Volcano Song



I've a Fiat. Yogurt, Merkel?

PANTS ON THE GROUND!

A 62 year old contestant on American Idol disrespects all the young gangbang rapstars.

Brass Evolution

The marching band at Smith-Cotton High School in Sedalia, Missouri was forced by conservative parents to abandon a t-shirt in which hominid ancestors were shown marching along with brass instruments. Assistant Superintendent Brad Pollitt asked that all band members turn in their shirts after the band marched at the Missouri State Fair. Pollitt told Tony Ferrell of the Sedalia Democrat that the Sedalia School District is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.

Many of us do believe that biological science and the theory of evolution are neutral with respect to religion. Not so Richard Dawkins, however, who has prominently posted this story under "Wingnut News."

Les Paul goes up above

R.I.P. I never got to see him unfortunately. Now he is with Mary Ford once again.

Vuvuzela at 2010 World Cup?

The 2010 FIFA World Cup will be held in South Africa. Fans in South Africa make a lot of noise, and they make noise using something which may or may not be a "musical" instrument - the Vuvuzela.

The Monteverdi choir sings Rudolf Mauersberger's setting of the song of Jeremiah, which he composed after the bombing of Dresden on February 13-15, 1945. The Dresden boys' choir premiered this August 4, 1945 in the ruin of the Kreuzkirche, but it is still rarely performed or heard outside of east Germany.

Help your brother along the road, no matter where he starts.

We're headed for good times
it's an old McCain-Palin Tradition

Sali Grace Ellier update


Omar Yoguez Singo, an artist, has been arrested in Mexico City after confessing to the murder of Sali Grace Ellier. The two best sources for news on this incident seem to be Kristin Bricker at NarcoNews and La Jornada, which is published at UNAM in Mexico City. There is no coverage in commercial newspapers or on television in Mexico as there has been none in commercial media here in the United States.

R.I.P. U. Utah Phillips (1935-2008)

Here is an entertainer whom I would love to have seen and never did. I did hear several excellent performances of his on NPR folk music programs, Mountain Stage. Utah, or "U. Utah" as he preferred to be called, traveled the country for years on the "folk" circuit. Although he was probably a musician from birth, he did not turn to that as a livelhihood until forced out of a job as a government archivist in Salt Lake City, Utah due to his political activities.

U. Utah Phillips had continued to perform in recent years despite problems with his heart which finally took him from this earth on Friday, May 23rd at 11:30 P.M. PDT. His home for many years had been Silver City, Nevada. His son, Duncan, carries on in his father's footsteps there and is making the funeral pland and keeping an active blog dedicated to his father's memory. Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman dedicated an entire hour-length program to airing an interview which she did with U. Utah Phillips back in 2004.

Both of my parents are actually older than he was, so this is a big wakeup call for me.

The Master of the Talking Drum


Rasaki Aladokun was born into a family of drummers, but he also became commercially successful as a long-standing member of King Sunny Ade's group. Aladokun provided much of the traditional Yoruba roots of juju music as King Sunny Ade originated and continues to perform that type of African popular music.

There are three videos of Rasaki Aladokun on YouTube posted this July by Ralf Gruender. Unfortunately, it is not possible to "embed" those videos in a blog. I tried that unsuccessfully a few minutes ago. Here are some links that should work.

The Master of the Talking Drum, Part 1

The Master of the Talking Drum, Part 2

The Master of the Talking Drum, Part 3

Police in Amsterdam target Nigerians

Nigerian blogger Akin lives in Amsterdam and narrates here the events of June 15th in which Nollywood singer and actor Nkem Owoh (Osuofia) was arrested along with over 200 other Nigerians in the middle of his performance at the Grand Café, a Nigerian nightclub in South-East Amsterdam.

Not only has the mainstream media neglected to cover this story, the wider blogosphere has also ignored this reckless conduct by the Amsterdam police as we have also done with the recent killings of Osamuyia Aikpitanyhi and Eugene Obiora. Akin has been pushing the story forward, though, following up his original post with an editor's pick on African Loft and then yesterday's probing analysis of Owoh's hit song "I Go Chop Your Dollar."

The Dutch authorities seem to have mistakenly connected the singer and actor with the criminal underworld because of his personification of a "419" scammer in film and song. The mistake is ironically perpetuated in the the British IT rag The Register. In the comments below the story, some observant Nigerians do take on their slanted portrayal by western journalists. Owoh's arrest has also been reported on NigeriaMovies.

Papa's got a brand new bag!

I was eleven years old in 1969 when my father got his teaching job at Fisk University and my parents went for a visit to Nashville to check it out. Among the presents which they brought back were two 45 rpm records, one by Merle Haggard and the other by James Brown. I played both of them to death during my pre-pubescent years. The Haggard 45, "Hungry Eyes" backed by "California Blues" came to represent country music to me. The James Brown 45, "Papa's got a brand new bag, Parts I and II," always made me think of dad and of that sophisticated African American culture in which he participated so enthusiastically at Fisk.

As is made clear in the Democracy Now! program linked to above, Mr. Brown earned his reputation as "the Godfather of Soul" for mastering the nuts and bolts of music production and keeping a band together even when the white folks and many "colored" folks had given up on him in the early 1970's. The only artist from the 1970's who came close might be Sly and the Family Stone, but "Dance to the Music" and the other Sly tunes were the music of my dad's students. Sly got listened to by Miles Davis, maybe even Jimi Hendrix, but he never quite seemed to grab my dad. Nor have African musicians mentioned digging Sly the way that Fela Ransom Kuti most definitely listened to Mr. Brown and the JB's.

All was not fun and games for those that played with the godfather. You can read all about that in "Hit Me, Fred: Recollections of a Sideman," by the trombonist and jazz arranger Fred Wesley, which can be previewed on Google and is for sale on Amazon. I suspect that Mr. Brown's troubles with music promoters and recording studios in the early 1970's were not entirely due to the involvement of organized crime in the music business, as he would later claim. He was by all accounts a difficult and demanding artist to sign, record, and keep up with. He certainly could not be "managed," although he did settle down a wee bit by the time that he was featured in this Rolling Stone profile in 2005. Of particular interest to me is Mr. Brown's mention of Native American ancestry, possibly Cherokee, although he apparently claimed to be part "Asian" as well. His spirit just vaulted him up on top of the music one last time.