New(ish) sounds from David Brown (Brazzaville)

Given this extended winter and dull life I have, about the only thing that gets me up during a boring job, a slow social life, and a moribund economy, is music. Knowing nothing about David Brown or his band, Brazzaville, I collected some friends and headed down to the Cactus Club in Bayview last Thursday for the final US date of David Brown's 3-city US tour. Thanks to WMSE Mil-town was lucky enough to be on this brief tour.

F.Y.I. David Brown was an LA runaway who spent his teen years on the streets, then traveled the world on a shoestring, played sax with Beck, then moved to Barcelona and started Brazzaville. David Brown strikes me as a younger, more street gigolo friendly, globe trotting, and sexier version of Jonathan Richman. Though Mr. Brown deals in more serious topics such as squalid slum life, international trade, child soldiers, and of course ladies, an affection he shares with Mr. Richman. However, David Brown is a more complicated study. He channels the likes of Lou Reed and even Tom Waits in his singing but is smoother and less down and out. His style evokes much of bossa nova, pop, jazz, and folky indie rock with Latin influences.

I had never listened to any of Brazzaville's music prior to the show. Brazzaville is basically David's band with a crew of Spaniards and expats formed in Barcelona. They tour the world in such diverse locales as Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, and recently embarked on a journey in a vegetable oil powered boat. This music is perfect for any romantic who also happens to cry whilst reading The Economist, has spent time in Brazil, and loves to go on the road and make new friends.

David was joined by two local musicians playing drums (and percussion) and bass (and keys and vocals). They ran through about 20 Brazzaville tunes, none of which I knew. I did really enjoy some of the tracks like "Jesse James" and "17" off of his new album and then of course that song I can't yet identify which is about the peace found flying above the ocean. There were some tracks he sung which took me to a time when I was 20 and flying from New Zealand to Fiji and just staring at the sun glistening on the ocean being hypnotised by it all.

What I really loved was that his music was weird, romantic, and fun! He got the crowd trained to sing parts of songs, got us to jangle keys as accompaniment, dance, and I had a contented feeling at one point thinking, "I'm 27, single, and alive in this age, and it is alright". Despite the horrors and tedium of hyper-modern life things can still be beautiful and I could feel that, something I rarely find in music. There is beauty in life.

For more information please check out: www.brazzaville-band.com/

In Case You Missed It...

In case you missed the Rolling Stone or Vibe promos you gotta check out Pittsburgh's own Wiz Khalifa. Though his lyrics aren't ground breaking I'm glad someone with skills and pride in the Burgh is out there making waves. Enjoy!

Salsa Vs. Reggaeton

In total my formal dance experiences, not counting House music where it is acceptable to walk in a circle with your eyes closed and hands in the air, is limited. Experiences include 2 salsa lessons and 1 night swing dancing over a decade ago. The rest of my endeavors (however limited) run the usual gamut of trying to dance to ska, reggae, Motown, r&b, house, 80s, and hip-hop.

It was with great enthusiasm that I decided to go out and dance at a salsa club with about 8 other friends (mostly beginners) on Saturday night. We got to the club for a free one hour lesson. It took me 1 hour the night before to learn the basic step so another hour to learn about 6 twists and turns, fancier footwork, and more just didn’t cut it. A neurotic white guy cannot learn how to dance (let alone loosen up) in 1 hour! I spent the better part of the evening on the floor figuring out the steps and keeping rhythm; trying to lead someone to moves which I don’t conceptualize let alone understand or have confidence in drove me insane.

The frustration of this dance (while fun anyway) was having a pretty girl complain “lead me, lead me”, when I in fact had no idea where or how to lead her in a dance I barely understood (this sorta thing comes up and derails relationships I imagine). That was very, very frustrating for a passive individual like myself who normally spends weekends in the library.

For myself, being the embodiment of passivity, ‘leading’ someone on a dance floor (or in any endeavor for that matter) is quite overwhelming. I have studied and perfected the passive life of Haruki Murakami's characters whose only pursuits involve excessive and solitary reading, cooking, exercise, cleaning, and drinking. Like Repo Man’s Otto I’ve lived my life in the passenger seat, taking it all in, while doing nothing. However, my passivity has yet to carry me on any Murakami-esque adventures with psychic, crippled, 13 year old girls to Hawaii or into deep wells. Realizing that as a purely passive human being I need to be proactive and lead people in life, even in something as simple as a dance, is very daunting.

That being said, I gave up on dancing to the salsa and meringue (I found cumbia to be easier) and found solace in reggaeton, of all things. I’ve never been a fan of reggaeton prior, finding the lyrics a bit misogynistic and the beat boring. Compared to the complicated and proactive salsa rhythms reggaeton was a relief. To reggaeton I could dance with abandon without having to lead, figure out moves 3 steps ahead or worry about complicated steps, yet it is just as sexy and fun as salsa. No wonder everyone is into this stuff! Maybe I need to rethink music, it is hard to criticize music when your dancing to it, while it is just too easy to do while sitting on the sidelines. I will no longer deride reggaeton!

What I leared from this night was that without serious study of the various forms of Latin dance I will continue to remain frustrated and in the dark and reggaeton won’t always come to my rescue. I enrolled in a beginner’s salsa class and will figure out this ASAP. Until then I'll stick to dancing to House in my kitchen and to try and 'dance like no one is watching'. I urge you, dear reader, to do the same.

Mountains out of molehills

Paranoia strikes me all of the time. For example, I heard a loud booming noise the other night around 2am. I assumed that it was someone breaking into the house by kicking in the door. Turns out that it was just my neighbor’s ajar screen door banging against the house during a wind storm. No need for me to fear the worst.

Likewise, many people around me are sick with the flu. This includes co-workers, a roommate, and others. Friday during a basketball game the man behind me coughed the entire game, covering my jacket and neck with germs. Then on Sunday I sat next to a woman for 2 hours and later shook her hand and ate an apple with that dirty hand, only to learn that she just recovered from the flu.

Add to this my usual litany of symptoms: stomach pains, irritability, sleeplessness, mild sore throat (probably from the common cold) and nausea and headaches due to excessive caffeine. I, of course, assume that I am the next candidate for the flu with these symptoms. Later, looking at life and realizing that I’m stressing about my future, procrastinating over schools, afraid to ask out a girl, and the ‘rigors’ of life are causing me to grind my teeth and have a sore jaw. I ignore these psychological factors and assume the worst, that I have the flu. Taking the necessary precautions I begin sleeping 10 hours a day, consuming excessive amounts of water, Emergen-C, raw garlic, fennel seeds, oranges, steeped ginger root, and washing my hands 30 times a day.

So far I’m not sick and don’t think I will get sick. But the clenched jaw, sleepless nights, and fear in my stomach remain. I think that the illness is in the mind, not my body.

March Madness

Another weekend come and gone. My NCAA basketball picks are proving to be quite off this year, but Pitt and Georgetown are advancing so it's all good. Went to Chi-town to catch a few games this past Friday. An odd situation, the tickets were procured through a “friend of a friend of a friend” who was told to meet ‘a guy’ in a rest stop near O'Hare International Airport. After unsuccessfully selling my friend on a pyramid scheme we got the tickets and headed to the game.

First game, Georgia Tech vs. UNLV. Kind of boring. I picked GT, but they lost. The true highlight was the pathetic mascot of Georgia Tech, Buzz, the Yellow Jacket, which had NO SPIRIT! Clad in Chuck Taylors he seemed to be an indie rocker drafted into this position at the last second as he had perfected only two moves: a celebratory fist pump more suitable for punk rock shows and an apathetic shaking of the ‘stinger’. Poor Buzz didn’t dance or rev up the crowd, he spent more time flirting with the UNLV cheerleaders! Buzz also failed to perform his patented ‘Buzz flip’. This pathetic critter is a previous winner of mascot of the year. The results of this Atlanta based poll are dubious at best, either way the person playing Buzz needs some serious training to live up to the Buzz legacy. A friend recommended that 'the bee' be hoisted up on strings and fly around the stadium. That would have been wonderful, at least emerging from some sort of hive would have added character. The GT cheerleaders were equally boring with only 5 men and 3 ladies who just stood around and CLAPPED to the music, occasionally hoisting the gals up and letting them shake their pom-pons. UNLV’s Showgirls style performance was more worthy with serious booty shaking and a cowboy (Runnin’ Rebel) mascot who danced around and could sorta keep rhythm.

The Badgers barely won against unknowns Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but the Texas Islanders won based on the mascot alone. I don’t know what an “Islander” is in Texas. Perhaps it is a part-Polynesian, part-German/Mexican Texan with a tiki face and grass skirt. Izzy the Islander danced it up and had some real pride is his/her job with slides, shaking, fist pumps, and serious movement (Izzy had rhythm, so probably was a woman). The Texas A&M CC Blue Crew also did a good job with their cheering (rather boisterous and animated) despite being outnumbered and overshadowed by the local Badgers squad.

Besides the shoddy performance by Buzz I was struck by the fact that most songs by the bands were old rock tunes. What was once a novelty with DJs sampling the Compton High School Marching Band’s rendition of 'Low Rider,' it is now commonplace for college bands to play such anthems as ‘Ring of Fire’, ‘Low Rider’, or ‘Iron Man’ --so much for fight songs.

NCAA consumption with the unhealthy food, high prices, regional rivalries, sensory overload, and sitting all day was too much for me, add to that a long car ride, and stomach full of heavy Chicago Pie and I was beat. Let’s hope Pitt wins this thing and we can move on with our lives.

Heard It All Before

We hear it all the time. Low income, often immigrant, blue-collar neighborhoods being turned into hipster playgrounds. This has affected most cities across the nation, but perhaps none more than NYC. From the South Bronx to Brooklyn, Lower East Side to Queens, hipsters and yuppies move in, drive up the rents and drive out their poorer neighbors. It appears that the Dominican stronghold of Washington Heights is joining that list. You can read more in this NYTimes article.

Is this a bad thing? Probably, but that isn't the point, it is happening all over the place and will continue to happen whether it is 'good' or 'bad'. Remember, the decision maker here is profit. If someone can make a buck and it so happens that others are displaced so be it. That is just an inevitable inconvenience. But what do those of us who are bothered by this change to do? Remember, this movement isn't caused by Dominicans 'moving on up' because of an increase in their incomes, they're being forced out because of rising rents.

What to do? Probably nothing. Visit Washington Heights as a tourist, grab a bite to eat, sip some coffee, have a beer or three, take a photo and move on.

I am not bothered by this because I'm a post-modern liberal who decries not merely the injustice but the loss of some authentic ethnic-enclave which is more 'real' than my suburban roots will ever be. Okay, I sorta am. But what really bothers me is the displacement of the working class and the continued homogenization of our culture. Do we really want our cities to be yuppie and hipster playgrounds of consumption?

I suggest that our society does want everything to be like a mall and if there are losers along this path so be it. Just pray you're on the winning side or else you'll find yourself living in a ghetto suburb without a mall or be doing time in prison.

Joys of the Desert Cake

Like most Americans I'm bored and underutilized at my job. Therefore, I have to revile in the simple pleasures of life. These delicacies include morning coffee, today it was El Salvador Santa Ana from Counter Culture instead of the Folger's and Dunkin' Donuts coffee proffered by my co-workers (yes, I'm an elitist). I am also lucky enough to have interesting co-workers who can entertain with stories about mobsters at the Catfish Lounge. But the best piece would be the Desert Cake, enjoyed best with coffee.

The Army issued Walnut Tea Cake, ie. the Desert Cake (as it would withstand the heat of Iraq and retain its taste) is a dense sugar laden cake speckled with walnut nubs. A colleague was able to obtain a few Desert Cakes from a friend on an army base and we've been enjoying them with coffee every morning. This cake is packaged in an airtight tray and can withstand extreme temperature and weather changes for up to 18 months whilst retaining its moisture and taste. Point being, on these slow, boring, life sapping Monday mornings, enjoy the Desert Cake, or whatever simple pleasure that may be in your world.