Kiss Java

Archive for the ‘Music’ Category

There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.  Except for maybe a Phish concert.  Or even maybe a parking lot that’s filled with hippies selling things to you because they’re trying to get money for gas to get home.  But there’s nothing like the shows on the east coast, and there’s nothing like the shows on the west coast, and actually the east coast shows were always so very different from the ones in California.  Today, you can’t exactly head to New York and stay with friends, and see the Dead play, but you can certainly find a great hotel, and hear one of the splinter bands playing out.  Fortunately, a few of the members are still hungry enough to play in many different projects, and we get to see the results of their endless creativity.

But it was very different back in the days when there was wine and roses, and bones and roses.  There was a day when roommates would put Steal Your Face stickers on the front of your guitar, and you’d just laugh, because the world was a safe place.  Even in New York, there was a sense that all of this was somehow all working out exactly the way it supposed to.  There may have been a palpably different vibe to it for the west coast Deads, and it may have been darker and more aggressive, but we didn’t notice.

There’s also that strange thing that works amongst the ones in the know, where we could notice that there’s an outward aura that showed up the differences.  They were easier to be with, and easier to convince to do things we didn’t want to do.  We dressed a little differently.  We were colder and they were warmer.  But get us all talking together, and after awhile all of this would dissolve, and all we were was a bond, a bond by a common love, and some common experiences that are too difficult to put into words.

Coming to New York is always a life-changing experience.  Especially when it’s with the intention of trying to stay for any period of time, and to make a mark on the walls of history.  Some people are simply not cut out for the city, and sometime styles come before the city is ready to accept them.  It’s a difficult path, for sure, but fortunately, for outsiders coming to visit, it’s simply exciting to be here.  An ideal weekend is to check into a luxury hotel in New York City, and enjoy all that there is to enjoy.  If your tastes run toward an Eastern European blend of punk, then there’s a lot to listen to while you’re in town.

It’s not an easy city for anyone, and for bands trying to do something different, it can be incredibly rough.  This is a testament, then, to the fortitude of the groups that have been making inroads in developing a public taste for these new kinds of music.  Gogol Bordello would, of course, be on the top of most people’s lists.  The Balkan-influenced music is as infectious as the live shows, which are part old-school punk revivals, and part shamanistic investigations into the audience’s capacity for joy.  There are other bands working in a similar vein, but the music is still very different.  Just as there are many roots for the Romany people, there are many varieties of their musical offspring.

Golem calls themselves folk-punk, and the music is raging and wild.  It is a sound that always borders somewhere between ecstasy and madness, and they play that uncomfortable space in between to make sonic bursts of manic joy.  Outernational on the other hand, is much more focused on incorporating everything in the world, and their rhythms work from some Gypsy sounds, but tend more toward a very politicized global rock with ska inflections.  These New York bands are survivors from other places, and their durability here only increases their already magnificent street cred.

South Africa has a reputation for excitement and adventure, and in the past few years, there have been lots of new entertainments coming through the larger cities that only help justify the reputation.  There are always plenty of things to see and do here, in one of the most gorgeous countries on the planet.  Historically and culturally, it’s one of the most fascinating places in the world, and has been a witness to enormous changes on the world stage, sometimes being at the center of things.  It’s also enormously cosmopolitan, and it’s almost impossible to visit here without feeling a deeper connection with the rest of the world.  There are many things that are spectacular about South Africa.  Five star hotels are a divine place to base your journey.

The accommodations can offer a place for you to come back to your senses, especially after long and busy days.  If your itinerary here is business-oriented, or simply pleasure, there is still a lot to take in in one day, and it’s nice to have sumptuous surroundings to come back to.  They offer a constant source of refreshment and rejuvenation, and there are also spectacular amenities to make things even nicer.  After enjoying a workout and a fantastic meal, you’ll feel revitalized and ready to see more of this amazing country.  If you get a chance to check out some live music, and everyone absolutely should when they’re here, give a thought and a care to the memory of South Africa’s jazz great Mankunku.

Winston Manjunku Ngozi died in October of 2009, at 66 years of age.  He was well-regarded as the greatest tenor sax player in the country, and one of the best in the world.  Ngozi had an extraordinary life, by all accounts.  He started playing when he was a boy, and reached a level of fame where all the great players wanted to work with him when they were visiting.  In the 1960s, at a time when others of his generation were heading off to Europe to learn new forms, he chose to stay in Cape Town where he was from, and in a famous episode, one night when he was playing at Cape Town City Hall with an all-white band, it was against apartheid laws to have a mixed band, so he played out of sight behind a curtain.  He was alive to see many of the historical changes in his native country, and he always fought to make things right, and made some heavenly songs in his heavenly quest.