NOW I'VE SEEN EVERYTHING

Awesome PSA from the Red Cross Eye Bank.

ROCK MUSIC IN BLACK & WHITE

I'm gonna start by saying that the recent wave of '70s Africana compilations (starting roughly at the turn of the millennium with 2001's three-disc Nigeria 70, but really kicking into high gear in the last two years with Lagos All Routes, Lagos Chop Up, Ghana Soundz vols. 1 & 2, World Psychedelic Classics 3: Love's A Real Thing, the three volumes each of Golden Afrique and Nigeria Special and now African Scream Contest, plus a bunch of others I'm not aware of, I'm sure) are awesome, and have been kicking my ass for a couple of years now. But some of the most recent compilations have been, I think, a little deceptive in their packaging.

The traditional "world music" audience isn't interested in a compilation of '70s Afro-psych-rock. They prefer the relatively genteel side of African music - Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita, folks like that who are entertaining but never raucous or wild. The kind of stuff you can put on in the background while you enjoy a nice bowl of tofu stir-fry. (This isn't just me being a snide jackass; I recently interviewed Miles Cleret, head of Soundway Records, who said pretty much the same thing.) So if you're gonna dig this stuff enough to try to sell it to other people (as Cleret does - Nigeria Special and Ghana Soundz are both on his label, as is the earlier Afro Baby), you've gotta know your target audience, and in this case it's young (mostly white) hipsters, folks who come from a background of punk and garage rock and might potentially be willing to hear those same sounds played by Africans.

Which is where the packaging comes in. And frankly, some of these recent discs don't look like they sound.

African Scream Contest is the most egregious, to my eye. I just heard it this morning, and the title and cover art (at left) really don't reflect what's actually contained on the disc. You would think, for example, that there'd be lots of, you know, screaming - harsh, James Brown-esque vocals on top of hard funk grooves with scorched acid-rock lead guitar. There's a little bit of that, but for the most part African funk and rock just isn't as crazy as the artwork implies. I mean, look at the cover to African Scream Contest - it's like a cross between an early Fat Possum release and a Stooges bootleg. The songs, though, are uptempo funk with punchy horn charts and call-and-response vocals - the usual African thing.

African Rock Special closes the gap between sound and image a little better; songs like the Hygrades' "In The Jungle" or Joe King Kologbo & His Black Sound's "Another Man's Thing" have all the Afro-punk-funk zap you could want. But they're the exceptions, the harshest tracks on what's generally a funky album with some distortion around the edges. So again, the cover art seems a little excessive - it looks like a Mikey Dread/Clash single or something.

Granted, the Analog Africa and Soundway people are using existing photos, and they're not exploiting anyone monetarily - I have it on good authority that everyone gets paid. So why does this image-making bug me? I don't know - in a way it's no different from the way old rockabilly tracks are reissued in packaging that makes it seem like every redneck who found his way into a recording studio in the 1950s was some kind of Benzedrine-crazed killer who put down his switchblade just long enough to bash out a three-minute lust-rant. That's no more true than the idea that '70s Lagos was full of acid rockers who could have given Funkadelic a run for their money. Ofo The Black Company aside, that's just not the way things were. And like I said, these are awesome records well worth anyone's attention who feels like checking them out. Just don't come in expecting proto-punk from African Scream Contest, or a Yoruba version of "Super Stupid" on Nigeria Rock Special.

TAG, I'M IT

Simon Reynolds roped me into this online meme:

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to."

I don't pay much attention to mainstream radio, and MTV hardly ever plays videos anymore - most of the videos I see are on mun2, the local Latin channel. So let's see...

Akwid, "Ombligo A Ombligo" (Mexican-American twins who rap and produce their own beats; on this one, they've got norteño group Los Tucanes de Tijuana singing the chorus - through a vocoder)
Kumbia All Starz, "Rica y Apretadita (Feat. Melissa Jiminez)" (the track is generic Latin dancefloor stuff, cumbia thoroughly disguised under a wall of technotronica, but the chorus sounds extremely Bollywood to me, and that's what holds my attention)
Los Tigres del Norte, "Jaula de Oro" (this one's a classic; the title translates to "Golden Cage," and it's about a Mexican immigrant who's succeeded in America, but feels himself losing touch with his Mexican side, especially when it comes to his kids, who don't speak Spanish and don't share any cultural references with him - at one point the voice of his teenaged son is heard saying, "What? I'm not going back to Mexico, dad, no way!")
Black Sabbath, "I" (Rhino's putting out a box containing all the Dio-era albums, and this non-single cut from 1996's Dehumanizer is absolutely crushing, featuring a mind-destroying Iommi riff and one of Dio's greatest lyrics ever)
The Hygrades, "In The Jungle" (a psychedelic hard-rock instrumental from a 1970s-era Nigerian band I've never heard of before and expect I'll never hear anything else from; it's on the Nigeria Rock Special compilation from Soundway, a must-own)
Prostitute Disfigurement, "Killing For Company" (I blame John Darnielle)
Soundmurderer & SK1, "Bad Sound" (from 2003's amazing Brick Smack compilation, which I just heard this week)

OK, who's up?

Hank Shteamer
Phil Nugent
Steve Smith
John Darnielle
Adrien Begrand
Ned Raggett
Leonard Pierce

THIS MONTH IN JAZZIZ

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Miles...From India
Four Quarters/Times Square

With the recent passing of Teo Macero and Joel Dorn before him, the pool of producers willing and able to push jazz musicians - and listeners - beyond the familiar and into realms of genuine sonic adventure shrunk substantially. Perhaps the last three standing are Hal Willner, Bill Laswell, and Bob Belden.

Belden, who's been exposing the working methods of Macero and Miles in his position as curator of the electric-era Davis boxes, takes the opposite tack here. He gathers alumni of various Miles bands and combines their reworkings of tunes from "So What" to "Spanish Key" with contributions from Indian classical musicians and vocalists. The results are surprising, in both good and bad ways.

Opening a two-CD set with a 19-minute version of "Spanish Key" is a clear signal that a journey of some depth is commencing. Wallace Roney's trumpet is, from the start, competing for space with Indian instruments, synthetic and live percussion, electric guitar, and Indian vocals that fall somewhere between qawwali and scat. It's a dense, ever-shifting sonic landscape, more akin to what Miles was doing in 1972-73 than in 1969, when "Spanish Key" was recorded. But Belden is also clearly aware of drum 'n' bass and laptop music, and he mixes it all accordingly. It's a good start.

Unfortunately, the next track, "All Blues," with sitar playing the melody, sounds like something you'd hear on a third-tier Putumayo compilation. And those are sort of the poles between which all the music here shuttles. Some of it is brilliant, electronic-meets-global sonic stew, and some of it is weak pastiche. But wildman guitarist Pete Cosey and thunderous bassist Michael Henderson are all over it, scorching the earth like it's 1975 again. So you could get it for them alone and be very, very happy.

HEY BO DIDDLEY

RIP Bo Diddley, "500% More Man."