Washington Post Magazine
The No. 1 complaint of restaurant-goers in the Washington area isn't the service, or even the dinner. It's the din.
By Tom Sietsema
Sunday, April 6, 2008; W16
IT'S A TYPICAL NIGHT AT ZAYTINYA IN PENN QUARTER, which means there's a wait for a table, a mob at the bar, hundreds of mezze flowing from the open kitchen and a flock of hungry vultures waiting to snatch your bar stool at the slightest sign you might be vacating it.
The noise from all this activity is deafening. I can barely hear Eric Stehmer and Amy Wang, my drinking and dining companions for the evening, over the din. The problem is exacerbated by a concrete countertop, bare floor, overhead speakers and the occasional crash of a plate gone astray. A bartender's attempts to share his passion for Greek wines, which he's pouring by the splash for us to try, might as well be in Greek. The three of us have to lean in to hear what he's describing.
"The bar is definitely not a place for an intimate date," I think I catch Stehmer saying.
"It's a strain," agrees Wang, who has to repeat herself twice. "I don't like the feeling I have to raise my voice."
Our restaurant pager goes off. We know this only because the device lights up in bright red and vibrates across the counter toward Wang's pomegranate-flavored cocktail. A host leads us to a table in the dining room, which provides little relief from the aural assault. "This is the loudest restaurant I've ever worked in," our waiter shares after we ask him to repeat the evening's specials.
The scenario might prompt a yawn if it occurred on a weekend or if any of us were AARP members. The reality is, we're meeting on a Tuesday night. Wang is 25. Stehmer is 26. I'm 40-something.
As measured by the sound-level meter I'm carrying, the noise in the restaurant averages about 86 decibels -- the equivalent of truck traffic on a busy street, or a lawn mower.
BON APPETIT!
MORE THAN BAD FOOD, MORE THAN TIPPING QUANDARIES, more than someone wondering if a free meal should follow a rodent sighting in a dining room, the most frequent concern I get from readers involves loud restaurants. The complaints about noise have crescendoed so high in recent years that I've decided to add noise ratings to my dining column in the Magazine, beginning April 20. Henceforth, as I make my restaurant rounds, a discreet sound-level meter will be used to determine the average decibel count. [See this article for how the ratings will work.]
I know readers will welcome the addition of a sound check. When I raised the subject of noise on a recent online food discussion, I got an earful from scores of restaurant mavens. The feedback came from both sexes and a wide range of ages.
"The noise levels don't make me feel lively or youthful," wrote one. "They make me shout and keep asking, 'What?' I'm 34, but recently I have been seeking out 'oldster' restaurants for the noise levels alone. Would much prefer a younger vibe at lower decibels, if such a thing existed!"
"Why do restaurateurs think we want to eat but not to chat with our companions?" another chatter demanded.
"Thank you for bringing up something that's been bothering me for years -- the increased noise in restaurants," someone else chimed in. "I'm not just talking about those ubiquitous chains with their warehouse construction where everything echoes; [noise is] everywhere, it seems. And I hate it! I hate having to shout at the person next to me and not to be able to communicate without everyone at surrounding tables being aware of everything I say. Yet restaurateurs, and in some cases restaurant critics, defend the noise as 'exciting,' 'energetic,' etc., and insist that young people like it. I bet not all of them do. And, even if they do, is that a reason to alienate such a large segment of the dining population?"
The most compelling complaint came from Ron Brown, who told me that restaurant noise had drowned out his attempt to get his girlfriend to say "yes."
Brown, a 35-year-old senior finance manager at a Washington nonprofit, planned to propose to Rebecca Oser at Central Michel Richard downtown just before Valentine's Day. Fueled by a few drinks, Brown says, he pulled out a gift-wrapped box containing a sapphire ring from his jacket pocket before the dessert course. It should have been a memorable moment. Instead, Brown found himself competing for Oser's attention with a bustling open kitchen, CNN anchors on overhead TVs and a conversation at the next table that got louder when another person walked over to say hello.
Despite the distractions, Brown popped the question: Rebecca, will you marry me? He's not sure if he actually heard the reply, but he got the response he was looking for. Oser, a 29-year-old project director, slipped on the ring and came around the table to sit beside him.
Still, neither of them was satisfied with the way the big moment unfolded. "It was the wrong place to propose," says Brown. The next morning, he repeated his invitation "in a more romantic manner."
Oser said yes, again. This time, Brown got the message loud and clear.
While his story is unique, the manner in which loud restaurants affect diners isn't. In ways major and minor, consumers are changing their routines to avoid being subjected to cacophony when they eat out.
Take Emily Wallace, 30, a consultant based in Falls Church. Wallace says she thinks she's becoming a better cook because restaurants are so noisy. She says she can no longer take her hearing-impaired father, a spry 60, to some of his favorite steakhouses. "Unfortunately, there are so many places we can't take him. So I cook more at home." She keeps a mental list of what's quiet (Capital Grille in Penn Quarter, but only after prime time; Charlie Palmer Steak on Capitol Hill, but only in the back area) and what's not (Ray's the Steaks in Arlington).
Eileen Harrington, 55, is a big fan of the food at Rasika, a contemporary Indian destination in Penn Quarter. But the Washington lawyer finds the restaurant so "intensely noisy" that she sits down to eat there only during off hours or if the manager can find a spot for her in an enclosed area off to the side. Other-wise, says the deputy director of consumer protection for the Federal Trade Commission, "I do carryout 90 percent of the time."
ACCORDING TO THE ZAGAT SURVEY, whose familiar burgundy restaurant guides cover 42 markets throughout the United States, noise ranks second, just behind service, as the response to the query: "What irritates you most about dining out?"
"A certain level of noise people consider to be exciting or good energy," says Tim Zagat, the guide's founder. "Once it gets so loud you can't hear yourself chew, it's over the top."
The cause of the clatter is just about everywhere a diner glances these days. In a restaurant's hard floors. On its naked tables. At the high ceilings. In other words, the blame for all the noise comes from the clean, slick and modern look favored by so many restaurant operators and their customers, says Griz Dwight, who has designed 20 or so interiors as an employee of the Washington-based Adamstein & Demetriou Architects and for his five-year-old firm, GrizForm Design.
His trickiest assignment so far was revamping Black's Bar and Kitchen in Bethesda. Only after a glass-wrapped wine room was in place and a room-length, glass-fronted mural was hung, did Dwight discover that their angles and surfaces bounced noise from one to the other, an effect known as slap-back. To catch the excess sound, the architect hung four box-shaped acoustical panels wrapped in fabric. The design, he half-jokes, is "ninety-nine percent functional, one percent decorative." With a sound level registering about 77 decibels on a weeknight, however, patrons still have to raise their voices.
Dwight says the vast majority of his clients want to know, "What can we do to make this quiet?" Or at least quieter. His arsenal of noise busters at Proof, the wine-themed restaurant in Penn Quarter, includes acoustic panels in the ceiling, high leather banquettes and a brick wall that diffuses sound by scattering sound waves. But the restaurant still measures in at 80 decibels on a typically busy weekend. At the nearby PS 7's (70 decibels), the bar is completely separated from the main dining room, which is broken up into smaller areas. To prevent a ruckus in the new tasting room at BlackSalt in Palisades, Dwight installed a floor-to-ceiling padded banquette.
Still, it's not easy for restaurant owners to think about details they can't see, and a lot of noise issues are discovered only after a restaurant opens for business. Regulars of the late, loftlike -- and initially ear-splitting -- Viridian in Logan Circle were amused to find that the undersides of their table were subsequently covered with egg crate-type foam to help absorb the clamor. The padding helped lower Viridian's volume before the restaurant closed for non-noise reasons.
Some restaurants want the volume turned up. One of the few attempts at noise reduction at the new Westend Bistro by Eric Ripert is a glass partition separating the bar from the dining room. General manager Gonzague Muchery says the restaurant's casual concept demands a certain liveliness in the room, which measured an uncomfortable 80 decibels in a recent sound check. Like other restaurants, Westend Bistro has installed a sophisticated sound system and serenades its patrons with music that is programmed to start mellow and get jazzier as the night wears on. The trouble is, once you fill the place with diners, it's hard to tell what's playing.
Even so, Muchery doesn't think the noise at Westend Bistro is a problem. He says he hasn't received a single complaint about it since the restaurant opened.
EXPOSURE TO NOISE MAY BE HARDEST ON RESTAURANT WORKERS, who spend more time in a dining room than do the people they wait on. "Theoretically," says Robert W. Sweetow, director of audiology and professor of otolaryngology at the University of California in San Francisco, "the sound levels over time are loud enough to get impaired hearing." (Otolaryngology is the branch of medicine dealing with ear, nose and throat disorders.)
Noisy restaurants affect more than just the ears. Loud sounds can elevate blood pressure, increase breathing rates, intensify the effects of alcohol and make sleep difficult -- even after the noise ceases. At certain elevated levels, some people can experience dizziness and even nausea.
I never felt lightheaded or sick to my stomach at Zaytinya, one of the loudest restaurants in the city, but I did find myself eating faster than usual, raising my voice to be heard and assuming the posture of the Hunchback of Notre Dame as I bent into the table to hear what my tablemates were saying. Wang and Stehmer are strangers to me and to each other. I invited them to restaurant hop as I measured decibel levels in several popular restaurants because they are young and should theoretically be more tolerant of raucous dining spots. But both find restaurant noise just as annoying as do older participants in my online chats.
Wang is a paralegal with the Justice Department who knows Zaytinya well, having celebrated her 2004 graduation from the University of Maryland there -- and been unable to hear much of what her family said. Stehmer is a temporary office assistant who says he prefers to eat out in July and August, when dining rooms are less busy and thus quieter.
Zaytinya isn't the only place where I find myself almost shouting to be heard. Excess noise is also the unwelcome accompaniment to the meals served at such popular Washington eating establishments as Hook (which registered 84 decibels); Two Amys (86 decibels during a family-packed Saturday afternoon); and Bistro du Coin (90 decibels -- equal to a lawn mower).
According to Sweetow, sounds louder than 80 decibels are potentially hazardous. Which brings up another side effect of loud restaurants. "You have to ask, what is the emotional impact?" he says. The physician, who treats patients with hearing disorders, says many clients don't go to restaurants for fear of embarrassing themselves, because they can't understand what the waiter is saying or have trouble following a table conversation. "It's a big problem."
An estimated 28 million Americans are hearing-impaired, with hearing loss greater in men, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. Wallace, the Falls Church consultant who prefers to cook for her father rather than have him suffer through a noisy restaurant meal, says she wishes waiters would make better eye contact and enunciate their words when they talk to him.
Sweetow has studied the problems of noise in movie theaters and restaurants (his paper on the latter is titled "I'll Have a Side Order of Earplugs, Please"). Ten years ago, he was tapped to examine noise on the Bay Area dining scene by the San Francisco Chronicle, which subsequently introduced noise ratings in its restaurant reviews.
The newspaper's format uses a series of bells and a bomb to illustrate how loud a restaurant is. The more bells, the noisier the venue. One bell (less than 65 decibels) represents a "pleasantly quiet" room; at the opposite end of the scale, the bomb indicates a restaurant that is 80 decibels or higher, or "too noisy for normal conversation."
But the ratings haven't seemed to have much impact. Michael Bauer, the Chronicle's executive food and wine editor, says restaurants have actually grown louder in the decade since he and his staff began recording results. Like critics in other cities, he blames the design penchant for "warehouse," "industrial" and "raw" spaces as well as restaurant budgets. In a pinch, owners tend to cut back on details that diners might not notice, including acoustical treatments. These days in San Francisco, he laments, "you can hardly find any restaurant with fewer than four bells," which is just below 80 decibels on the Chronicle's scale.
To avoid the noisier parts of a restaurant, Sweetow advises his patients to ask for tables on the periphery of the dining room and to avoid seats near the bar or an exhibition kitchen. (The bar at Zay-tinya is a full six decibels louder than the dining room.) No restaurant is going to go out of its way to tell you how loud it is. Still, Sweetow says diners can get a sense of what's in store for them by calling the restaurant during its rush hours, around noon and at night. (The strategy obviously only works when the phone is answered in a public area of the restaurant.)
FOR ALL THE DINERS WHO DON'T LIKE NOISE, there are plenty of people who look forward to some buzz with their Wagyu burger.
Janice Carnevale felt as if she had to whisper when she dined in a snug upstairs room at 1789 in Georgetown. "I don't like it when everyone around me can hear what I'm saying," says the 27-year-old wedding consultant from Falls Church. She much prefers the "dull roar" and "revelry" of a louder restaurant. Plus, "If my husband and I don't have a lot to talk about," she says, a noisy restaurant allows her a little anonymity and the chance to zone out. "I talk to people all day long."
"It's a double-edged sword," says Zagat, the dining guide founder. If a restaurant is hushed, "a lot of people feel it's dead."
Parents often seek out loud restaurants for a different reason. "I can dine out with my infant and never get dirty looks for the occasional squawk or utensil banging," one mom explained during an online chat.
And most restaurateurs don't seem all that worried about the decibel level in their bars and dining rooms. From the moment he opened Rasika three years ago, Ashok Bajaj knew he had a noisy venue on his hands. The floors were wood, and the bar was paved with stone tiles. To soften any blows, he'd had the walls covered in orange fabric, but it wasn't enough to dampen the volume of a full house. Sound experts came in to look at the problem; they recommended more fabric and acoustic tiles.
Ultimately, the restaurateur opted not to change the interior: The vibe, after all, was intentional. "I wanted a place with buzz," Bajaj explains. He also hoped to distinguish it from his more traditional Indian restaurant near the White House, Bombay Club. While some diners at Rasika told him they didn't like the din, Bajaj says he queried upwards of 70 patrons in all age groups, and the message he says he heard was: "Don't change it. If we wanted a quiet restaurant, we'd go to the Bombay Club."
"You have to know why you're going out," says Bajaj. "Different moods call for different restaurants." But even he has his limits. To buffer the sound level a bit, large parties aren't accepted in Rasika's main dining room. "They drink more" and tend to make more noise, says the restaurateur.
Ambience -- the look of a place, the feel of a place, the sound of a place -- is one reason many diners choose one restaurant over another. But what's on the menu remains a significant deciding factor.
"Noise won't turn me off," says Dwight, 34, the restaurant designer. "Bad food will."
Tom Sietsema is The Post's food critic. He can be reached at sietsema@washpost.com.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Behold the Immaterial Girl (Madonna)
Washington Post
Killer quote:
"Shockingly, Madonna has gotten boring. Our Madonna -- the rule-breaking, professional provocateur, endearing egoiste, subject of countless maligned college courses on postmodern female sexuality, patron saint of a generation of young women who relied on pop culture psychobabble to excuse their exhibitionist tendencies -- has become a cliche. She's just another aerobicized pop singer with a cause."
Behold the Immaterial Girl
By ROBIN GIVHAN
Sunday, April 6, 2008; M01
For the 10th time in her career, Madonna appears on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. She's stretched out on the May issue wearing a black leotard and over-the-knee boots, looking like a Vitruvian pinup.
The pop star is almost 50, which seems to be the leitmotif of the accompanying story -- as if we are compelled to check in with Madonna to see how she is handling each turning point in her life. Over the years, the magazine has dutifully recorded in words and elaborately styled photos Madonna's early success, her failed first marriage, the publication of "Sex," her hankering for film stardom, motherhood, Malawi and, of course, her magnificent physical upkeep.
In an online video promoting the May issue, editor Graydon Carter notes that the story on Madonna is "not the normal fawning treatment." Indeed, it is sprinkled judiciously with sarcasm and bits of wry humor.
The result is a story whose prose is more entertaining than its subject. Shockingly, Madonna has gotten boring. Our Madonna -- the rule-breaking, professional provocateur, endearing egoiste, subject of countless maligned college courses on postmodern female sexuality, patron saint of a generation of young women who relied on pop culture psychobabble to excuse their exhibitionist tendencies -- has become a cliche. She's just another aerobicized pop singer with a cause.
We saw this moment coming as her antics ceased being provocative and vaguely political and became slightly embarrassing in that 2004 Gwyneth Paltrow look-at-the-cupping-marks-on-my- back way. Madonna should not have French-kissed Britney Spears. She shouldn't have talked so much about yoga and her macrobiotic diet, and she certainly shouldn't have discussed either topic with that distracting British accent.
We have nothing left to ask Madonna. The only questions left are those that we hope no one has the audacity to pose. But of course, eventually someone will. And we'll be left with our hands pressed against our ears desperately trying to block out some piece of information dropped into the middle of an unassuming story the way Jennifer Lopez told People how her twins were conceived naturally with that hungry-looking Marc Anthony rather than artificially. We. Don't. Want. To. Hear. That.
But until we are sent screaming from the room, we are bored. In her past incarnations, Madonna has always chosen a character with which most people were unfamiliar. She didn't invent her different personas. She appropriated them from New York's downtown art scene in the 1980s or from gay dance clubs, but she walked all those archetypes into the spotlight. She popularized them and she was surprising.
But now her enthusiasms and eccentricities seem bland. Her fascination with the mysticism of Kabbalah pales next to the sci-fi oddities of Hollywood's favorite religion, Scientology. She decided to adopt an orphan-who-was-not-an-orphan from Malawi. And while it would be cruel to be suspicious of her motives, it would be fair to say that the decision came after Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were well on their way to setting up a miniature United Nations in their home. Where Madonna had once led the way -- in poking, prodding and agitating -- she was now following.
Her new CD, "Hard Candy," will be released April 29. She has collaborated with Timbaland, Pharrell Williams and Justin Timberlake, and we're more intrigued to hear how they will influence her rather than how she will interpret their sound.
She writes children's books, which is sweet, but placid compared with her earlier oeuvre, "Sex," a tacky, spiral-bound nudie book that featured pictures of an unclothed Madonna alongside people such as Big Daddy Kane and Vanilla Ice. She starred in the delightfully tawdry documentary "Truth or Dare" in 1991, which was based on her Blond Ambition tour. But now she has directed a documentary on Malawi as well as "Filth and Wisdom," her first feature film, which she told Vanity Fair had been "seriously influenced" by Jean-Luc Godard. That might be true, but couldn't she hear how pretentious it sounded? Our Madonna was never pretentious -- at least back when she still sounded like a Midwesterner.
Our Madonna was never a leader of an alternative, underground movement. She was just shocking enough to ruffle the sensibilities of middle America, mainstream religion and anonymous corporations.
Has she grown tired of being provocative? Or does provocation now require dangerously self-destructive behavior in the manner of Amy Winehouse? Madonna has become a curiosity: a pop singer pushing 50 with the perfectly preserved body of a 20-year-old and a hankering for Kabbalah water.
Madonna became a cultural icon because she was sly enough -- and daring enough -- to use her body as everything from a storyboard to a weapon. Ten years' worth of photographs in Vanity Fair document Madonna the boy toy, the powerful diva, the Lolita, the gender-bending dominatrix, the sexy mother. Each guise said something interesting about femininity. But her latest incarnation -- blond waves, lace-up boots and a corset -- speaks to the most old-fashioned, condescending sentiment of all: She looks good for her age.
Friday, April 04, 2008
Should Have Thought of That in 1967 (Whiter Shade of Pale Lawsuit)
New York Times
April 4, 2008, 11:08 am
Should Have Thought of That in 1967
By Patrick J. Lyons
“What took you so long?” has turned out to be an expensive question for Matthew Fisher.
You probably know his sound better than his name: Back in the day, as the organ player for the British rock band Procol Harum, he contributed that famous solo to the band’s 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
He left the band a few years later and pursued a career as a computer programmer, while the band’s singer, Gary Brooker, stuck with music, receding from stardom but still plugging away with modestly successful records and concert tours for decades. Not to mention cashing royalty checks from the enduring success of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”: music by Gary Brooker, lyrics by Keith Reid, it says on the band’s own recording and on the 600-odd cover versions that other artists have made over the years.
All that time, not a peep of public complaint from Matthew Fisher, not even when Procol Harum reunited briefly in the early 1990s to cut an album and play some concert dates — until 2005, that is, when Mr. Fisher decided to sue Mr. Brooker for millions in back royalties, claiming that his organ solo was a key to the song’s success and entitled him to credit as a co-writer.
Despite Mr. Brooker’s counter-arguments that the song was written before Mr. Fisher joined the band and that anyway the organ line was cribbed from Bach’s “Air on a G String,” Mr. Fisher won his point at trial in 2006, when a court ruled that he was indeed a co-composer of the hit song’s music.
But the money? Too late now, a British appeals court said today:
Judge John Mummery ruled that although Fisher had indeed co-created the song, the fact that it took him 38 years to bring the case to court meant he should not receive any financial benefit from it.
“Matthew Fisher is guilty of excessive and inexcusable delay in his claim to assert joint title to a joint interest in the work,” the judge said.
“He silently stood by and acquiesced in the defendant’s commercial exploitation of the work for 38 years.”
The decision restores full control of the copyright to Mr. Brooker, reversing the 2006 trial judge’s order that the men split ownership and future royalties (though not past ones) to the song.
A decades-long time lag also figured in another famous song-copyright battle, the fight over the authorship of a hit pop song of the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters number “Rum and Coca-Cola” — but in that case, only the borrowed melody was old. The plaintiff, who owned the copyright to a Calypso tune written in Trinidad around the turn of the 20th century, pressed his complaint soon after the Andrews Sisters version topped the charts. In the other case that everybody remembers, it was the litigation itself that dragged on for decades; the resemblance between George Harrison’s 1969 hit “My Sweet Lord” and the 1962 Chiffons tune “He’s So Fine” was the subject of legal back-and-forth almost immediately, but aspects of the case were still being hashed out in the courts in the 1990s.
Mr. Fisher can still appeal the “Whiter Shade of Pale” decision to the House of Lords, which serves as Britain’s supreme court. The British aristocracy might not prove the most receptive of audiences for his claim, though, considering the cavalcade of pop stars who have been knighted over the years, including Sir Paul, Sir Elton, Sir Mick and, oh yes, Gary Brooker, M.B.E.
Even without a further appeal, though, the case isn’t over yet: Still to be settled is who must pay whose legal bills, which are reported to have mounted well into the millions of pounds on each side.
April 4, 2008, 11:08 am
Should Have Thought of That in 1967
By Patrick J. Lyons
“What took you so long?” has turned out to be an expensive question for Matthew Fisher.
You probably know his sound better than his name: Back in the day, as the organ player for the British rock band Procol Harum, he contributed that famous solo to the band’s 1967 hit “A Whiter Shade of Pale.”
He left the band a few years later and pursued a career as a computer programmer, while the band’s singer, Gary Brooker, stuck with music, receding from stardom but still plugging away with modestly successful records and concert tours for decades. Not to mention cashing royalty checks from the enduring success of “A Whiter Shade of Pale”: music by Gary Brooker, lyrics by Keith Reid, it says on the band’s own recording and on the 600-odd cover versions that other artists have made over the years.
All that time, not a peep of public complaint from Matthew Fisher, not even when Procol Harum reunited briefly in the early 1990s to cut an album and play some concert dates — until 2005, that is, when Mr. Fisher decided to sue Mr. Brooker for millions in back royalties, claiming that his organ solo was a key to the song’s success and entitled him to credit as a co-writer.
Despite Mr. Brooker’s counter-arguments that the song was written before Mr. Fisher joined the band and that anyway the organ line was cribbed from Bach’s “Air on a G String,” Mr. Fisher won his point at trial in 2006, when a court ruled that he was indeed a co-composer of the hit song’s music.
But the money? Too late now, a British appeals court said today:
Judge John Mummery ruled that although Fisher had indeed co-created the song, the fact that it took him 38 years to bring the case to court meant he should not receive any financial benefit from it.
“Matthew Fisher is guilty of excessive and inexcusable delay in his claim to assert joint title to a joint interest in the work,” the judge said.
“He silently stood by and acquiesced in the defendant’s commercial exploitation of the work for 38 years.”
The decision restores full control of the copyright to Mr. Brooker, reversing the 2006 trial judge’s order that the men split ownership and future royalties (though not past ones) to the song.
A decades-long time lag also figured in another famous song-copyright battle, the fight over the authorship of a hit pop song of the 1940s, the Andrews Sisters number “Rum and Coca-Cola” — but in that case, only the borrowed melody was old. The plaintiff, who owned the copyright to a Calypso tune written in Trinidad around the turn of the 20th century, pressed his complaint soon after the Andrews Sisters version topped the charts. In the other case that everybody remembers, it was the litigation itself that dragged on for decades; the resemblance between George Harrison’s 1969 hit “My Sweet Lord” and the 1962 Chiffons tune “He’s So Fine” was the subject of legal back-and-forth almost immediately, but aspects of the case were still being hashed out in the courts in the 1990s.
Mr. Fisher can still appeal the “Whiter Shade of Pale” decision to the House of Lords, which serves as Britain’s supreme court. The British aristocracy might not prove the most receptive of audiences for his claim, though, considering the cavalcade of pop stars who have been knighted over the years, including Sir Paul, Sir Elton, Sir Mick and, oh yes, Gary Brooker, M.B.E.
Even without a further appeal, though, the case isn’t over yet: Still to be settled is who must pay whose legal bills, which are reported to have mounted well into the millions of pounds on each side.
Space Balls (Battlestar Galactica) (2006)
SALON
Space balls
While politicians spent a campaign season avoiding the big issues, TV's bravest series has been facing them in thrilling fashion.
By Laura Miller
Nov. 10, 2006 | For the past month, while the national political conversation has concerned itself with racy military thrillers and antique racial slurs, the real issues -- the big, soul-scraping ones -- have been wrestled with in the wasteland of Friday night basic cable programming, on a channel otherwise devoted to no-budget thrillers about killer centipedes.
Surely you've heard by now (because we've certainly repeated it often enough) that "Battlestar Galactica," the new remake of the cheesy '70s series, is the most thrilling and trenchant dramatic series on TV at the moment (except, of course, for "The Wire"). Maybe you still haven't given it a shot because you just can't believe a show set on a spaceship could possibly engage you when you can watch the simpering narcissists of "Grey's Anatomy" instead -- in which case, you are an idiot. But if you've simply not yet gotten around to it, hurry: Rent the DVDs of Seasons 1 and 2 (they're short), and then hasten over to iTunes to catch up on the first handful of episodes for Season 3 because this one is not just about other planets; it's about our own.
The first season of "Battlestar" seemed daring merely for having the remnants of the human race persecuted by a genocidal, sanctimonious and devious enemy, the Cylons, who were not above sending suicide bombers onto the humans' ships. The series' troubled fighter pilot heroine, Starbuck, showed her darkest side when she was put in charge of interrogating a Cylon captive and tortured him without a tinge of conscience. (The Cylons, a kind of robot created by robots that were originally created by humans, are nearly indistinguishable from human beings, even under close scrutiny. The humans' position is that they're "toasters," and homicidal ones at that, but it's not always possible to maintain this position, as the story of the Cylon Sharon has demonstrated.)
At the end of Season 2, however, the show's creators executed a daredevil twist by scooping most of the characters (along with the remaining human population) off their ships and onto a dreary colony on a planet they called New Caprica. At the very end of the season finale, an overwhelming Cylon force descended, marching through the muddy streets of the tent city, and announced that they were taking over. Instead of trying to exterminate humanity, they were going to try to reform it. And the chosen method of reform would be a little thing we call occupation.
The two opening hours of Season 3 were, it must be said, unrelentingly grim. The humans, shivering in damp bulky sweaters and fingerless gloves, had mounted an insurrection. Gaius Baltar, the self-serving scientist and secret Cylon collaborator whom they had rashly elected president, was running a Vichy-like government that had become hopelessly implicated in the Cylon's brutal crackdowns on the rebels. Colonel Tigh, the former executive officer of Galactica, a leader of the resistance, lost his eye while being detained and interrogated, like many others, without charge or due process.
Some colonists, whether out of a misguided attempt to ameliorate the situation or out of bald self-interest, had signed on with the human police force that the Cylons set up to maintain order. They had to keep their identities secret, however, because the insurrection regarded them as collaborators. The Cylons just couldn't understand why the humans wouldn't behave. The humans just wanted the Cylons to go away.
The parallels to current events are obvious, but "Battlestar Galactica" has always kept more than one historical touchstone in play. The early scenes, when Secretary of Education Laura Roslin was sworn in as president because everyone above her in the civilian line of command had been massacred, cited the swearing in of LBJ after the Kennedy assassination. The scene of the shiny, terrifying Cylon centurions (a servant class of robots that actually look like robots) marching down the main road of New Caprica while the devastated colonists looked on was the Nazis marching into Paris.
The really audacious stroke of this season was showing us a story about a suicide bomber from the point of view of the bomber and his comrades -- no, it was more than that, because the cause of this terrorist was unquestioningly our own. We sympathize with the insurgents wholeheartedly. So when Colonel Tigh, a blood 'n' guts military man if there ever was one, insists that suicide bombing is the only way to end the occupation, the show leaves the question of whether he's right up to us. Is it worth it?
The humans in "Battlestar" don't have an overarching religious fanaticism to persuade them that it is. (The Cylons are the messianic monotheists.) So when Baltar confronts former President Roslin in her jail cell about the morality of the suicide bombing, and demands that she look him in the eye and tell him it's the right thing to do, she can't. Every time you start to get all starry-eyed and latch onto Roslin as the second coming of Josiah Bartlet, the show reminds you that it's a whole lot tougher -- on its characters and its viewers -- than "The West Wing" was. "Battlestar Galactica" may be set in outer space, with robots, in the far distant past, but it reminds us every week that the other TV shows are the fantasies. "This," as Roslin tells her stricken assistant in a recent episode, "this is life."
-- By Laura Miller
Space balls
While politicians spent a campaign season avoiding the big issues, TV's bravest series has been facing them in thrilling fashion.
By Laura Miller
Nov. 10, 2006 | For the past month, while the national political conversation has concerned itself with racy military thrillers and antique racial slurs, the real issues -- the big, soul-scraping ones -- have been wrestled with in the wasteland of Friday night basic cable programming, on a channel otherwise devoted to no-budget thrillers about killer centipedes.
Surely you've heard by now (because we've certainly repeated it often enough) that "Battlestar Galactica," the new remake of the cheesy '70s series, is the most thrilling and trenchant dramatic series on TV at the moment (except, of course, for "The Wire"). Maybe you still haven't given it a shot because you just can't believe a show set on a spaceship could possibly engage you when you can watch the simpering narcissists of "Grey's Anatomy" instead -- in which case, you are an idiot. But if you've simply not yet gotten around to it, hurry: Rent the DVDs of Seasons 1 and 2 (they're short), and then hasten over to iTunes to catch up on the first handful of episodes for Season 3 because this one is not just about other planets; it's about our own.
The first season of "Battlestar" seemed daring merely for having the remnants of the human race persecuted by a genocidal, sanctimonious and devious enemy, the Cylons, who were not above sending suicide bombers onto the humans' ships. The series' troubled fighter pilot heroine, Starbuck, showed her darkest side when she was put in charge of interrogating a Cylon captive and tortured him without a tinge of conscience. (The Cylons, a kind of robot created by robots that were originally created by humans, are nearly indistinguishable from human beings, even under close scrutiny. The humans' position is that they're "toasters," and homicidal ones at that, but it's not always possible to maintain this position, as the story of the Cylon Sharon has demonstrated.)
At the end of Season 2, however, the show's creators executed a daredevil twist by scooping most of the characters (along with the remaining human population) off their ships and onto a dreary colony on a planet they called New Caprica. At the very end of the season finale, an overwhelming Cylon force descended, marching through the muddy streets of the tent city, and announced that they were taking over. Instead of trying to exterminate humanity, they were going to try to reform it. And the chosen method of reform would be a little thing we call occupation.
The two opening hours of Season 3 were, it must be said, unrelentingly grim. The humans, shivering in damp bulky sweaters and fingerless gloves, had mounted an insurrection. Gaius Baltar, the self-serving scientist and secret Cylon collaborator whom they had rashly elected president, was running a Vichy-like government that had become hopelessly implicated in the Cylon's brutal crackdowns on the rebels. Colonel Tigh, the former executive officer of Galactica, a leader of the resistance, lost his eye while being detained and interrogated, like many others, without charge or due process.
Some colonists, whether out of a misguided attempt to ameliorate the situation or out of bald self-interest, had signed on with the human police force that the Cylons set up to maintain order. They had to keep their identities secret, however, because the insurrection regarded them as collaborators. The Cylons just couldn't understand why the humans wouldn't behave. The humans just wanted the Cylons to go away.
The parallels to current events are obvious, but "Battlestar Galactica" has always kept more than one historical touchstone in play. The early scenes, when Secretary of Education Laura Roslin was sworn in as president because everyone above her in the civilian line of command had been massacred, cited the swearing in of LBJ after the Kennedy assassination. The scene of the shiny, terrifying Cylon centurions (a servant class of robots that actually look like robots) marching down the main road of New Caprica while the devastated colonists looked on was the Nazis marching into Paris.
The really audacious stroke of this season was showing us a story about a suicide bomber from the point of view of the bomber and his comrades -- no, it was more than that, because the cause of this terrorist was unquestioningly our own. We sympathize with the insurgents wholeheartedly. So when Colonel Tigh, a blood 'n' guts military man if there ever was one, insists that suicide bombing is the only way to end the occupation, the show leaves the question of whether he's right up to us. Is it worth it?
The humans in "Battlestar" don't have an overarching religious fanaticism to persuade them that it is. (The Cylons are the messianic monotheists.) So when Baltar confronts former President Roslin in her jail cell about the morality of the suicide bombing, and demands that she look him in the eye and tell him it's the right thing to do, she can't. Every time you start to get all starry-eyed and latch onto Roslin as the second coming of Josiah Bartlet, the show reminds you that it's a whole lot tougher -- on its characters and its viewers -- than "The West Wing" was. "Battlestar Galactica" may be set in outer space, with robots, in the far distant past, but it reminds us every week that the other TV shows are the fantasies. "This," as Roslin tells her stricken assistant in a recent episode, "this is life."
-- By Laura Miller
"Battlestar Galactica" tackles terrorism like no other show (2006)
In honor of the start of its final season, a look back at the post-9/11 elements of Battlestar Galactica.
Rolling Stone
Intergalactic Terror
"Battlestar Galactica" tackles terrorism like no other show
GAVIN EDWARDS
Posted Jan 27, 2006 2:14 PM
Civilization is under attack by religious fanatics -- and the fanatics are winning. There are suicide bombers, a clueless president and prisoners who get tortured by the good guys. No, this isn't a particularly grim night on CNN: It's Battlestar Galactica, the smartest and toughest show on TV. In its second season, this remake of the 1978 camp classic has become -- no joke -- TV's most vivid depiction of the post-9/11 world and what happens to a society at war.
Improbably, all this is happening on the Sci Fi Channel, best known for reruns of Knight Rider. Battlestar has achieved the channel's best-ever ratings and reached a heady new level of critical acclaim: Time just named it the best TV show of 2005.
In the past few seasons, series television has finally opted to deal head-on with terrorism, with varying degrees of success. The one mainstream hit, 24, gleefully sacrifices relevance (or coherence) for pure adrenaline. In its fictional world, torture is a panacea, providing catharsis for an audience facing a perpetual "war on terror."
On Battlestar, these issues are more queasily ambiguous. Its futuristic tale of mass genocide of humans and persecution of survivors by the Cylons, a race of zealot androids, somehow manages to feel both realistic and oddly contemporary. "The networks are terrified of controversy," says Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore. "But in sci-fi, they don't notice or care so much -- you get a free pass."
The original Battlestar Galactica aired on ABC for one season and was such a blatant rip-off of Star Wars, the network got sued. It was also a legendary cheesefest, with Lorne Greene, caped heroes and a bizarre mix of Egyptian and Mormon symbolism. At the time, it seemed as if the show's fans consisted entirely of eight-year-old kids and teenage stoners, but decades later, a small yet devoted cult clamored for a revival.
NBC Universal owned both the rights to the show and the Sci Fi Channel. When executive producers Moore and David Eick took over the project, everyone got more than they expected. "Both Ron and I were political-science majors in college," Eick says. "If you go through our libraries, you wouldn't guess we're in show business."
Moore had spent a decade working on various incarnations of Star Trek; he was hoping to tackle a political show, like The West Wing. "I was thinking, 'I've got to get out of this sci-fi ghetto,'" Moore says. But when he watched the original Battlestar in early 2002, he was struck by how evocative and painful its premise had become.
"I realized if you redo this today, people are going to bring with them memories and feelings about 9/11," Moore says. "And if you chose to embrace it, it was a chance to do an interesting science-fiction show that was also very relevant to our time."
As with the original, the new Battlestar starts with a surprise attack on humanity by the Cylons. Only 50,000 or so people survive, fleeing in a ragtag fleet protected by the Battlestar Galactica, a third-rate ship with an unpolished crew. As they escape, they try to build a new society under the strain of constant attack.
But this time around, the show resolutely avoids bumpy-headed aliens, the casino planet and other sci-fi TV cliches: There's plenty of drama to be found in paranoia, grief and politics. In the original, Cylons were large chrome robots with an oscillating red eye and not much personality. Now, the Cylons can look like any other human (or in the case of Tricia Helfer, a lot sexier). The synthetic life-forms are sleeper agents inside human society: monotheistic religious zealots, in contrast to humanity's secular polytheism. "I know God loved you more than all other living creatures, and you repaid his divine love with hate, corruption, evil," one Cylon tells his human interrogator. She responds by having him tortured.
"We don't sit around saying, 'Let's do an Abu Ghraib episode,'" says Eick. "But we're informed members of society and we watch the news -- these things seep in." Many people have drawn parallels between the Cylons and Al Qaeda, but Moore warns that they're not intended to be directly allegorical: "They have aspects of Al Qaeda, and they have aspects of the Catholic Church, and they have aspects of America."
Similarly, President Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell) is not simply a stand-in for Bush, but she was an unprepared chief executive -- forty-third in the line of succession -- who has lately turned to holy scriptures to guide her through a time of war. (Note, too, the number forty-three.) On one show she says, "The interesting thing about being president is you don't have to explain yourself to anybody," a direct lift of a Bush quote in Bob Woodward's Bush at War.
The producers' political geekery leaks through in other ways: A crucial assassination scene was staged like Jack Ruby taking out Lee Harvey Oswald, and Roslin's swearing-in was framed in the same tableau as LBJ's airplane inauguration. "I can be as highfalutin as anybody about the socio-political relevance of contemporary science fiction," says Eick. "But sometimes I just want to see shit blow up."
Rolling Stone
Intergalactic Terror
"Battlestar Galactica" tackles terrorism like no other show
GAVIN EDWARDS
Posted Jan 27, 2006 2:14 PM
Civilization is under attack by religious fanatics -- and the fanatics are winning. There are suicide bombers, a clueless president and prisoners who get tortured by the good guys. No, this isn't a particularly grim night on CNN: It's Battlestar Galactica, the smartest and toughest show on TV. In its second season, this remake of the 1978 camp classic has become -- no joke -- TV's most vivid depiction of the post-9/11 world and what happens to a society at war.
Improbably, all this is happening on the Sci Fi Channel, best known for reruns of Knight Rider. Battlestar has achieved the channel's best-ever ratings and reached a heady new level of critical acclaim: Time just named it the best TV show of 2005.
In the past few seasons, series television has finally opted to deal head-on with terrorism, with varying degrees of success. The one mainstream hit, 24, gleefully sacrifices relevance (or coherence) for pure adrenaline. In its fictional world, torture is a panacea, providing catharsis for an audience facing a perpetual "war on terror."
On Battlestar, these issues are more queasily ambiguous. Its futuristic tale of mass genocide of humans and persecution of survivors by the Cylons, a race of zealot androids, somehow manages to feel both realistic and oddly contemporary. "The networks are terrified of controversy," says Battlestar Galactica executive producer Ronald D. Moore. "But in sci-fi, they don't notice or care so much -- you get a free pass."
The original Battlestar Galactica aired on ABC for one season and was such a blatant rip-off of Star Wars, the network got sued. It was also a legendary cheesefest, with Lorne Greene, caped heroes and a bizarre mix of Egyptian and Mormon symbolism. At the time, it seemed as if the show's fans consisted entirely of eight-year-old kids and teenage stoners, but decades later, a small yet devoted cult clamored for a revival.
NBC Universal owned both the rights to the show and the Sci Fi Channel. When executive producers Moore and David Eick took over the project, everyone got more than they expected. "Both Ron and I were political-science majors in college," Eick says. "If you go through our libraries, you wouldn't guess we're in show business."
Moore had spent a decade working on various incarnations of Star Trek; he was hoping to tackle a political show, like The West Wing. "I was thinking, 'I've got to get out of this sci-fi ghetto,'" Moore says. But when he watched the original Battlestar in early 2002, he was struck by how evocative and painful its premise had become.
"I realized if you redo this today, people are going to bring with them memories and feelings about 9/11," Moore says. "And if you chose to embrace it, it was a chance to do an interesting science-fiction show that was also very relevant to our time."
As with the original, the new Battlestar starts with a surprise attack on humanity by the Cylons. Only 50,000 or so people survive, fleeing in a ragtag fleet protected by the Battlestar Galactica, a third-rate ship with an unpolished crew. As they escape, they try to build a new society under the strain of constant attack.
But this time around, the show resolutely avoids bumpy-headed aliens, the casino planet and other sci-fi TV cliches: There's plenty of drama to be found in paranoia, grief and politics. In the original, Cylons were large chrome robots with an oscillating red eye and not much personality. Now, the Cylons can look like any other human (or in the case of Tricia Helfer, a lot sexier). The synthetic life-forms are sleeper agents inside human society: monotheistic religious zealots, in contrast to humanity's secular polytheism. "I know God loved you more than all other living creatures, and you repaid his divine love with hate, corruption, evil," one Cylon tells his human interrogator. She responds by having him tortured.
"We don't sit around saying, 'Let's do an Abu Ghraib episode,'" says Eick. "But we're informed members of society and we watch the news -- these things seep in." Many people have drawn parallels between the Cylons and Al Qaeda, but Moore warns that they're not intended to be directly allegorical: "They have aspects of Al Qaeda, and they have aspects of the Catholic Church, and they have aspects of America."
Similarly, President Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell) is not simply a stand-in for Bush, but she was an unprepared chief executive -- forty-third in the line of succession -- who has lately turned to holy scriptures to guide her through a time of war. (Note, too, the number forty-three.) On one show she says, "The interesting thing about being president is you don't have to explain yourself to anybody," a direct lift of a Bush quote in Bob Woodward's Bush at War.
The producers' political geekery leaks through in other ways: A crucial assassination scene was staged like Jack Ruby taking out Lee Harvey Oswald, and Roslin's swearing-in was framed in the same tableau as LBJ's airplane inauguration. "I can be as highfalutin as anybody about the socio-political relevance of contemporary science fiction," says Eick. "But sometimes I just want to see shit blow up."
Breakdance pioneer "Frosty Freeze" dies in NYC
In this 1981 photo provided by Martha Cooper, breakdance pioneer Wayne 'Frosty Freeze' Frost executes his 'dead man' move outside of New York's Lincoln Center.AP
Breakdance pioneer dies in NYC
By ULA ILNYTZKY, Associated Press Writer
Fri Apr 4, 9:03 AM ET
Wayne "Frosty Freeze" Frost, a hip-hop pioneer whose acrobatic performance with the legendary Rock Steady Crew in the 1983 movie "Flashdance" helped set off a worldwide breakdancing craze, has died. He was 44.
Frost died Thursday at Mount Sinai Medical Center after a long illness, said Jorge "Fabel" Pabon, a senior vice president of the crew where Frost and other so-called b-boys (for beat or break boys) made their name performing complicated and daring dance routines.
"He was one of most charismatic b-boys that ever lived," said Benson Lee, director of the new documentary film "Planet B-Boy."
Breakdancing emerged from the Bronx and Harlem in the early 1970s, part of the hip-hop culture that also included graffiti, MCing or rapping, and disc jockeys scratching and mixing vinyl records on turntables.
During extended pauses, or breaks, in the music, b-boys would mimic James Brown's showmanship and footwork and Bruce Lee's martial arts, adding their own signature moves.
Frost was known for his energetic style, intricate choreography and fearless moves including back flips and head spins. One was even dubbed the "Suicide."
Frost got his start in 1978 with the Bronx-based Rock City Crew. In 1981, he became part of the Rock Steady Crew, joining such acclaimed breakdancers as Ken Swift and Lil Crazy Legs.
Frost toured the world with the Rock Steady Crew and other hip-hop artists, including Fab 5 Freddy, Futura 2000 and Kool Lady Blue.
Frost's appearance with Rock Steady Crew in "Flashdance" spread the breakdance phenomenon globally, said Joseph Schloss, a visiting scholar in the music department at New York University. "He was one of the first B-boys that most people ever saw," Schloss said.
Graffiti artist and close friend Zulu King Slone, who knew Frost for 15 years, said he was "like a walking hip-hop culture encyclopedia."
As a member of the Rock Steady Crew, Frost also appeared in several movies on hip-hop culture, including "Wild Style," "Beat Street" and "Style Wars." He also appeared on the cover of the Village Voice in 1981.
Funeral arrangements were incomplete.
___
Associated Press writer Tania Fuentez contributed to this report.
YouTube:
Thursday, April 03, 2008
New Bill May Speed U.S. Visas for Artists
New York Times
April 3, 2008
New Bill May Speed U.S. Visas for Artists
By FELICIA R. LEE
When it comes to artists trying to obtain visas, notorious performers like Amy Winehouse usually get the headlines. That British soul singer’s application to come to the United States for the Grammy Awards in February was initially denied, with speculation that the refusal was because of her alleged use of illegal drugs.
But as the House of Representatives voted this week to speed up the visa approval process for some foreign artists and entertainers, the heads of arts organization said attention was finally being paid to the real problem: the time, money and complexity involved in getting visas for lower-profile artists, including dancers, singers, musicians and actors.
“It has become a huge burden,” said Nigel Redden, director of the Lincoln Center Festival, the renowned arts showcase that this summer will bring together 57 performances and events from nine countries.
“We hire someone in January whose only job is to do visas,” he said. Once, when the festival sought to bring in a cast of Chinese acrobats and soloists, a “visa wrangler” in China asked for $75,000 to smooth the way for the group to travel to the embassy and get the necessary papers in order.
“We’re turning the United States into fortress America,” Mr. Redden said. “It turns everyone into an enemy. It loses us friends around the world and respect around the world.”
Now, those seeking entry must run a bureaucratic gantlet that can include having to establish their artistic credentials, hire a lawyer, pay visa fees and visit a United States embassy or consulate.
All of that requires money and time, said Jonathan Ginsburg, an immigration lawyer in Fairfax, Va., with the firm of Fettmann, Tolchin & Majors. An entertainer from London who has an arrest record, for example, would need a report from Scotland Yard, which can cause more delays.
Once the application is made, the Homeland Security Department is supposed to act within two weeks, but recently it almost never has; in the worst cases, getting an answer takes as long as six months, arts organizations said. So-called premium processing is available to expedite an application, at a cost of $1,000 for each petitioner.
The House bill, approved on Tuesday, extends the processing time to 30 days from two weeks. If the deadline is not met, the department is required to provide free expedited processing. The bill, which applies only to visa applications made by nonprofit arts groups, still needs the Senate’s approval.
Heather Noonan, the vice president for advocacy for the League of American Orchestras, called the bill an important step.
“We’re very pleased to see Congress support opportunities for international cultural exchange this way and particularly happy to see such broad bipartisan support for the measure,” Ms. Noonan said.
Sandra Gibson, the president and chief executive of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, said: “We’ve been watching this issue for 10 years. The premium-processing fee meant the nonprofit community would not be served.”
A task force on visas was formed in 2001, she said, when premium processing began. But the Sept. 11 attacks slowed everything down. “There were delays in interviews, inability to get interviews,” Ms. Gibson said. On applications, problems like inverted birth dates and misspelled last names made problems snowball. Around the world, the embassies and consulates that were part of the process were staffed at different levels. “In China and India it can take 100 days to get an interview,” she said.
With the value of the dollar waning, more and more artists have decided to stay home, Ms. Gibson said, echoing other officials. And fewer of the presenters, she said, are willing to go through the contortions of bringing in foreign artists.
Cyril M. Ferenchak, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department, said in an e-mail message that the government had worked hard to make the visa application easier and more efficient.
“Over 570 new consular positions have been created to handle a growing visa demand and the added security measure in our visa adjudication process,” Mr. Ferenchak wrote, adding that embassy Web sites provide information on things like required documents to demystify the visa process.
Matthew Covey, executive director of Tamizdat, a nonprofit group that helps artists get visas, said the House bill was a step in the right direction. Emerging artists without much money or the organizational skills to get together a visa application are the ones especially hurt by the visa labyrinth.
“An awful lot of musicians don’t make a lot of money,” he said. “They are looking to break even, to promote their work. Most musicians need to expedite their visas because many clubs book six to eight weeks in advance.”
And American audiences may never know what they are missing.
April 3, 2008
New Bill May Speed U.S. Visas for Artists
By FELICIA R. LEE
When it comes to artists trying to obtain visas, notorious performers like Amy Winehouse usually get the headlines. That British soul singer’s application to come to the United States for the Grammy Awards in February was initially denied, with speculation that the refusal was because of her alleged use of illegal drugs.
But as the House of Representatives voted this week to speed up the visa approval process for some foreign artists and entertainers, the heads of arts organization said attention was finally being paid to the real problem: the time, money and complexity involved in getting visas for lower-profile artists, including dancers, singers, musicians and actors.
“It has become a huge burden,” said Nigel Redden, director of the Lincoln Center Festival, the renowned arts showcase that this summer will bring together 57 performances and events from nine countries.
“We hire someone in January whose only job is to do visas,” he said. Once, when the festival sought to bring in a cast of Chinese acrobats and soloists, a “visa wrangler” in China asked for $75,000 to smooth the way for the group to travel to the embassy and get the necessary papers in order.
“We’re turning the United States into fortress America,” Mr. Redden said. “It turns everyone into an enemy. It loses us friends around the world and respect around the world.”
Now, those seeking entry must run a bureaucratic gantlet that can include having to establish their artistic credentials, hire a lawyer, pay visa fees and visit a United States embassy or consulate.
All of that requires money and time, said Jonathan Ginsburg, an immigration lawyer in Fairfax, Va., with the firm of Fettmann, Tolchin & Majors. An entertainer from London who has an arrest record, for example, would need a report from Scotland Yard, which can cause more delays.
Once the application is made, the Homeland Security Department is supposed to act within two weeks, but recently it almost never has; in the worst cases, getting an answer takes as long as six months, arts organizations said. So-called premium processing is available to expedite an application, at a cost of $1,000 for each petitioner.
The House bill, approved on Tuesday, extends the processing time to 30 days from two weeks. If the deadline is not met, the department is required to provide free expedited processing. The bill, which applies only to visa applications made by nonprofit arts groups, still needs the Senate’s approval.
Heather Noonan, the vice president for advocacy for the League of American Orchestras, called the bill an important step.
“We’re very pleased to see Congress support opportunities for international cultural exchange this way and particularly happy to see such broad bipartisan support for the measure,” Ms. Noonan said.
Sandra Gibson, the president and chief executive of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters, said: “We’ve been watching this issue for 10 years. The premium-processing fee meant the nonprofit community would not be served.”
A task force on visas was formed in 2001, she said, when premium processing began. But the Sept. 11 attacks slowed everything down. “There were delays in interviews, inability to get interviews,” Ms. Gibson said. On applications, problems like inverted birth dates and misspelled last names made problems snowball. Around the world, the embassies and consulates that were part of the process were staffed at different levels. “In China and India it can take 100 days to get an interview,” she said.
With the value of the dollar waning, more and more artists have decided to stay home, Ms. Gibson said, echoing other officials. And fewer of the presenters, she said, are willing to go through the contortions of bringing in foreign artists.
Cyril M. Ferenchak, a spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department, said in an e-mail message that the government had worked hard to make the visa application easier and more efficient.
“Over 570 new consular positions have been created to handle a growing visa demand and the added security measure in our visa adjudication process,” Mr. Ferenchak wrote, adding that embassy Web sites provide information on things like required documents to demystify the visa process.
Matthew Covey, executive director of Tamizdat, a nonprofit group that helps artists get visas, said the House bill was a step in the right direction. Emerging artists without much money or the organizational skills to get together a visa application are the ones especially hurt by the visa labyrinth.
“An awful lot of musicians don’t make a lot of money,” he said. “They are looking to break even, to promote their work. Most musicians need to expedite their visas because many clubs book six to eight weeks in advance.”
And American audiences may never know what they are missing.
The Peace Symbol at 50
Washington Post
For 50 Years This Has Been the Symbol Of Peace. Far Out.
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 4, 2008; C01
The peace symbol -- three simple lines within a circle -- turns 50 today. It's had a colorful and often turbulent life, which is odd considering that it's supposed to symbolize, you know, peace.
Unveiled at a British ban-the-bomb rally on April 4, 1958, the peace symbol's peak of potency was in the 1960s, when it was the emblem of the anti-Vietnam War movement and all things groovily counterculture. (Said its late creator, British graphic designer Gerald Holtom: "I drew myself . . . a man in despair . . . put a circle around it to represent the world.") The symbol has marched in service of many causes over the years: civil rights, women's rights, environmentalism, gay rights, anti-apartheid, the nuclear-freeze movement and the latter-day antiwar crowd.
Conservatives once denounced it as a lefty tool ("footprint of the American chicken," etc.), but not all the peace symbol's politics have been so easily classified. During the Soviet era, it was a ubiquitous totem of resistance in such cities as Prague and Berlin.
In its spare time, the peace symbol has done plenty of commercial work, much of which it probably isn't very proud of. Suffice to say, most anything that can been manufactured or marketed has at some point come with a peace symbol. Ben & Jerry's ("Peace Pops") turned it into an ice cream novelty. In 1999 the U.S. Postal Service put it on a stamp.
At least it has always been more serious and thoughtful than its frivolous cousin, the smiley face.
The peace symbol became a hieroglyphic superstar because of its simplicity and adaptability, says Ken Kolsbun, co-author of the new book "Peace: The Biography of a Symbol." The symbol can be rendered in a few strokes, even by the least artistically gifted, he points out. What's more, the symbol has never been trademarked (although a shoe company once tried), which means that anyone who wants a piece of peace can have at it.
Peace never goes out of style, but at the half-century mark, Holtom's creation has grown so recognizable, so often replicated and so drearily commercialized that it raises the kind of question they used to ask all the time in the '60s: Has the peace symbol sold out, or is it indeed still "relevant," man?
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Honking Horns Transformed: Ghana's Por Por Music
NPR
[go to NPR for audio and video]
Honking Horns Transformed: Ghana's Por Por Music
All Things Considered, March 26, 2007 - A union of truck and taxi drivers in Ghana's capital, Accra, has turned the mundane honking of horns into music.
Steven Feld, a professor at the University of New Mexico and self-described "anthropologist of sound," has spent three years recording the sound of these horns, known in the West African nation as por por horns after the sound they make.
Antiques from the 1930s and '40s, the honk horns have a rubber squeeze bulb at one end and are either straight or curved. Drivers used to hang them off their side mirrors.
Feld has produced a CD of the music, Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence earlier this month. The CD features the unique combination of drums, singing, bells and squeeze-bulb horns.
The music originated for very practical reasons, Feld tells Melissa Block.
Punctured tires were common on Ghanaian roads in the past. At night, as they pumped air back into their tires, the drivers — fearful of animals that might lurk in the darkness — also banged on tire rims with wrenches and honked their horns "like crazy" to scare any potential predators away.
"And then somebody got the idea to start taking bell rhythms and horn rhythms from different kinds of music in the country, and transposing them onto the horns and the tire rims, and that was the birth of the music," Feld says.
Although por por originated 60 years ago, Feld says it has been largely unknown until recently because it is performed only at the funerals of truck drivers.
"The idea is kind of like a New Orleans jazz funeral: a real rejoice-when-you-die kind of party, where you are sent up by a honking of horns," explains Feld. "The drivers' road to heaven paved with car horns and a whole lot of honking."
[go to NPR for audio and video]
Honking Horns Transformed: Ghana's Por Por Music
All Things Considered, March 26, 2007 - A union of truck and taxi drivers in Ghana's capital, Accra, has turned the mundane honking of horns into music.
Steven Feld, a professor at the University of New Mexico and self-described "anthropologist of sound," has spent three years recording the sound of these horns, known in the West African nation as por por horns after the sound they make.
Antiques from the 1930s and '40s, the honk horns have a rubber squeeze bulb at one end and are either straight or curved. Drivers used to hang them off their side mirrors.
Feld has produced a CD of the music, Por Por: Honk Horn Music of Ghana, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Ghana's independence earlier this month. The CD features the unique combination of drums, singing, bells and squeeze-bulb horns.
The music originated for very practical reasons, Feld tells Melissa Block.
Punctured tires were common on Ghanaian roads in the past. At night, as they pumped air back into their tires, the drivers — fearful of animals that might lurk in the darkness — also banged on tire rims with wrenches and honked their horns "like crazy" to scare any potential predators away.
"And then somebody got the idea to start taking bell rhythms and horn rhythms from different kinds of music in the country, and transposing them onto the horns and the tire rims, and that was the birth of the music," Feld says.
Although por por originated 60 years ago, Feld says it has been largely unknown until recently because it is performed only at the funerals of truck drivers.
"The idea is kind of like a New Orleans jazz funeral: a real rejoice-when-you-die kind of party, where you are sent up by a honking of horns," explains Feld. "The drivers' road to heaven paved with car horns and a whole lot of honking."
Study: Rap music Glamorizes Drug Use
Reuters
Rap music glamorizes drug use: study
1 hour, 31 minutes ago
Rap music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status, according to a new study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory.
The report found that rap artists had moved away from the lyrics of the early days of the genre when they often warned against the dangers of substance abuse.
"This study showed that in fact much early rap music either did not talk about drugs at all, or when it did had anti-drug messages," said Denise Herd, of the University of California at Berkeley, who headed the research team.
"So intrinsically rap music is not necessarily associated with these themes," she added.
After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music's most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period.
Of the 38 most popular songs between 1979 and 1984, only four contained drug references. But by the late 1980s the incidence had increased to 19 percent, and after 1993 nearly 70 percent of rap songs mentioned drug use.
Lyrics describing drug use have not only became more frequent but the context changed from concern about the devastation of drugs to a more positive portrayal.
For example, Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines," recorded in 1983, warns cocaine does nothing except "killin' your brain," but more recent tunes by popular rappers such as 50 Cent's "As the World Turns" refers to cocaine and heroin as positive things.
"This is an alarming trend, as rap artists are role models for the nation's youth, especially in urban areas," Herd said.
She added that much of what is discussed in rap is in code.
"The kids understand but parents don't," Herd explained in an interview.
The word "flinging," for example, means selling drugs. Some slang words for marijuana include "broccoli," "trees" and "chronic." "Fat sacks" and "strapped horns" refer to cocaine smoking pipes, according to the study.
Studies have shown rap music is one of the fastest-growing genres in American pop culture today and plays a prominent role in youth culture.
"I think society has some responsibility to give kids some alternatives to the glamorized view of drugs they see in this music," Herd said. "There are solutions that go beyond the family and home, and a lot rests with us as an American society in general."
Rap music glamorizes drug use: study
1 hour, 31 minutes ago
Rap music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status, according to a new study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory.
The report found that rap artists had moved away from the lyrics of the early days of the genre when they often warned against the dangers of substance abuse.
"This study showed that in fact much early rap music either did not talk about drugs at all, or when it did had anti-drug messages," said Denise Herd, of the University of California at Berkeley, who headed the research team.
"So intrinsically rap music is not necessarily associated with these themes," she added.
After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music's most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period.
Of the 38 most popular songs between 1979 and 1984, only four contained drug references. But by the late 1980s the incidence had increased to 19 percent, and after 1993 nearly 70 percent of rap songs mentioned drug use.
Lyrics describing drug use have not only became more frequent but the context changed from concern about the devastation of drugs to a more positive portrayal.
For example, Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines," recorded in 1983, warns cocaine does nothing except "killin' your brain," but more recent tunes by popular rappers such as 50 Cent's "As the World Turns" refers to cocaine and heroin as positive things.
"This is an alarming trend, as rap artists are role models for the nation's youth, especially in urban areas," Herd said.
She added that much of what is discussed in rap is in code.
"The kids understand but parents don't," Herd explained in an interview.
The word "flinging," for example, means selling drugs. Some slang words for marijuana include "broccoli," "trees" and "chronic." "Fat sacks" and "strapped horns" refer to cocaine smoking pipes, according to the study.
Studies have shown rap music is one of the fastest-growing genres in American pop culture today and plays a prominent role in youth culture.
"I think society has some responsibility to give kids some alternatives to the glamorized view of drugs they see in this music," Herd said. "There are solutions that go beyond the family and home, and a lot rests with us as an American society in general."
Radiohead allows fans to remix new single
Along with "All I Need," "Nude" is my favorite composition on In Rainbows. Wish I had the time to do a remix!
Reuters
Radiohead allows fans to remix new single
Wed Apr 2, 8:30 AM ET
Radiohead is using the Internet for another initiative built around its chart-topping album, "In Rainbows."
The UK rock act has teamed with iTunes and GarageBand for an interactive project that allows fans to rework the album's second single, "Nude."
Wannabe remixers can buy five separate tracks from the recording -- bass, voice, guitar, strings/effects and drums -- from iTunes Plus. On purchasing all five elements, the customer will be sent an access code to complete the task via the GarageBand or Logic music production software.
Finished mixes can be uploaded to Radioheadremix.com, where fans have until May 1 to listen and vote for their favorite. Bedroom remixers can also create a widget for their personal Web profile that will tally votes toward the competition.
"In Rainbows" was initially released on the Internet last year, with the band allowing fans to download the album for whatever price they chose. The CD version hit stores earlier this year, debuting at No. 1 on the U.S. and UK charts.
Reuters
Radiohead allows fans to remix new single
Wed Apr 2, 8:30 AM ET
Radiohead is using the Internet for another initiative built around its chart-topping album, "In Rainbows."
The UK rock act has teamed with iTunes and GarageBand for an interactive project that allows fans to rework the album's second single, "Nude."
Wannabe remixers can buy five separate tracks from the recording -- bass, voice, guitar, strings/effects and drums -- from iTunes Plus. On purchasing all five elements, the customer will be sent an access code to complete the task via the GarageBand or Logic music production software.
Finished mixes can be uploaded to Radioheadremix.com, where fans have until May 1 to listen and vote for their favorite. Bedroom remixers can also create a widget for their personal Web profile that will tally votes toward the competition.
"In Rainbows" was initially released on the Internet last year, with the band allowing fans to download the album for whatever price they chose. The CD version hit stores earlier this year, debuting at No. 1 on the U.S. and UK charts.
Mobs in Mexico Attack Fans of Emo Music
NPR Music
Mobs in Mexico Attack Fans of Emo Music
The Bryant Park Project, April 1, 2008
- The word "emo" is short for emotional, and refers to a type of music and an aesthetic. Picture a teenager in skinny black jeans and eyeliner, black-dyed hair in her face, brooding in the corner. She's a member of a new Mexican social tribe, which — alongside metalheads and punks — has made its way from the U.S. to Mexico. But emo, more than the other groups, hasn't made an easy transition.
On March 7 in Queretaro, a city north of Mexico City, a mob descended upon a square where fans of emo music congregate. That night, three teenagers were severely beaten. The following week, fans marching in Mexico City to protest the violence were attacked. Ioan Grillo, a freelance journalist, who wrote about the situation for Time Magazine, says that, while Mexican authorities are working to curb the trend, a swell of anger at so-called "emo" kids is not likely to abate.
Grillo says the first attack was organized over the Internet, when users posted messages that proposed meeting at a downtown plaza favored by emo kids. "'Let's take back the square,'" Grillo says the posts read. "'These people are gay, they wear makeup. They don't have any culture, they're suicidal.'"
Video later posted to YouTube, Grillo says, showed a mob of 800 people gathering to "beat the hell out of these three people." He says disturbing videos were posted with celebratory messages. "This is great, emos are dying," he says one commenter wrote.
Homophobia seems to be one of the two main causes of the violence, Grillo says. "A lot of the messages are very focused on the homophobic element," he says. "When you saw the marches, a lot of people were shouting very clearly the Mexican words or insults people use for gay."
The second issue, he says, is class. "A lot of the emos in Mexico, as in the United States, tend to be middle-class kids," he says. "They're 15 or 16 years old, often going to private schools in Mexico, living in some of the better neighborhoods." He says the other kids — the metalheads, the punks — are coming from tough barrios. "They see these emos as being privileged, as well as being gay."
Another wild card, Grillo says, is a TV personality named Kristoff, who appears on a music channel aimed at young people. "He came on the channel and said that emo culture is worthless," Grillo says. "It's all about teenage girls that fancy the lead singers of bands. ... He was being very aggressive ... saying, 'This is rubbish, garbage, it's worthless culture.'"
Grillo says the authorities have tried to preempt further violence. In Mexico City, he says, they arranged a sit-down between emo fans and fans of other music, in advance of a planned march for tolerance. But when a crowd of 200 people started throwing bottles at the emo fans, police had to assemble in force, he says, which made it even worse
"When you see a group of these emos, marching, protected by a group of riot police, it makes the other kids even more angry," he says. Grillo says it was just a day or two before the march that Kristoff, an influential force in Mexico, first made his damning remarks about emo. "It looked like in a way he was was inciting this violence," Grillo says.
Mobs in Mexico Attack Fans of Emo Music
The Bryant Park Project, April 1, 2008
- The word "emo" is short for emotional, and refers to a type of music and an aesthetic. Picture a teenager in skinny black jeans and eyeliner, black-dyed hair in her face, brooding in the corner. She's a member of a new Mexican social tribe, which — alongside metalheads and punks — has made its way from the U.S. to Mexico. But emo, more than the other groups, hasn't made an easy transition.
On March 7 in Queretaro, a city north of Mexico City, a mob descended upon a square where fans of emo music congregate. That night, three teenagers were severely beaten. The following week, fans marching in Mexico City to protest the violence were attacked. Ioan Grillo, a freelance journalist, who wrote about the situation for Time Magazine, says that, while Mexican authorities are working to curb the trend, a swell of anger at so-called "emo" kids is not likely to abate.
Grillo says the first attack was organized over the Internet, when users posted messages that proposed meeting at a downtown plaza favored by emo kids. "'Let's take back the square,'" Grillo says the posts read. "'These people are gay, they wear makeup. They don't have any culture, they're suicidal.'"
Video later posted to YouTube, Grillo says, showed a mob of 800 people gathering to "beat the hell out of these three people." He says disturbing videos were posted with celebratory messages. "This is great, emos are dying," he says one commenter wrote.
Homophobia seems to be one of the two main causes of the violence, Grillo says. "A lot of the messages are very focused on the homophobic element," he says. "When you saw the marches, a lot of people were shouting very clearly the Mexican words or insults people use for gay."
The second issue, he says, is class. "A lot of the emos in Mexico, as in the United States, tend to be middle-class kids," he says. "They're 15 or 16 years old, often going to private schools in Mexico, living in some of the better neighborhoods." He says the other kids — the metalheads, the punks — are coming from tough barrios. "They see these emos as being privileged, as well as being gay."
Another wild card, Grillo says, is a TV personality named Kristoff, who appears on a music channel aimed at young people. "He came on the channel and said that emo culture is worthless," Grillo says. "It's all about teenage girls that fancy the lead singers of bands. ... He was being very aggressive ... saying, 'This is rubbish, garbage, it's worthless culture.'"
Grillo says the authorities have tried to preempt further violence. In Mexico City, he says, they arranged a sit-down between emo fans and fans of other music, in advance of a planned march for tolerance. But when a crowd of 200 people started throwing bottles at the emo fans, police had to assemble in force, he says, which made it even worse
"When you see a group of these emos, marching, protected by a group of riot police, it makes the other kids even more angry," he says. Grillo says it was just a day or two before the march that Kristoff, an influential force in Mexico, first made his damning remarks about emo. "It looked like in a way he was was inciting this violence," Grillo says.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Heavy Metal in Baghdad: Masters of War
Village Voice
Heavy Metal in Baghdad: Masters of War
A new documentary tracks a brave band's tumultuous quest to rock out
by Nick Anderman
April 1st, 2008 12:00 AM
Heavy metal is the ideal soundtrack to the bloody conflict raging in Baghdad right now. The city boasts a macho crowd—guns for hire, thrill-seeking journalists, war profiteers, kamikaze insurgents—and metal holds machismo in very high regard. Of course, Acrassicauda, the band at the center of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which opens the New York Underground Film Festival April 2 (a DVD release comes later this year), was not born of war-torn, modern-day Iraq, but rather a much less openly violent society.
Baghdad's metal scene grew from a small community of teenagers with a shared love of American music—many of the most accomplished and well-known Iraqi groups got their start covering Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. In the late 1980s, bands like Scarecrew performed regularly to sold-out crowds of headbangers and moshers, albeit in small halls and with almost no commercial backing. By the late '90s, the scene had cooled slightly, though a few bands, like Converse and Passage, still played regularly for packs of fans numbering in the low hundreds. Acrassicauda's story begins in this small but close-knit musical environment in 2000, where four friends—Faisal Talal (vocals, rhythm guitar), Tony Aziz (lead guitar), Firas al-Lateef (bass), and Marwan Mohammad Riyak (drums)—developed a love for metal during high school. Iraq has never been an easy place to find recordings of Western music, and in those days, reliable Internet connections were rare.
"We were forced to buy albums on the black market and share them with friends," recalls Talal, who speaks English with an American accent and says "dude" a lot. "There was just no other way to get the music we loved."
Unsurprisingly, this practice made for a well-connected group of metal devotees. Acrassicauda (Latin for "black scorpion") cut their teeth in this crowd, and managed to learn English from bootlegged copies of Slayer and Slipknot albums along the way. The band began rehearsing and writing songs in a Baghdad basement in late 2000. Their sound was—and still very much is—informed almost entirely by the golden age of American metal. "We listen to a lot of stuff—jazz, pop, traditional Iraqi music—but our metal tastes are very old-school," Mohammad tells me. "We love the classics, like Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth." The band was also lucky enough to gain the support and musical instruction of Saad "Yngwie" Zai, a virtuosic guitarist and one of Baghdad's most prominent underground musical figures; by 2001, Acrassicauda felt confident enough to start booking shows.
"When we were just starting out in the early part of the decade, we booked six gigs, three of which we did before the war began in 2003," Talal says. "At both our first and second show, nearly 450 people showed up, which we were really happy about. At our third show, we played in a hall that was usually reserved for orchestra concerts, and nearly 600 people showed up, which was amazing."
Acrassicauda were optimistic about the future. After the U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, the band figured it might get a shot at the international metal scene, and made plans to record a full-length album. Soon thereafter, however, Baghdad began to fall apart. Still, the band pressed on, despite growing pressures from insurgency groups. In 2004, the band tore into a Metallica cover during a show at the Baghdad Hunting Club, with hundreds of fans rushing onstage to dance and mosh. A club official trotted to the microphone and ordered everyone to sit down, but the band played right through the announcement, and half the crowd remained standing. The official promptly cut the power and ushered the band offstage, causing Talal to swear intensely at him, to the delight of the fans.
Soon after the botched show, though, Acrassicauda began receiving death threats (accusing them of Satan worship) in their practice space, which they assumed came from one of the many fundamentalist sects carrying Baghdad closer and closer to chaos. Also around this time, Suroosh Alvi, a co-founder of Vice magazine, got in touch with Talal and announced his intentions to make Heavy Metal in Baghdad. The documentary follows Alvi and Eddy Moretti, the director of Vice's film division, as they meet the band for the first time in 2003, and goes on to record the eventual ousting of Saddam and the subsequent fall of Baghdad through the band's eyes. In 2005, Vice organized what was to be Acrassicauda's last concert in their own country, at the famed Al-Fanar Hotel. When a mortar exploded next-door in the middle of the set, the band didn't drop a beat.
By 2006, it was too dangerous to play anywhere in Baghdad, and all four members of Acrassicauda fled to Damascus, where they lived together in a small basement flat underneath the house of a friend of a friend. "We spent a year and a half in Syria and managed to book two gigs," Talal recalls. "About 30 people showed up to the first one, and only six guys came to the second one. Syria isn't really big on metal." When visa requirements changed abruptly in mid-2007, the group held a meeting in their basement flat. "We decided that we couldn't go back to Iraq, but we had to get out of Syria," Talal says. Faced with dwindling assets and expiring visas, the band turned to Alvi for help. Vice set up a PayPal account for the band on the film's website and began asking visitors to help out. On October 10, 2007, Acrassicauda flew from Damascus to Istanbul, via Amman, on tickets purchased through donations.
Despite how far they've come, the band still has very real challenges to overcome. Istanbul is much safer than Baghdad, but it is not home. "Sometimes we want to go back," Riyak admits. "Where we come from, it's all about family. You live in your family house your whole life. We miss our families. At the same time, we have a lot of awful memories—a lot of people lost, a lot of sadness and drama. We put this stuff in the music because we don't really know what else to do with it."
"We're still struggling, but hopefully we're not going to stop as a band," Talal says. Acrassicauda has played a few shows in Istanbul, and hopes to record a four-track demo of new material in the next few weeks, on donated studio time and instruments. In the meantime, the band is prepping for their third and final interview with the United Nations High Council for Refugees, which will decide their fate, hopefully by assigning them to a refugee-friendly country. "We don't care where we go, so long as we can perform," Riyak says. "We follow the music, man." After all, metal never dies.
Learn more about the documentary at heavymetalinbaghdad.com; for New York Underground Film Festival showtimes, see nyuff.com/2008.
Heavy Metal in Baghdad: Masters of War
A new documentary tracks a brave band's tumultuous quest to rock out
by Nick Anderman
April 1st, 2008 12:00 AM
Heavy metal is the ideal soundtrack to the bloody conflict raging in Baghdad right now. The city boasts a macho crowd—guns for hire, thrill-seeking journalists, war profiteers, kamikaze insurgents—and metal holds machismo in very high regard. Of course, Acrassicauda, the band at the center of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad, which opens the New York Underground Film Festival April 2 (a DVD release comes later this year), was not born of war-torn, modern-day Iraq, but rather a much less openly violent society.
Baghdad's metal scene grew from a small community of teenagers with a shared love of American music—many of the most accomplished and well-known Iraqi groups got their start covering Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne. In the late 1980s, bands like Scarecrew performed regularly to sold-out crowds of headbangers and moshers, albeit in small halls and with almost no commercial backing. By the late '90s, the scene had cooled slightly, though a few bands, like Converse and Passage, still played regularly for packs of fans numbering in the low hundreds. Acrassicauda's story begins in this small but close-knit musical environment in 2000, where four friends—Faisal Talal (vocals, rhythm guitar), Tony Aziz (lead guitar), Firas al-Lateef (bass), and Marwan Mohammad Riyak (drums)—developed a love for metal during high school. Iraq has never been an easy place to find recordings of Western music, and in those days, reliable Internet connections were rare.
"We were forced to buy albums on the black market and share them with friends," recalls Talal, who speaks English with an American accent and says "dude" a lot. "There was just no other way to get the music we loved."
Unsurprisingly, this practice made for a well-connected group of metal devotees. Acrassicauda (Latin for "black scorpion") cut their teeth in this crowd, and managed to learn English from bootlegged copies of Slayer and Slipknot albums along the way. The band began rehearsing and writing songs in a Baghdad basement in late 2000. Their sound was—and still very much is—informed almost entirely by the golden age of American metal. "We listen to a lot of stuff—jazz, pop, traditional Iraqi music—but our metal tastes are very old-school," Mohammad tells me. "We love the classics, like Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth." The band was also lucky enough to gain the support and musical instruction of Saad "Yngwie" Zai, a virtuosic guitarist and one of Baghdad's most prominent underground musical figures; by 2001, Acrassicauda felt confident enough to start booking shows.
"When we were just starting out in the early part of the decade, we booked six gigs, three of which we did before the war began in 2003," Talal says. "At both our first and second show, nearly 450 people showed up, which we were really happy about. At our third show, we played in a hall that was usually reserved for orchestra concerts, and nearly 600 people showed up, which was amazing."
Acrassicauda were optimistic about the future. After the U.S.-led toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, the band figured it might get a shot at the international metal scene, and made plans to record a full-length album. Soon thereafter, however, Baghdad began to fall apart. Still, the band pressed on, despite growing pressures from insurgency groups. In 2004, the band tore into a Metallica cover during a show at the Baghdad Hunting Club, with hundreds of fans rushing onstage to dance and mosh. A club official trotted to the microphone and ordered everyone to sit down, but the band played right through the announcement, and half the crowd remained standing. The official promptly cut the power and ushered the band offstage, causing Talal to swear intensely at him, to the delight of the fans.
Soon after the botched show, though, Acrassicauda began receiving death threats (accusing them of Satan worship) in their practice space, which they assumed came from one of the many fundamentalist sects carrying Baghdad closer and closer to chaos. Also around this time, Suroosh Alvi, a co-founder of Vice magazine, got in touch with Talal and announced his intentions to make Heavy Metal in Baghdad. The documentary follows Alvi and Eddy Moretti, the director of Vice's film division, as they meet the band for the first time in 2003, and goes on to record the eventual ousting of Saddam and the subsequent fall of Baghdad through the band's eyes. In 2005, Vice organized what was to be Acrassicauda's last concert in their own country, at the famed Al-Fanar Hotel. When a mortar exploded next-door in the middle of the set, the band didn't drop a beat.
By 2006, it was too dangerous to play anywhere in Baghdad, and all four members of Acrassicauda fled to Damascus, where they lived together in a small basement flat underneath the house of a friend of a friend. "We spent a year and a half in Syria and managed to book two gigs," Talal recalls. "About 30 people showed up to the first one, and only six guys came to the second one. Syria isn't really big on metal." When visa requirements changed abruptly in mid-2007, the group held a meeting in their basement flat. "We decided that we couldn't go back to Iraq, but we had to get out of Syria," Talal says. Faced with dwindling assets and expiring visas, the band turned to Alvi for help. Vice set up a PayPal account for the band on the film's website and began asking visitors to help out. On October 10, 2007, Acrassicauda flew from Damascus to Istanbul, via Amman, on tickets purchased through donations.
Despite how far they've come, the band still has very real challenges to overcome. Istanbul is much safer than Baghdad, but it is not home. "Sometimes we want to go back," Riyak admits. "Where we come from, it's all about family. You live in your family house your whole life. We miss our families. At the same time, we have a lot of awful memories—a lot of people lost, a lot of sadness and drama. We put this stuff in the music because we don't really know what else to do with it."
"We're still struggling, but hopefully we're not going to stop as a band," Talal says. Acrassicauda has played a few shows in Istanbul, and hopes to record a four-track demo of new material in the next few weeks, on donated studio time and instruments. In the meantime, the band is prepping for their third and final interview with the United Nations High Council for Refugees, which will decide their fate, hopefully by assigning them to a refugee-friendly country. "We don't care where we go, so long as we can perform," Riyak says. "We follow the music, man." After all, metal never dies.
Learn more about the documentary at heavymetalinbaghdad.com; for New York Underground Film Festival showtimes, see nyuff.com/2008.
Aboriginal rappers on rise in Australia
Reuters
Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:42am EST
By Christie Eliezer
MELBOURNE (Billboard) - A new generation of hip-hop acts is emerging from a community ravaged by poverty, drugs, alcohol and education problems and struggling with a lack of opportunities: Australia's indigenous peoples.
The country's 200 indigenous tribes make up 2.4% of Australia's 21 million population -- but 22% of its prison population. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show their life expectancy is 17 years less than the national average, with adults two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed than their nonindigenous counterparts.
That grim picture invites comparison to the social conditions that spawned the American hip-hop scene. However, rather than promoting a "gangsta" lifestyle, Australia's indigenous rappers' lyrics are concerned with racism, alcoholism and violence in their ghettoes -- as well as celebrating family/tribal ties and ancient folklore.
Acts such as Tjimba & the Yung Warriors, Indigenous Intrudaz, Konect-a-Dot, Pott Street, and Tha Deadly Boys -- singing in English or local dialects -- are selling out clubs across Australia.
MINIMAL SALES
"CD sales are still minimal," says Universal Music Australia managing director George Ash, who is negotiating to sign an undisclosed act, "but (indigenous hip-hop) is a sizable proposition when you factor in income from merchandising and touring."
Tjimba & the Yung Warriors released their debut album, "Warrior 4 Life," on Melbourne-based Blackwing Productions in August 2007. Blackwing managing director Rich Micallef reckons 70% of the act's income comes from live performances, with the remainder split between merchandising and record sales.
There aren't any accurate data on indigenous hip-hop sales, with illegal downloading/copying among fans prevalent. However, the market for home-grown hip-hop was illustrated by the crossover success of white rap trio Hilltop Hoods in 2006.
Having built a sizable fan base though constant touring, the Adelaide act went to No. 1 with its fourth album "The Hard Road." Its Obese Records label says sales have passed 70,000 units. That success paved the way for such names as the Herd, Downsyde and Koolism to pick up some mainstream radio play.
Indigenous hip-hop regularly airs on national youth radio network Triple J, college radio and indigenous network Koori Radio. However, Maya Jupiter, host of Triple J's weekly hip-hop show, says mainstream radio "has a problem with records with a strong Australian accent."
While the majors sniff around the indigenous scene, the independent sector has been capturing its key acts on record.
Micallef set up Blackwing Productions in 2007 to provide management, production and touring services for indigenous acts, and "Warrior 4 Life" was its first release. "Our aim is to license individual recordings to majors here and overseas," he says. "There's a lot of interest in Aboriginal music from European and U.S. labels and festivals."
Another company focusing on indigenous hip-hop/urban acts, Redfern Records Entertainment, was launched last October in Redfern, the Sydney black ghetto where its co-founding siblings Stephen and Nikita Ridgeway grew up.
"We want to show there are indigenous hip-hop acts that are better than Hilltop Hoods," Stephen Ridgeway says.
Redfern's first album, released January 15, is the compilation "Beats From Tha Street," featuring such acts as Pott Street and rappers Task and Konect-a-Dot.
Ridgeway wants to stage an indigenous hip-hop awards ceremony in June in Sydney, alongside a national multi-artist tour. Redfern's mission, he says, is to "put nonindigenous people in our shoes so they understand the issues we face."
Reuters/Billboard
Sat Jan 12, 2008 2:42am EST
By Christie Eliezer
MELBOURNE (Billboard) - A new generation of hip-hop acts is emerging from a community ravaged by poverty, drugs, alcohol and education problems and struggling with a lack of opportunities: Australia's indigenous peoples.
The country's 200 indigenous tribes make up 2.4% of Australia's 21 million population -- but 22% of its prison population. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show their life expectancy is 17 years less than the national average, with adults two-and-a-half times more likely to be unemployed than their nonindigenous counterparts.
That grim picture invites comparison to the social conditions that spawned the American hip-hop scene. However, rather than promoting a "gangsta" lifestyle, Australia's indigenous rappers' lyrics are concerned with racism, alcoholism and violence in their ghettoes -- as well as celebrating family/tribal ties and ancient folklore.
Acts such as Tjimba & the Yung Warriors, Indigenous Intrudaz, Konect-a-Dot, Pott Street, and Tha Deadly Boys -- singing in English or local dialects -- are selling out clubs across Australia.
MINIMAL SALES
"CD sales are still minimal," says Universal Music Australia managing director George Ash, who is negotiating to sign an undisclosed act, "but (indigenous hip-hop) is a sizable proposition when you factor in income from merchandising and touring."
Tjimba & the Yung Warriors released their debut album, "Warrior 4 Life," on Melbourne-based Blackwing Productions in August 2007. Blackwing managing director Rich Micallef reckons 70% of the act's income comes from live performances, with the remainder split between merchandising and record sales.
There aren't any accurate data on indigenous hip-hop sales, with illegal downloading/copying among fans prevalent. However, the market for home-grown hip-hop was illustrated by the crossover success of white rap trio Hilltop Hoods in 2006.
Having built a sizable fan base though constant touring, the Adelaide act went to No. 1 with its fourth album "The Hard Road." Its Obese Records label says sales have passed 70,000 units. That success paved the way for such names as the Herd, Downsyde and Koolism to pick up some mainstream radio play.
Indigenous hip-hop regularly airs on national youth radio network Triple J, college radio and indigenous network Koori Radio. However, Maya Jupiter, host of Triple J's weekly hip-hop show, says mainstream radio "has a problem with records with a strong Australian accent."
While the majors sniff around the indigenous scene, the independent sector has been capturing its key acts on record.
Micallef set up Blackwing Productions in 2007 to provide management, production and touring services for indigenous acts, and "Warrior 4 Life" was its first release. "Our aim is to license individual recordings to majors here and overseas," he says. "There's a lot of interest in Aboriginal music from European and U.S. labels and festivals."
Another company focusing on indigenous hip-hop/urban acts, Redfern Records Entertainment, was launched last October in Redfern, the Sydney black ghetto where its co-founding siblings Stephen and Nikita Ridgeway grew up.
"We want to show there are indigenous hip-hop acts that are better than Hilltop Hoods," Stephen Ridgeway says.
Redfern's first album, released January 15, is the compilation "Beats From Tha Street," featuring such acts as Pott Street and rappers Task and Konect-a-Dot.
Ridgeway wants to stage an indigenous hip-hop awards ceremony in June in Sydney, alongside a national multi-artist tour. Redfern's mission, he says, is to "put nonindigenous people in our shoes so they understand the issues we face."
Reuters/Billboard
A Women’s Mariachi Band Sings Its Way Through Traditional Male Turf
New York Times
April 1, 2008
A Women’s Mariachi Band Sings Its Way Through Traditional Male Turf
By MIREYA NAVARRO
LOS ANGELES — In “Compañeras,” a documentary about the female mariachi band Reyna de Los Angeles, one of the members explains why she is loath to see mariachi music as work.
“Personally, I don’t want to say: ‘Ugh! I have to go play today,’ ” says Sylvia Hinojosa, a violinist. “I want to say: ‘Yes! I’m playing today! I want to have a break from my school. I am going to have a break from my husband. I’m going to have a break from my house chores. I’m going to get away and be with the girls and play.’ That’s where it is for us.”
That so many of Reyna’s members regard the band more as a passionate hobby than a job may help explain why professional female mariachi bands are not as numerous as their male counterparts. But as portrayed in “Compañeras” — which is to be shown as part of the PBS series “Independent Lens” on April 4 in New York (April 1 in the rest of the country; check local listings) — marriage, motherhood and meager pay also get in the way.
But the operative word here is passionate. The women bring such power and feeling to this 19th-century Mexican tradition that audiences can only assume they know what they’re singing about when they plead for the return of a lover or berate him for his drinking, betrayals and assorted misbehavior.
“I want a man, not a potbellied macho,” goes one song in Reyna’s repertory.
Mariachi bands have commonly featured women as singers, but all-female ensembles like Reyna, formed in 1994 in Los Angeles and believed to be one of the first such mariachi bands north of the border, have been rare. Some of the women in the documentary mention the excuses that have been used to keep women from tarnishing the music’s aura of machismo. A common one, says one member, is that the guitarrón, an acoustic bass, is too heavy for women.
But the music is thriving among both male and female students in high schools and colleges around the country, and “Compañeras” notes that more than 20 female professional groups have been formed in the United States since Reyna began.
The film’s producer-directors, Elizabeth Massie and Matthew Buzzell, said in an interview that they stumbled across the band in the early 2000s when they passed through Union Station, the landmark Los Angeles railway station, while the women were giving a Mother’s Day performance. The filmmakers then set out to explore the female interpretation of a male-dominated genre.
The creator of Reyna is José Hernández, founder and musical director of the Grammy-nominated all-male ensemble Mariachi Sol de México. Mr. Hernández, who composes for both his mariachi bands, also owns Cielito Lindo Restaurant in South El Monte, east of Los Angeles, where both Sol de México and Reyna de Los Angeles play regularly.
Mr. Hernandez assembled the female group after starting mariachi classes for children in Los Angeles public schools in the early 1990s. Half the students who showed up were girls.
“They didn’t really have any role models,” he says in the documentary.
Soon he was holding auditions for a women’s band, drawing mostly high school students and amateurs whose love for the music ran through generations of their families. As it turned out, the most experienced of the lot was not a Latina: she was Cindy Reifler, a classically trained violinist from Santa Cruz who had played with a male mariachi band for years and became Reyna’s first leader.
True to the music’s itinerant peasant roots, the 13 women donned cowboy “charro” skirt suits and swept up their hair in buns. Some married, some single, and ranging in age from 16 to 42, Reyna’s members bonded into a tight-knit group. As the documentary’s title suggests, they are compañeras.
“When you tell your friend secrets, and she tells you her secrets and her problems, that’s not a friend, that’s a compañera,” Laura Paloma Córdova, who plays the harp, explains in the film.
The women felt so strongly about protecting their vibe that when two candidates auditioned for an open slot, they rejected the obviously better musician in favor of a younger, less experienced one, 19-year-old Angélica Gómez, whose dream of joining a mariachi band is one of the main stories in the film.
“The girls said it was her attitude, but I think they were intimidated,” Karla Tovar, a band member who plays the guitarrón and who had favored hiring the experienced player, says in the film.
Other women counter that a group with no soloist — they take turns singing — has no room for a prima donna. And as Mariana Nañez, who plays the signature mariachi five-stringed vihuela, says on camera, “When you go out onstage and you all had a really good talk and you bonded, it comes out in the music.”
Camaraderie can get the female players only so far. While mariachi music generates more than $100 million in records sales each year, according to “Compañeras,” the genre relies heavily on live performances. Touring — in theaters and arenas, and at festivals and county fairs — along with nightly gigs at restaurants and private parties are hard to balance with child care needs and second jobs. And the low pay, about $75 a night when the film was made, seems hardly a reason to abandon school, day jobs or families for the music.
“We have a hard time selling the group,” Mr. Hernández says in the film. “We’re lucky if we get half the amount of the money we charge for Sol.”
Still, American audiences have been receptive not just to all-female mariachi bands but also to co-ed bands, multiethnic bands and those that tweak the form to sing English-language standards like “New York, New York.”
“When mariachi is offered as a class in American schools, there is no sex barrier whatsoever,” said Jeff Nevin, director of mariachi activities at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif. “Most school-based mariachis are approximately 50-50 guys-girls.”
One result, he continued, was that there are a lot of girls and boys graduating from high school with considerable mariachi experience. And many of these girls want to continue playing mariachi professionally, he added.
But among the high-profile “show” mariachis, Mr. Nevin said, the all-male groups still tend to resist admitting women instrumentalists, and the all-female bands are still catching up to the male bands in the market.
At Cielito Lindo, where Reyna performs every Tuesday night, the band draws a crowd that on a recent week consisted mostly of families with young children and birthday revelers who wanted their photographs taken with the women, who are mostly college graduates and whose day jobs include teaching and real estate. The Reynas may still be regarded more as a novelty than a bona fide group, but Ms. Massie said the compañeras have helped smash one stereotype: “They’ve proven that they are as capable of playing the music,” she said.
April 1, 2008
A Women’s Mariachi Band Sings Its Way Through Traditional Male Turf
By MIREYA NAVARRO
LOS ANGELES — In “Compañeras,” a documentary about the female mariachi band Reyna de Los Angeles, one of the members explains why she is loath to see mariachi music as work.
“Personally, I don’t want to say: ‘Ugh! I have to go play today,’ ” says Sylvia Hinojosa, a violinist. “I want to say: ‘Yes! I’m playing today! I want to have a break from my school. I am going to have a break from my husband. I’m going to have a break from my house chores. I’m going to get away and be with the girls and play.’ That’s where it is for us.”
That so many of Reyna’s members regard the band more as a passionate hobby than a job may help explain why professional female mariachi bands are not as numerous as their male counterparts. But as portrayed in “Compañeras” — which is to be shown as part of the PBS series “Independent Lens” on April 4 in New York (April 1 in the rest of the country; check local listings) — marriage, motherhood and meager pay also get in the way.
But the operative word here is passionate. The women bring such power and feeling to this 19th-century Mexican tradition that audiences can only assume they know what they’re singing about when they plead for the return of a lover or berate him for his drinking, betrayals and assorted misbehavior.
“I want a man, not a potbellied macho,” goes one song in Reyna’s repertory.
Mariachi bands have commonly featured women as singers, but all-female ensembles like Reyna, formed in 1994 in Los Angeles and believed to be one of the first such mariachi bands north of the border, have been rare. Some of the women in the documentary mention the excuses that have been used to keep women from tarnishing the music’s aura of machismo. A common one, says one member, is that the guitarrón, an acoustic bass, is too heavy for women.
But the music is thriving among both male and female students in high schools and colleges around the country, and “Compañeras” notes that more than 20 female professional groups have been formed in the United States since Reyna began.
The film’s producer-directors, Elizabeth Massie and Matthew Buzzell, said in an interview that they stumbled across the band in the early 2000s when they passed through Union Station, the landmark Los Angeles railway station, while the women were giving a Mother’s Day performance. The filmmakers then set out to explore the female interpretation of a male-dominated genre.
The creator of Reyna is José Hernández, founder and musical director of the Grammy-nominated all-male ensemble Mariachi Sol de México. Mr. Hernández, who composes for both his mariachi bands, also owns Cielito Lindo Restaurant in South El Monte, east of Los Angeles, where both Sol de México and Reyna de Los Angeles play regularly.
Mr. Hernandez assembled the female group after starting mariachi classes for children in Los Angeles public schools in the early 1990s. Half the students who showed up were girls.
“They didn’t really have any role models,” he says in the documentary.
Soon he was holding auditions for a women’s band, drawing mostly high school students and amateurs whose love for the music ran through generations of their families. As it turned out, the most experienced of the lot was not a Latina: she was Cindy Reifler, a classically trained violinist from Santa Cruz who had played with a male mariachi band for years and became Reyna’s first leader.
True to the music’s itinerant peasant roots, the 13 women donned cowboy “charro” skirt suits and swept up their hair in buns. Some married, some single, and ranging in age from 16 to 42, Reyna’s members bonded into a tight-knit group. As the documentary’s title suggests, they are compañeras.
“When you tell your friend secrets, and she tells you her secrets and her problems, that’s not a friend, that’s a compañera,” Laura Paloma Córdova, who plays the harp, explains in the film.
The women felt so strongly about protecting their vibe that when two candidates auditioned for an open slot, they rejected the obviously better musician in favor of a younger, less experienced one, 19-year-old Angélica Gómez, whose dream of joining a mariachi band is one of the main stories in the film.
“The girls said it was her attitude, but I think they were intimidated,” Karla Tovar, a band member who plays the guitarrón and who had favored hiring the experienced player, says in the film.
Other women counter that a group with no soloist — they take turns singing — has no room for a prima donna. And as Mariana Nañez, who plays the signature mariachi five-stringed vihuela, says on camera, “When you go out onstage and you all had a really good talk and you bonded, it comes out in the music.”
Camaraderie can get the female players only so far. While mariachi music generates more than $100 million in records sales each year, according to “Compañeras,” the genre relies heavily on live performances. Touring — in theaters and arenas, and at festivals and county fairs — along with nightly gigs at restaurants and private parties are hard to balance with child care needs and second jobs. And the low pay, about $75 a night when the film was made, seems hardly a reason to abandon school, day jobs or families for the music.
“We have a hard time selling the group,” Mr. Hernández says in the film. “We’re lucky if we get half the amount of the money we charge for Sol.”
Still, American audiences have been receptive not just to all-female mariachi bands but also to co-ed bands, multiethnic bands and those that tweak the form to sing English-language standards like “New York, New York.”
“When mariachi is offered as a class in American schools, there is no sex barrier whatsoever,” said Jeff Nevin, director of mariachi activities at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif. “Most school-based mariachis are approximately 50-50 guys-girls.”
One result, he continued, was that there are a lot of girls and boys graduating from high school with considerable mariachi experience. And many of these girls want to continue playing mariachi professionally, he added.
But among the high-profile “show” mariachis, Mr. Nevin said, the all-male groups still tend to resist admitting women instrumentalists, and the all-female bands are still catching up to the male bands in the market.
At Cielito Lindo, where Reyna performs every Tuesday night, the band draws a crowd that on a recent week consisted mostly of families with young children and birthday revelers who wanted their photographs taken with the women, who are mostly college graduates and whose day jobs include teaching and real estate. The Reynas may still be regarded more as a novelty than a bona fide group, but Ms. Massie said the compañeras have helped smash one stereotype: “They’ve proven that they are as capable of playing the music,” she said.
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