The Roving Musicologist

Drunkaholism (Budapest)

Some people have a drinking problem, but I seem to be addicted to drunks.  They cry out to be recorded, because all their gestures seem so grand to them at the time.  Religion provides the other pole, presenting itself as grand even when completely sober, and most things posted here reflect the practiced channels it facilitates or the undirected and novel energy of someone that has forgotten what they were so worried about before they started drinking.  If it’s a good day maybe they mix.

Travel Post #27: High Pitched Sunrise Temple Chant (Mangalore, India)

The only thing open was this temple and a newspaper stand.

There were only a few pools of light in the streets when I was dropped off by the night bus.  The few desperate rickshaw drivers waiting by the bus refused to give me any directions so I walked around looking for a place to get coffee, but nothing was open.  Then I heard this chant coming from somewhere, and followed it to a place called temple square.

I spent some time sitting with an old man selling leaves that had some religious purpose while the motorbikes and trucks began breaking the silence.  He was trying to sing along to the chant.

More people began to gather around the temple as the sun came up.  I moved next to the bodhi tree and watched a woman circling around the tree repeatedly.

The chant ended and the sun was up.  People were awake.  The shopkeeper across the street insisted I take his picture.

At the time, I didn’t know why.

Mangalore is unaccustomed to tourists.  The guidebooks barely mention it and no one stays any longer than they have to, usually.

As I walked around the next day, a man stopped on his motorbike and said he had seen me praying at their temple.  I was only standing there while the sound recorder was on, but this was prayer in the eyes of this man.  He was curious to ask all of the usual questions, and then he left.

Then I went to the mall.

Travel Post #24: Mekong Boatmen Chaos Chorus (Luang Prabang, Laos)

An example of the boats that the singers live on.

There was nothing to do in Luang Prabang most nights, unless you went to the markets.  But the markets were dead most of the time and so Jacques and I ended up down by the river, for lack of money and ideas. 

At the river, boatmen sat in a circle and moaned in a musical way.  Some would  yell and leave, then sometimes come back and join together.  Various instruments took their turns; first a guitar, then an accordion, and finally a keyboard softly pumping out a generic beat.  But all of them were punctuated by the put-put of riverboat engines, as long craft in the dark made their way to points I would never see - except across the river, where the silhouette of a large boat settled in and let a car off onto the far shore of houses and temples, and maybe other things that were now just lights floating across the water mixed with the heavy haze in the air.

Jacques said the smoke was because the farmers were burning forest, which they always did, but for some reason it was worse today.  The smoke burned my eyes and scratched my throat, but it was too nice to leave here yet.  Lights, fluorescent, were nailed to the trees up on the bank, but they left the grand staircase down to the beach unlit, making the lights from the banana shaped boats seem much stronger. 

Hanging in the boats were pots and pans, the organization of lives shining in the light, radios with digital screens, and maybe a lantern here and there.  So many boats were moored here and yet the river was supposed to be too low for them to go anywhere.

Jacques talked about Egypt…the Mekong reminded him of places by the Red Sea.  It was like this, he said, people living like this. 

Weyes Bluhd Part 2 (Baltimore and other places)

That’s how it goes.

This is a song from a set recorded in October 2009.  The other song can be found in an earlier post. 

This was the first song from the set, and it has a way of wrapping itself around you like a mist.  The mixture of tapes, live instruments, and singing in this song is done very well and shows some good instincts.

I’m not sure what exactly Weyes Bluhd is up to right now, but she seems to stay busy wherever she goes.

Travel post #17: Thai Karaoke Hypnosis Therapy

Finally something that rocks!

Giant Kittens and Karaoke are two of the prime ingredients for Thai night ambiance.

Many times, the batteries run out.  That’s it, give up, moments gone.  Not this one, though.  I had time to go downtown, buy batteries, and come back.  They were still at it.  They invited me in for a few drinks…and musicologist gold.  Then they asked for money and the moment was over.

The Karaoke was done with live instruments.

Travel Post #7: GFF part 2: The Old Man

I’m always trying to find old men playing any kind of instrument.  I don’t like it when people can sing too well, when their voices can handle any note with ease.  Playing traditional music makes some people work…they can’t change the notes around to fit their range.

There were about fifty people onstage when this guy played.  Various people would play together during the set, and sometimes the entire orchestra.  Then there were a few two minute solo songs.  This guy came forward, did his thing, and then rejoined the line, like it was no big deal.

This is probably it for the traditional music posts for awhile…I am currently in Turkey which abounds with interesting street noise.

The lucky charm of an Albanian bus driver.

Travel Post #6: Gjirokaster Folk Festival with Three Women

High in the Mountains

Gjirokaster is a small town in the south of Albania.  All of the old houses are made of stone.  Even the roofs of the houses are made of a black slate that is found on the hillsides.  Because of a lack on investment in the town, there isn’t money to keep them up and there are wrecks of the houses scattered around town.  But many of them are still up and there is an Ottoman castle on the top of the mountain.  That’s where this festival was, overlooking the valley far below.

These singers were about the first thing I heard when I came in, and one of the two best things I recorded over the course of two days there.

While it sounds like it has been looped, it hasn’t.

Grandfather Claws (Portland, Oregon)

This Band performs sitting on the ground without back support, hence stretching is necessary to maintain proper posture.

Grandfather Claws is a band, two men and two women, that I happened to catch shortly before I left Oregon.  I found them in the few recordings that I took with me when I left the country and they seem to be an appropriate thing to post after Michael Hurley, as they both represent, for me, a sort of rambling approach to folk music.  What people call noise music, while it is approached from many angles, is at its core more folk than anything else.  While it is influenced by esoteric ideas from all over the spectrum of music (well, hopefully), when you go to a noise show you are seeing these ideas being refracted in a way that will almost necessarily reflect a homespun approach.

http://www.myspace.com/grandfatherclaws

What I have posted here is only about a quarter of the show; to post more I would have had to reduce the quality to the point that many of the quieter tones would have been lost.

Michael Hurley of Astoria, Oregon

There is scratching at the beginning, then things get better.

How you will see the world after Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley was there for the folk scene in early 1960’s New York, was associated with the Holy Modal Rounders, and now lives out in the land of the Goonies.  He played this show in an art gallery run buy a big guy with a ponytail.  We came in a little late and so paid at the end of the show.  Right after we paid, one of the small town weirdos came up to the art gallery owner and started talking about how someone had ruined their system for stealing breakfast from the local diner.  Ponyman was just trying to get us out of there at that point…this is who we had given our money to, some guy that loved to steal breakfast, not to Michael Hurley.  So I bought a couple of his comics and my friend bought a cd…because we have to keep Michael Hurley alive:

http://www.snockonews.net/

He wears this shirt a lot.

Weyes Bluhd of Bucks County

In this song, taped noises that sound like lost artifacts are balanced against the slow river of a girl’s voice.  Weyes Bluhd continues the singer/songwriter tradition with an awareness of its past and possibilities.

Weyes Bluhd performing in Baltimore, in a room darkened at her request.

Weyes Bluhd’s page:

http://www.myspace.com/nataliewiseblood