e-culture: Support Your Local Artist
PAGE 1, December 12, 2001
IN THIS ISSUE
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Cultural Advocate of the Year
As I descended on a rough road from a mountain pass in the Mayan lands near Ocozocoautl, Chiapas, Mexico, through a heavy echo effect the DJ announced the next song, "Noches y Dias Dificiles" by "Los Be-at-les" on "La Programa Musica del Mundo". It occurred to me, the Fab Four really are everywhere. I'm not convinced that The Beatles, or any other chart-topping pop group, need to be everywhere in the world, especially not in the last remote locations. But, the Angeles Verdes driving on the busy Pan American highway, and the official toll collectors, truck drivers and farming Indians, all listening to quirky, harmonic British twerps (said affectionately) was somehow appealing in that humorous visionary moment.
One of them, George Harrison, questioned the motivation to be a pop star, saying, "...there comes a time in your life when you have to decide what life is all about."
Cultural Advocate of the Year
Each year we identify an important advocate for culture -- one who has made a lasting impact on people who are inspired to care about the status of cultural groups in our world. This year we selected a duo -- George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, who each played an integral part in bringing Eastern music to Western audiences, opening doors that are opened by familiarity. More importantly, the two created awareness of humanitarian issues in distant places.
George Harrison
While Harrison and the other Beatles were busy bringing 3:00-minute pop and made-for-TV hysteria to the world, forms of Eastern art and Eastern spiritual teaching were spreading to tiny pockets in Europe and North America. George Harrison took notice. The Byrds' David Crosby pointed Harrison to sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, who had opened the Kinnara School of Indian Music and Culture in Los Angeles, and Harrison discovered the classical music of India.
In 1966, he took to studying the sitar with Shankar in India and, during the six week stay, he came to revere classical Indian music over Western pop. To explore the world beyond the Beatles, Harrison convinced his band mates to travel to India the following year, where they studied with the Hindu spiritual advisor, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Harrison found the sitar a perfect vehicle for transcendental meditation taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He studied scriptures of Yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and the ancient Hindu teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Back in London, Harrison joined Swami Prabhupaba's International Society for Krishna Consciousness and helped found a temple in London for the growing movement.
Following the breakup of the Beatles, Harrison built a solo career with his Dark Horse record label. He established a film production company, HandMade Films, creating cult classics like Time Bandits and The Life of Brian, and more recently, foreign favorites The Secret Laughter of Women and The Man With Rain in His Shoes.
For me personally, one film made possible by his company, Powwow Highway, opened my eyes to the post-Nineteenth Century Native American people. As I wondered what life was like for Native people, seen mostly through old Westerns and left out of the modern media world, Powwow Highway made it clear to me, more than anything else I had been exposed to, that it was possible to visit the Native people today and simply ask.
Longtime fans of George Harrison have said that his most overlooked musical accomplishment was the rejuvenation of Bob Dylan as a member of the Traveling Wilburys, along with himself, Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty.
As a Beatle, he produced songs like "Here Comes the Sun" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and wrote profoundly, "Think for yourself, 'cause I won't be there with you."
Harrison's musical heritage came from Elmor James and Carl Perkins. Through he built on the Sun Studios sound and migrated toward experimental music many times in his career, it was his quest to find himself spiritually that became his greater legacy to the Western world.
His consciousness about life and meditation led him to gardening. He was concerned about humanitarian issues and contributed his time and resources to his wife Olivia's Romanian Angel Appeal, which she founded in 1990 to aid orphans in Romania.
Upon the death of George Harrison, I searched through my music collection and realized that among more than 5,000 titles, I have not one Beatles recording. But, I have one landmark recording made in the Beatles' Abbey Road Studio in 1969. It features members of the Radha Krsna Temple in London performing devotional music and chants from India. On the first session, Harrison played the harmonium, accompanied by percussion, while members of the London Temple chanted the "Hare Krsna Mantra" (released as a single with "Prayer to the Spiritual Masters").
As a devotee of Krishna, Harrison knew the mantra well and included it on "My Sweet Lord", in which he draws parallels to the chanting of "hallelujah" in forms of Christian worship. The three-album set, All Things Must Pass (1970; re-released 2001), and the song, "My Sweet Lord", reached number one on the charts in the U.S. and Britain.
Ravi Shankar
Shankar was well established as one of the wold's most respected musicians when the Beatles found their fame and fortune. He felt no pressure to "westernize" or join with the hippie movement, even as he made appearances in San Francisco, at Woodstock and the Monterey Pop Festival.
As a Bengali, his people suffering from famine, disease and political unrest in the newly-formed state of Eastern Pakistan presented him with his most difficult challenge. He asked his friend George Harrison to help by enlisting Western pop stars for some sort of relief effort. In 1971, Harrison organized the Concert for Bangla Desh in New York's Madison Square Garden, with appearances by Shankar, Leon Russell, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr and Billy Preston, among others. A pioneering effort that faced tremendous difficulties and set standards for charitable causes to follow, the Concert for Bangla Desh raised $8 million dollars and elevated the awareness of resource-abundant Westerners concerning humanitarian needs in old worlds and distant places.
Shankar's influence enabled Harrison to bring the sound of the sitar to a wide audience. Its use in songs like "Norwegian Wood", "Within You Without You" and "The Inner Light" expanded the interests of Western music listeners and set new boundaries of creativity for other artists. Harrison's innovativeness made it possible for him to host the successful Concert for Bangla Desh fundraiser. His influential effort would encourage artists to produce Live Aid, Band Aid, Farm Aid, and other artist activism, such as the boycott of Sun City, South Africa that increased awareness of conditions brought on by Apartheid.
Harrison's study under Ravi Shankar, and his tours of the U.S. and Canada with the renowned guru, helped audiences develop appreciation for the long and complex ragas played on sitar. Harrison's 1969 recording with the Radha Krsna Temple in London, "Hare Krsna Mantra", became a hit on the British television broadcast, Top of the Pops. It sold 70,000 copies a day. The worshipers made Top of the Pops again in 1971 with "Govinda", from a full length album of chants on Apple. In the relatively isolated Western world at that time, Shankar and Harrison widened the appeal of exotic music, such as the Chinese pipa, the Mongolian morin khuur and South Asian gamelan ensembles as Americans and Europeans searched for new interests.
Ravi Shankar said, "We haven't had to borrow from other cultures. Our music grows within itself." Shankar's music has shown great ability to captivate world-wide audiences without relying on Western influences. Western audiences have great opportunities to be exposed to phenomenal talent today because of Ravi Shankar. Indian artists have benefited greatly from his success, such as violinist L. Shankar and guitarist Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, who Shankar introduced to Western audiences on highly-acclaimed recordings like Inside the Kremlin, from 1988. Shankar's self-expressed greatest legacy is his daughter, Anoushka Shankar, who has carried on a cultural and family tradition to become a virtuoso of the sitar in her own rite. She has achieved immense notoriety with outstanding recordings, Anoushka, Anourag (featuring performances by her father) and her latest Live at Carnegie Hall.
Though George Harrison created a world-wide dominant trend in music with the Beatles, he also created a counter exchange of culture and ideas that many benefit from today, and Ravi Shankar made it possible. In a controversial statement following his first visit to India, Harrison told the British media, "There's one chap in the Himalayas at this very moment, and he's been there since before Jesus Christ." Harrison's ashes were scattered over the Ganges River near Varanasi, India on December 3, 2001.
Be sure to see our recommended music for the holidays to find several titles by George Harrison, The Radha Krsna Temple, Ravi Shankar, and daughter Anoushka Shankar.
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The Gift of Music
As a music curator for cultural events and independent media, and as a guest host on radio stations from Klamath Falls to New Orleans, there is one question I am asked more than all others: How do I know of so much interesting and often historical or obscure music?
The answer is simply that I have a willingness to explore and ask questions of other DJs, to do a little research when necessary and listen to unique stations like KTRU when I travel. I'm often introduced to interesting genres of music by a friend's recommendation. Here are a few of my own recommendations, just in time for you to support some local and independent artists for the holidays.
REGIONAL
- Boozoo Chavis, Down Home on Dog Hill, Rounder, 2000
Last recording by the originator of modern recorded zydeco. Chavis was always the best there was and it shows on his recordings throughout his career.- Boozoo Chavis, Johnnie Billy Goat, Rounder, 2000
- Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Back to Bogalusa, Blue Thumb Records, 2001
Continued greatness by Houston bluesman, who draws extensively from diverse Texas and Louisiana influences.- The Creole Connection, The Masked Band, Louisiana Red Hot Records, 2001
Zydeco roots music featuring Keith Frank of the Soileau Band.- Los Lobos, Del Esta de Los Angeles, Hollywood Records, 2000
Traditional side of Mexican-influenced band from East L.A. -- a phenomenal collection of regional music of Mexico.- Jason Ringenberg, A Pocketful of Soul, Courageous Chicken, 2000
Everything you thought Nashville country music was supposed to be -- talented songwriting, honest singing -- with distinct musical styles representing distinct time periods and rural traditions.
MORE... http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212ex.html#reg
INTERNATIONAL
- Csokolom, Ludo Luda (Fools Fancy), Arhoolie, 2001
Hungarian Gypsy music for the real adventurer and consummate music enthusiast.- Anoushka Shankar, Live at Carnegie Hall, Angel, 2001
Amazing talent on Indian sitar, and the daughter of Ravi Shankar, world-renowned musician who appears on her recordings. This, her third release, is the best yet.- Anoushka Shankar, Anourag, Angel, 2000
Great studio recording with father Ravi Shankar.- Ravi Shankar, Concert for Peace, Moment Records, 1995
The world music legend is our Cultural Advocate(s) of the Year, with friend George Harrison.- Various Artists, River Songs of Bangladesh, ARC, 2001
Excellent field recordings of folk songs from Bangladesh.- Los Hombres Calientes: Irvin Mayfield and Bill Summers, Vol. 3 New Congo Square, Basin Street Records, 2001
Excellent exploration of Latin and African Jazz roots.- The Aggrovators, Dubbing It Studio 1 Style, Jamaica Recordings, 2001
Early trend-setting dubs featuring Johnny Clarke and Robbie Shakespere on London studio session recordings from the 1970s.
MORE... http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212ex.html#int
HISTORIC AND COLLECTIBLE
- The Radha Krsna Temple (with George Harrison), The Radha Krsna Temple, London, Apple/Capitol, 1971, 1993
- George Harrison, All Things Must Pass, Dark Horse/EMI records, 1970, 2001
Harrison/Shankar duo is our Cultural Advocate(s) of the Year.- Bob Wills, Rare California Airshots, Country Routes/Interstate Music Ltd., 2001
Those who have the Texas western swing legend's Tiffany Transcriptions will want to add this set of 24 1946-47 recordings, ranging widely in audio quality, to their collection.- Mason Proffit, Come and Gone, Line A, 1971, 1990
Pioneering country- and folk-rock not paralleled by any of the bigger names of the day.- John Cale, Vintage Violence, Columbia/Legacy, 2001
Re-release of solo debut by Velvet Underground band member. For one who appreciates Mason Proffit or Bruce Springstein's stark Nebraska. CD version concludes with haunting electric viola played like a Norwegian hardanger fiddle.
MORE... http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212ex.html#hist
RARE AND UNIQUE
- Yid Vicious, Klez, Kez, Goy Mit Fez, Uvulittle Records, no date
Outstanding klezmer ensemble, with great humor ("Never Mind the Cossacks", "Anarchy in the Ukraine"), formed in '95, Madison, WI.- Four Piece Suit, Ready to Where?, Ocean Music Company, 1996
Unbeatable lounge music in the tradition of The Ventures, Las Vegas and Italian films.- Freetown, Painless, Beatville, no date
Modern English band, simple early ska sound.
MORE... http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212ex.html#rare
COLLEGE/ALTERNATIVE
- Consolidated, The End of Meaning, Consolidated Music, 2001
Topical, independent thought for the politically motivated. Former Houston guitarist delivers powerful commentaries, like "Tragedy at Neah Bay".
http://www.houstonculture.org/counter/ci.html- The Damned, Grave Disorder, Nitro Records, 2001
Return of legendary British punk band. See the interview:
http://www.houstonculture.org/counter/damnedint.html- The Dils, Dils Dils Dils, Dionysus, 2001
Six actual tracks from America's greatest short-lived garage band.
MORE... http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212ex.html#alt
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The Gift of Photography
If you are still searching for that ideal holiday gift, one that will be valued for years to come, give the gift of photography lessons. Our next class will begin on January 26.
See the current syllabus: http://www.houstonculture.org/class/class1syl6wk.html
January 26 - March 2, 2002, six Saturday meetings
11:00am - 1:00pm (Section 1870, Beginners)
1:30pm - 3:30pm (Section 1871, Experienced photographers)
Cost: $90.00 (Proceeds will be used to present educational programs)
Registration is through Leisure Learning, 713-529-4414, or http://www.llu.com.
The Leisure Learning listing is "Photographic and Video Lighting."
http://www.houstonculture.org/class/class1.html
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The Festivals of Lights
Featured traditions for this holiday season:
http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011212hol.html
For information on other regional holiday traditions and events, such as La Fete des Lumieres, Festival of the Bonfires and Luminarias on the Plaza, see our November 30 e-culture newsletter
http://www.houstonculture.org/archive/e011130.html
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Focus on Afghanistan's Northern Alliance
Asia Society Texas presents a briefing and discussion by Mohammad Eshaq, a Washington, D.C.-based representative of the Northern Alliance.
Tuesday, December 18, 5:30pm
Westin Galleria, West Alabama Room, 3rd Floor
At the time of this writing, the four Afghan factions at the United Nations-sponsored talks in Bonn have settled final details of a framework accord creating the transitional governing body and an independent council to convene a national assembly of tribal elders, or loya jirga, within six months. "It's not going to be easy," said U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi. "It's going to take some hard choices."
Mohammad Eshaq, a representative of the Northern Alliance in Washington DC, will discuss the origins of the Alliance, their policies, and their vision for Afghanistan's political and economic future. Mr. Eshaq, a native of the Panjshir Valley who studied engineering at Kabul University, was a political advisor to the late Commander Ahmad Shah Masood. He served in the Mujahideen government in Kabul from 1992 to 1994.
The charge is $10 for Asia Society members, $20 for non-members. For information, call 713-439-0051.
To receive regular notices of Asia Society programs and lectures in the "Building Bridges of Understanding" series, or other events, please send your email address to txcenter@asiasoc.org or visit Asia Society on line at:
http://www.asiasociety.org
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The Land of Enchantment
What makes southwest art and culture so colorful and alluring for travelers? The answer lies in the four territorial periods of New Mexico's rich history. This slide and audio presentation will help you understand the "Land of Enchantment" and know what to look for as you travel its historic roads -- the Camino Real, Zuni Trail, Santa Fe Trail and Route 66.
We have created this new presentation to compliment our tour of New Mexico's historic places, as well as to emphasize cultural aspects in New Mexico educational topics. Contact Mark@cultural-crossroads.com if you are interested in attending this program.
The next scheduled presentation:
Thursday, January 24, 2002, 7:00 - 9:00pm
Leisure Learning, 2990 Richmond
(one block west of Kirby on Richmond)
713-529-4414, or http://www.llu.com.
$18, portion of proceeds benefit HIFC
Promotional Image: http://www.houstonculture.org/imgtrav/santafe.jpg
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The Story of The Damned Unfolds
If the 1980s yielded few memories of interesting music, you may have missed the midnight revolution that occurred in the warehouses, parking garages and punk clubs in America's major cities. It began with a British invasion of sorts. On November 2, we interviewed Dave Vanian, front man of the first band to emerge from the shadows... The Damned.
If you missed it all together, stay tuned for "1977 Didn't Come to Mid America Until 1979", including: "Blow Up With The Dils", "The Only Band That Matters", "Noise Is For Heroes", and photos from the series, "American Hardcore: The Dis-Intigration of Music".
The Damned on...
ON THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
...if there was an enemy at all it was bad disco music, and it seems now you've got the same equivalent, except it's got this amazing packaging of Disney World all over it.
ON BRINGING PUNK TO AMERICA
...I actually ran across the tables, in their pizzas and things. It kind of got a little bit ugly.
ON THE LIVE SHOW
...at best it was over in a flash, and at worst it was just a drunken, chaotic noise and mess, and probably a huge embarrassment, but very, very fast and full of frenetic energy.
The Damned on KTRU...
http://www.houstonculture.org/counter/damnedint.html
Blow Up With The Dils:
The Dils were America's finest garage band. They also happened to be in the right place at the right time to join in the early punk chaos. California in 1977 was about to explode with independent-minded bands that were forming in garages and drainage half-pipes. But, two years later The Dils committed high crimes and treason against the movement, according to the rumor mills turned by idle teenagers. In the idealistic world of punk rock, it was against the code to charge high prices. No one could afford more than $5 to get into the show, what, after D.O.A records and Dead Kennedys t-shirts and "Rock Against Reagan" pins. After opening for The Clash for "rock star" prices, the hardcores in the music scene couldn't stand it. The Dils left California and went where all outlaws go, to Texas.
Little did you know, probably, that The Dils formed Rank and File with Austin regulars Alejandro Escovedo and even Junior Brown for a brief stint. The brothers Chip and Tony Kinman are now the much lauded Cowboy Nation.
Getting back to their short-lived careers in punk, The Dils did what most promising garage bands did, recorded six songs and bailed out. They release a demo, "Blow Up", followed by "198 Seconds of The Dills", featuring "Class War" and "Mr. Big". Three songs followed by 1979. Dionysus just released all six, with a collection of low-fi live recordings.
In an interview with the fanzine "Slash", when asked, "How long have you been together?, Chip explained, "With our present drummer, Andre, who used to be our road manager, six or seven weeks."
Slash: "Do you feel confident with the band now?"
Tony: "I think we have to work on more material..."
Chip: "We learn songs really quick though. And short sets are 'in,' but not as short as ours!"
Tony: "The Damned played 27 minutes..."
Slash: "And it worked?"
Chip: "After a really good new wave concert, you feel you've seen two hours, if you're in the front that is..."
The above excerpt offers some relevant perspective on our recent interview with The Damned.
http://www.houstonculture.org/counter/damnedint.html
CONTINUE TO PAGE TWO
¡Prospero Año Nuevo!
Mark
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M A R K L A C Y / mark@cultural-crossroads.com
Houston Institute for Culture
http://www.houstonculture.org
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http://www.houstonculture.org/world
Read Cabeza de Vaca On Line
http://www.houstonculture.org/spanish
Our Educational Youth Camp
http://www.houstonculture.org/camp
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