The soundtrack to my lunch (taco de pollo) with friend at La Taqueria this afternoon was a Brazilian-style bateria across the street at the Mission Cultural Center. They were really great and kept up their engaging polyrhythms for quite a while. It was an unexpected musical experience. Now if they can only play every day.

Not to be confused with the similar but unrelated Outer Mission Sambanista Battery.

The other day a friend of mine, knowing my predilection for African music, gave me a great Smithsonian Folkways disc called Por Por: Honk Horn Music from Ghana by a group called the La Drivers Union Por Por Group.

Using squeeze bulb horns–like car and bicycle horns you’d see in old-time movies–tire rims, drums, other percussion and their voices, the La Drivers Union makes por por music, a type apparently unique to them and perform it almost solely at funerals of drivers in that union (which, I learned from the comprehensive liner notes, often feature caskets that are made to look like the trotros these drivers drive).

George Gershwin, in an American in Paris, used a horn to indicate the traffic and hustle. The way he used it is almost cute, though: a couple honks within a significant piece. One could imagine that it was appropriate to 1930s Paris, though.

In the same way, one can imagine that the constant and overlapping use of horn in this por por music could be appropriate to current day Accra. It’s a din of horns, rhythmic and overlapping with some lines constant and some weaving in and out. Add in to that call-and-response vocals, percussion on all sorts of things like tire rims and traditional drums and you have music that’s both melodic and heavily polyrhythmic.

The LA Drivers Union Por Por Group - Otsokobila (mp3s)

When I heard about this CD, I thought, “Wow, that’ll be cool.” I feel like one could just let the idea of the music trump the actual music. Having listened to it a few times, though, I have to say that listening to this music is just as cool as the idea of it.

You can get this album from Smithsonian Folkway.

Starting tonight there’s a really solid set of shows for a few days here. I’ve never been one to wait for a weekend to go to a show, but maybe you need a little push. Do it!

the Botticellis @ Bottom of the Hill, August 2007

Wednesday, April 16

• Half Handed Cloud, Lake and the Mumlers @ the Rickshaw Stop (HHC is good local ADHD pop; Lake was solid when I saw them before.)
• Solas @ Yoshis (SF) (Solas is a great Irish band)

Thursday, April 17

• Ian Fays, the Catholic Comb and Here Here @ the Bottom of the Hill (I like the Ian Fays’ intimate indie pop. The Bay Bridged & Playing in the Fog present)
• Or, the Whale, Low Red Land @ the Hemlock (I’ve made no secret of my love for Or, the Whale’s sweet country sounds)

Friday, April 18

• Elf Power, Two Sheds @ Bottom of the Hill (Elf Power is an E6 psychedelic indie pop band. Two Sheds have really impressed me lately)
• the Botticellis, Paper Cuts @ Cafe du Nord (Botticellis CD release for Old Home Movies which is definitely solid)

Two Sheds @ Cedar Street Courtyard, SxSW 2008

After having played SF at least two times in the last six months, Vampire Weekend is playing here 3 more times in the next three months!:

01-31 San Francisco, CA - Popscene
<snip>
03-22 San Francisco, CA - The Independent
03-23 San Francisco, CA - Rickshaw Shop

Does San Francisco really love these guys this much? Sometimes I’m just not sure of where people’s tastes stand.

As demonstrated by my tastes, I really can’t knock people for copping other people’s music–I mean, I love Sufjan, Iron & Wine and others while also still loving pure, traditional Southern music–but Vampire Weekend’s brand of African-influenced guitar music, often similar to the style of Zulu street musicians, isn’t for me. As a South African-American, I’ll just often go back and listen to the stuff I heard and/ or bought on trips back there, be it any number of compilations with great Zulu or Xhosa (or Ndebele) amateur musicians, or Johnny Clegg. Plus that Fidel Mpondo disc–that’s great.

Johnny Clegg & Juluka - Umfazi Omdala (mp3)

Last week I got to see the Legong of Mahabrata @ the Ubud Palace, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. The group performing was Sekaa Gong Jaya Swara Ubud. It was balinese dance accompanied by gamelan. Gamelan is an Indonesian (Balinese and Javanese) music with tuned percussion instruments, instruments like (but not exactly) xylophones (metallophones), tuned gongs, cymbals, barrel drums (kendhang). Sometimes, like in the gamelan I saw, they also have fipple flutes and a two-stringed spike fiddle called a rebab. (It should be noted: gamelan is a set of instruments, not the players/ history. The Berlin Philharmonic is the people, not the particular instruments they play.)

The venue, the Ubud Palace, is a courtyard of a 16th century palace. Not to be flippant, but it’s sort of like making the Great American Music Hall a lot more historic and even more beautiful.

The group came in, some dancers and the gamelan players shaking these tuned bamboo rattles called anklung in addition to the barrel drums mentioned above. The players went to their seats and there was a pause before the music began.

Gamelan itself means hammer. That’s because most of the main instruments are struck with hammers of various sorts. The music often starts fairly simple and slow. One line on the metallophones and one on the cradled gongs. More lines come in. People with hammers are hitting the instruments with one hand and selectively damping them with the other. All this while amazing and tremendously precise dance was going on in in the middle of the U made by the instruments.

I was completely enthralled from beginning to end. I have to say, I’ve been to some great shows this year, some that I might even call “better” but quite possibly none that kept my attention as singularly as this one.

Gamelan isn’t something you immediately start nodding your head along to. I’d been exposed to some gamelan before so I was prepared. I’d say give this a chance, though.

Gamelan “Gender” Wayang - Krepetan (mp3)

(I searched for a while I’m really not sure where you can get this CD other than in Bali. Amazon has other Balinese gamelan CDs, though.)

Gamelan Gong Kebjar - Hudjan mas (mp3) (buy)

My other music experience while on Bali was marching ensembles in a Balinese death parade and ceremony (amazing for many reasons, but I’ll just stick to the one here.)

They played similar instruments to the gamelan: tuned gongs, hanging gones, cymbals and barrel drums, but they also used whistles and their voices, even breaking into the ketjak rhythm for a moment. Here I was able to get right up up next to them and be almost surrounded by the sound. The tuned gongs were doing a slower rhythm while the cymbals were being hit together at a very fast pace, only to suddenly stop and all by thrust into the air. It was great.

A documentary about Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars (myspace) premiers tonight on PBS. Check your local listings! Okay, I did: it’s showing on KQED at 10pm (till 11:30pm) as part of the P.O.V program.

This place is in the middle of nowhere. I was convinced that I had the directions wrong at every turn. There weren’t any other cars going the way I was going and I was just passing houses as I wound up the road into the hills. Then, I saw the sign…

Last Wednesday, in between hosting the Morning Benders and Beatbeat Whisper, I noticed that there was still a staff ticket to Brian Wilson at the Mountain Winery. Yeah, there are perks to being famous. Yeah, last Wednesday was a pretty good day…

the view from my crappy phone camera; that’s Brian a little right and down from the percussionist

I finally saw some other cars as I pulled into the parking lot. Comp tickets are always a bit hit or miss, but after I got my ticket and walked down, I realized two things: a) whereas I was expecting a Shoreline-size (22000 seat) venue, it was much smaller, even much smaller than the Greek Theatre (by my count. b) My comp ticket was in the “premium” floor area. Boom! Winner!

The concert area is built next to a hill side, not really into a hillside like a greek-style theater. That is the performers face parallel to the ridge of the hill and all the spectators on the hill, sitting on built-in wooden benches, face his left side. There is then a floor area and a small set of bleacher on stage right. I ended up being in row N, about 60 feet from Brian, not much further than I am from the stage on a typical night at the Fillmore.

Anyway, I made my way to my seat during his second song; it was not a hit and now that I think about it, I think it was a cover. Brian was seated at, but not playing, a keyboard. His arms were at his sides. The 64 year old looked a bit haggard, with a glazed look in his eyes and his grey hair splaying every which way. He was wearing a non-descript white long-sleeved shirt and a blue and red-striped nylon track jacket. They launched into one of their better known songs and that’s when I noticed something: he was staring into a screen mounted above and to the right of his keyboard. He had a teleprompter. He continued to stare at this for most of most songs. “God Only Knows”? Yup, used a teleprompter. “Wouldn’t it Be Nice”? Teleprompter. “I Get Around”, “California Girls”, “Surfer Girl”? Teleprompter. I enjoyed the idea of Brian Wilson watching a bouncing ball bounce across the words on the screen. He was doing karaoke to his own songs.

After about 45 minutes of music there was some craziness. As they were finishing “Sloop John B” Brian got off of his stool and went down onto his stomach. I thought he might just be acting strange (it’s not like he doesn’t have a history of that), but his band mates seemed genuinely concerned when he stood back up. Brian got on the mic and said that he’d been having fainting spells and might not be able to finish the concert.

Cleveland Simmons Group - Histe Up the John B.’s Sails (Sloop John B.) (mp3) (buy)

(I just like to remind everyone that Sloop John B is actually a traditional tune from Bahamas/ West Indies.)

For about 15 minutes it looked like the show might end there and some people started leaving, but eventually the band and Brian came back on stage and immediately launched into “God Only Knows” and “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” but not before everyone overheard Al Jardine (guitar, vocals) tell Brian “Let’s do a good show, Brian.”

I wanted to elaborate a bit further on Brian’s role in the concert. He had a keyboard in front of him but didn’t play it, save the intro of one song. He sang some lead vocals but left plenty of them to Al and left all of the falsetto leads/ harmonies to one of his band members. During the encore, someone put a bass on him and he appeared to be playing it, but the more animated bass lines were obviously coming from the regular bass player. He started the show hardly saying anything but became more engaged and engaging as the show went on, even playing to the crowd later in the show.

His band and their sound were pretty good. The band was pretty tight and the vocal blend was pretty solid, though not much will top the Beach Boys recordings. The bass end vocals seemed a little too percussive, like they were honked. The musicians, in the basic set up were: 2 keyboardists, 4 guitarists (including Jardine), two percussionists, bass player, misc woodwinds, backup singer and Brian. One of the guitarists also played trumpet and french horn (and “theremin”, they called it, though he definitely touched it, so I think it was probably a portamento strip on a synth). It’s cool that they cover important parts in the songs when they come up, but let’s be honest, a guy playing one french horn line a day isn’t going to beat someone like Alan Robinson who played all day every day for a living.

In fact, musically, it was good. It was fun, but it wasn’t the records. Pet Sounds is so meticulously perfect—it’s as simple as that—no live performance is going to beat that one pure musical basis.

For the encore, everyone was standing: “Johnny B. Goode”, “Fun Fun Fun”, “Barbara Ann” (and one other, I think). There was a second encore which was “Love and Mercy”.

With Brian Wilson and Al Jardine (and Billy Hinsche but he hardly counts) are there, it makes me wonder: why is Mike Love’s group still going by the “Beach Boys” when this group has more original members? I know it’s legal reasons, but the law is dumb.

The crowd there was mostly older people, but there were a few younger people sprinkled in there, the ones that are hip to the old stuff and the ones either dragged there by their parents or the one whose only common ground is the Beach Boys.

A funny conversation during the fainting break:
Daughter: “His voice is really good.”
Mom: “Do you recognize the music?”
Daughter: “Yeah”
Dad: “Isn’t this great??”

(I’m really amused by the idea that anyone could possibly not recognize at least a handful of Beach Boys tunes.)

(And before we move on I wanted to at least mention the two guys front-left who were giving standing ovations after each and every song at least for the first hour of the show.)

The crowd got me thinking about what coolfer pointed out a while ago: only 2% of Americans go to 3 or more shows a year. I was seeing the 98% there tonight. They were out in full force. It seems ridiculous to me to pay $50 or $150 for a ticket to an event (let alone if you are bringing a spouse or the whole family), but I guess if this is your show, or one of two for the year, shelling out multiple hundreds of dollars isn’t all that bad. And instead of standing in a crowded, hot room uncomfortably close to tons of sweaty hipsters watching a band that a few hundred or thousand people in the world know while your back is hurting and your knees aching and hoping you’re going to see something amazing, you get to sit fairly comfortably in a fresh-air venue at a reasonable distance from reasonably smelling, reasonably dressed rich people, seeing one of the best-known songwriters in the world, knowing you’re probably going to see a good (but not amazing) concert. There are trade-offs there, definitely.

The run-down-summary:
Show: good; that is, fun.
Music: fine, doesn’t beat the records
Venue: surprisingly good and intimate. Good place to see the Brian Wilsons of the world
Crowd: odd, interesting.

Finding foreign music videos on youtube can be strange. This one’s a Bulgarian rap video for “Tochno Sega” by Azis i Ustata, as far as I can tell. It’s a lot strange and little disturbing. Thanks to Josh for that one.

Okay, bonus video–not nearly as exciting and definitely not as strange. This is “pantsula” style dancing from South Africa:

As the New York Times (registration possibly required) points out, there is an ethnomusicologist at NYU, Daniel Neely, that’s researched ice cream truck music. (Though, his main topic of research is mento music. (Also, of note, he’s in a music group with Mick Moloney, the talented and famous Irish musician, also of Green Fields of America.)

I had two points, I guess:

1. Ethnomusicologists study the coolest stuff. If I weren’t a full time geek, I think I’d want to be an ethnomusicologist. As it is, I have plans for some amateur ethnomusicology.
2. Personally, I’m not annoyed by ice cream truck music. I grew up in a town that was a little too spread out and sparse for them and Boston didn’t have many, that I remember at least, so it’s only recently that I’ve started hearing them. I still get a little bit of happiness hearing that song or seeing kids run out to meet the ice cream man, though it hasn’t caused me to buy any ice cream from them myself.