Host of MTV Europe Awards ceremony, Sasha Bowen-Cohen, has been threatened with legal action by the Kazakh foreign ministry:
They have history. Foreign ministry statement, Nov 4th:
Music tomorrow…
“Foreign environmental activists worry too much about a few trees, a few species and a few tribes. They don’t want us to develop. All we want is health and money,” – Jomar Nascimento Neves
The Guardian reports here on China’s demand for soy imports and it’s effects on rainforest destruction.
There have been a glut of stories in the past few days coinciding with president Hu Jintao’s visit to London. The consensus from the left seems to be fear with a critique of American environmental/energy policy being shifted apparently seamlessly to China. The Guardian offers this overview of life in China (titled ‘A Miracle and a Menace’) and this report on Sudanese oil production with Chinese backing. The Independent takes a similar line in this cover expose from last month (the first few lines give you the idea – the article itself costs a pound.) (Incidently the Independent’s website is covered in adbars for BP).
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Also I couldn’t let this pass without comment. Every front page this morning reads: ‘The Beginning of the End for Blair?’ or some derivation. This ignores the point that there might be something more going on here than the rise and fall of a cult of personality. The government’s desire to imprison people without trial may not magically disappear if Blair is deposed, especially, as the man in question is at pains to point out, these powers are desperately wanted by the police. With that in mind, what is the role of ‘Tony Blair’ in British politics on 10th December 2005?
For himself ‘Tony Blair’ is equivalent to the public opinion. So to disagree with him is anti-democratic and even morally wrong (“Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.”).
For everyone disillusioned with British politics ‘Tony Blair’ can become an authoritarian whipping boy who can and will be attacked and defeated regardless of what legislation he’s bringing to parliament. While beheading the beast may well bring a rupture in British politics there’s a well groomed head ready to jump into it’s place. One that’s played the media like a fiddle over the G8 with the compliance of Bob Geldof.
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Finally director of ‘La Haine’, Matthieu Kassovitz, on the France riots:
“Nicolas Sarkozy, who has appeared in the media like a starlet from American Idol and who for the past years has been showering us with details of his private life and political ambitions, cannot prevent himself from creating an event every time his ratings go down. This time, Sarkozy [who last week described the rioters as "scum"] has gone against everything the French republic stands for: the liberty, the equality and the fraternity of a people.”
Available in English and French (along with enormous images of Kassovitz’s face) in the news section of his website.
The Irish pipes are known as uilleann pipes. They can make a wider range of sounds than the Scottish bagpipes and unlike the babpipes they are not blown, but operated by a set of bellows at the waist.
One of the most influential players of the uillean pipes in recent times was Séamus Ennis (above). He was born in north County Dublin in 1919. His father was a piper and a member of the Fingal Trio whose other members Frank O’Higgins (fiddle) and John Cawley (flute) were frequent visitors to the family home as he was growing up. Between 1942 and 47 the war caused a shortage of materials necessary to printing (the trade Séamus had taken up) so he took a job collecting folk songs in West Munster, Galway, Cavan, Mayo, Donegal and the Scottish Gaeltacht. From this he got a job in radio collecting folk songs and from 1951-57 he worked for the BBC doing the same. From this time until his death in the 1980s he recorded 7 LPs. The two pieces below are typically drone-heavy. The 13 minute long ‘Fox Chase’ from the album of the same name is hard and intense.
Séamus Ennis – The Fairy Boy 2.3mb
Séamus Ennis – The Fox Chase 12.3mb
Another instrument of note is the banjo. One of its most famous players in Ireland from the last century was Margaret Barry.
She was born in 1917 to a traveller family of street musicians. Her ballads could be heard in the Irish North London of the 50s. In the 1960s she returned to Ireland subsequently touring America. As the 70s drew on her performances became rarer until her death in 1990.
Margaret Barry – The Factory Girl 4.1mb
Margaret Barry – The Galway Shawl (Oranmore).mp3 5.2mb
Joe Heaney (Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) was born in Áird Thoir, Carna, in the Connemara Gaeltacht in 1919. This was the same parish of which the great folklorist Seán Ó Súilleabháin was to declare to an international gathering of his colleagues in 1950: “There are more folktales to be gathered in the parish of Carna than there are in the rest of Western Europe!”
After winning forst prize in the Oireachtas singing competition in 1942 he moved around, living in Glasgow, Dublin, London and America where he taught in the Ethnomusicology Department in the University of Seattle. These recording were made by singers, collectors and activists; Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in Beckenham (!) in 1964.
Joe Heaney – Bean Phaidin – Paidin’s Wife 2.2mb
Joe Heaney – The Widow From Mayo 7.6mb
Joe Heaney – Old Man Rocking the Cradle 3.9mb
The Irish style of singing is nearly always solo and a peformer by and large will concentrate on melodic ornamentation. The solo performance even excludes the audience in that the singer will often cover his eyes so as not to see his audience or sing into the corner of the room. English folk music on the other hand relies more on rhythm and harmony. Below are two pieces from English folk singers. Sam Larner, from Winterton, Norfolk sings unaccompanied sea songs, but more typical is the track by group, Blue Murder (who feature the Watersons and the Carthys – perhaps the most famous families in English folk music) which has tight rhythm and harmony.
Sam Larner – The Drowned Lover 7.8mb
Blue Murder – Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy 5.2mb
Digging thru old records and came across this from 1999.
It’s Alec Empire vs Elvis Presley on Khan‘s New York-based El Turco Loco records. Mr Empire gives us a rowdy version of ‘Hound Dog’ and a sensitive take on ‘Take Away’ where it sounds like the muffled beats are coming thru the ceiling as Elvis croons below. Finally he takes us into space for a better look at ‘Blue Moon’.
Alec Empire & Elvis Presley – You Aint Nothing 4.3mb
Alec Empire & Elvis Presley – Take Away 4.1mb
Alec Empire & Elvis Presley – Blue Moon 5.6mb
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From a year or so later, this DJ Scud track was released under the pseudonym ‘Bludclaat Gangsta Youth’. This is the full track – there was a version with less speech and a stronger beat on the flip. I reckon I heard this buried deep inside DJ /Rupture’s set in Leeds last week.
Bludclaat Gangsta Youth – Kill or be Killed 3.8mb
In the interests of creating hype, here are a couple of tracks from The Fugitives (nee Leftover Fugitives). Who will be playing at the George in Leeds on Saturday along with David Broad and Word the Cat. Should be good.
Taken from the Shadowbox Choir CD: