point. However, unlike other's who turn their gaze inwards, Xavier doesn't become self-involved, and the material on Dark Shades Of Blue is as universally applicable as any of his previous recordings.

The difference here is the emotional commitment to the material has come from someplace deeper inside of him then before and he's broadened his means of expression. This is his first recording where he has used obvious effects on his voice and the music has taken a few giant steps away from the easy going reggae groove that used to distinguish it. There's a hard, almost brittle edge to the sound that interestingly enough gives it an air of fragility rather than the toughness normally associated with hard electric guitars.

For those who know Xavier Rudd's earlier work the opening instrumental track, "Black Water", is your first clue that things on this recording are going to be different. Jagged guitar riffs churn and bounce over an almost un-syncopated beat, through which the low throb of the didigeridoo moans and wanders. This opening segues into the title track "Dark Shades Of Blue" which seems to be a commentary on the way the state of the world effects people. When he sings "You paint dark shades of blue" in the chorus, he appears to be talking about how the anxiety in the world is reflected in our attitudes and the ways we respond to what we see around us.

The cover art for the disc is taken from a painting by his wife Marci Lutken-Rudd entitled "Blackwater". I mention this because the piece is indicative of the album in that at first glance it appears to be rather dark, monotone, and brooding. But if you look closely at the painting you'll see layers of texture and delicate nuances of colour within what appears to be a sold block of greyish blue. There's also a bright snake-like swirl of yellow in the centre that pulls the eye to it immediately. It's as if the painter wanted to remind us that what ever else we think we see, there's always a spark of something else waiting to be discovered.

On Dark Shades Of Blue Xavier Rudd's songs offer us an alternative way of reacting to the things in the world that upset us. It's easy to get angry about the injustices we see around us, the pollution that's destroying the environment, and any other issue that attacks our emotions. What's hard is to find a positive reaction; that streak of yellow, the spark of joy that the world can still inspire in us. He doesn't deny the problems in the world, and they anger and upset him as much as anyone, but if we forget the pleasures to be had, what exactly are we fighting to preserve.

Dark Shades Of Blue is going to surprise a lot of people, and I think some people will be disappointed, or at least disconcerted, as its nowhere near as accessible as any of Xavier Rudd's previous releases. This is an album of complex songs highly appropriate to the complexity of the world that we live in today. Oh, and, holy fuck it's great.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:27 AM | Permalink

I've always thought comics never get the recognition they deserve. They are either looked down on as being less than the plain written word, as if the inclusion of pictures somehow reduces their value, or they are elevated beyond their worth by those too embarrassed to admit that they enjoy them just for the pleasure they bring. The next time I have to listen to someone talking about the deep psychological and social significance of The X-Men or whichever comic they obsess over, I'll probably gag. Why is it so difficult to admit that you can enjoy comics just for the sake of enjoying a comic?

The majority of comics that you buy either in book form or read in your daily newspaper are simple escapist fun. Whether it's the gentle humour of Charles Schutz's Peanuts gang or the fantasy world of some superhero, the pleasure derived from most comics is immediate and transitory. This is especially true of the daily strips in the paper. You start in the first panel and two or three panels later you're left with a smile on your face or some other similar feeling of contentment. Even the political strips, like Doonesbury or Minimum Security, work along the same basic premise, although they do have more to do with reality than most.

Of course that doesn't mean that all comic strips are created equal or that there aren't some cartoonists whose work takes the medium into places where very few others dare to go. Unfortunately you're not likely to find their work nestled in among the daily funnies offered by your local newspaper as it isn't what most people would want to quickly scan during their morning commute to work. Occasionally one or two of them will make there way into the pages of some speciality magazines, but most of the time you need to wait for a compilation of their work to appear as a book in order to experience them.

At least that was the case for me when it came to Peter Blegved and his creation Leviathan as I was unfamiliar with it until reading it between the covers of The Book Of Leviathan. Mr. Blegved is a man of many talents, as can be seen by a visit to Amateur Enterprises where some of his other work has been collected. A musician in bands such as Henry Cow and Slapp Happy in the seventies and eighties, he started drawing Leviathan in 1992 and it appeared in the British newspaper Independent on Sundays through to 1998. Now The Overlook Press has gathered together those Sunday oddities into the above book, and will be unleashing it unto an unsuspecting public on July 29th/08.

Like all good comics Leviathan concerns the adventures of a boy, Levi, and his pet. Although in this case the boy is a faceless baby and the pet is a rather insightful and cynical cat, and the adventures tend towards the metaphysical rather than the physical. Although there are occasional references made to Levi's lack of features - meeting a race of people whose head's are noses, Levi's inquiry as to how he smells is answered with "Not very well without a nose" - for the most part it doesn't seem to hinder his ability to experience the world around him. From the trauma of that first separation from the parents - being left at home with the baby sitter for the first time - a trip into hell courtesy of B.L.Z. Bub, Lord of the Fleas, to Levi's valiant attempts to break out of the last panel of the strip to connect directly with his readers, he is able to negotiate most of the obstacles that the world places in his path.

Of course Levi's also slightly better prepared than most of us, as if nature has gifted him with certain abilities in lieu of those he's lost. First there's his inquisitive and inventive mind that allows him to device such things as the atomic formula for the transmutation of base matter into milk, or to imagine the mirror opposite of himself and his stuffed bunny. Of course the anti-bunny might not be to everyone's liking. For according to the strip's guest host for the day, Hegel, the father of dialectical logic, instead of being soft, cuddly, safe, stuffed and inanimate, it would be alive, hard, lethal, and hungry. Sometimes you don't want to open the door when your imagination comes knocking.

Like so many comics a lot of the humour and a great deal of the impact in Leviathan is a result of the illustrations. Blegvad is not only able to do wonderful things with a bare minimum of lines, he can also draw beautifully ornate pieces that are eloquently humorous without ever taking themselves too seriously. Even when he introduces a figure like Hegel, or an iconic image from the art world like Edvard Munch's The Scream, it's with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. Sometimes it feels like that by introducing these elements in ridiculous circumstances, he is reminding the reader that they are reading a comic and not to take it too seriously.

Although, I think a man who manages to make some of the worse puns in the world out of eels and cheesy song lyrics - "What's that?" -"When the Moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's a Moray" - probably doesn't have to worry too much about being taken too seriously. That's not to say there aren't moments in some of the strips which won't make you stop and think. You can't deal in the absurd as much as Peter Blegvad does without opening up one or two cans of worms about human behaviour. However, most of your wondering when it comes to the adventures of Levi and Cat will be about what type of brain could have come up with such absurdities, and not about the state of the world.

While some might wonder at the value of escapism that a comic like Leviathan offers, as it says in the preface to the book, only a jailer would consider the term "escapist" pejorative. Anyway, The Book Of Leviathan isn't what anyone would consider your typical mindless escapism. Absurd, strange, and even a little twisted certainly, but always thoughtful and never simple, one thing is for sure; the adventures of Levi and Cat are never boring.

In Canada The Book Of Leviathan is available either directly from it's distributor Penguin Canada or an online retailer like Amazon.ca

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:57 PM | Permalink

I'm sure for most people in the West Bangladesh is only known as the country the late George Harrison once did a benefit concert for. The reality is it once was part of the Indian province Bengal. When the region gained it's independence from Britain in 1947, and the subcontinent was partitioned into India and Pakistan, the province of Bengal was divided between the two new countries. West, Hindu Bengal became part of India and east, Muslim Bengal became East Pakistan.

In spite of the fact that the former Bengal province was the more densely populated half of the country, they were continually ignored by the central government in the west and independence movements were formed as early as the 1950's. In 1971, with the support of the Indian army, Bangladesh fought a successful war of independence. Just as the country was finding its feet, the famine of 1973-74 almost destroyed them. It says amazing things about the resilience of its people that the country of Bangladesh was able to recover from both the war of liberation and the famine and in the ensuing years become one of the biggest suppliers of personnel to United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping missions. One of the permanent mission destinations for Bangladeshi troop since the mid 1990's has been the Democratic Republic Of Congo.

While there are many countries in Africa that still bear the scars of colonial times, the area that was formally the Belgian Congo is not only scarred but still bleeding heavily. The Democratic Republic Of Congo (formerly Zaire) is one of the largest countries in Africa and one of it's poorest. In 1965 - four years after independence - an American supported coup led to the installation of a military dictatorship under the rule of Joseph-Desire Mobutu. For the next thirty years or so Mobutu proceeding to drain the country dry, stealing what's thought to be close to four billion dollars from the national treasury (an amount close to the size of the country's national debt), so that when he finally left in 1997 he left behind one of the poorest countries in Africa, with the least amounts of infrastructure, and the violence that always seems to accompany desperation.

As a major in the Bangladeshi army who has served a rotation in the Democratic Republic with the UN forces, author Shabbir Ahsan is uniquely positioned to write about the experience of being a peacekeeper in that country, and in his first novel, The Peace Keeper, he presents a fact-based, fictionalized account, of a Bangladeshi officer's year in the Democratic Republic Of Congo.

Major Samir Iqbal is a veteran of the Bangladeshi armed forces working in the Foreign Affairs Branch of the Armed Forces responsible for the co-ordination of all overseas assignments. So he's the one who receives the fax reporting the deaths of fifteen Bangladeshi service men in a plane crash on take-off. In the tight-knit community of an army any death is devastating, and fifteen is horrific; never before has the army lost that many men at once since they began supplying peacekeepers. For Samir and his wife the news is particularly upsetting as one of the men was a close personal friend.

While Samir had been eagerly awaiting news of his own acceptance for overseas placement in Africa, receiving the notice that he has been assigned as a military observer in the Congo for a year on the same day as the plane crash isn't great timing when it comes to his wife's peace of mind. The fact that military observers are not allowed to even carry weapons and are placed in volatile situations like negotiating between warring factions or reporting on the status of a cease-fire, is not information that is bound to ease her fears.

We follow Samir from the day he first receives the notification of his new assignment through his year of living in the Congo to the day of his return home. As our narrator and guide he takes us on a journey that plumbs the depths of human depravity, reveals the strength of the human spirit, and celebrates the simple pleasure of friendship and humour. The fact that all of this takes place in what amounts to basically a war zone makes it all the more amazing. Ahsan's strength as a writer is such that even when he has Major Iqbal describing the most abhorrent of behaviours, it never feels like for any other purpose than to inform. Where some writers seem to delight in describing violence, in his case you can hear the regret he feels in having to tell us that this type of activity takes place anywhere upon earth.

The points in the book that are actually the hardest to read are the ones where the threat of violence is in the air. At one point our major is sent into a supposedly quiet area with three other officers to look for a site to set up a team headquarters. Upon their arrival they find that none of the local authorities supposed to assist and protect them are willing to do anything other than tell them to leave because they can't guarantee their safety. The team literally jumps on the helicopter sent to their rescue ten feet ahead of a mob screaming for their blood, watching and hearing rocks and bottles bounce off their ride as it lifts off with them safely on board.

Thankfully Ahsan balances the moments of terror with equal doses of humour, nearly all of it at the expense of our erstwhile Major Iqbal. Whether he's being duped by a camp servant into cooking and cleaning for him, or being swarmed by a women's soccer team for scoring the winning goal, he handles it all with equal good grace. He's a wonderfully human character who in spite of the horror and nerve wracking experiences, is still able to find positive things in the world around him. He's never unrealistic, he's heard eyewitness accounts of the horrible things people can do to each other after all, but he's also witnessed people with almost nothing extending hospitality to those with nothing as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do, so he retains hope.

The Peacekeeper by Shabbir Ahsan uses actual incidents involving the Bangladeshi army in the Democratic Republic Of The Congo as members of the UN Peacekeeping force stationed there as the framework around which Major Samil Iqbal relates his year's experience as a peacekeeper. By turns heartrending and heart-warming it's probably the best book set in a war zone that you're liable to read in a long time. The irony that one of the poorest nations in the world also supplies one of the largest contingents of peacekeepers to the United Nations isn't something that should be lost on us either. It makes you wonder why if they can find a way to do that - why can't we?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:47 AM | Permalink

It was in 1968 that Bob Dylan first walked into my family house. Of course he wasn't actually there in person, but my mom's younger sister - our hippie aunt - came by one day bearing presents for her two nephews. My older brother was given a copy of Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol.1 and I was given a couple of books. Somehow or other my brother convinced my mom to let him put the record on in the midst of a family visit - which I seem to recall included my Yiddish only speaking great-grandmother - and all of the sudden every voice in the house was stilled (and if you know anything about extended Jewish families you'll know what a miracle that is).

A hard nasal twang, that caused everybody over the age of eleven in the room to screw their faces up in disgust, stormed out of the Hi-Fi and took command of the room. All I heard was something about not working on Maggie's farm no more, before my mother gathered her wits and ejected the record. My mother never did really warm up to Bob Dylan, and although at the tender age of seven I wasn't set to become his biggest fan either, I do remember being captivated by "Mr Tambourine Man" as for some reason it made me think of someone walking along a beach watching the sun setting over the ocean.

I'm sure many people have their own Bob Dylan story, about how they first heard his music and their reaction to it. It's almost impossible to listen to him and not form an opinion about his music, the sound of his voice, and the lyrics of his songs. But who was this guy? All right so we know he was born Robert Zimmerman to middle class parents from Minnesota, but that doesn't tell us anything about the mind and soul behind the music.

In his movie I'm Not There, now available on DVD in a two disc special edition, director/script writer Todd Haynes has placed Bob Dylan under a microscope in an attempt to show us the many facets of the man's character. Unlike a biography that details a person's life from beginning to end, Haynes has chosen to focus primarily on the period in Dylan's life that began with the infamous plugging in of electric guitars at the Newport Folk Festival and ended with his near death in a motorcycle accident.

One of the most important characteristics of Dylan's musical career has been his refusal to stand still and do the same thing for any length of time. The result of this was that in the earlier stages of his career he appeared to undergo an almost regular metamorphous. What Haynes does to convey this chameleon type element of his character is to use six separate actors to represent different aspects of Dylan's life and character. Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, and Ben Whishaw were cast to take on either Dylan at a particular point in his career or to symbolize an aspect of his character and a part of his life.

The movie cuts back and forth between the various characters and, like the pieces of a puzzle that form an abstract collage, come together to present one of the most complete pictures of Bob Dylan that I've ever seen depicted. With someone as complex as Dylan a simple presentation of his life and career as a series of moments in time wouldn't have come close to capturing the essence of the man. By flashing back and forth between aspects, time periods, and actors, Haynes gradually builds a picture of a man driven by the need to constantly discover something new about himself and his art.

While at first it might be confusing - what does a young black boy named Woody Guthrie (Marcus Carl Franklin) or an actor named Robbie (Heath Ledger) who played the role of Jack, an other aspect of Dylan, in a movie, have to do with Bob Dylan - as we keep returning to the various times and places it all gradually begins to make sense, if not intellectually than at least emotionally. Where Pablo Picasso used cubist painting techniques to try and show all sides of a figure on a flat canvass, Haynes is attempting something similar with film, as much as the medium will allow him to. As we flit from scene to scene we are being shown another side of the same image until Haynes' portrait is as complete as he can make it.

While all of the actors are exemplary in their portrayals of whatever aspect they are bringing to life, it's Cate Blanchett who steals the movie as Jude Quin, the Bob Dylan who pissed everyone off by plugging in an electric guitar. Not only does she capture the essence of Dylan physically from that period of his life, she conveys both his arrogance and his insecurity at people's reactions to the change in direction that his music took. This is a brittle and fragile person who never wanted to be an idol, a pop star, or be anybody's voice but his own, let alone the supposed voice of a generation.

How can an artist grow and create if he or she is constantly tied down by the expectations of an audience who want him to keep doing the same things over and over again? The Dylan as depicted by the character of Jude Quin is trapped in the snare of her own popularity and looks to trying to use any means possible to cut her way free. If that means being arrogant and insulting with the press, and coming across like she doesn't give a shit anymore - than so be it. You get the feeling that the motorcycle accident of 1966 that almost killed Dylan was a salvation because it gave him the means to disappear and do what he wanted to do.

Interestingly enough a number of the songs used during the film are taken from the recording sessions that Bob Dylan and the Band did during the time he was hiding out from the world in Woodstock New York. From the hours and hours of material they recorded at that time the album The Basement Tapes was created, and not only has Haynes used songs off the album, but he was given permission to use material that hadn't been released before. While some of the songs in the movie have Dylan singing the original versions, others are new recordings of his material by contemporary performers, and some are sung by the actors. One of my favourite pieces is the version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" performed by Richie Havens and the actor Marcus Carl Franklin.

In an extensive question and answer/interview session with the director Todd Haynes on the special features disc, he explains that the music he chose wasn't necessarily his favourite stuff, but the pieces he thought would help with movie's continuity and help carry it forward. Unlike a lot of special feature interviews with directors, this one is actually of some use as Haynes goes into quite a bit of depth about his process and how the film came together.

The rest of the special features are the usual deleted scenes and out takes, but a nice bonus is the inclusion of a complete version of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" sung by Richie Havens and young Marcus Carl Franklin. They've also included a nice tribute to Heath Ledger, which is a montage of clips from the film, out takes, and bits and pieces from when the camera was rolling before and after a scene being shot. It's surprisingly moving, probably because it's not cluttered up with people talking about the man, but instead allows you to see and experience him.

Although I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise as that's exactly what I'm Not There does with its portrayal of Bob Dylan. Don't come to this film expecting to be spoon fed answers or explanations about Bob Dylan, because you will be bitterly disappointed. However if you come to the movie with expectation of being allowed an opportunity to observe him in great detail, and see many facets of his personality revealed in unusual ways than you will come away happy. Who knows, you might even be able to draw some conclusions of your own about the man who remains one of pop music's greatest enigmas even to this day. I've seen the future of the biographical movie and it's I'm Not There.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 05:55 AM | Permalink

It's sort of ironic that the two members of a rock and roll, or any popular music band for that matter, who are most responsible for the rhythms that make the music so distinct are usually hidden off to one side or behind the other members of the band. While the lead singer and the guitar players can usually be found as far down stage as possible basking in the glow of an audiences accolades, the bass player and drummer are sometimes lucky if the stage lighting even makes them visible to the crowd.

Of course there have been exceptions to the rule, as there always is, but the majority of drummers and bass players toil in relative obscurity compared to their band mates. As if that wasn't bad enough, in a lot of today's music drums and bass are being replaced in bands by computer and digitally generated rhythm tracks and drum machines. Talk about rubbing salt into a wound! I have to wonder how many studio musicians have seen careers dry up as they've been replaced by machines?

All things considered it's not surprising that we don't find very many rhythm sections making enough of a name for themselves that they are able to command popular attention. Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare (Sly & Robbie) became internationally known for their work with reggae stars Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru in the 1980's, and parlayed that success into appearances on recordings with people as diverse as Grace Jones to Bob Dylan. Aside from them, there's only two other men that I know of that have been able to parlay initial success as a unit into a long lasting career working together.

When Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, on bass and drums respectively, backed up the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughn they picked up the name Double Trouble. Not only has the tag stuck around, but so has their career as a unit. Working behind the explosive guitar playing of Stevie Ray Vaughn for most of, if not all of, his career, and then continuing to work ever since, makes them one of the most enduring rhythm sections in popular music. Not only have they put together various bands, and played as a unit for some of the best musicians in the world of blues and rock and roll over the years, they've garnered such a reputation for excellence that they can call upon everybody from Willie Nelson to Dr. John when putting together an album.

Such was the case with the recording Been A Long Time, first released back in 2001 and now re-released on the Music Avenue label. Chris and Tommy called up a few former band mates from the Arc Angels (Charlie Sexton and Doyle Bramhall ll) and Storyville (vocalist Malford Milligan) to join them and a couple of other friends. When your friends include Jimmy Vaughn, Susan Tedeschi, Gordie Johnson, Johnny Lang, Eric Johnson, Willie Nelson, and Dr. John, you hope they're going to do a little more than just get by with a little help from their friends, and Been A Long Time doesn't disappoint.

One of the nicest surprises of this collection is how many of the songs are originals that Layton and Shannon have either written or co-written with the others appearing on the recording. Be honest, how often when you check writing credits do you expect to find the names of the drummer or the base player listed as one of the primary composers of a song? Sure in some bands they'll get a credit for their contribution to the music, but as lyricist?

Having only my memories of Stevie Ray Vaughn to go by when thinking about Double Trouble musically, I was expecting a disc of blues tinged rock and roll. So the opening track on the disc, "Cry Sky", was a pleasant surprise. It's a beautiful, gospel tinged, soul song that Layton and Shannon co-wrote with one other person that is performed wonderfully. I'd never heard of, let only heard, Malford Milligan before this recording, and his singing on this song blew me away. He's got amazing vocal control and a great voice for this type of music, making it one of the few contemporary songs that I've heard that can match up to the great soul songs of people like Al Green and Wilson Pickett.

The whole disc is full of unexpected treasures like this, including a searing rendition of the old Led Zeppelin classic "Rock And Roll" hammered out by Susan Tedeschi on vocals, Charlie Sexton and Van Wilks on guitar, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd adding a searing guitar solo. Tedeschi was great because she brought her own power to the vocal track and didn't try to imitate the original. It's always a pleasure to hear someone interpreting a song instead of just "covering" it, especially a tune as well known as this one.

The other thing that I found amazing about this disc is that not once did I notice either Layton or Shannon any more than I would be aware of any drummer or bass player on an album. There's no padding of songs with extraneous drum and bass solos just because they are names on the cover of the disc. They do their jobs like they have been doing for years; supplying rock steady rhythm for the people playing in front of them no matter what style of music is being played.

Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Bonnie Rait, Jimmy Vaughn, and of course Stevie Ray Vaughn, long ago discovered just how valuable Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon are as a rhythm section. Been A Long Time shows them doing what they do best - being the core around which great music is built.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:50 AM | Permalink

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2nd in 1869 and was assassinated by a Hindu fanatic January 30th 1948. To the majority of us he is now more familiarly known by his honorific, Mahatma, meaning Great Soul, rather than the names he was born with, and for his dedication to non-violent resistance as a form of protest. Such is his international reputation that in 2007 the United Nations designated his birthday International Day Of Non Violence.

While political leaders of all stripes have cited him as an influence on their lives, paid lip service to his ideals, or praised his life, not a single political figure since the Mahatma has actually lived up to those ideals. The drive for equality between the races in the United States during the 1950's and 1960's under the guidance of Martin Luther King Jr. was the last major attempt at non-violent civil disobedience to enact social change. Aside from that though, the majority of mankind has not proven mature enough to live up to the ideals espoused by Mahatma Gandhi.

While Gandhi has aroused almost universal admiration among people internationally, the same can't be said about his home country of India. He was opposed to the partitioning of India into separate Muslim, Pakistan, and Hindu countries and advocated equality for all people. In fact his assassination was spurned by the final hunger strike he staged in order to force the new Indian government to hand over money owing to the Pakistani government. The radical Hindu who killed him saw that action as an act of betrayal. He also angered traditionalists with his demands for an end to the caste system (initially the caste system was devised as a means of defining a person's responsibilities to society based on their job without there being any distinction in social standing, but it was eventually corrupted to the point where a person's caste no longer defined what they did but their status. So a person could be a Brahmin, without being a priest, and enjoy all the advantages associated with that position without having to fulfill any of the obligations formally associated with the title.) and equality for women

With the play The Portrait Of Mahatma Gandhi, published by Antarjyoti, Himendra Thakur has written a response to what he sees as a continuation of that opposition in today's India. In his introduction to the play he says that India has moved away from what Gandhi's vision for the country and there is a concentrated effort by some political leaders, business people and thinkers to discredit him in the eyes of the people. While they may stand up on national holidays and praise him as the father of the country, or give speeches lauding his achievements in the West, they are actually rejecting everything he stands for.

The two act play is set in the home of a wealthy Indian industrialist (Mishra) who is running for parliament. It is expected that if he wins his election that he will be given an important position in the government, but his campaign has hit a slight snag. With the redefining of electoral districts the area he is seeking to represent has recently been expanded to include a large number of rural voters whose interests don't necessarily mesh with his own. Unless he can convince them that he has their best interests at heart he could very well lose the election.

Since the majority of rural people still revere the memory of the Mahatma he orders his servant to make over his house in a style that will suitably impress two representatives from the village he has invited to meet with him. As the play opens the household servant is removing various objects d'art from the set as part of the pretence that will also include hanging a large portrait of Gandhi on the wall and covering the furniture with Khadi (a type of fabric) made from the hand weaving Charkha, (spinning wheel) used by the Mahatma.

Rakesh is Mishra's future son-in-law and a business man. He is the embodiment of everything that the playwright thinks is wrong with modern India's business community as he out and out rejects everything Gandhi stands for. How, he says, can he support non-violence when his own father is an arms manufacturer? Anyway Gandhi doesn't agree with any of things he's been taught in business school about how to maximize profits by reducing the work force. If we followed that model how could we get rich?

Initially the only voice arguing against Rakesh is his fiancee Sarojini whose grandmother taught her about Gandhi. She argues that India has become overly fixated on greed and that the people are suffering for it. Eventually her side of the argument is also taken up by the men from the village when they show up. Part of the second act of the play revolves around them debating both Rakesh and Mishra on the validity of Gandhi to today's India.

Himendra Thakur makes no secret as to what his beliefs are, and while that is noble, and I'm in complete agreement with him, that does not make The Portrait Of Mahatma Gandhi a good piece of theatre. The characters are nothing more than stereotypes, with both Rakesh and Mishra made out to be nothing but greedy cowards, and the two villagers and the humble servant are idealized as paragons of virtue.

Near the end of the play an extremist Hindu terrorist breaks into the house with the intent of killing Mishra because he said something favourable about Gandhi in a speech. While Rakesh and Mishra are begging for their lives and crying - the two villagers debate the terrorist and the servant sneaks up on him and overpowers him. Making the two anti-Gandhi characters objects of ridicule might have seemed like a good way of weakening their arguments, but it gives a false picture of reality and makes for lousy theatre.

Real businessmen and politicians aren't that ignorant and craven, any more than a school master and farmer are going to as stoic and brave as the two villagers are represented in the play. Wouldn't it have been better if the characters had been real so the audience would have a better picture of how they are being manipulated by their leaders instead of presenting something this simplistic? While the script claims to support the people who are being hurt by the behaviour of characters like Rakesh and Mishra, by the way it has been written it appears that the author does not have a very high opinion of his audience's intelligence and it comes across as very condescending.

Mahatma Gandhi espoused great ideals and saw the potential in humankind for living in harmony with itself and nature. He was truly one of the greatest visionaries that the world has known and we would all be better off if more of us could live up to the standards he set. Unfortunately The Portrait Of Mahatma Gandhi by Himendra Thankur does not succeed in bringing that vision to life, or even presenting convincing arguments on its behalf. Surely there must be a better way of defending the Mahatma's grand vision than this?

Posted by Richard Marcus at 08:24 PM | Permalink

Heroes have always been of a singular nature. Dating back to the times of the heroes as depicted by Homer in his Odyssey the hero has stood alone in the world, either through choice or circumstances. Yet what has really distinguished the iconic hero from the rest of us mere mortals has been the ability to reduce the world down to a single focus. Nothing or nobody else matters aside from their quest. Be it a one off rescue of a maiden in distress or a life guided by vengeance for something that took place centuries ago they let nothing interfere with their "destiny".

While this ability to focus can be seen as admirable, taken from another perspective it can also be seen as a form of narrow-mindedness that leaves them with a very limited perspective on the world. Their world is black and white with no room for anything that doesn't fit into the parameters that they have devised for themselves. Anyone who does not support them wholeheartedly is against them, and there is never any question in their minds as to the justice of their mission.

Heroic fiction and the science fiction/fantasy genre of sword and sorcery have fit each other like a glove since the days of pulp fiction magazines. Stalwart heroes like Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian piled bodies around them as they cut a swath through the pages of cheap magazine serials and ten cent pocket books. However, the last forty years have seen some authors in this genre begin to emulate the rise of the anti-hero in other forms of writing. These heroes are beset with doubts while the purity of their mission and motivations are open to doubt.

One of the leading proponents of this new style of heroic writing has been Michael Moorcock and his famous character Elric of Melnibone - the albino prince who is the sole survivor of a royal dynasty sworn to serve the lords of Chaos. Yet, while Elric is his best known character, a new collection of Moorcock's stories, Elric: To Rescue Tanelorn, published by Random House Canada shows that Moorcock has always had more than one sword in his arsenal. (It turns out that this is the second in a series of four books - Chronicles Of The Last Emperor Of Melnione - being published by the Random House Imprint Del Rey Books gathering together all of Moorcock's short fiction)

In To Rescue Tanelorn the editors have gone back as far as 1962 for the first story, the novella version of "The Eternal Champion", and continued on down through the years until reaching "The Roaming Forrest" published in 2006. Each of the stories, whether featuring Elric or one of Moorcock's other "heroes", is not only a well told adventure story, but goes some distance in redefining the idea of the hero.

As far back as "The Eternal Champion" Moorcock was already showing his willingness to break the mould that so many other heroic stories had been cast from. Erekose is called from our plane of existence into another world where humanity is locked in a desperate struggle with creatures referred to as "The Hounds of Evil". As the story progresses though, Erekose discovers that the so-called "Hounds" have never instigated war between the two species, and in actual fact possess the means to have obliterated humanity generations ago, but have refrained from using them in the hopes that somehow peace can be won.

Unfortunately humanity's leaders are unwilling to see beyond their blind hatred and aren't about to listen to reason. Erekose himself is held by a vow to protect humanity and oppose its enemies and is initially helpless to prevent the slaughter of the world's other inhabitants. Eventually he is forced into making a decision about where his loyalties truly lie, with humanity or with justice. For no matter what the people who summoned him might say the one is not necessarily the same as the other.

Of course any collection of Moorcock's work will feature plenty of stories with the original anti-hero of sword and sorcery - Elric of Melnibone. The albino prince, who depends on a soul stealing rune sword to maintain his life force, is the only survivor of his once proud kingdom and roams the world, and its many parallel planes of existence, looking for answers about the origins of his people. He knows that at some point they entered into a pact with the Lords Of Chaos - who compete with the forces of Law to control the world - and that resulted in their gradual decline into decadence and eventual extinction.

As a result of the pact he is able to call upon various demons of Chaos to come to his protection in times of need, and wreck horrible havoc upon his enemies. Unfortunately he also seems cursed to bring about the death of those closest to him, and anyone unfortunate enough to ally themselves with Elric usually dies a horrible death. Couple that with his need to kill people and steal their souls at regular intervals in order to stay alive and he ends up not being the most pleasant of companions.

Moorcock's characters drift back and forth through what he terms the "multiverse". So if you're reading a story set in our world and happen to stumble across someone who reminds you of Elric or another character you ran into somewhere else, it's because they all exist in one form or another in the various dimensions. Sometimes they are buried deep within layers of another character, but there will be the smallest of clues that will give them away.

Michael Moorcock was one of the first writers in the sword and sorcery genre to dare and tamper with the sacred icon of the hero and make him fallible. Even more extraordinary is the fact that he was able to do this while never forgetting that he was also responsible for writing exciting and interesting adventure stories. Elric: To Rescue Tanelorn, the second instalment of four in the Chronicles Of The Last Emperor Of Melnibone, is a wonderful collection featuring some of Moorcock's most memorable characters and provides all the proof anybody would need that this man is one of the great fantasy writers of ours or any time.

Elric: To Rescue Tanelorn and the rest of the Chronicles Of The Last Emperor Of Melnibone can be purchased either directly from Random House Canada or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:52 AM | Permalink

I don't know about anybody else, but I'm getting really sick of the histrionic singing passing for emotions that's come to dominate popular music. If I have to listen to one more wannabe diva screech out her undying love in an upper register I might just go postal. Just because opera singers, who've probably spent more hours studying how to sing than most of their pale imitators have spent singing, can use the upper registers to for emotion, doesn't mean that everybody should do it, or that popular music is even suited to such stylings.

If that abdominal woman in Las Vegas wasn't bad enough, screeching her way to a million a week, the airways are now dominated by the clones of Brittany or painfully insincere, breathless voiced idiots who have to "share" their feelings with us. Why can't they all just stay in Oprah land where they belong and leave the rest of us alone? Their singing is bad enough, but the brainless babbling that passes for lyrics is the final insult.

You would never know by listening to any of these supposed vocalists that they are the musical descendants of people like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and Janis Joplin. All of whom could not only sing circles around any of them, but had more genuine emotion come out of their mouths yawning than these yahoos can ever hope to produce singing. Compounding the insult of having to listen to these voices pollute the airwaves is the knowledge that there are vocalists as good as Janiva Magness out there, who don't get anywhere near the popular acclaim of the pop tarts.

Listening to a disc like Janiva's most recent release, What Love Will Do, on Alligator Records, makes you realize there is really no justice in the world and that pop music industry executives have their collective heads so far up their asses they've cut off all oxygen to their brains. There can't be any other explanation as to why Janiva Magness isn't on the top of the charts or her music in constant rotation on every radio station playing some form of popular music.

At least the blues industry can recognize talent when they hear it so she hasn't gone completely unnoticed. Janiva won the best contemporary female artist award in 2006 and 2007 and was nominated for the B B King Entertainer Of The Year award in 2008 at the Blues Music Awards. Yet if you don't follow blues music closely there's a good chance that you'll not have heard this woman sing, and that's a damn shame. Her husky and smoky voice growls out funk, brings real passion to a love song, and can shivers up your spine with its power to speak to your heart.

Unlike some female vocalists who seem to sacrifice musicality for character, Janiva has more than one note in her repertoire. Aside from having the huskiest voice this side of Marlene Dietrich, she also has the range to prevent it from becoming a monotonous drone. She's equally able to sing slower, almost torch song numbers, as she is up tempo funk and blues. The thirteen tracks on What Love Will Do range from powerful covers of Annie Lennox's "Bitter Pill" to the softness of a pensive version of "Sometimes You Got To Gamble".

As the title suggest this is a disc of love songs, but we're not talking about the sentimental pabulum that passes for love you hear most of the time. Sure there are songs about having your heart broken, bad relationships, and all the other usual fodder for pop music, but they are being sung by an adult with the life experience to give them the credibility that a sixteen year old (or the mental/emotional equivalent) lacks. While there's many a singer who will make trite comments about a song having to move her in order to sing it, and then sound as insincere as an insurance salesman, in Janiva's case you know she's telling the truth when she says " I could go through the gymnastics, but if it's not the truth I'm not gonna mean it and that'll show".

You see, while the majority of the songs on this disc are about romantic love, she's also trying to make a point about what genuine unconditional love can do for a person. Janiva spent a good deal of her adolescence in foster care, as she lost both of her parents to suicide by the time she was sixteen. Ever since she stabilized her own life she's been heavily involved with raising awareness of what good positive foster parenting can do for a child; what love will do to turn somebody's life around.

What Love Will Do is therefore more than just another collection of "love"songs, where some emotionally stunted ego whines about her broken heart and dreams about meeting the perfect boy to take her to the prom. Janiva might be singing lyrics about relationships or the desire to be loved by someone, but she's motivated by the understanding that love is far more than just a word to describe the feelings one person has for another. It's not often that I'd use the word sub-text when talking about popular music, but in this instance it's her belief in the importance of unsentimental love that gives this disc the underlying power that makes it special.

Musically the disc is a mixture of funk, rhythm and blues, and straight ahead blues numbers. Not only can Janiva handle all the different genres with equal aplomb, but the band playing behind her is also equal to the task. She and co-producer Dave Darling have done a great job balancing the various instruments with her voice. They've shown a great sensitivity to the songs chosen by knowing just when they need that extra boost from the horn section, and when to pull almost everything back and let her voice do all the work.

In the end, What Love Will Do is all about Janiva Magness and her amazing ability to bring songs to life with power and integrity. If you want to hear a real woman sing real music for a change, than this is the disc for you. It will make you believe in what love can do.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:53 PM | Permalink

The blues rose out of the churches and the fields of African slaves in America. Both the work songs and the church music had roots that disappeared into tribal rhythms from their former homes. With each new generation born in the new world Africa moved further into the past and the slave's music started to adapt features of the other cultures they came into contact with. For the majority this meant the Anglo-Saxon heritage of their masters, for a few it was French or Spanish influence, and even in some places, Native American.

So depending on the region of the country the music developed differently. Who knows what the exact set of circumstances were that brought Robert Johnson to the crossroads that day to sell his soul for the gift of music, but we do know it was down in Mississippi where the delta blues rose out of the mud flats like steam from puddles after a thunder storm on a hot summer's day. Instead of singing about the power of God, it sang about the about the cares of men. The bars became the blues singer's pulpit where they could sing about life on earth and not the here-after.

It was when the descendants of the Scotch/Irish white settlers started to combine the music they had brought over from England with the blues their former slaves were singing that we got rock and roll. Since the time that Elvis started recording songs he had heard people like Big Moma Thornton perform, the blues and rock music have been continually cross-pollinating, and now they share many of the same characteristics.

When you listen to the music of a modern electric blues player you mainly hear rock and roll's influence in the guitar playing, especially the leads employed by some of the more exuberant players. Listening to Iron Man, Michael Burkes' most recent release on Alligator Records, gives you a perfect example of someone who has taken the power of rock and roll's electric guitar solos and wrapped it in the soul of the blues.

With so much of rock and roll being blues based to begin with it's kind of hard sometimes to differentiate between a guy playing electric blues and just another hard rocker. It's when you listen to someone like Michael Burks that you can really hear the difference between the two. For, while he can tear up the guitar with the best of them, it doesn't prevent him from maintaining his blues sensibilities. You can hear in in the way he sings, in the material he writes or chooses to sing, and the over all feel of his music, that deep in his heart he will always be a blues musician.

The opening track of the disc, "Love Disease" is a great example of this as he's written a song that contains all the elements of a blues number and rips off some great screaming guitar solos. The song is about pretty much what you'd think it's about based on the title, infected by the desire for love he's at a loss as to what he should do. Calling his doctor doesn't do him any good, of course, so he's just going to have to figure it out on his own.

Pretty standard stuff I know, but with the blues it doesn't matter as much what you sing, but how you sing it that makes the song work. Burks takes these lyrics and turns them into a searing blues number. In the breaks his guitar is so hot that it sounds like it could melt the paint on the walls of any bar that he's playing in, yet his soulful voice gives the lyrics a strength of passion that you're not likely to hear in a rock and roll song.

Of course it doesn't hurt that he's got a really tight band backing him up and holding it all together. Wayne Sharp on organ and piano, Don Garrett on bass, and Chuck "Popcorn" Louden on drums provide a solid foundation for Burks to build on. When Burks takes off on one of his solo flights, they stay back on the ground keeping the sound firmly rooted in the blues. Music like this is a group effort and these guys work really well together to make sure that everything sounds like its supposed to.

As the blues has influenced other music over the years it has also drawn upon the music its inspired to ensure that it continues to grow and evolve. Michael Burks' brand of the blues has taken its lead from the rock and roll it gave birth to by interlacing hard edged guitar solos with the soul of the original to create his version. Iron Man is good solid electric blues with a little extra soul added on top for its own special flavour.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 11:37 PM | Permalink

No one likes to admit to their own prejudices, let's face it who wants to own up how narrow minded they really are? So it's with some chagrin that I have to confess that I've long thought of Florida as being a mixture of plastic tourist traps, right wing money, and conservative Christians who would as soon see me burn in hell as talk to me. Of course I should have realized that the state is made up of more than Miami, Walt Disney World, and Governor Bush, but they're the ones that get most of the attention in the media and they don't exactly paint a pretty picture. So it's easy to forget that outside of places like Miami and the other tourist destinations that there are a lot of poor people down there struggling to get by just like everywhere else in the world.

On top of that they have to watch as one of the great environmental wonders of the world - The Florida Everglades - are gradually being drained and turned into golf courses that most of them aren't allowed into except to wait tables or chase after rich people's golf balls. Even worse is the joke of Disney Land, turning the Everglades into a plastic "Wild Kingdom Safari". Does no one else see how ridiculous it is to destroy a natural environment to build a plastic replica of one that exists thousands of miles from there?

Well I was forcibly reminded that there's a whole world of Florida that exists outside of Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach with the introduction into my life of two CDs by JJ Grey & Mofro. Lochloosa, on Fog City Records, and Country Ghetto, on Alligator Records, are as far removed from the neon and plastic of Miami and Disney as you can probably get without leaving the state of Florida. If John Fogerty and Credence Clearwater Revival were Louisiana Swamp Rock, than these boys are the music of the Everglades. You can almost feel the humidity rising off the music and hear the mosquitos buzzing in the background when you play these discs.

Back in 2004 when Lochloosa was released Mofro was JJ Grey and Daryl Hance and a group of studio musicians. Maybe there are some of you out there familiar enough with Florida to have recognized Lochloosa as a place name, but I sure wasn't one of them. Yet after listening to this disc I not only know the place exists, I have a much better idea of what life and the people who live down there are like. From the title cut, "Lochloosa" on through the other eleven songs, this is a homage to a people and a place that few of us know anything about.

This ain't no sentimental drivel about how pure country life is, or any of that bullshit you hear sung by supposed country musicians who've never been outside of an air conditioned recording studio or a twelve room limousine. "I swear it's ten thousand degrees in the shade/Lord have mercy knows how much I love it" sings Grey on the title track, not attempting to disguise or romanticize anything about his beloved home. This isn't an easy place to live, but its been home to his family and their friends for generations and he loves "Every mosquito, every rattlesnake, every cane break, everything".

The music on this disc is a swampy mix of blues, rock, country and funk. The guitars churn along like old out board motors chugging through swamp waters, with occasional breaks where they take off like those weird boats that look like they have a giant fan mounted on back to propel them through the Everglades. Grey's voice cracks and breaks over top of the music with the strength of his conviction. It's not smooth or polished, but than neither are the land or people around Lochloosa. If you want smooth or polished go to Disney World and watch their latest mouse eared clone singing for Michael Eisner's supper.

By the time 2007 rolled around and Country Ghetto was released the band was known as JJ Grey & Mofro in recognition of the fact that Grey was handling the majority of the song writing credits. On Lochloosa he had written all of the lyrics and most of the music and the same holds true for their most recent release. The band has also expanded now to include a permanent drummer and organ player alongside Daryl Hance on guitars and Grey on bass, guitars, harmonica and vocals. Like the earlier album this one is rooted firmly in the Florida soil and the "land and culture rich and dollar poor" life that Grey was raised on.

Yet this more of a personal disc; while Lochloosa was an avowal of love, Country Ghetto is a declaration of faith. Faith in the people that he grew up with and the knowledge that there's nothing wrong with their way of life no matter what outsiders like me may or may not think about them. Yet this ain't no rabble rousing, Rebel, "The South Will Rise Again" bullshit with it's undertones of racism. It's a genuine heartfelt appreciation for the lessons that the land and the people he's known have taught him.

"Yes we're black and we're white/Out here in the cut/Still living side by side/So never mind what you seen/And just forget what you heard/Another ignorant redneck/Just some Hollywood word" aren't the words of someone whose prepared to roll over and let somebody put down their way of life out of ignorance. If you think those are just words with no meaning, or might be similar to how the segregationists use to claim everybody was happy because they knew their place, you only need listen to the way those lines are delivered and the music on this disc to belay that thought.

Like Lochloosa the music on this disc has been dipped in the blues and funk before the country rock was laid on top of it. Yet that's not what gives this disc it's personality, for lack of a better word. I can't think of any music that works better for a declaration of faith than gospel, especially the gospel that came out of the black Southern Baptist churches, and Country Ghetto rocks and rolls like a church on Sunday. You're not going to hear any Hallelujahs or Amens shouted out, but this is a gospel album in spirit if not in fact.

The background singers, whether the trio of women who do most of the work, or the full chorus of family members who appear on "The Sun Is Shining Down", give the songs the vocal power that is normally associated with gospel. Yet even without them, the strength and conviction of the music and lyrics would convince you that these folk were testifying to an article of faith.

JJ Grey & Mofro play music that's as distinctive as the part of the world they come from and that offers a glimpse into a world that few of us even knew existed let alone know anything about. Even if it doesn't change any of the preconceptions you might have had about Florida and the people who live there, its mighty fine music filled with heart and soul that can't fail to move you.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:47 AM | Permalink

Satire is a delicate matter, or at least it should be. Far too often satire seems to be confused with farce for some reason, which is sort of like confusing a chain saw with the delicate touch of a surgeon's scalpel. It's true that both will cut close to the bone, but while farce will leave a great big gapping hole making it obvious what's going on, satire will barely mark the skin on its way to leaving its barb behind. While farce has nothing to do with reality, satire presents such a mirror image of the topic being skewered that at times it's difficult to tell them apart.

Satire can be funny, but is not necessarily so, it's just as easy to weep as to laugh at the foibles of our society. The good satirist can take an idea that's totally outrageous and make it seem reasonable. The satirist's target are the self-important, the holier than thou, blind obedience, and ignorance posing as wisdom. Is it any wonder that satirists tend not to be popular among those who depend on the manipulation of the masses for their position and that the more autocratic a society the more chance they have of ending up in jail.

Such was the case with Iraqi writer Fadhil al-Azzawi who spent three years in jail during the 1970's before being released and leaving Iraq for Germany in 1977 where he still lives today. A poet, novelist, and short story writer, Fadhil's fiction is just now being translated into English. If The Last Of The Angels, being published in Canada on July 22nd/08 by Simon & Schuster Canada is indicative of the overall quality of his work we have a lot to look forward to. (For those who are interested I came across a couple of web sites where some of his poetry has been posted, Contemporary Arab Poetry and Jehat.com, which will give you a good idea of the man's quality as a writer.)

Before the Americans were sucking the oil from Iraq the British were there. After "liberating" the Arab world from the clutches of the Ottoman Empire in WW 1 they were still holding on to their grip on the oil industry in Iraq in the early 1950's. In The Last Of The Angels the English owned Iraq Oil Company is the biggest employee in the city of Kirkuk and the people of the poverty stricken Chuqor community are especially dependant on the company's largeness for survival. So when Hameed Nylon loses his job as chauffeur (and gained the unfortunate second name as well) for the British boss's wife (his job had to been to drive her to her various assignations with lovers and thinking it only fair he be given a piece of the action, offered her a pair of nylons in exchange for a roll in the hay - hence the firing and the new name) the financial consequences were potentially dire.

After a demonstration protesting his unfair dismissal organized by the women of the community, the English woman was obviously a whore after all, results in the relief of a drought, Hameed's status in the community rises. Given his new stature he decides that he should emulate Chairman Mao and organize a peasants rebellion. Based on readings he knows it has to be a spontaneous expression of outrage by the oppressed against their overlords, and that it has to begin in the countryside, away from the corrupting influence of the city. If there was only some incident around which he could he arrange a spontaneous outburst of outrage.

When the Oil company's plan to build a road through the town's cemetery is announced, it sends the whole community into an uproar. It is decided to send a delegation from the town to appeal to the King to protect the sanctity of the dead. Among those included in the delegation are Hameed and his brother in law Khidir Musa. Khidir had gained notoriety for having gone to Russia in search of his two brothers who had been taken prisoner at the end of WW 1 and not been seen since. Everyone had dismissed Khidr's plan as craziness until one day he and his two brothers landed in Kirkuk in a Zeppelin. Even the King himself came to see the famous brothers, he was so captivated by the story.

So Khidir was an obvious choice to be included in the delegation - if anyone had the King's ear it was him. Unfortunately the King was nothing more than a figure head, and while the delegation was in Baghdad the situation in Kirkuk had exploded. The municipal workers had been told to remove their machines from the site in an attempt to diffuse the crisis, but when they started their engines it looked like they were advancing on the cemetery. The ensuing riot created a martyr out of the least unlikely of candidates, but by the end of the day there were enough witnesses willing to testify that not only was he a hero (he was shot while passed out drunk in a chair in front of his barber shop) that he actually ascended into heaven on the back of Buraq - the horse that had carried the prophet when he ascended into the seven heavens - that there could be no contradicting his status.

That's only the tiniest sample of the flavour that you can expect from Fadhil al-Azzawi's The Last Of The Angels as Iraq descends into the anarchy of revolution and coup after coup. Yet it's not only bitter irony, as amidst the stupidity and mass hysteria described in the pages of the book, moments of sublime beauty are salted like beautiful gems gleaming amongst piles of dung. While he ridicules the blind faith of the zealous and the greed of the ambitious, he also depicts the real beauty of belief, the sanctity of compassion, and the sacredness of genuine sorrow.

Like the best of the South American writers, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, al-Azzawi has created a world that straddles the real and the magical. It's a world where a young boy can open a box found hidden in a dusty room and find himself in conversation with three angels, and death assumes mortal guise to walk amongst the people of Kirkuk. Don't worry though he's not neglecting his duties, as he carries his ledger with him at all times and is keeping his records as meticulously as ever.

Like a painter balancing the colours on a canvass, Fadhil al-Azzawi's touch is so deft that we move between the mundane and the sublime almost without noticing the transition. Humanity, he seems to be saying, is equally capable of ascending the heights as we are of descending into the foulest pits, and the difference in the path leading to one or the other is so slight as to be almost indistinguishable. The Last Of The Angels is a beautiful book that does the seemingly impossible of holding humans up to ridicule while exalting their potential simultaneously.

You can purchase a copy of The Last Of The Angels directly from Simon & Schuster Canada or from an on line retailer like Amazon.ca

Posted by Richard Marcus at 07:23 AM | Permalink

In 1066 England was conquered by an invasion from Normandy, and the Anglo-Saxon populace of the country were brought under the thumb of barons and knights from across the English channel. While the Normans and Anglo-Saxons have integrated over the years so now there is little or no distinction between the two, in those early years of conquest the differences were stark. Money and power were in the hands of the Normans, and they did their best to milk their Anglo-Saxon subjects for as much as possible.

According to legend, it was during this time period that a group of men and one woman came together to fight against the oppressors and attempt to redistribute the wealth in a more equitable manner. Robin Hood and his followers stole from the rich and gave to the poor, is the way the story has come down to us through the ages. Versions of the legend of Robin Hood have appeared as books, comics, cartoons, live action movies, and television shows, but only one that I know of has depicted the struggle as one of rebellion against a conquerer as much as an issue of wealth redistribution.

Robin Of Sherwood ran for three seasons on British television, 1984 through 1986, and was rebroadcast in North America on various public television stations at various times since. In total there were only twenty-four episodes of the show made - two movie length pilots of 100 minutes each and twenty-two, fifty minutes regular episodes. Now, for the first time ever, all twenty-six episodes are available as a box set. Robin Of Sherwood: The Complete Collection, distributed by the Acorn Media Group, is a box set of twelve DVDs, two of which contain over seventeen hours of special features.

While the series is noteworthy for its historical accuracy and for the fact that it associates Robin with pre-Christian English mythology, it was also one of the few series where they managed to kill off the main character one season and successfully continue for another year with a new actor and a new Robin Hood. For the first two seasons Robin of Loxley, aka Robin Hood, was played by Michael Praed, and when he was offered a role in a Broadway production of The Three Musketeers they gave him a hero's death. In the third season they brought Jason Connery in to play Robert of Huntingdon, who stepped forward to assume the mantle of Robin Hood.

They managed this trick easily enough because they had already established that the figure of Robin Hood was a role designated by a figure out of English myth, Herne The Hunter. While the original myth says that on the twelfth day after the Winter Solstice Herne gathered his hunt at an Oak tree in Windsor Park in England and ride the sky seeking prey, (I don't know if it still stands but there was an Oak Tree on the grounds of Windsor Palace known as Herne's or The Hunter's Tree) for the television show they've made him into more of a mixture of a few figures from pagan times; The Greenman, The Stag King, and Herne the Hunter. In both the first episode of the series, and the opening episode of the third season, the characters played by Michael Praed and Jason Connery are designated by Herne as his son, and the person to carry on the fight against the Saxons using the name of Robin of the Hood.

As with everything else about the series, the situation was handled neatly and cleanly. It may sound a little contrived on the page, but in the context of what had been established in the previous two episodes it worked. Unfortunately Jason Connery lacked the charisma of Michael Praed and, in spite of doing some fine work, never seemed to capture people's imaginations and the series ended after the third season. If he had been cast as Robin from the beginning Connery would have been a fine choice, but Praed had made the role so much his own that anybody would have paled in comparison.

There's also a noticeable drop off in the quality of the scripts from the first two seasons to the third. Part of the problem being is just how many variations on the theme of keeping out of the clutches of the Sheriff of Nottingham, embarrassing his lackey Sir Guy of Gisbourne, and robbing from the rich to feed the poor can their be? In the first two seasons they were able to draw upon the adventures attributed to Robin Hood in various books, including many of the old favourites like his meeting with Little John, and give them new twists to create interesting episodes, but the scripts seemed to lose direction somewhat in the third season.

Aside from making the outlaws resistance fighters against a conquerer, and utilizing pre-Christian beliefs in the story lines, the show's producers added the element of sorcery to the mix. While an episode involving Devil worshippers was a little over the top, the majority of the time the infusion of sorcery was handled subtlety enough that it gives the program an even greater air of authenticity. The majority of time the sorcery utilized were things like herbal concoctions to put people to sleep, or rituals that would put one person into another's control. In other words spells that people of the time period probably would have believed sorcerers capable of producing.

One of my favourite deviations from the way the story is normally told was the way King Richard the Third, The Lionhearted, was presented. Most of the time he is some great hero who returns at the end to preside over a happy ending and restore order to the Kingdom that has been abused by his brother John and the evil Sheriff Of Nottingham. In this case, though Richard is given his usual build-up, he is then revealed to be just another Norman who doesn't give a damn about the people of England. He's far more concerned with re-conquering territory in France than doing anything to improve the life of his subjects in England, and will gladly milk them dry in order to finance his wars.

As is usual for a British production the acting ranges from good to superb for the whole series. Aside from the two leads who both do great work, Ray Winston as Will Scarlet and Nickolas Grace as the Sheriff of Nottingham were both standouts. Ray's Will Scarlet is driven by his desire to rid England of the Norman's and has no compunctions about using whatever means necessary to accomplish that end. Yet he is also able to avoid falling into the trap of playing him as merely a one note, angry all the time, character. Will also has a great sense of humour, and shows on occasion the gentler man he could have been had not time and circumstances driven him to violence. As for Nickolas Grace - well sufficient to say he gives Alan Rickman's performance in Kevin Costner's otherwise forgettable Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves as the Sheriff a run for its money. He doesn't quite chew the scenery in the same way that Rickman does (who can) but he does a great job of being wonderfully nasty and evil.

With the show being as old as it is, and originally made for television, it is only available in full screen mode and stereo sound. Of the advertised seventeen hours of special features, of which a fair amount is made up of fourteen commentary tracks, I found the documentary on the folk group Clannad creating the score for the series the most interesting. However, there are also outtakes, bonus footage, a behind the scenes documentary, four documentaries that look back on the making of the show with former cast and crew, and more than enough other behind the scenes footage to satisfy the most ardent fan,

Robin Of Sherwood: The Complete Collection not only gathers together all the episodes of what is arguably the best adaptation of the Robin Hood myth into one collection, it also gathers together probably all the material related to the show that was ever filmed. Although the suggested retail price of $99.00 (US) might seem high, what you get for the price is more than fair value. If you were a fan of the show in the 1980's, or a fan of the Robin Hood story at all, you should seriously consider buying a copy when it goes on sale July 29th/08.

You can pick up a copy of Robin Of Sherwood: The Complete Collection either directly from Acorn Media or from any on line retailer.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 02:12 AM | Permalink

There are some writers who are as warm and comfortable as a favourite sweater on a raw day in November. You open their books with the same sense of relief that you'd feel when enveloped in the folds of the sweater that's keeping the bite of a fall rain out of your bones. Not only do these writers know how to write well, the way they write convinces you that they believe there is nothing they'd rather be doing than telling you this particular story.

You can tell by the way they write that not only do they believe in everything they have written, every word has come directly from their heart. Yet, in spite of their passionate beliefs, you know that they have an open mind and would be willing to listen to someone with a convincing argument on the other side. They know that opinions should not be shaped by beliefs alone, but need to be substantiated by facts. Otherwise you are left with nothing but a knee jerk, emotional response that borders on the fanatical.

Of course it doesn't hurt if you agree with the opinions that they are expressing in the first place, as admittedly a great deal of the comfort you derive from their writing is seeing the things you believe in articulated rationally. It's one thing to find them on the op-editorial page of a newspaper, but another thing altogether to find them within the pages of a well written novel. They're aren't very many people out there who can write a book and make the story be about moral and political choices without it becoming polemic and tedious, but Spider Robinson is one of them.

Spider is your atypical aging hippie in some ways; (many years ago he even wrote a story about Paul figuring out a way of bringing John back to life, because the music just hadn't been as good without him) he lives in British Columbia on Canada's west coast and his writing continues to espouse the hope that Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. instilled in some members of his generation. Whether the story is set in a bar on a distant planet peopled with beings from all over the galaxy, or in the more familiar territory of present day Earth, his books are populated by people who believe in the potential of a better world.

This continues to hold true for his most recent release, Very Hard Choices, published by Simon & Schuster Canada. Set in contemporary British Columbia the book sets us down into the life of aging hippie and newspaper columnist Russell Walker. After his wife had died from cancer, Russell just wanted to hide out from the world, but events had conspired against him.

A few years back he had discovered that his former University room mate was telepathic. Zandor Zudenigo had literally shown up at his door one day demanding help in ridding the world of a serial killer whose thoughts he had picked up via a chance encounter. With the aid of a Vancouver police officer, Nika Mandic, they managed to capture and kill the serial killer before he could execute his next killing spree, and had hoped to bury the incident as deeply as they had buried the body.

Unfortunately the CIA had invested in Zandor forty years ago, and although he had slipped through their fingers then (at great personal cost as the woman he loved died during their escape) it appears that the agent in charge of that particular program is still after him. Nika had tried to do some discrete checking up on Zandor, and although her query turned up nothing it set off an alarm that alerted the agent that someone was interested in him. He doesn't know where Zandor is, but he does know who was looking for him and who his friends were.

When Nika hurries off to warn Russell that somebody is after them, she unwittingly leads him right to his front door as the agent has placed an electronic tag on her car that allows him to follow her off the mainland onto the island where Russell lives. A bad situation is made even worse by the fact that Russell's estranged son Jesse is visiting for the first time since his mother died. How is Russell going to explain to his son about the whole situation, and how are they going to get a warning to Zandor without leading the agent right to him?

While this sounds like a fairly conventional science fiction/spy novel, Robinson has written something that has quite a bit more meat on the bone than you'd expect. First of all the agent is not a one dimensional bad guy. We spend quite a bit of time with him on his quest to track down Zandor, and the more time we spend inside his mind the less inclined we are to have a knee jerk reaction to him as one of the forces of evil. We begin to wonder why is this guy so intent on tracking Zandor down, and in the end the answer comes as something as a surprise.

The hard choice of the title can be seen superficially as the decision Russell must make about whether or not to protect someone he basically barely knows, after all he's only seen Zandor once since they both graduated from college, and is it worth putting his life and his son's at risk to do so? In another writer's hands that might have been the case, but in this instance the Very Hard Choices of the title refers to the way in which we make our decisions. We can choose to make our decisions based on our personal prejudices and the conventional wisdom of our peers, or we can make them based on what's right for the situation and what the evidence tells us is correct.

It's all very well to believe in something, but if you let that belief blind you to reality and let it dictate decisions than you have abdicated your ability to choose. The hardest choice any of us will ever have to make is the choice to choose freely without prejudice. Very Hard Choices is an intelligent and thought provoking book that will hopefully have you challenging your own assumptions. It is very rare that anybody on either side of the political spectrum has the courage to do that, and whether you agree with Mr. Robinson's politics or not, he is to be admired for having that kind of courage.

I have to admit I was disappointed that a glaring factual error was allowed into print. Near the beginning of the book Robinson mentions the imposition of the War Measures Act in Canada in 1970 by the government in response to kidnappings carried out by the Front de Liberation Quebecois (FLQ). He incorrectly identified James Cross as being the kidnapping victim killed when it was Pierre Laporte, Quebec's Minister of Labour who was murdered. While it doesn't detract from the story, it does weaken the author's credibility somewhat when information that could be verified by a simple Google search is incorrect. A lesson for us all.

Very Hard Choices can be purchased either directly from Simon & Schuster Canada or an on line retailer like Amazon.ca

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:57 AM | Permalink

The Mockumentary form of movie has been around for quite a while with probably one of the earliest that I know of being Meet The Rutles, an inspired take off on The Beatles by Eric Idle and friends. Since then the genre has gained in popularity, especially when Rob Reiner's This Is Spinal Tap became such a commercial success, and has proven a great vehicle for directors wishing to take a satirical look at certain elements of society.

Zombies have always been popular fodder for horror movies, and in recent years they've been popping up even more frequently, from comedies like Shaun Of The Dead to apocalyptic visions of the future as depicted by the Resident Evil franchise. So I guess it was only a matter of time before somebody decided to put the two together and make a mockumentary about zombies. The potential for satire in such a venture seems limitless, so I was interested in seeing what the creators of American Zombie, from Cinema Libre Studio, were able to come up with.

Co-directed by Grace Lee and John Solomon, who also appear in the movie playing themselves, the movie traces a documentary film crew shooting a documentary about zombies living in the Las Angeles area. We follow them around as they interview experts in the field; a zombie historian, a zombie psychiatrist, and the head of the zombie research institute. From these interviews we find out that yes indeed it is a virus that causes zombies to come back to life at the moment of death and that the virus is spread through the saliva of a zombie when administered by a bite. It also seems that the majority of naturally occurring zombies, not those who have the virus transferred to them by being bitten, died a violent death.

The film crew also get to know four local zombies and follow them around. Ivan (played by Austin Basis), works in a convenience store and comes across like your typical slacker, Judy (Suzy Nakamura), works as a customer service rep for an organic foods company, is doing her best to pass as normal, Lisa (Jane Edith Wilson), is a florist with a thing for funeral arrangements and is desperate to find out who she was before she died and was reborn as a zombie, and Joel (Al Vicente), who is an activist working on gaining zombies rights as citizens.

Obviously the un dead face all the problems of anybody whose been declared dead. There's the whole lack of identification thing that makes it difficult to get credit, rent an apartment, or get even basic health insurance. Of course zombies have their own distinct health issues - rotting tissue, the occasional oozing sore, and those pesky maggots. They also go through a difficult period of dislocation when they first re-animate, not knowing who they are, where they are, and need quite a bit of assistance in becoming oriented to their new world. While some of them are able to eventually "pass" as human, an equal number of them never advance past the stereotype perpetrated by horror movies of the shuffling, mindless creature, and other's evolution seems to get stuck after developing only the most basic of communication skills.

The two filmmakers are taking widely different approaches to the gathering of material. While Grace is content with sitting back and observing the daily activities of their subjects and acts with the utmost professionalism, John is looking for the sensationalist angle. He obsesses about whether or not they might be eating human flesh, and is constantly on the look out for any indications of "horror movie" behaviour.

As long as the movie sticks to being the mockumentary about zombies it is a darkly humorous look at a minority group's struggle to get by in a world that's much hostile to their kind. Their are those who are more than willing to exploit their unique abilities, as is shown by the sweatshop owner the crew interviews. Zombies are great workers because they never need to sleep, take bathroom breaks, and - especially the lower functioning ones - are perfect for doing mindless repetitive work. They've been a real boon, the guy says, because even illegal immigrants from Mexico have grown too smart to do the type of work he needs doing for the money he's willing to pay.

Unfortunately the filmmakers decided to switch into Blair Witch mode for the last third of the movie, and brought the film down to the level of a horror movie that takes away from the satire and black humour they had established. While it is being advertised as a "blurring the lines between reality and fiction", to my mind they just are making another cheap horror movie. It also doesn't work. The faux documentary feel of the movie had been too well established by the obvious tongue in cheek interviews with the zombie "experts" for the switch to "reality" to be anything but strained.

In the opening sequences of the movie Shaun Of The Dead we are treated to shots of people doing drudge jobs, shuffling along the street listening to their headphones, and just generally going about their business in typical mindless fashion. The makers of American Zombie could have made a movie that followed that avenue, but instead chose to make just another horror movie. What could have been something quite original resorted to falling back on the same old same old.

The DVD of American Zombie comes with a behind the scenes making of featurette, and is in wide screen format. It's available in universal region code and with regular stereo sound. You can order a copy directly from Cinema Libre Studio or the movie's web site

Posted by Richard Marcus at 03:50 AM | Permalink

In Anton Chekhov's play Uncle Vanya the characters are in the grip of a enui so all pervasive that they can barely lift themselves from their chaise lounges to deal with their own failures and bankruptcy. Chekhov called the play a comedy and meant the dissolution of the aristocrats depicted in the play to be the objects of our laughter and derision. During the time he was writing, around the end of the nineteenth century, Tsarist Russia was on its last legs, and the land owning aristocracy was seeing the gradual erosion of their power base by a new breed of creature - the monied middle class.

As earning money was beneath them, even talking about working for a living was just too tedious, they were unable to cope with the changes of society and their inherited wealth was gradually being whittled away. Even if the revolution hadn't come along in 1917, judging by Chekhov's depiction, the whole society would have probably collapsed under the weight of its own stupor sooner or later anyway. Empires don't collapse because of armed rebellion, but because of the jaded appetites of its ruling class. Having had their own way for too long they either sink or seek to sate their desire for something new through experimentation in drugs and other dissolute behaviours.

In Zach Plague's new novel, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, being released on July 28th/08, from Featherproof Books, we are dropped into the world of the students and the hangers on of The University of Fine Arts and Academia. The University has institutionalized the visual arts and turned training artists into a cynical process that has sucked the life out of creativity and made art just another commodity. Instead of the urge to paint springing from the desire to create, its become just another means of filling the void of boredom.

With art being merely another distraction from the "boring, boring", the term they use to describe the emptiness of their lives, the characters are in constant search of anything else to alleviate the tedium. For the majority that means endless rounds of parties, drinking, experimenting with weirder and weirder drugs, and, of course, sex. Adelaide and Allister have both done their best to buck the system and subvert the process by actually doing something with their art and questioning the status quo. Unlike most of their peers their motivation wasn't merely seeking distraction from the "boring, boring", but were attacks upon the system that had sucked the life out of art.

Adelaide created a show based on her applications to the top twenty-five Graduate School fine art programs in the United States. Each piece consisted of her application letter, her letter of acceptance, and the portfolio of art that she had used as proof of her talent. The pieces she had submitted included obvious forgeries of other people's work, stuff she had drawn when she was six, and other similar garbage. Unfortunately the Dean of her university wasn't amused by the show and was suing her because of it.

The art establishment was afraid of Allister because he refused to play the game at all. They feared he had some grand master plan at work that would expose them all to ruin and infamy, and were desperate to get their hands on a journal he had created referred to as the "grey pages". The White Sodality, headed by the mysterious figure of The Platypus, would stop at nothing, including kidnapping, to get their hands on these infamous pages

Yet for all his so called anarchy Allister isn't much more than a conventional, confused young adult when it comes to his feelings for Adelaide. At one time they were a couple, but at the beginning of the book they are no longer together. As the book progresses we begin to wonder if everything that Allister is doing is in order to avoid having to think about Adelaide and how much she really means to him. He has a reputation to consider and he can't blow his attitude of cool aloofness by showing how much it would devastate him to be rejected by Adelaide.

She, on the other hand is descending deeper into a pool of depression, as she keeps telling herself that she won't think of Allister, of course all the while thinking of him. She turns to booze and drugs for solace. Adelaide is also in possession of the infamous "grey papers", and is well aware of how much they are coveted by The Platypus. In those moments she can bring herself to care about things she realizes she must do something about them.

Forty odd years ago Richard Farina wrote a book called Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me in which he re-created the insular world of a collage town, and captured the restlessness of a generation. It was only while writing this review that I realized how much Zach Plague had managed to do something similar for a different generation in boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. There's the same sense of quiet desperation gripping the characters in this book that was present in Farina's novel. The slow dawning on them that the promise of a life full of meaning, the motivation for going to school and attempting a career in the arts, was a lie, is not depicted in so many words, but the character's actions speak volumes.

On top of that Plague has also managed to stick a few well placed pins into the insular world of contemporary commercial art, and the pretensions of those involved with it. In his depiction creativity is something to be feared because of its potential for rocking the boat and the independence of spirit that's required for it to exist. Gallery owners can't make money if they're unable to control the art that's on their walls, and the best way to do that is work with the schools to ensure the students graduated give them what they want.

boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring is in of itself a piece of art as Plague has experimented with various means of publishing the work. It can be purchased as a more or less conventional book, a series of posters made up of the pages, or as a CD. The book is put together in what appears a haphazard manner. Excerpts of hand written pages scattered among the typeset, text meanders across the page continuing down margins, pages are formatted so the book needs to be held sideways on occasion, the fancy calligraphy spelling out the name of the character involved in a particular chapter is sometimes almost illegible but never quite, and the final part of the book is presented as a photo copy of a separate book.

Judging by a sample of the posters that I received, you would get the same text, but as a series of relatively unconnected pages pieced together on large poster paper. Small sections of the book are kept together so that ideas and thoughts aren't completely dislocated, and at the end of each section is included directions to assist you in finding the appropriate location on the appropriate poster where it continues. I'm not sure if the author is taking the piss here with academics and there habit of deconstruction - or if he's making a comment on content and form, but it comes across as being just a little too much like the art world he is so critical of in the pages of the book. To be fair though, it's impossible to judge the impact of these posters without having access to all of them.

Whatever else boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring by Zach Plague is, it's an intelligent, sometimes witty, and sometimes sad book that offers sharp criticism of the art world, and our society in general. Boredom has brought many an empire to its knees in the past, and Zach Plague has done a fine job of depicting the enui that sucks the life out of us.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 06:37 AM | Permalink

It was the unlikeliest source imaginable, you'd have thought, to be an introduction to the dub music of Kingston Jamaica, but Black Market Clash by the Clash was where I first heard that bass heavy, mixed down, slowed down groove. In those days of two sided LP records, side one of album contained some reggae covers and original tunes by the Clash, while side two was more of the same, but also included a dub version of the song "Armageddon Time".

London, England had a large ex-patriot Jamaican community, which by the time the seventies and punk rolled around was into its second generation. Kids grew up with the accent of Kingston, Jamaica on their lips, but the grey rain of England as their environment. It was also an increasingly hostile environment for people of colour in those days with police harassment and skin-head beatings common. Punks, like The Clash, took up fight against racism and formed groups like Rock Against Racism as an attempt to help. Bands like the English Beat and The Specials with their mixed race memberships and ska music, that combined pop sensibilities and reggae back beats, were political messages in their own right.

Mystifying words like "Rockers" and "Rude Boy" made their way across the Atlantic Ocean in the lyrics of songs by these bands, while dubbed versions of Clash and English Beat songs were released on extended play (EPs) twelve inch vinyl singles. It was vaguely understood that this music had something to do with reggae and Jamaica, but since it didn't sound like anything Bob Marley or Peter Tosh were doing at the time, most people I knew weren't quite sure what to make of it. It was known that the Clash had recorded some tracks on their Sandinista triple album in Kingston, Jamaica, but aside from that we didn't know anything about this dub stuff that was so popular in England.

The name Augustus Pablo wouldn't have meant a damn thing to anybody I knew. Black Uhuru were as adventurous as most people got when it came to listening to reggae, and I doubt there were many people aware that there was any other music coming out of Jamaica at the time. Yet it was in the early seventies when this extraordinary man began recording, first as a performer, then as a composer and producer. It was his collaborations with King Tubby, the man credited with inventing dub music, in 1976, King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown and 1977, East Of The River Nile, that are credited with popularizing dub music in England and providing the early inspiration for hip-hop and rap in the United States.

As he never sought after commercial success, and very rarely toured, Pablo never received the recognition that accrued to some of his more famous countrymen. Now, nearly ten years after his death of a rare nerve disorder, that might just change with the release of The Mystic World Of Augustus Pablo: The Rockers Story, a four CD and single DVD box set by his American distributor, Shanachie Entertainment Group. The first three CDs of the set are an exhaustive retrospective of his career with samples from the three decades of his output as a producer, composer, and performer. The fourth CD features cuts that were previously unreleased and tracks that had been released on labels other than his own from his early days as a performer. The DVD contains footage from two concerts in Japan in 1986 and 1988, and some taken of Augustus during the filming of a documentary about the band Soul Syndicate called Word, Sound, and Power

The first thing you notice when listening to an Augustus Pablo song is the fact that lead instrument isn't one you can quite recognize. It sounds sort of like an accordion, or maybe a harmonica, but it turns out to be a melodica. Usually considered a children's toy, a melodica is a small keyboard with a mouthpiece at one end through which the player blows while shaping the notes with the keys. This almost whisper of sound floats over top the heavy, slow, bottom end of the "rockers" sound, giving it an ethereal quality more reminiscent of the East than anything that ever came out of Africa or Jamaica.

Augustus is credited with creating the trademark rockers sound, the slow and heavy reggae sound that we've all become familiar with now but was only coming into common usage in the early seventies. The name rockers was taken from the name he had given his sound system (DJ set up) and latter his record label. It was a sound that seemed more in keeping with the Rastafari ethos of living as natural a life as possible as the rhythm takes on the characteristics of a pulse - a measure of the world's natural movement.

One of the great things about this collection of music is that it allows you the opportunity to trace Augustus Pablo's evolution as a composer and producer as we follow his career from his early work in the seventies with people like Leroy Sibbles of The Heptones on disc one updating an earlier rocksteady hit, "Love Won't Come Easy" over a rocker rhythm track. The first disc also includes "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown", the track that really popularized the music in England, some early dub collaborations between King Tubby and Pablo, and songs by Pablo produced singers Hugh Mundell and Jr. Delgado. You can hear the formation of the elements that will characterize Pablo's work over the course of his career; deep rhythms and soaring melodies that have an element of sadness and an air of the mystical coursing through them.

Even with the advent of new technology, and Pablo wasn't hesitant about using computer generated beats later in his career, the qualities of mixing bright melody lines with heavy bottom end persisted in his compositions. It could be a vocal line of remarkable soulfulness, the haunting sounds of his melodica, a keyboard or a guitar, but the melody would always sound as if it was billowing upwards, suspended on a cushion of air created by the power of the beats pulsing under it.

With advances in recording technology his dubbing techniques of course became more sophisticated as the years progressed allowing him to shape the original material even more. The technology also allowed him to experiment with percussion as is shown on track eleven on disc three of this set, "Drums For The King". Here he's integrated a traditional akete percussion group with a digital rhythm track to produce a sound that combines the best elements of both worlds. Pablo's use of digital tracks and computer generated music never sound like he's using the technology because it's a convenience. It's more like they are another musical instrument that he can play in his quest to make the music speak more eloquently.

A twenty page booklet included with the box set includes two nicely written overviews of Augustus Palbo the man and the musician. I get the impression that he knew that he was not going to be here for a long time, he was born in 1953 and died in 1999, so he poured his heart and soul into his music - whether he was performing, composing, or producing. The three clips that are included of him performing and being interviewed on the DVD show a very slim, almost ascetic, man of amazing intensity.

He stands at the microphone, reed thin, with his entire being focused on the music he's creating by blowing into his melodica. The thousands of people in the festival audience may as well not exist for all the attention he pays them. Even in the less formal setting of the segments filmed for the documentary this intensity of focus comes through. There is no such thing as casual music, you either strive to do it as well as possible each time you play or you don't do it all.

For those of you like me who hadn't been introduced to Augustus Pablo before, or had maybe only vaguely heard of him, The Mystic World Of Augustus Pablo: The Rockers Story will be a revelation. It will introduce you to the man who played a great role in shaping the sound of modern reggae and whose music, whether they know it or not, provided the genesis for hip hop and rap performers today. Even more importantly it will introduce you to his music - music that will change the way you think and feel about reggae.

Posted by Richard Marcus at 01:08 PM | Permalink

A few months ago I wrote a review of Elizabeth Pisani's book The Wisdom Of Whores which recounted her work combating the AIDS epidemic in South East Asia. In the book she talked candidly about issues that most people are still afraid to speak about openly when it comes to the disease. A great deal of what she talked about is the need to ensure that the world doesn't become complacent when it comes to the issue of AIDS prevention.

Even sillier are the ones who start postulating about how things as unrelated as Global Warming, are causing the virus to spread. While there is some truth to the fact that poorer countries are hit harder by AIDS, economic factors are not the major contributor to the spread of the disease that people would like to think. For the disease to be transmitted it still requires an exchange of blood to occur between an infected and an uninfected individual. Unprotected sexual activity and sharing dirty needles are still the two main reasons that the disease is spread.

Elizabeth Pisani called me from London England on Tuesday July 8th to talk about the Wisdom Of Whores. She had just retuned from a three week tour or the United States promoting the book there. When we had set up the interview she had suggested waiting until after she was done with her book tour of the United States so we could talk about the reactions to the book. Things didn't quite go as planned, as you'll see, and we ended up having a rather free wheeling discussion about the state of HIV/AIDS prevention and policy around the world.

You've just finished an extensive book tour of the U.S. for Wisdom Of Whores, and you're still among the living, but I'm guessing it wasn't without its moments

Well to be honest, there was almost no public reaction at all. (laughs) Which in itself says something. There seems to be a huge amount of reluctance on the part of the media to deal with confrontational issues.

Well what about reviews - the New York Times and the other big papers - nothing?

Nothing - there was only one review that has been published in the mainstream press since the book was released at the beginning of June. That was in the Philadelphia Enquirer, and it was a very positive review too. There has been quite a bit in the blogsphere though, and I had some radio interviews on National Public Radio (NPR), but that was it.

Even in cities like San Francisco, where you'd think they'd notice a book about AIDS, there wasn't anything at all in The Enquirer or any of the papers. I did have a meeting with the head of one of the grass roots organization in San Francisco, and that was good. He and I don't always agree on everything but I have immense respect for the work he and his people have done.

So no, there are no real "Moments" to talk about that happened in any of the public meetings. Interestingly enough though the book is selling better in the States than it is in Britain where I've had all sorts of press. It was strange to go from being in the pages of The Financial Times to nothing - but there it is.

Where I did get some reactions was in the private meetings at places like the World Bank, The Gates Foundation, and USAIDS.

Well that was a question I was going to ask you a bit later on - so I might as well ask it now. What has been the reaction of places like that to the book

I was scheduled to give a sort of brown bag, lunch time talk, with questions and answers at World Bank headquarters in Washington DC. I had been told not to expect many people, maybe ten or fifteen, but it ended up being standing room only - so about sixty people, which was quite wonderful.

What was the subject of the talk?

The interaction between prevention and treatment, and how we in the AIDS profession are still getting it wrong by not focusing our energies where they are truly needed which is on the high risk groups; men who practice anal sex, the sex trade, and intravenous drug users.

I don't get it - way back in the early days anybody I knew who was aware of the disease knew those were the people most at risk, and we also knew how the disease was transmitted - why is it still so hard for people to get that message?

There are really two issues at hand here, one is partially the fault of us in the AIDS industry and the other is the concern over the stigmatization of those in the affected groups. Unfortunately there is a very real concern when it comes to the latter; by saying men who have anal sex, people in the sex trade, and intravenous drug users are the ones most at risk for transmitting the disease you set them up as pariahs. As these are also people who already exist on the margins of most societies, or are a minority already subject to harsh treatment, labelling them most at risk for transmitting the disease increases the chances of them being ostracized.

Knowing full well that politicians weren't going to want to put up money for gays, sex trade workers, and needle users, the threat to people outside the high risk groups was stressed in order to secure any money at all. The trouble is that the money isn't being spent on the areas where it's most needed. It's all very well and good to have programs for people in the low risk groups, but if we don't spend the money on those most at risk what are we really doing to stop the spread of the disease?

For example in the Bronx, the borough in New York City, they've just announced a program where they are going to test everybody over the age of fifteen for the virus. That includes people who have been widows for twenty years and the celibate - people who are at no risk of getting the disease. We already know who are at most risk, and wouldn't the money be better spent on testing them, providing them with treatment and setting up programs to stop them from spreading the disease?

In New York City one in four of gay men who are coming in to be tested are not only HIV positive but they are already in the throes of full blown AIDS - which means they are waiting for symptoms of the disease to show before they come into get tested and by then they are at the most infectious. There's something seriously wrong with that, and its because we're not doing enough to work on prevention.

In Canada we just had the recent furor over a safe injection facility in Vancouver British Columbia - Insite - that the federal government was going to close, but thankfully a judge in British Columbia ruled they couldn't because it provides a health care service. The attitude from the government was one of - I don't care about junkies

Right and that's the vicious circle people working in the world of AIDS are dealing with. If there was ever an under serviced area in the world right now it would be the East side of Vancouver. I've seen some pretty bad spots in the world and that's just horrible. The people there are trying so hard to do something but they have so little to work with. Insite is only able to cope with 5% of the people injecting on the street.

Here's an irony for you, when the people opposed to Insite found out that figure they tried to make it part of the argument against keeping it open by saying, well they can't be doing much good if they're only servicing five per cent of the population. Of course all that means is they don't have the resources to do any more.

Well you can make statistics say anything can't you?

Oh yes, you can torture numbers to say what you like easily enough, but it doesn't change the reality of the situation. We know that there are only very specific circumstances required for the HIV/AIDS virus to be spread; an infected person, and uninfected person, and an exchange of bodily fluids. So obviously you have to prevent the spread of bodily fluids from the first to the second.

Yet, I was at USAIDS saying just those things while I was in the States and the director says to me: "I never thought of it that way before". Maybe I'm a little too Pollyanna, but I hope that by constantly keeping pressure on the people delivering services that we can at least get them to spend the money in the areas where it's needed. Go ahead and do all your studies and set up your programming with the other groups, because of course its needed, but don't do it at the expense of the people who are at most risk of contracting and spreading the disease. Unfortunately that's the situation we are currently in.

Even before I read your book I had the impression that people are very defensive when it comes to AIDS prevention - and any critical evaluation, no matter how constructive, is treated like an attack. Is this a valid impression and if so how did this fortress mentality come about?

I'd like to say it's not true, but unfortunately it does exist. There are two types of people who get involved in HIV/AIDS work; those who give a shit, and those who are there because that's where the money is. Those of us, like me, who are in because we give a shit want to to believe we know what works. We know the communities we work with and how to best reach individuals within it - who is going to react positively to what incentives to use what prevention methods. I think if we didn't have that belief we wouldn't be able to keep doing what we are doing - you have to have the feeling that you're making a difference otherwise how could you keep on doing it?

The result is we only want to hear good news, we don't want somebody like me coming in from the outside saying well you know this isn't working because of such and such. It's so hard to get funding for programming that you fear that anything negative that comes up will adversely affect the programming you know that is working well, or that you believe should work.

For example I know, I firmly believe that there is a co-relation between preventing the spread of other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS but the data just doesn't add up. No matter how I look at the statistics I can't prove that working on one helps the other - yet I know that it has to be true.

Of course the second group of people, those in it for the money, want to show they are doing a good job so they can keep on getting their funding and have jobs for themselves.

Recently there's been talk by the Canadian government of refocusing the direction of their HIV/AIDS funding away from grassroots organizations towards putting it into research on a vaccine. To be honest I'd never even heard talk of a vaccine before this - how realistic a goal is that?

The vaccine has become the latest pet project, the Gates Foundation has been sinking a lot of money into it. While I wouldn't say we should give up on the vaccine, it's so far been a very disappointing failure. Of course it's very safe politically, because you don't have to say anything about the money being spent on anything controversial like needle exchanges in prisons, but it looks like you're doing something. If I may be so bold, for the amount of money that Canada would be putting up, it wouldn't really accomplish much and would be better off spent elsewhere. Huge amounts of money are already being spent on it by Gates and the World Bank

Yeah well Gates has more money than our GNP, so if he's putting money into it what difference would our few dollars make?

Exactly

How are other countries dealing with the three high risk groups. Especially countries that we in the West might consider resistant to talking about sex and drugs

Well one of the biggest success stories working with the sex trade was in Cambodia, where the government had worked out an arrangement with the brothel owners so that condom use was being promoted among all the workers. Unfortunately the US government, under pressure from the International Justice Mission (IJM), who I call Cops For Christ, threatened to remove Cambodia from their donor list if they didn't crack down on the sex trade in the country.

Cambodia did have a serious problem with child prostitution, that was simply shocking, and that needed to be dealt with, but instead of just targeting those specific cases, the government was forced to close down the whole system. The result was that the all the brothels were raided, the girls were raped and had all their savings and gold stolen from them by the cops, and the trade has been driven underground where there is no government control or regulation. It hasn't stopped the sex trade

(In her book The Wisdom Of Whores, Ms. Pisani goes into details about the events in Cambodia and the problems the IJM create where ever they go. The girls they "rescue" from prostitution have no means of making money and are dumped on local service agencies who don't have the facilities to deal with them. IMJ are despised and distrusted by the local police and the sex workers for making the problem worse not better. The girls are forced to take re-education courses - like sewing - for six months during which time they are not paid. There are many cases of them using ladders and rope made out of their bed sheets to escape the shelters they have been sent to after being rescued. As one prostitute put it to the author "Look, if I could afford to be going to school for six months without pay I wouldn't be selling sex".

The final tally is that by the end of 2005 fewer then 1000 girls had been successfully rescued from a life of prostitution, and the IMJ had received five million dollars from the Gates foundation to fight prostitution and the HIV/AIDS it was supposed to spread. On the other hand the Cambodian government's program had ensured that an estimated 970,00 Cambodians had used condoms when they bought sex by the same date.)

The real big surprise is in Iran, where they have set up needle dispensers on the streets of Teheran so that anybody who needs a clean needle has ready access to them. They also have needle exchanges in prisons there.

It's been reported in the Western media that Iran claims they don't have any homosexuals

Oh, most of the Middle East is still really bad when it comes to the issue of Homosexuality. In fact in Egypt they arrest anyone with HIV/AIDs because they take it as a sign that you're gay, which is illegal. I thought we'd grown up somewhat and were beyond that. It was just as bad in Africa where up until a short while ago in the sub-Saharan area they denied they had any homosexuals at all. Of course there homosexuals are probably no more at risk than heterosexuals when it comes to contracting the disease as it's so widespread.

Africa has obviously been the worst case scenario for the AIDS virus. At one time people were predicting that India was another Africa just waiting to happen - do you know have any information about that situation?

I've not worked on the ground in India since I was a reporter so I don't have any first hand experience but I do know the data and some of what's been going on there. UNAIDS, on the last World AIDS day - December 1st/07 - actually revised the projected number of people infected with the virus downwards by two million, from five to three million. It was a classic case of not looking at the right groups and using misleading data to base their estimations on.

The data that the figures had been based on was collected from a couple of hospitals where all the difficult cases were being referred to, and these hospitals had a large number of pregnant women coming to them with the infection. From that information they postulated that pregnant woman were a high risk group for infection across the country. At the same time they were almost completely ignoring the people in the high risk groups. This of course skewed the original tally badly - it take make it better politically to be able to say that pregnant women were at risk, but it meant nothing was being done for those who really needed treatment.

At one point there was only one web site providing information for people in the sex trade and something like two for homosexuals and one for intravenous drug users - or is that the other way around - at any rate this in a country of close to a billion people.

Thankfully, this is one country where Bill Gates, bless him, has done something useful. He offered the country 110 million dollars on the condition it be spent on prevention programming for high risk groups. When the federal government dithered and held their hands up in horror, he by passed them and went directly to state and municipal governments who gladly took the money and began implementing programming. What's even better is that other states have seen the success they've had and are creating programs based on them.

So now that you're no longer in the sex and drugs business, what are you going to do now for excitement?

Well I don't really feel like I've completely left the business, what with the book and all. I'm still out talking to people about the issues and I'm still doing the occasional consulting work, and reviewing articles for journals. To be honest what I miss is the most is the number crunching - the excitement of discovering something new or finding the proof that what I believed to be happening was actually happening.

Well this didn't turn out quite the way we planned - I still have a hard time believing there's been so little notice given the book in the press and there was so little reaction at all in the States

Well there was one good story I can tell you, it was during a radio call in show in Illinois on the NPR station. I took this one call from a gentleman who was very much in agreement with a lot the things I had been saying. At one point he said, well wouldn't it make sense to legalize prostitution? What was really surprising was he was a State Senator for Illinois.

Thank you very much for this Elizabeth

Your welcome.

Well I have to say that I had had visions of hearing tales of Ms. Pisani receiving death threats over the phone and being denounced from pulpits across the South or something similar when we set up this interview. Here she was, a woman who took great pride in saying she worked in sex and drugs going to the country who ties foreign aid to their version of morality. The fact that the book is being completely ignored is probably even scarier than it being the subject of debate or her the object of hatred. Although I'm not sure if it's as scary as hearing that the director of USAIDS had never thought about the correlation between how the disease is spread and how to prevent it from being spread.