WOMAD 2011 – Four of the Best, One of the Worst.

Bellowhead at Womad 2011 - Photo - Dr. Biddlecombe

Bellowhead – probably the best English folk band around. When you read the words ‘English Folk Band’ you do tend to think of chain-knit pullover wearing beardies who look like they should be presenting a Physics programme on the Open University, and sound exactly like Old Bert Hardy used to sound. This is a very unfair generalization and certainly untrue in this case, Bellowhead are sharp and funny, some might even say sexy, they are raucous and loud, and they rock out on the banjo.  

Musically they are very adventurous, and yet they sing sea shanties, Cumbrian folk songs from the nineteenth-century, not to mention songs that are intended to accompany Morris Dancing. They wear their Englishness on their sleeves, not in a nasty, idiotic nationalist way, but in a charming, enthusiastic and slightly odd way, tons of personality and wit, a hearty openness about their music that, despite its complexity and depth, makes it welcoming and warm. If anyone ever asked me to play them some quintessentially English music I would be happy to play them Bellowhead, not The Kinks, Blur or The Jam.

Afrocubism – A world music supergroup made up of Cuban and Malian superstars; Bassekou Kouyate and Toumani Diabate representing Mali and Elias Ochoa leading the Cuban contingent. Some musical collaborations are like PhD topics, occasionally interesting, usually very worthy, but very rarely exciting. Afrocubism is a collaboration between artists from two cultures that have blended different musical styles to create something wonderful. Mali and Cuba seem to share the same attitude to live music performance. In both cultures virtuosity is celebrated, the more skill the better, the more difficult the piece the greater the achievement in completing it. Both musical cultures require a solid and exciting rhythm section, that can provide the heart of the sound, but which can also break out into virtuosity on a par with that of the lead performers. Both cultures also rely on great melodies that flow, fly and dance into the ear, that lift the heart on high and send the mind on sweet winding pathways.

The musicians look very happy together, the songs they play owe much to both sides of the collaboration, and the sense of equal contribution and mutual respect results in a celebratory mood at the heart of the performance. This is how you do musical collaborations, with joy, celebration and bags of respect for each other.

Mahala Rai Banda – I have been looking forward to seeing this band live since getting their album ‘Ghetto blaster’ last year. I was expecting them to be on the main stage, headlining, but instead they are in the Arboretum on the BBC Radio 3 stage, and late too. Mind you the lights, the trees swaying, sipping cool cider all creates a bit of a magical space. And then on stage came this bunch of Romanian gypsies and an ex-Moldovan army oompah band. The combination of brass, violin, accordion, thumping rhythms and great singing add to the magical space to create one of the best sets of the weekend at Womad, and hardly anyone saw or heard it. The wonderfully rich sound of the brass and woodwind and the high melodic tunefulness of the violin, united with exuberant singing and a very joyful, dancing crowd lead me to believe that this is the best Gypsy Wedding/Birthday/Funeral Dance Band in the world.

Bomba Estereo – I tend to avoid the Big Red Tent at Womad, it tends to have stuff that is too clubby and too loud. They have DJ sets which usually result in lines of stoned thirty-year olds sat in deckchairs outside the tent nodding their heads like a row of dogs on the back shelf of a 1974 Austin Princess. I thought this was a music festival, not an excuse for some blokes to play some records. Anyway, rant over and bias against Big Red overcome we went to see Bomba Estereo, who are Colombian, they are clever, they mix up what they do brilliantly and they have a charismatic lead singer with s stunningly fast vocal style. Spanish is definitely a language that lends itself to rap and hip hop – witness Cuban band Orishas – and the mix of their native Cumbia – a fairly ancient folk music style – with electronic and psychedelic sounds is exciting and occasionally unique.            

One of the great things about Womad is hearing things you have never heard before. Sometimes those new things are obvious – the band Ayarkhaan are from the far end of Siberia, they use a variant of the Jews Harps and their own voices to present the sounds of their homeland. Sometimes it sound a little bit like Ross in Friends playing one of his ‘sound poems’ on the keyboard, but more often it is fascinating, eerie, and very original. Bomba Estereo are more subtly original the newness creeps up on you and you realize that this sound is distinctive and new.

Dub Colossus - one of those collaborations that feels really uncomfortable. Occasionally it is interesting, and clearly it is a good project, but it appears that the relationship between the white, European musicians led by Nick Page and the black, Ethiopian stars is somewhat dysfunctional. Sometimes the music works so well that you can ignore it, their version of Satta Massagana is great for example. But, when Teremage Woretaw, a traditional Ethiopian folk singer, an azmari, and exponent of the one-stringed messenqo violin comes out to sing a song that has been sung in Ethiopia for nearly two thousand years, it is announced in a desultory fashion with a seeming complaint about how long he takes to tune the violin. As he sings the song the other musicians stand around at the back having a laugh, sharing a joke, swigging a beer and generally ignoring what is going on. When it is finished the singer walks off with not a word said by the band. I was pretty disgusted by that, it felt disrespectful, exploitative and wrong. I took against Dub Colossus and all they stand for, maybe it was just me and i had taken one too many ciders by that time of night but they are not for me, twits.

Feel bad i have not reviewed Asa who was very entertaining, Hassan Errajin and his Morroccan Rollers who was lovely and created a gentle melodic sound, or the Eurocool dudes known as Nidi D'Arac who were aces.  Maybe next time.

Police and Thieves on the Street.

 

The riots across London and other parts of England came as a real shock to many. Places like Ealing, Enfield, Clapham and Croydon don’t do riots, and so to see them burning, shops being ransacked and violent gangs running unopposed through terrified communities was a shock to the system.

In 1976 the Jamaican singer Junior Murvin wrote ‘Police and Thieves’ about how armed and violent gangs were terrorizing his neighbourhood and his country and how the police, despite their own use of guns and brutality, could do little to stop them. Thirty-five years later we still see ‘The crowds coming in day by day, with no-one to stop them in any way. All the peacemakers turned to war-officers.’ It seems the last three days we have had crowds coming into London communities, and no-one being able to stop them doing whatever they want. We now have calls for the army to be deployed on the streets, for the police to be allowed to use rubber bullets and water cannon and for the rule of law regarding arrests to be suspended in order to allow for a faster arrest process. Hopefully the peacemakers will not be turned into war officers.

Some people have tried to argue that the ‘riots’ are a reaction to social and political issues, to the failure of the police to ‘respect’ young people. But we did not see political protest on the streets of London, we did not see disaffected youth finding their voice and standing up for themselves, we did not even see ‘riots’ in which the authorities in the form of the police are being attacked. What we saw were thieves, arsonists and vandals, people who revel in destruction and others who enjoy watching and running alongside mayhem being given the opportunity to do exactly what they wanted. They drew in other, mostly young, people from their communities, who would normally be law-abiding. These innocents became accomplices to the actions of a very small criminal minority, providing a mob that would give a degree of anonymity to those wishing to steal and destroy. We can only hope that the guilt they feel the morning after is something that will make them stronger and more determined to be a force for good and for construction and cooperation, rather than for evil and destruction and selfishness. The rioters copied what had happened in Tottenham over the weekend, taking part in looting, vandalism and rioting for their own profit and pleasure, believing that 'if they can get away with it in Tottenham, then we can get away with it here'. The disregard they showed for the safety of others, their homes and livelihoods, their local neighbourhoods and communities was heartless and cold.

            Unsurprisingly many people are very, very angry with the rioters, in part because we know that the criminals have got away with it, they have had their fun, they have stolen what they wanted and their will be no justice for the innocent people who have lost the homes they live in and the cars they rely on; for businesses that provided jobs, and services, paid tax and business rates and those who have been terrorized by the wanton destruction of their communities. Others are also angry with the police who appeared to leave the hearts of their communities unprotected, giving the mob a free hand to steal, destroy and terrify. Tonight (Tuesday) there will apparently be 16,000 police officers on the streets of London, ready to respond to rioting. I doubt very much whether there will be any rioting tonight, they have had their fun, got a new pair of trainers, settled some old scores with people they don’t like, and made the police look ham-fisted.

Anyone out on the street tonight intending to try and do the same thing would have to be seriously stupid, risking the no doubt very strong response of the police. But then again these people smashed up the shops, and burned down the businesses that provide services, jobs and much of the prosperity in their community and they presented a face of their community to the world that may now look elsewhere for a place to site their factory or open their business. The talent, verve and style that made these places great to live in, may in fact desert them and they will be left to live in dull, lifeless and drab communities with nothing going for them. They were too stupid to realise the consequences of their actions, maybe they will be too stupid to realise that the police will be ready for them this afternoon. The response to a personal attack usually is a desire for vengeance against the perpetrator, a desire to punish the person who inflicted the attack; tonight many millions of people in Britain will be watching their televisions hoping to see retribution being meted out by the police in London.

                It is not a very uplifting thought but the sight of rubber bullets and truncheons being used on men in hoods would be very gratifying at this time. But will truncheon blows lead to more rioters on the streets,  will the use of rubber bullets by the police lead to the use of lead bullets by armed gangs? Will the death of a rioter lead to the death of a policeman? The desire for revenge and gratifying punishment must always be balanced against the impact and the outcome of those actions. The police in London and other parts of the country clearly have some very difficult decisions to make, and sometimes very little time to weigh up the effect and the consequences of those decisions. I hope they make the right decisions most of the time and I trust they make those decisions for the right reasons all the time; in the service and for the protection of the communities in which they work.

In the Mosh Pit with Gogol Bordello

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello - Photo by Ella Biddlecombe

On Sunday night at Womad with baited breath we, my twelve-year old daughter, my wife and myself, awaited the arrival of Gogol Bordello on stage. Arriving a good hour before they were due on, we had thereby secured a spot right at the very front, in the middle. All seemed well, until a thirtyish looking man with dreadlocks came over and started talking about how rough it can get at a Gogol Bordello gig and how a mosh pit develops and how he didn’t want any Daily Telegraph readers to get hurt. Although unnerved by his talk of gigs in Brighton that just went completely mad, we felt happy to stay where we were. Anyway, why should anyone listen to a middle-class white boy with dreadlocks who has just insulted everyone around him by referring to them as ‘Daily Telegraph readers’, twit.

It is getting closer to the start of the set, and the area around us is filling up; dreadlock boy has abandoned his efforts to scare people into giving up their place at the front, and the tension is starting to increase as the press photographers are allowed into the small gap between stage and audience. They come out with most of them wearing false moustaches in honour of Eugene Hutz, leader of the Gogol Bordello madness.

The band hit the stage, Eugene is wearing a T-shirt that says ‘No Human is “Illegal”’ and tartan trousers rolled up to his knees, and they launch into a set of great dynamic tunes, ranging from the sweetest melodies played on violin and accordion that could gently rock you to sleep, to heart-thumping, full-speed-ahead punk rock tunes that engage your whole being in motion. It is rough, with lots of pushing and shoving, and I am thankful for the moments of peace and relative tranquillity, like the beginning of ‘Start Wearing Purple’, it allowed some breathing space before the madness begins again.

All is going fairly well until Eugene decides to bring himself, his bottle of red wine and his microphone into the audience, right in front of us. This is an interesting development as suddenly all the people who were previously happy to dance and sing along, now want to reach out and touch Eugene, perhaps share some of his wine, but generally be a lot nearer to him. The crush that develops means that I am forced away from the barrier and back a couple of places into the crowd. This means I no longer have a secure barrier to hang onto and as the waves of people are carried back and forth, so, to some extent, am I. Eugene goes back up on stage and the pushing and shoving subsides. But then they play ‘Immigraniada’ and the pit reaches a crescendo of craziness. Some guy wants out, and instead of trying to push his way through the crowd asks to be lifted up so he can crowd surf to the front, only a few feet away, and be taken away from the action by security, lazy sod.

At Womad they run a very tight ship, each stage has a clock visible to the performers, and everyone has to start on time, because they will be finishing on time. This means that I can see the minutes ticking away, and although I was having an absolutely fantastic time there came a point when I just wanted the physicality, the struggle to stay on your feet, and the effort required not losing your shoes, to end. After one encore it did.

It felt like I had survived a battle, and shared a happiness and exhilaration with all the other survivors around me. We were amazed at the energy and wonder that had been created on stage and in the audience. The singing, the head-banging, the pushing back and forth, the elbows, the straining forward to get nearer to the star, the getting splattered with red wine and the tension and danger all combined to make it a really intense and exciting experience.

But please don’t ask me to do it again, I will be fifty years old in three weeks time and I think dying trampled underfoot in a mosh pit might not be the best way to go. Although of course it depends whose playing, if it’s Gogol Bordello then perhaps it might be a fitting end for an old punk.