Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
May 30, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– Yet more belly dancing! This time just one album, from 1974, featuring Joseph Karkour on nay (a flute-like instrument) and Ahmed Menaymne on kanoun (a zither instrument similar to the cimbalom or ţambal, or even the Chinese guqin, which I featured last week), among other folks.

– I’ve been listening to a considerable amount of early UFO lately, spurred on by my discovery of the video for their 1972 jammer, "Prince Kajuku," which evidently aired for some TV program or other. Super heavy, with super heavy hair.

– I cleaned up the Johnny Thunders song "I’m a Boy, I’m a Girl" for airplay. I’ve wanted to play that song for ages. It appears on his killer live acoustic record, Hurt Me, but it was originally written for Actress, the original incarnation of the New York Dolls (see the release of rehearsal recordings, Actress: Birth of the New York Dolls).

– Shaina brought in two gems today: the weird, dissonant UK folk of the Watersons doing "Souling Song" from their 1965 debut, and the priceless "Stalin Wasn’t Stallin’," recorded in 1943 by the Golden Gate Quartet, a black jubilee-style gospel quartet from Norfolk, VA, which featured the song’s writer, Willie Johnson (not the blind blues guy, or the later not-blind blues guitarist). Robert Wyatt covered the song in 1980 for a single, and it later appeared on his 1982 album, Nothing Can Stop Us. See the wikipedia article on the song for more info.

Background Music: Joseph Karkour et al. - Belly Dance! Spectacular Rhythms from the Middle East (Peters International, 1974)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
May 23, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– More belly dancing! Another week of the lovely Eastern Mediterranean shimmy discs. Be forewarned: there are even more coming in the next weeks. The cover for the Fred Elias Ensemble’s Artistic Moods for Dance Vol. 3 is easily one of the cheesier of the genre, which is saying something. The music, though, is of a high quality. And doesn’t bouzouki player John Tatassopoulos look happy!

– My favorite track of the day was by the Chinese master of the guqin (a large dulcimer-looking zither instrument), La Ka Ping, from the Lost Sounds of the Tao collection. The liner notes compare the playing to that of blues guitarist Bline Willie Johnson. There was about a minute there where I could hear it clearly, but honestly it was the least-interesting minute of the track for me. Why make a reference to the familiar when there’s no need?

– Also in that set was Manitas de Plata’s "Hommage à Pablo Picasso," from the 1968 (at least according to my pressing from the U.K.) record Hommages. Allegedly, upon hearing Manitas de Plata play in Arles in 1964, Picasso proclaimed "that man is of greater worth than I am!" The picture on this record cover displays a close-up of Manitas’ guitar, which was drawn upon by Sr. Picasso. Other hommages on the record are to surrealists Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau, the latter of which is quoted as saying, "My dream, in music, would be to hear the music of Picasso’s guitars." There’s also an hommage to Brigitte Bardot. Little hands of silver indeed.

Background Music: John Berberian - Ode to an Oud (1974, Mainstream Records)

Playlist for
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
May 16, 2008

Hosted by Greg Lyon on FRIDAYS at 2-4 pm
on WPVM Asheville (103.5 FM and www.wpvm.org)

This show is available for listening as an archive for one week after its airing at WPVM’s Archive Page (click on the STREAM button for this show–under the letter ‘G’)

Notes:

– First, I want to thank Shaina for filling in for me the last two weeks. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Shaina!!! She took the co-pilot’s chair today, just in time for…

– BELLY DANCING!!! Yes, I acquired a stack of belly dancing and other Mediterranean treats from my dear friend Nick, who collects this stuff. I think Shaina was spot-on when she pointed out that if you just judge these records by their covers, you would expect them, well, suck. But oh my, you would be wrong. I’ve been listening to nothing but belly dance music for several days, and it never really gets old. It’s even good to work to! It turns out that a lot of the records that hit the market in the U.S. were made by completely assimilated first generation East-Mediterranean-Americans (Greeks, Turks, Lebanese, et al.–to lump several different ethnicities and cultures together, no doubt against their will) who were great musicians but obviously were pigeonholed into the "exotica" market. Ethnomusicologist Anne Rasmussen sums it up nicely, saying that the Orientalism of the Middle Eastern nightclub scene in America, beginning in the 1950s but peaking in the 1960s and early 1970s “served to enhance the foreignness of these Arab and other Middle Eastern immigrants and their families, placing them in an imaginary world that was exotic — even to themselves”[1]. The vast majority of the records have lovely, scantily-clad (if that), very fit (check out that tummy!) ladies on them. Now, this doesn’t bother me very much, but it might give you the wrong idea about the seriousness of the music. I’m sure there are a ton of cheesy belly dance records out there, but the ones Nick handed to me are not. So thank you, Nick! The best of the bunch, though, was recorded in Lebanon (I think), featuring only Toni Frangieh on buzuk and Setrak Sarkissian on tabla–simple but oh so effective. It was the background music (see below). If you want to know more about this music, well, there’s a website for you: Radio Bastet, complete with scans of the album covers!

– Sublime Frequencies has released the Group Doueh record, Guitar Music from the Western Sahara on CD after it went out of print in a limited edition vinyl run. I think it’s the best thing they’ve ever done, so I recommend you go pick up one.

– Happy Birthday to Brian Eno, who turned 60 yesterday.

– I went to see Polvo in their reunion last Saturday night, and they simply kicked ass. If you get a chance to see them, you will likely be very glad you did. The new drummer, Brian Quast (from Regraped, Cherry Valence) is ferocious, and I had forgotten how good the bassist Steve Popson is. And Ash Bowie and Dave Brylawski had lost nothing on guitar either. They played new songs, and they were good, so I’m guessing they’ll put something out at some point.

– My favorite new music this week was by the Scorch Trio, a Norwegian out-there jazz outfit on Rune Grammofon records, featuring some super-fine drumming by Paal Nilssen-Love. The guitarist, Raoul Björkenheim, is actually Finnish-American, and he also plays a mysterious instrument called the "viola da gimbri"–but not on the track I played. Ingebrigt Håker Flaten plays the bass and electronics.

– The new Fall track, "Taurig," from Imperial Wax Solvent (out only in the UK), is their most addictive in years and years. Very krautrock. Hardly any vocals. You will put this on repeat–trust me on that.

– Singer to Nick Drake to Dando Shaft was one of my most pleasing mixes in recent memory. Dando Shaft were a UK folk rock group from circa 1970, obviously influenced by Nick Drake. I’d never played that Nick Drake track ("Know") before on the radio, and it was in listening to it that I realized how intense Drake’s playing is there, even if it’s the same riff over and over again.

Background Music: Toni Frangieh & Setrak Sarkissian - Belly Dance Nights (Layale Bourg El Haman) Vol. 1 - Voix de l’Orient Series (1977)

1. Anne Rasmussen, "‘An Evening in the Orient’: The Middle Eastern Nightclub in America," Asian Music 23, no. 2 (1992): 63-88.