Mishmash

Since today is May Day, I should probably think about spinning a few rounds of The Internationale. But the KassaNostra's in spring cleaning mode, and so instead you're gonna get a few random things that I can't readily pigeonhole into themed posts. No need to thank me. By the way, anyone know if mishmash is a Yiddish word? I got two sources that say yes, another that says it's Middle English. Don't mind if one's a cover version. . . just wondering about the original pressing.

First up: a strange and mournful take on Dark as a Dungeon, by Gnonnas Pedro. Pedro was a giant of the West African music scene for forty years, and especially renowned -- as this track demonstrates -- for cross-breeding different styles, including salsa, highlife, and the traditional agbadja music of his native Benin. This is copied from an old 45 on the French Discafric label, probably recorded in the late 1970s. Sorry about the crappy sound quality. But if you can endure the static, it's worth a listen.

Gnonnas Pedro: Dark as a Dungeon

Just so we're clear, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this song. I don't know why he drops the second/third verses but repeats the first verse (in a different version he cut in 1980, he sings it three times). I don't know if he's singing about an actual place: DED-doo-wee Mine -- ring a bell for anyone? And while it's certainly possible that he's using some kind of pidgin dialect, I really think he actually substitutes "rabbit" for "habit" in the third line, which kind of makes sense if you think about it. To be sure, the whole thing's a little odd. But Sacre Bleu! Is there any doubt that Gnonnas and his Panchos fully comprehend the despondency that Merle Travis' lyrics were shooting for? You could play this at any UMWA meeting, and you just know everyone there would be nodding their heads and going, "yup." [Obligatory May Day comment: Further proof that the exploitation of the working masses is an injustice on a global scale.]

Next, we got us a cover of Woody Guthrie's Hard Traveling, by Philly-based antifolksinger Adam Brodsky. That's right -- I said antifolk. It's a real thing, and you can all look it up for yourselves, because I'm not wasting precious blog space delving into the minutiae of subgenre classifications. Look, it's not that I disapprove of narrow subgenres. On the contrary -- I love them. I mean, I L❤VE them. You walk up to me and say, "Hey KassaNostra. . . Nerdcore vs. Cowpunk?" And I will literally swoon. But my aural fetishes are fodder for a much different blog than this, whereas I'd much rather use this space for talking about our (yours and mine) collective Kinderland music experience. So come together, you Mods and Teds and Greebos! Solidarity for Lilliputians and Zooks, Anathematicians and Star-Bellied Sneetches and Judean Peoples Fronters! (And if anyone's got a problem with that, take it up with the guy who does the KinderRing music blog.)

Anyway. . . Brodsky. Dude's righteous. Given that he's of the same lefty Jewish intellectual self-deprecating performer stock that usually gets rave reviews at campwide share, and given that his performance medium of choice happens to be folk music, it seems a little incomprehensible that we've never had him up to Tolland (let alone named the rec hall after him already). His take on Woody manages to do justice by the original whilst simultaneously dragging it headfirst into Mike Judge's Office Space reality. Off his 2002 CD Hookers, Hicks & Heebs, which is the album you always wished you'd cut, if you had the guts to write folk/bluegrass tunes about rejected love, suicide, and the Patriot Act. Not to mention a talkin' blues Holocaust number. Go here and buy the damn thing already. [Obligatory May Day comment: Every dollar spent by a worker in support of proletarian artists is a revolutionary act.]

Adam Brodsky: Hard Traveling

Finally, I've been thinking about this clip since my last post -- the one that included the Million Dollar Quartet's rendition of Down By the Riverside.

That's Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and she was a huge influence not just on all the Quartet boys, but also on your Little Richards, your Etta Jamses, your Ruth Browns. . . basically, anyone and everyone involved in early rockabilly, r&b and/or rock 'n' roll. In the clip? That abbreviated duck walk she's doing around the 2:00 mark? Yeah, she was prototyping that move for Chuck Berry a solid decade before Maybellene hit.

Tharpe began her career as a child prodigy in the gospel music scene of the 1920s. Over time, she pushed the boundaries of "acceptable" spiritual music, infusing her performances with the unbridled energy typical of the Pentecostal services she was reared in. She never actually crossed-over to secular music per se, but she played with jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Lucky Millinder, and routinely mixed her stage performances to deliver gospel and secular music to both religious and non-religious audiences. To her, there was little distinction between singing about angels or devils, as long as she regularly got to blow people away with her god-given talent. It cost her -- the gospel crowd eventually abandoned her flamboyant stylings for more dignified alternatives, and it's only in recent years that she's been recognized as the pioneering force she was. This clip is from an early 1960s broadcast, so keep in mind that that's a fifty-year-old woman wailing away on that guitar. For this post, about artists and music that defy easy categorization, take it from the KassaNostra: there ain't nothin' better / then going out with Sister Rosetta. [Obligatory May Day comment: If I can't dance, then screw your revolution.]

Peace & Vinyl,

The KassaNostra