Writer's note: Greetings! My name’s Ned Raggett, occasional music writer for a variety of spots. The Cream approached me to talk a bit about interesting music news, think pieces, longreads and more from the previous week. And some actual music too, strangely enough. You can thank a huge range of friends for suggesting things to their own circles as much as anyone else. Maybe I just like to be my own aggregator. Welcome to the column, and hope you enjoy!
There was a clutch of interesting Prince-related stories in recent days — more to come soon as the first anniversary of his untimely death approaches — but that was just a small part of a striking week of stories. Everything from a wonderful salute to a long time Merle Haggard side-player to an introduction to the Lebanese vocal art form called zajal turned up, while numerous burning issues — not least related, unsurprisingly, to the president — surfaced or took on very personal forms.
• 'Luckiest man in Oildale': Haggard's horn player, close friend dies
A bit of a ringer from a couple of weeks back, but Jennifer Self’s Bakersfield Californian obituary about Don Markham is a real treat, talking about his life, work and his longtime position with Merle Haggard’s Strangers. (Be sure to also read the extended story in the comments.)
“Markham joined the Strangers under odd circumstances. The band was heading back to Bakersfield at the conclusion of a long 1972 tour when the bus pulled into a truck stop somewhere in New Mexico. Within minutes, another tour bus pulled into the same truck stop. It was Johnny Paycheck’s bus, heading out to begin a tour — and Markham was behind the wheel.
“‘I don’t know why Don was driving because I think the regular driver was on there somewhere,’ said Norm Hamlet, the Strangers’ steel guitar player. ‘Anyway, Don gets off the bus and walks over to Merle and he says, ‘These guys are fighting all the time and it’s driving me crazy.’ I guess a couple of Paycheck’s brothers were in the band and they liked to mix it up. Anyway, he says, ‘I can’t stand it anymore. Can I work for you?’ And Merle says, ‘Sure, get on the bus,’ and Don joined us right then and there. We didn’t have horns at the time, didn’t even have a piano, I don’t think — it was just guitars — so he was a good addition.’”
• The Savage Times of Hanni El Khatib's American Dream
Andrea Domanick’s feature on El Khatib for Noisey plunges thoroughly into his notably fast work ethic and songs in general, while also underscoring these unsettled times once more.
“So, I think with that, I'm inherently contributing to that kind of dialogue that's going on in the world right now. Even though I'm speaking about it in the first person, how it directly effects me and how it affects me personally. It can't, you know, I can't help but acknowledge the fact that other people are going to take it a certain way and you know, assume that i'm speaking out for all immigrants or something like that. But truthfully I'm just trying to express kind of what I've dealt with and identity has been like a huge thing that I've been personally dealing with. Because you know, again, American born with two different cultural backgrounds, it's just a bit confusing where you fit in the world.”
• A History of Anti-Fascist Punk Around the World in 9 Songs
Jes Skolnik’s Pitch piece also served as a history lesson in general — as well as, in her overall introduction, that when bands play with fascist imagery, it’s not exactly always going to be the case that calling it a joke will suffice.
“Following the 1976 Soweto uprising, in which students protesting apartheid were murdered by state police, Ivan Kadey and brothers Gary and Punka Khoza did what countless others have done when feeling helpless and frustrated, in need of a voice: they started a punk band. They mixed Stooges-esque garage, the repurposed disco structures and acerbic political analysis of bands like the Pop Group and Gang of Four, two-tone ska, reggae, and African polyrhythms into one heady setlist. But more on the rowdy and raw hard-rock end of things, ‘International News’ took aim at the role of the international media in perpetuating both apartheid and the atrocities of the Angolan War of Independence with sensationalistic reporting. Unsurprisingly, National Wake found themselves the subject of state police surveillance and censorship, making it difficult to secure spaces to play. The pressure eventually split the band apart, but they hadn’t been forgotten; preserved through tape trading and Kadey’s own record-keeping, their recorded material is now available in its original, uncensored condition thanks to Light in the Attic.”
%{[ data-embed-type="oembed" data-embed-id="https://youtu.be/ze5yn6KneJg" data-embed-element="aside">• Metal music still has an unaddressed Nazi problem
On a not-unrelated note, David Anthony’s AV Club feature is the latest in what has become a sadly common series of articles in recent years — sadly common but absolutely necessary.
“While Vikernes is an extreme example, many of these black metal musicians—as well as their fans—tend to adopt Weirbach’s attitude that adopting Nazi imagery is purely an aesthetic choice, one that comes with the sort of implicit air quote that’s become all the more recognizable beyond the music scene. As Stereogum’s Doug Moore pointed out in a recent column, many of these attitudes read like the defenses of 4chan “edgelords,” whose own spreading of gas chamber and ‘greedy Jew’ GIFs are just their way of being provocative—’shit-posting’ the world, hoping to trigger a few normies. For some black metal fans, the offensiveness is just as easily dismissed as part of the package, and if you’re triggered by it, that just means it worked. Moore notes that a recent San Francisco show shut down by protests over Swedish black metal band Marduk—a group that’s demonstrated a two-decades-long fascination with Nazism—was just a blip in an otherwise-unimpeded tour in front of fans who, if they’re not embracing that, tend to rationalize it away. For the most part, those within the black metal community seem to shrug that it’s all just inherent to the art.”
• Nashville’s Last Taboo? Country Music Stars Are Tiptoeing Around Trump
Reggie Ugwu’s Buzzfeed feature on how Nashville et al are dealing with the elephant in the room (or rather Oval Office) is a good reminder that stereotypes aren’t all that useful on numerous levels.
“But several veteran industry professionals and country music historians said they didn’t believe that country stars — many of whom have deep roots in counties that voted heavily for Trump — are any more apathetic than entertainers from other categories. Behind the silence, rather, they described a genre facing a paradox as two generations of fans co-exist uneasily, compounded by a tangle of persistent cultural constraints including old-fashioned rules of etiquette, risk-averse programmers in radio, and a longstanding chilling effect from the Dixie Chicks’ infamous political controversy in 2003.
“‘We wanna make friends, not enemies,’ Rowdy Yates, morning show host on 98.5 KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma, told BuzzFeed News. ‘I know one very, very popular artist who, in private settings, is a big Democrat … but politics is the hottest potato around right now. I think a lot of artists are saying, ‘You know what, I’d rather not catch this son of a bitch; I’ll pass it to somebody else.’’”
• Demona’s Tanza Speed Bridges the Gap Between Metal and Fashion
Zachary Goldsmith’s Bandcamp interview with Chilean emigre Speed is the kind of cross-disciplinary treat on several levels that’s both fun to read while taking in a lot of different information at once.
“Personally, I believe in freedom and creativity. I believe in freedom of expression over all. If anyone wants to express themselves that way, then let’s do that. I don’t really know how to explain it. If a pop artist wants a logo that looks like a Black Witchery logo, then go ahead and do it, OK? But don’t complain if I do the same by appropriating. Metal wouldn’t be what it is now without innovation, and innovation comes with trying new things. Whether you want it or not, it implies that you have to mix and try and invent things. Mainstream artists wear a lot of leather with studs and stuff and, if that’s what you mean then, I think that’s great. The metal and leather and chains and boots—it actually makes it easier for people like us to find that stuff and, indirectly, we all get a bit more accepted into society.”
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• The Revolution's Wendy Melvoin Talks Grieving for Prince, Spring Tour
Melvoin was interviewed by David Browne for Rolling Stone, talking about both the reunited Revolution’s initial shows and further plans as well as understandably still coming to grips with one of 2016’s most shocking passings.
“I have a deep empathy and compassion for the pain he was in, yes. And do I understand how something tragic like that could happen? Yes. I lost my brother to something similar. [Jonathan Melvoin, then in Smashing Pumpkins, died of a heroin overdose in 1996.] And I have many friends that have had serious problems with physical pain and, oops, something happens, right? So that part I understand.
“But when I reminisce or become nostalgic or sentimental, that brick wall of absolutism hits me smack in the face, and it's an incredibly painful feeling. When you think about the fact that someone is never going to be on your doorstep again, it's ridiculous.”
• When Prince Made a Chambermaid His Queen For a Day
Chris Lee’s extensive look back for the Daily Beast about an MTV promotion for Under the Cherry Moon’s, Prince’s notorious Purple Rain follow-up, is one heck of a deep dive into a time, place and the intersection of a slew of people at once.
“On the way to the airport, the publicist stopped by her own apartment: ‘to throw all my dirty clothes in a suitcase.’ Then en route—11 days earlier than planned—Riggs made one final detour. ‘I stopped at my dealer’s house and picked up an eight ball,’ Riggs recalls, using the slang for an eighth of an ounce of cocaine. Operating without sleep, she reasoned she would need all the energy she could get. ‘I had to pull off the road a couple of times on the way from Billings to Sheridan, pull out a CD case,’ she continues. ‘There’s dust blowing all around me. I had a map trying to figure out where the fuck I am. It just got me into town—on a wing and a prayer and an eight ball.’
“Pulling in around 7:30 that evening, Riggs told Barber to meet her at the local Holiday Inn and bring a change of clothes. Barber would be staying with Riggs, they were going ‘get together over a couple of six packs,’ and talk. Still, the publicist’s initial impression of the 10,000th caller left little doubt she had her work cut out. ‘She was sitting there in a black and red checked flannel shirt. She’s the sweetest person in the world—but she didn’t have a clue,’ says Riggs. ‘There was no way I was putting her in front of a camera or letting any journalist talk to her unless I was present. Because she couldn’t talk about Motley Crue anymore. I had to explain to her why that was important.’”
Keith Harris’s City Pages op-ed about what to do with whatever tax money Minnesota gets from Prince’s estate, as the musician left no will, may seem less serious than some ideas — but from where I sit, it’s probably the best approach.
“Yes, it would be highly prudent and Minnesotan of us to squirrel that windfall away for the future, but it would be grossly untrue to the spirit of a man who said ‘parties weren’t meant to last.’ Let’s splurge, bestowing our unexpected riches on some suitably Prince-worthy endeavor named after the artist himself. This would be a one-shot deal – there wouldn’t be any additional funding for the next year — but that would be in keeping with Prince’s charitable M.O. His generosity was abundant yet spontaneous, typically manifesting itself in a huge one-time gift rather than being methodically doled out over time through a nonprofit foundation.
“This spending proposal would be as unique as Prince himself. No one I spoke to could recall the legislature ever earmarking an individual’s estate tax payment for a specific budgetary purpose. And it would certainly be a more suitable honor than the last time state lawmakers attempted to enact special legislation related to our hometown superstar. Proposed last year, supposedly to protect Prince’s legacy, the so-called ‘PRINCE Act’ would have increased some artists’ intellectual property rights at the expense of other artists’ ability to create. It went down in flames. Let’s shoot for a nobler tribute this time.”
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• SXSW CEO Roland Swenson Talks the Festival’s Deportation Clause Controversy
To say that SXSW got some bad press due to said clause would be an understatement. In an interview with Marc Hogan for Pitchfork, Swenson did his best to push back.
Hogan: “You’ve said the clause would only be invoked ‘if somebody did something really horrific, like disobey rules about pyrotechnics, starting a brawl, or if they killed somebody.’ Why not make the clause more specific or straightforward?”
Swenson: “We’re trying to pack a lot of information into a one- or two-page contract that people can follow who aren’t attorneys. Is this a perfectly written agreement? No. Could it be better? Yes. Will it be better? Yes. Have we done any of these things that we say can happen? No.”• Love letters between Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears go on display
Mark Brown’s coverage in the Guardian on said letters, part of a larger exhibition in the UK on queer life and the anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality there, reveals some intensely personal (and after all, intended to be private) writing, but also notes the risk in it existing at all.
“Britten never spoke publicly about his sexuality and was far more careful about displays of affection than Pears. The photographs on display are testament to this; only one, of them getting off a plane, shows them arm in arm.
“But aside from the letters, there are many clues to their relationship, including Britten’s Canticle I: ‘My beloved is mine and I am his’, written for Pears in 1947.
“‘All their friends knew and it was obvious really, if you knew what you were looking for,’ said Walker.”
• I Was There: LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver Turns 10
Geoff Nelson’s Consequence of Sound reflection on the album’s anniversary and his own particular New York City experiences at the time and after — and takes some direct stock about the cultural and sociopolitical milieu he was in, and what it all too easily ignored.
“Nostalgia still tempts the mind to remember itself too fondly, to remember experiences with all the messy stuff edited out, to not address what must be confronted. We had helped drive up prices in New York, relied on the policing policies that made New York ‘safe’ but crushed the civil rights of those around us; we spent our money thoughtlessly on consumption; we delighted in a fantasy of a New York that never was while ignoring the one we helped make. We progressed inexorably toward a wine bar – either owning or patronizing one. You couldn’t enter or exit the wine bar; everything was now a wine bar.”
• Master zajalist Imad Zein Chaieb on the future of the zajal musical form in Lebanon
Done in tandem with an RBMA series called Electro Zajal and a resultant EP, this interview with Chaieb serves as both a good introduction to zajal, described as a ‘performance poetry’ not unakin to other more modern forms, and the larger life of an artist — with stories that might sound familiar in any context.
“Zajal, as I said, is different than the poetry in classic Arabic that we hear on the news and read in school books. Each has their own metrics. As for me, my first memories go back to the time when my father used to sing. I remember memorizing his songs and trying to interpret them. I would register my voice singing my father’s songs, and play the tambourine the way he used to do. As I grew older, I realized I too had the talent to come up with verses like those of my father, although they would be a bit asymmetrical. My father would therefore draw my attention to asymmetry and metrics. Then, when I started to go with him on his tours, I thought that verses were easily coming to my mind. I had a gift, but I just needed to work on it. I would ask my father to correct my poems, then I would challenge him. When I did so a couple of times, I was able to convince him of my abilities as a poet, and he was the one to recommend me to join the group. That is how it all started.”
• Chance the Rapper writes $1 million check to CPS as a 'call to action'
Juan Perez Jr. and Monique Garcia’s co-written piece for the Chicago Tribune on Chance’s action helped in not only talking about it from a hometown perspective but also in terms of the larger context in which he did said action.
“CPS officials have quietly welcomed Chance's recent use of his celebrity and a savvy social media strategy to highlight the district's financial plight. Born Chancelor Bennett, the musician has a history of criticizing government and speaking out against politicians including Emanuel. Chance's father has worked for Emanuel at City Hall.
“The artist's comments on Monday at times resembled talking points used by Emanuel and school officials in their long-running battle with Rauner. The governor in December vetoed legislation that would've sent the district $215 million to ease its enormous pension burden.
“‘Gov. Rauner broke his promise to Chicago's children a few months ago as a result of an admitted emotional reaction, when he vetoed the $215 million in funding that Chicago schools were counting on to close out the school year,’ Chance said. ‘Our kids should not be held hostage because of political positioning.’”
• Ian Svenonius on what he’s learned from rock and roll
Finally, T. Cole Rachel interviewed the ever-forthright Svenonius for the Creative Independent. And frankly for this paragraph alone, it’s a winner:
“There’s also this idea that every record is supposed to be a classic that you’re supposed to be able to play a hundred times and blah blah blah, but that’s not really the way most records were made. When I buy old records from the ’60s, they were almost like magazines. It’s like here’s an idea, and it’s okay if you’d only listen to the record once. Most TV shows or movies you would only ever watch once. You rarely watch a movie twice. I think there’s this idea now that every record has got to be this thing, like it’s the end of the world, and it needs to be the greatest thing ever. I think it’s really unfair to the records—and to the people making them—for that to be an expectation. It’s really like, no, the records should be fun to listen to. That’s enough. I buy lots of records and I listen to once and I feel like that’s fine. It’s fine. It’s $12 and I listen to it once. That’s cool. If you are trying to make things and you are operating under the idea that everything needs to be a classic… well, good luck. That’s the kind of thing that will keep you frozen forever. Don’t think about that.”
• And to conclude, why not one of those magazine issues as such?
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