Interview - Outspoken Alpha Intellect

Leslie Tongai Makawa, aka Outspoken Alpha Intellect, is an up-and-coming rapper and activist from the southern African nation of Zimbabwe. A regular at the House Of Hunger poetry slam series in Harare, the capital, Outspoken’s reflective poetry delves into the joys and hardships of everyday life amidst the severe economic hardship and horrifying government-sponsored violence of the past decade. On the twenty-ninth anniversary of Zimbabwean independence, Outspoken spoke with CMG just before he performed a concert in Washington, DC. In an insightful interview, Makawa discusses his upbringing in Harare, the Essence (his band as well as the state of mind), and toyi-toyi—a dance dating back to the war for independence that fellow Zimbabwean slam poets have adopted as a symbol for the struggle for human rights.

CMG’s Peter Holslin (CMG): How has the tour been? [At the time, Outspoken was touring the East Coast with Comrade Fatso, another Zimbabwean poet, and Fatso’s backing band.]

Leslie Tongai Makawa, (LTM): Well, it’s been an experience. Because it’s like good energies you get from the band and from the crowd, but at the same time, you now, you do get tired. Funny enough, it’s something that you feed off of, like even the fatigue and all of that.

CMG: Is this the first time you’ve been to the United States?

LTM: This is the first time I’ve been off Africa. It’s been dope. It’s been unreal. I know I’m in the States, but I’m like looking for the American experience. I don’t know what that is. It’s like I’m waiting for something. I am getting so much from it, but at the same time I’m hesitant. Like, ‘You know, the American experience is about to happen any day now.’ It’s not the movies I’ve seen. Maybe that’s the thing. You expect so much, because in an hour, hour fifteen, if it’s drama there’s so much drama packed in. If it’s action, there’s so much action. You expect stuff to be happening. Like, you know, the world to stand still for a day.

It’s been an experience. I became a fan of hip hop again. I was in it. This is what I wanna do.

CMG: Were there any experiences you had that were extra-special, that you’ll take home with you?

LTM: Yeah, like having people coming up to you and giving you a jewel from something you said in your poem, and saying how something affected them in a positive way. It’s something that reminds you why you do what you do. I remember like three or four, it’s just that I was so tired I don’t remember where it was. But I’m sure one was at Tufts [University], the other at [the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival.]

CMG: What happened?

LTM: Someone comes up and they’re like, “You know, the piece you just did, it touched me deeply.” It always leaves you, like, “Wow.” I know they were good, but when it actually does happen, it’s always like, “Wow.” That’s pretty big.

CMG: Did anybody toyi-toyi?

LTM: I did. [laughs] Yeah, like some people in the crowd. The girls at Wellesley, there were some that were actually from Zimbabwe and Zambians and quite the number that could toyi-toyi. And, you know, they got into the groove. Funny enough, it was one of our not-so-big crowds, but the energy that they had, to date I can say that was one of the best performances because we really got connected with the crowd. It was like one energy, and it was beautiful. Plus, they were all girls, but you can leave that out.

CMG: What is the significance of toyi-toyi? What does it mean to you?

LTM: Toyi-toyi—to define it I would say it’s more like, celebrating the freedom that they can’t take away from you. Celebrating the fact that, even if you are in shackles and chains, in a cage, the inner self cannot be tainted. They can get to the point of killing you, but they can’t kill you. They can just destroy your body. So it’s like realizing that everyone does have a limit, and you really cannot control a person. The only way you give that across is when you give the people an illusion that you can. So, it’s like a defiant celebration. You can see it in the dance. It’s like egging people on, like “Yeah, what?” Funny thing with Toyi Toyi, it’s used before a battle or confrontation, but it comes across like a celebration in itself. It’s just a beautiful state to be in. You’re saying, ‘I refuse to lose!’

CMG: What do you hope to get out of this tour? And what do you want to express, to give to the audience?

LTM: All I have to give is my message and my experience. And funny enough, I’m one guy that thinks that when you don’t expect nothing of no one, that’s actually when you get something going. As long as I can get to a person’s mind, and enlighten them about a situation, and have them thinking and spark up a positive image, I think my work is done. Because a lot of people wanna go straight into action, like, “OK! We heard your problem, man! What you need?“ I just need positive energies to support a brutha. I think that’s like the most powerful prayer someone can give to someone else.

CMG: So tell me about yourself. Where were you born?

LTM: H-town, Harare [capital of Zimbabwe]. Born and raised in Avonlea [a suburb of Harare]. But my heart stays in Mufakose. That’s like a township. That’s where the black laborers were allocated [during the colonial period, when Zimbabwe was called Rhodesia. Thing was, you’d have people that would make it from that township, but it was named Mufakose ‘cause, you know, even if you kind of made it in life, you probably would be robbed in that neighborhood, and killed. Or if you did make it, you’re still gonna die. Either way, you’re gonna die: that’s what it means.

CMG: And you grew up there?

LTM: That’s where my mom was raised, and that’s where my mom’s family was. So that’s where I grew up. That’s where people actually were.

CMG: What did your parents do?

LTM: They both retired. My mom was like a bank teller. My pops used to work at the Ministry of Education, retired, became the Director General for the Zimbabwe Association of Pension Funds. That’s what he retired from. Now he’s a counselor for the University of Zimbabwe. He goes there every once in a while, says where they’re messing up, they don’t listen, and he goes back to the farms. [My parents] are now farming full time.

CMG: Do you have siblings?

LTM: Yes, I’m the last born in a family of four. First born being my sister and two other brothers. And they all used to rap. Yeah, I grew up in that. My sister was called Constable Rhyme.

CMG: Constable Rhyme?

LTM: Yeah. Don’t ask. And my brother was Professor Tricky. My uncle was African Chemistry. My friend was Prince Neka.

CMG: So you grew up around hip hop?

LTM: I was listening to Run-DMC, just trying to be down. I was a little kid, you know. LL Cool J, “Mama said knock you out!” And then I kinda chilled. When I was trying to discover myself, I moved away from the music. I found myself going back into it, but there was more reggae this time. And then I started hearing like, Notorious BIG and 112 and stuff, and I was like, this is nice. Happy music! And I found myself back in hip hop. This was before hip hop was like underground and commercial. It was just people doing what they do. For me it was the golden days, like ’94, ’95, ’96. You know, Lost Boys, Craig Mack. Ah! I can’t stop. Skinny Busta Rhymes, with the locks. Skinny Busta with the good locks. Crazy. Yeah.

CMG: When did you start writing?

LTM: Well, I started writing in primary school, like fifth grade, sixth grade. Instead of doing my homework, I’d be writing stuff. I wouldn’t call them like poems or verses, I was…expressing myself. My moms beat me, telling me, “You need to do your assignments, not this stuff.” I just went to school for her sake. My literature teacher, who happened to go to the same school as my father, and was bullied by my father, he used to pick on me to provide the answers. Like, you know, put pressure on me. He used to call me by my pop’s name, he used to call me Hilton. He wouldn’t call me by my own name. So this one time I wrote a poem, and I got in trouble because it was so good, he thought I had lifted it from some other place. And with me trying to explain so much, I got into more trouble. So that kinda fizzled me out and I was like, “You know what? Forget you.” So I kinda stopped, but then I only stopped writing for them. I just kept on [makes a scribbling motion] for me.

CMG: I’m really interested to know how you started writing more politically-motivated stuff, and how you got involved with the House Of Hunger poetry slam.

LTM: It kinda started when my education started. It was like, But what is this? What…what…what’s going on? Why should I learn what you want me to know, that I don’t want to know? What does it help me? And what does it help you? I’m not gonna work for you. I’m a part of the system, but why can’t the system attune itself to my needs? It was a whole bunch of questions that needed to be answered. The House Of Hunger poetry slam was like the perfect podium. Now I actually have an outlet where I can actually bring out my frustrations.

[My poetry] is labeled as political but if you actually do listen to some of my stuff, it’s more like a question to individuals. Like trying to analyze a situation. It so happens that an individual is in society, and a society is governed by politics, but that’s how the pieces become political. You know, you can have pieces that actually incite people into doing things blindly. Instead, I would rather have pieces that might not move you physically, but move you mentally, to a better place.

CMG: Who are some poets and writers who have inspired you?

LTM: Ah, well, that one is a tough one. Like I said, I really didn’t like the education system. I really didn’t like reading the books they wanted us to read. So most of the time I actually found inspiration in the everyday race, like, you know, the struggles that mothers would go through, the struggles that our parents would go through. I could see relationships breaking down because of external forces that have no relation to the family. There are people that inspire me, but it’s like people that are so close—like the words that come out of sister Chi’s mouth. [He is referring to Chiwoniso Maraire, a Zimbabwean-American songwriter who performed at the concert that day.] You know, it’s like I’m a fan more than an artist. Every experience for me is so humbling that sometimes I wonder if I’m playing the game from the opposite side of the fence. Like I should be in the crowd, and watching you guys.

CMG: Do you go by Outspoken Alpha Intellect, or is it just Outspoken?

LTM: It’s funny, it was a joke, my whole name. ’Cause I was looking at hip hop and how, you know, guys have these names. I was like, “You know what? I wanna have one of the longest names in hip hop.” So the whole name, the whole tag, is Outspoken Alpha Intellect The Humble Neophyte True Indeed I Am Proof Of Emcee Also Known As I The Kept Brother Inner Silence Love Thy Neighbor. Those names represent different parts of self. The Outspoken…sometimes you just need to stamp your authority. But then the counterbalance to Outspoken is Inner Silence, the place where I exist before I let out. And then there’s the Alpha Intellect [he pronounces it “eye-ntellect”], which represents the first thought. What I said right now is like the first thought that is coming out of my mind. But then, in order for me to have these full thoughts, there is the Humble Neophyte, which is the guy that chilled and, you know, has to learn and experience life in order to give something back to life. And then there’s True Indeed. That explains itself. Whatever you say, it has to be true of you in actual action. I Am Proof Of Emcee…that’s just for hop hop’s sake. Don’t ask what an emcee is. When I do what I do, or when I am who I am, that’s me being an Emcee. Love Thy Neighbor, that says it for itself again. And I The Kept Brutha…I am the kept brutha. I’m in a crew called Dialectric Blue. My rhyme partner is called Upmost Mybruthazkeepa Rhyme For Days. And we roll deep. He is like my brutha, you know? We look out for each other. And as much as I am the kept brotha, I keep my brotha close.

They all have like different parts that I am learning of myself. But then it was also like a piss take, just bein’ Outspoken Alpha Intellect The Humble Neophyte True Indeed I Am Proof Of Emcee AKA I The Kept Brutha Inner Silence Love Thy Neighbor! I find beauty in that, as much as it is comical.

CMG: When did you start playing with the Essence?

LTM: Two years ago. The one dude I went to high school with. He used to close me on my hip hop tapes and stuff. I used to close him some of his. “Close” is when you borrow something and you don’t give it back. “Yeah, I closed you man!” Yeah, he’s the guy who plays the guitar. His younger brother plays the bass. And this other kid plays the drums. Verity [Norman, a South African woman who helped organize the event] plays the violin.

I wanna learn the kora). I wanna learn something that’s just, [makes carnal sound of enjoyment]. A message can be communicated just by the different instruments that’s being played. I’m trying to make beauty. I wouldn’t label my music as poetry or hip hop, it’s just a bunch of beautiful crazy stuff that I’m yet to get at. We just wanna create beautiful things.

CMG: In your life, did you have any experiences that inspired you to write, or make you rethink the way of the system?

LTM: Growing up was like an accumulation of events. They always get you. Like, constant triggers. Like, Hey, that can’t be right! Is that right? And while you’re still twisted in that situation and you’re growing with it, you get triggered by another one. There were like small instances. I can’t say there was one thing that was like, Paradigm Shift!

CMG: But even a small thing…

LTM: OK, growing up in Avonlea, we were like one of the first few black families to move in. I didn’t know racism or anything like that. You’re a kid and all you see are kids and grown-ups.

When black people would talk to other black people, they wouldn’t give each other as much respect as if they were talking to a white person. So there was that in-built superiority complex. And I started questioning like, Yo! But… If you go to Zimbabwe now, a person who is like a boss or whatever, is referred to as murungu. Which is, “white person.” It’s like slang but it’s been accepted.

CMG: So in the word itself, being white is associated with being the boss?

LTM: Yeah, and superiority. Regardless if you are a black boss, you become a murungu, which is white person. So it’s that inferiority complex that’s embedded in us. And it like thrives below the radar. It’s even engaged in an argument with us. It’ll rage on for days. And there’s another statement, “MaBhoi.” Someone would say, “Ah, MaBhoi!” Like, “Ah, these blacks!” It’s like a generalized dis that would bring down a whole race.

That stuff would weigh heavily on me. You would find those energies, that chop you down from these angles. As much as you can blame it on a black and white dynamic, there was a black and black dynamic. That’s why my poetry is more like to focus on self. Just to feed the beauty that you are, the being that you are. That’s the only way you can play a pivotal role in society. ’Cause when you’re saying, “Yes, I’m a being in society, but I’m mad weak,” you’re not going to hold up the burden for everyone else. That’s what made me who I am today.

CMG: Artists and activists have told me, and I’ve also gotten the impression from news reports, that everything has become politicized in Zimbabwe. How do you feel about that?

LTM: The newscasters have their agenda. Fair and fine. But I believe that once you take someone’s pain, and someone’s tears, and just break them down into mere statistics, and facts, it’s like robbing the story of its essence. The story that was gonna be said by that person’s mother or brother is not the same story you’re gonna get when you switch on the news, when you read the newspaper. Because that agenda has nothing to do with the people involved. It’s the bigger picture—This place is messed up! He’s messing it up! So many people have died! But it doesn’t have that humanity aspect to it. It’s like I’m not Outspoken; I’m not Leslie Tongai Makawa—I’m a Zimbabwean; I’m the guy coming from the place with the messed-up economy. These are all the labels that I have now with me. I’m broken down and categorized. It destroys you being a person, you being a being, and it makes you this whole question mark, which I don’t believe in. I’m like, What?

Beyond the troubles, beyond the beauty that they advertise in the tourist sector, beyond the political, the economic, the health problems, beyond the smiles, the hate and everything, there is that essence that lies there, that makes it what it is. We can’t be defined by events, or history, or how our future’s gonna be.

CMG: Is that why your band is called the Essence?

LTM: Yeah. I like to chill in a realm. I know I’m not yet there, but I’m gonna be there in the next two years—like a realm where it’s not music and it’s not poetry, but it’s words, sounds, emotions, feelings. That thing that’s beyond the musical notes, the notations, the jargon they have in music school. I just want to exist with the feel-good shit, or the make-you-think shit.

You can’t say, “Ah, this is wrong.” I think that statement is true if it’s finished with ‘To me.’ Like, that is wrong to me. ’Cause what’s wrong to me might be right to you. And I think that’s the breaking point of understanding self and understanding others: realizing that we are different. This world would suck if we had nothing but Outspokens. Probably argue all day and kill each other off. So we need to understand that we find that beauty within the difference in existence.

Life is a beautiful thing, man. Every breath we get is a blessing. A lot of the times we don’t realize that. We don’t take the time to appreciate that we’re here. It’s beautiful. I love it when I’m sick, because every time I’m sick, I remember all those times that I wasn’t sick. I just let those days roll on by. You remember all the times you’re sick, but never when you’re OK. You remember all the times you’re broke. Like, “I’m broke. I’m broke, man. Been broke for two weeks.” I don’t know why we always focus on the negative, you know? And even when you are broke, that doesn’t finish you. That’s not the definitive moment.

The first two words that exist in that statement is “I am.” And that’s a state that you have to appreciate. Yes, I am…broke? Whatever. But I am. Those are powerful words. It’s like a breath of fresh air for me.

This interview was published today on Cokemachineglow.com. Photo courtesy Outspoken.

Interview: Chris Doeblin of the Independent Booksellers of New York City

Last month, as I was working on a book store guide recently published in the New York section of the Onion AV Club - posted here - I sent some questions to the owner of the academic shop Book Culture, Chris Doeblin, about the Independent Booksellers Of New York City, a trade alliance he recently helped found. Over e-mail, Doeblin writes about IBNYC's origins, their push for an "I Love My Indie Bookstore Week," and more. (Edited for length and clarity.)

But first, some breaking news: IBNYC affiliates will celebrate "America Unchained" this Saturday.

From the Friends of the IBNYC Facebook page: On Saturday, November 22, communities around the country are urged to “unchain” for just that one day—to maximize the impact of your dollars and inject potentially millions more into the local economy through joining other residents to do their shopping, dining out and other business only with locally-owned independent businesses. IBNYC bookstores throughout the city welcome you to their stores that day - and some will be sponsoring special events, which are listed here: http://ibnyc.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/support-independent-businesses-america-unchained-day/

Peter Holslin (PH): Tell me about the history of IBNYC – who started it, when, and why?

Chris Doeblin (CD): I initiated a couple of conversations with Beth Puffer, General Manager at Bank Street, Henry Zook, owner of Book Court and Sarah McNally, the owner of McNally- Jackson booksellers. Each of those conversations was enthusiastic and supportive, so with Sarah and Jessica Stockton from her store, my Exec. Manager Annie Shapiro and marketing manager Kelly Amabile, we invited the rest of the stores in NY, got a space a Random House and had our first meeting in May. Over 20 stores were represented.

My initial reason, still holding by the way, is to create an organization that can, over the long term, gradually raise public awareness of the benefits our stores offer to NYC and to create a shift in interest and dollars spent to independent business. It's the cultural greening of literary/retail NY. The group will do this gradually through public presentations and events, articles in local media etc., and by publishing a guide to our businesses, a map [and] a web site.

We get to work together, which is a wonderful thing. The level of professionalism, acumen and experience that we find in the meetings we've had is a joy.

PH: What's been going on with IBNYC lately? Are there any events coming up? Is the list/map expanding?

CD: We just had our third meeting and several new stores came- The Strand and Powerhouse Books. Several weeks ago we came out at the Brooklyn Book Festival. We just completed our proto map and guide, complete with our logo. Among our long term goals are the creation of an "I Love My Indie Bookstore Week" that would be filled with events, guest booksellers, free books author visits and of course publicity. Over time, I think this is something we can really build on and get our message out. It's better to shop at the Independent Local Bookstore. We also are aiming to perfect our guide to stores in the map form and on line.

PH: How have people responded to the alliance?

CD: Very strongly! We've set up no hurdles in terms of attendance or dues and we continue to have people come to us to attend meetings or join. We've got a long way to go, but as long as we have a sufficient and sufficiently diverse number of volunteers for the board and our committees, we should carry on for many years.

Many from outside the booksellers group, people on the publishing side for example, are very supportive. I have also received a great deal of support from other booksellers in other parts of the country that participate in independent business alliances. Steve Bercu from the Austin bookseller BookPeople, for example, wrote to me. AMIBA has been very supportive and we've decided to ally with them to make our incorporation easier and to share in their wealth of experience. I am really impressed so far.

PH: Can you tell if the alliance is yet bolstering independently-owned bookselling businesses in the city?

CD: So far, yes. I think, for example, the people we reached at the Brooklyn Book Festival have re-elevated their consumerism towards independently-owned book shops. I think once we have a successful "I Love My Indie Bookstore Week" and get masses of people thinking about the benefits of having our shops in our communities, we'll start to say we are on a roll.

PH: How have independent booksellers in the city been affected by Amazon.com and chains like Barnes & Noble? Are these seen as scourges, the death knells of independently-owned bookselling?

CD: The effects of the B&N and other chain stores expanding is over, long over. There will be more and more closings of their stores following the several that have already closed. And given this recession on the horizon, Borders could be closing all its locations by the spring of 2009. This of course won't be all good news for the indies, as publishing corporations react to those losses. But the independents alive today in New York are strong, professional, savvy at marketing and much more likely to survive the upheaval ahead.

Amazon is a monster and yet many of of us benefit from selling through Amazon. Of course, that continues to affect us. Of course, the tide of consumer sentiment that supports the inherent good one does in shopping at local indies is only beginning to come on and for a city like NY, with so much available within walking distance, I estimate that we're also at the end of the purely negative effect that Amazon has had. It has been nearly 12-13 years. But yes, many many books are shipped into NY to our clients and neighbors. But, you see, we're past the thrill of ordering on line we are already at a point where going into an IBNYC bookshop is a wonderful and valuable experience. What a joy it is to spend time and visit in one our shops - that sentiment has only grown more acute as choices have diminished. We benefit from that.

PH: Do you have an idea of how independent booksellers have been affected by the recent economic crisis?

CD: It's too early to tell, but book stores have historically done very well in recessions. I remember the 80's and early 90's and it's a good niche to be in.

PH: How do you envision the future of independent bookselling in New York City—and how will this future affect the city's literary culture and diverse civil society?

CD: I continue to see intelligent, successful young people choosing bookselling as a career and turning from other work to this work. This is the most optimistic indicator to me. I also sense a growing worry amongst publishers that they are losing control, fiscally and over their authors and marketplace. The answers for many of the publishers lies in the indies. They need a diverse marketplace for retail.

I see a literary and civil marketplace that embraces and nurtures more carefully some of the aspects that do rebound the benefit or our communities and the kinds of lives we can lead in our city. Indie bookstores and all bookstores to a great extent are certainly part of that. We are part of the cultural code that people want to live with and share. Over time, authors, publishers and readers will gradually and continually grow even more supportive of indies in particular. A very small upturn in our businesses would have a huge affect on our perpetuity, our job creation, etc.

A little change will have a huge impact. So I think for those of us that don't have our pants on fire already, the future is bright.

Interview: Josh Diamond of Gang Gang Dance

Gang Gang Dance is renowned for explosive, brain-melting sonic adventures inspired as much by African indigenous music as London grime. But this Manhattan-based foursome is no one-trick pony: last spring they pulled off an elaborate audio-visual presentation at the Whitney Biennial in New York, in August they conducted an orchestra of 88 drummers on the Brooklyn waterfront in an epic cross-country collaboration with the legendary Japanese band Boredoms, and most recently they released Saint Dymphna, a transcendent record that the Glow’s own Mark Abraham calls “possibly the most complex and weird dance album of the year.“ The day after Barack Obama was voted in as the first African American president in US history, guitarist Josh Diamond spoke with CMG on the phone about channeling the right energies, using a guitar hooked up to MIDI, upcoming plans to record a new album, what happened to former drummer Tim Dewitt, the purity of Japanese food, and more.

CMG’s Peter Holslin (CMG): How do you feel about the outcome of the election?

Gang Gang Dance’s Josh Diamond (GGD): I’m psyched man, I’m really psyched. I’m a little bewildered, as well, because it seems like this unbelievable potential for our country to finally be more progressive. You travel around the world, and most places get it by now, and it’s so frustrating. I mean, New York gets it. There’s a lot of places that get it.

[Barack Obama]’s a real caring human being, you can really tell. And it’s just beautiful. I think it’s beautiful to go from slavery to today. I just feel there is a chance, you know, for some progress. And I haven’t felt that way in a long time and, if anything, was really cynical for the last eight years. You just feel the weight of everything. I know that there’s pit falls as well. I know also that the world is pretty fucked right now, and we’re pretty fucked in a lot of ways. But I think that there’s a chance for Robin Hood. For true Socialism.

CMG: So, I just want to get this straight: Is Gang Gang Dance named after the Gang-Gang Cockatoo?

GGD: No, we found out about the Gang-Gang Cockatoo later. It’s named after this record that Brian [DeGraw, the band’s keyboardist/percussionist] got. I never remember the name of the band, but it’s like, he went to a record store and bought all these different, really diverse records and brought them to the counter and the guy was like, “Oh, you like all this stuff? Try this record out.” It was some band and the title of it was Gang Gang Dance. He took it home and it was the worst record he’s ever heard in his life.

CMG: So when you found out about the cockatoo, what was your reaction?

GGD: Is that the bird that won’t stop singing?

CMG: Um, I don’t know.

GGD: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. It’s nice to have strange connections. There was another one, it was a video of Ashanti’s. She was describing this dance move that she did and she said it’s not quite hip hop, it’s not R&B, it’s not funk, it’s kind of experimental or whatever. She said it’s called ‘gang gang.’ So that’s a little connection too. Pretty cool.

CMG: So you’re heading to Milwaukee right now, a few days into your tour. Is there any place that you’re looking forward to, or not looking forward to?

GGD: Right now, particularly just with this new kind of potential environment we have here in the United States, I’m looking forward to seeing all the places, you know?

CMG: Do you prefer to play in any specific kind of environment?

GGD: Oh, for sure, for sure. We started off this trip opening for Of Montreal and we were playing these big theaters and a couple of them were kind of nightmarish for me personally. There’s seats, and everybody’s sitting down in assigned seats. The vibe is just gone. I like playing places where you feel the audience there with you. I like the smaller clubs, where we shine.

CMG: Gang Gang Dance has a very distinct sound, but there are also elements of reggaeton, grime, and other styles of music. Are you planning this out, or are you just inspired in such a way that elements of different music end up in your songs?

GGD: It’s the latter for sure. We improvise. It’s a really natural thing. This is my therapy session.

CMG: How do you feel about Saint Dymphna? Do you think it’s a more mainstream record as most reviewers, and as your press materials, have said?

GGD: As far as the mainstream thing, I think it’s still pretty weird. The production quality is a lot clearer than our last record, which people pick up on. I don’t know, we just make music, man, that’s what happens. It’s not up to us, people can decide whatever they want, if it’s more mainstream or less. We didn’t plan it to be any particular way.

CMG: From what I’ve read, it sounded like the process of making Saint Dymphna was pretty fractured and frustrating. How did the record come together?

GGD: It didn’t come together for a long time, it was a fractured process. And I think maybe there was a bit too much in our minds at the time when we started making it. There was a lot of pressure inside the band to make this more ambitious thing, whatever that was. I think that force, the pressure to do that, was messing everything up. We have a really natural way of making music. Things work out the best for us when we actually just accept ourselves.

But that was only one thread of the fractured process. We’d start recording and then we’d have to go on tour. We would go to a studio and make some headway, and then, like, not finish what we were working on and have to take, like, two months off, and gather money, or go back on tour, and come back to try and start where we left off. By that time, we couldn’t even go where we left off, you know?

CMG: It’s like you have this energy going, and then once you cut it off, you’ve lost it…

GGD: It’s lost, to a large degree. We also had a really hard time, like, putting the right energy into making the record. But finally, in the last month and a half, that’s really when the record was made. We had one last push, we recorded almost all of the record. We used a couple of old recordings but almost all of it was recorded then. And we mixed with our sound engineer, Sean. It was a much more natural process and I think we finally just were like, ‘OK, we’re gonna get this done.’ It was just so relieving to have something. I’m proud of it, I just can’t deny that there was turmoil in making that record, you know? But we’re going to record a new one, to make up for that.

CMG: It’s in the works right now?

GGD: We’re gonna record in January. We’re going to the desert, to Joshua Tree, for a month. And we’re going to make demos on our own, and then our sound engineer, Sean, is going to fly out. We’re just going to record it all in the family, you know? I think it’s gonna be awesome.

CMG: When you look back, how do you feel about the band’s development? Have you ever had an idea of what you wanted to do, where you wanted to go with your music, some sort of plan or goal or something?

GGD: It’s intense to look back on it because it’s almost been a decade of my life, with the band and my friends making music. But looking back is always way different than looking forward and I don’t think that we had a plan. Certainly not in the beginning. Really, I think that we just really believe in our music and we try and be as pure as possible and as close to that kind of ideal, the ideal that we believe in our music. To continue making music, all the time. The only sort of plan is to try and move forward, to try and not rest, or like get stuck in some specific frame.

CMG: How did you, personally, start making music?

GGD: I played the violin from the age of four to the age of, like, fifteen. Music has just been something I’ve always done.

CMG: As for your guitar—is it run through a MIDI processor?

GGD: I don’t know, I could get techy on you…it is a MIDI processor, but it’s a pick up that is able to split the signal into like six different signals, then it’s a box that recognizes the pitch and converts it to MIDI.

I’ve been doing it for a long time, and I’ve had different guitars that have different pickups and I finally got a nice piezo pickup. If anybody wants to do it, those are the best ones for the job. The real weird thing about it is that it’s basically failed technology. This stuff has been around for years and nobody really wants to use it. It doesn’t sell very well, it has no money behind it. It works pretty well, actually.

CMG: Why do you use synth sounds on a guitar, instead of using a normal guitar or a keyboard?

GGD: Well, as far as the normal guitar thing, I like to think of our music as very colorful. I feel like there’s a lot of different textures and colors it makes. That’s what makes our music special. I felt, with a guitar, it felt too limited. No matter how much you change the sound, it always sounds like a guitar. And as for not playing on a keyboard, you just play differently on the guitar, there’s different ideas. To me it just works. I’ve been doing it for many years, and it just makes sense to me. It might not make any sense to anybody else, but…

CMG: Has your increased popularity over the past few years brought the band more funds, for new equipment or better production quality? How has that affected the band, if at all?

GGD: There’s up and downs for us, all the time. There are some times that we’ve had in the last few years where we did get some money, to be able to get equipment and to be able to…like, we payed for our last studio time by ourselves. I think that we’re more fortunate than a lot of bands out there. This summer was really hard financially, and all of last year before we didn’t have this new record out. They didn’t wanna book us anymore. They were like, “Come back when you have a record out.” And we were out of fashion and out of favor. And we’re in fashion, I guess for the moment, and we’ll probably fall out of fashion, but still make music. I just think there’s an even flow.

We don’t make very much money. We’re below the poverty line, as far as this country is concerned. I would like things to change a little bit as I’m getting older. We’re all getting older. And it’s not age, specifically, but it’s the demands on your life, you know? When you’re doing this, it’s very intense. I’d like to have some sort of…not reward, but it’d be nice to feel more secure.

CMG: Do you have a day job?

GGD: I bartend in New York, at a bar in Brooklyn.

CMG: What happened to your drummer, Tim Dewitt? I read that he got shot, which is very saddening to hear. Also, he’s not credited as a band member on Saint Dymphna.

GGD: He’s in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and he’s OK, totally fine. I don’t know, he wanted a break from the band. He wanted to, I think, make his own music for a while. I don’t think he was happy living in New York City. He had a hard time there. He would’ve been happy just being on the road all the time. Going home for him is like ripping his heart out or something like that. He’s still one of my best friends. He makes amazing music right now, and producing, learning how to produce records. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the future. I mean, we saw him in Chicago and he almost jumped in the van with us.

CMG: Gang Gang Dance is often glommed together with Animal Collective and Black Dice. Since 2000, a lot of similarly weird acoustic-electronic hybrid bands with quasi-tribal, experimental and worldly elements have emerged. Do you think this is a movement, a phenomenon? Or is this just part of a cross-cultural musical conversation that’s been going on for decades?

GGD: [Chuckles] Intense. I don’t know, that’s a long question. Well, you named some of our contemporaries. We used to share a practice space with those two bands. That was years ago and it was like this little strange vortex. It was all three of us in the same room, in the practice space. The one thing that really stands out to me about that is we were all very different. There were a lot of similarities at the same time, but the sounds of the bands were very distinctly different. And that was beautiful.

I think we were just trying to make our own music, and that’s how we made it. And we still try to do that, you know? And now there’s all this press, and attention, and this idea that there’s like this thing going on, which isn’t anything. It goes on in different places as well, in Indian music you hear music from ’60s rock and roll and stuff like that. Whatever. One of the most beautiful things you can do is just make your own music, do your own thing.

CMG: How do you feel about the term “world music”?

GGD: I think it’s a capitalist term. It comes from, to some degree, trying to categorize something so you can sell it. I think that that’s a large part of it. Categories can be helpful, in some ways. I can go to a store and I can look in the world music section, and I can go to the section on Africa.

The term “world music” is very trivial. I mean, ideally, I’d like there to not be any borders in the world the phone cuts out for a couple seconds, cutting him off mid-sentence. That’d be Utopia, for sure. Even now, we have Obama and it’s interesting, because I think that patriotism is OK to a certain degree as long as it doesn’t turn into some sort of crazy nationalist thing. But, it’s interesting. Now, we’re Americans again. I felt like we’re Americans today.

CMG: What are some of your nonmusical sources of inspiration—like books, places, food?

GGD: Japanese food. And Japan is wonderful. We went there this summer. I’ve been to Japan twice. It’s inspiring for me to go through Japan. Just the way that people treat visitors when you go there, with humility, and hospitality, and respect, and patience. People are beautiful there. There’s just a different kind of way to take in a visitor, an outsider, to their home. That’s been really inspiring. I try to take some of that with me when I leave. I’m still workin’ on it. It’s really intense, man. For me, that’s a heavy thing, to be treated so well, so beautifully. And Japanese food, it’s just really fresh and healthy and if you stay there…like we were there [this summer] for like ten days and it just makes your body feel good. It’s just really pure food.

This interview was published yesterday in Cokemachineglow.

The river, the desert, the wild...

On Saturday a jolly band of misfits joined adventurer Rob Buchanan on a row up the Hudson river to the mythic ruins of a castle along the Palisades, near a sandy bank a quarter-mile past the George Washington Bridge. The tip of the island sat before us. We assembled benches from logs, collected fagots to make fire, played the celebrity game (Wim Wenders and William Carlos Williams, if just a W!), and drank white wine and beers and cider into the night, while the remaining dots of cityscape radiance endured.

When all was quiet on the lawn of the ruins, overgrown with lush green grass, I slept beside Martine Holmquist, an old friend of mine. But the sudden rattling of rain drove me to consciousness. Dreamily content, massaged by the oppressive sound of the water, I immediately fell back asleep. After I emerged from the tent, I took strange-tasting instant coffee, in my glass jar-cup, and for a moment it felt as if I hadn't had coffee in days, weeks, months. Ha!

Back on the Whitehall gig, in the fog and sprinkle, the world was a damp and cold gray. It felt broken.

This week on the Glow, a review of Group Inerane's Guitars From Agadez:

The Tuareg people, camel-herding nomads of the unforgiving Sahara in West Africa, are known to perform a unique kind of blues known alternately as Tichumaren (which means “music of the unemployed” in their native tongue of Tamasheq) and simply “guitar music.” In the ’90s, it sprung up as a form of local communication—often the only means of distributing information, cassettes of Tuareg bands like Tinariwen spread from refugee camps in Lybia and Algeria into the villages deep in the Sahara and Sahel deserts, telling the news and calling for freedom from oppression. But over the past several years, the genre has rocketed to international fame and taken on new meaning. It has spoken to oppression worldwide: In 2003, the Navajo traditional/punk band Blackfire performed in solidarity with their subjugated kindred spirits at the “Festival in the Desert” in Mali. And Tichumaren has unified musicians hitherto unrelated: lately, Tinariwen has teamed up with the French band Lo’Jo and… Robert Plant! Guitars From Agadez, the latest installment of what Sublime Frequency calls the “Tuareg Guitar Revolution,” is a set of live recordings by Group Inerane, a ragtag band of men and women from Niger, headed by Bibi Ahmed, a master of languid guitar grooves. The record is a nice historical document, but it’s the band’s hypnotic desert blues that will make English-language listeners smitten. Continued here...

And a Q&A with Portugal. The Man's John Gourley:

When they’re not touring, half of the foursome Portugal. The Man resides in the northwest. The other half hails from the sylvan wilds of Alaska. Songwriter John Gourley, for his part, is a native of Wasilla, the epicenter of the state’s evangelical movement and the home town of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Last month, Gourley posted a touching missive against the Alaskan governor on his band’s website. Over e-mail a day before the vice-presidential debate last Thursday, he didn’t have any juicy tidbits on Palin to share, but he shouted out to his musical allies, recommended some Alaskan bars, explained how his father might’ve met Jesus and discussed the band’s new album, Censored Colors. Read more...

Photo by Nadia Chaudhury.

Glowdown - Shit Hits Fan

In the Glow this week: a review of "Shit Hits The Fan" by Brooklyn quartet Bad Credit No Credit, a Q&A with Saint Louis noise-monger Joe Raglani, and a review (goes up Friday) of Guitars From Agadez by Group Inerane, players of Nigerien Tishoumaren, otherwise known as "guitar music," which originated in Lybian refugee camps during the second uprising of the '90s.

"Shit Hits The Fan" by Bad Credit No Credit - John Le Carré recently wrote an article in The New Yorker about the A Scanner Darkly-esque working conditions of British intelligence agents during the Cold War. These days, Carré writes, the job is just as shrouded in blind faith and paranoia, with Islamic terrorism the only invisible threat. “Shit Hits The Fan,” full of intrigue and suspense, is an able theme song: the drums and bass work in a tight groove as rain-stick and screams accent the seductive sax and tense croon of Carrie-Ann Murphy, who affirms, “All signs point to apocalypse.” Keep reading...

Interview with Raglani - Joe Raglani, founder of the experimental label Pegasus Farms Records, is a mainstay of the cozy music scene in Saint Louis, Missouri. Though he has been playing music for nearly two decades, Raglani’s latest record, the ominous and atmospheric Of Sirens Born, is his first major step out of his post-industrial home base and towards a wider audience. Over e-mail, he talks about Of Sirens Born, sources of inspiration, Saint Louis’ decayed art scene, and continuing to live “the dream.” Continued...

Q&A: Kanan Makiya

The Iraqi exile Kanan Makiya is haunted by the Baath regime. For years, he has sought to bring them down and document their crimes.

Son of eminent Iraqi architect Mohamed Makiya, Kanan worked for the London-based firm Makiya Associates as Mohammed led a Hussein-sponsored project in the early '80s to transform Baghdad's winding, back-alley streets into an imperial metropolis. Disgusted with the idea, and further repulsed by the immense and vulgar monuments that reformed the city, Kanan slowly backed out of the project. He soon produced the groundbreaking "Republic of Fear: the Politics of Modern Iraq." Published under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil and guided by Hannah Arendt's theories of totalitarianism and extensive research on the Baath regime, the book exposed modern Iraq's panoptic system of state-sanctioned torture and widespread execution.

No wonder Makiya supported the American invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War and was deeply involved in the efforts of Iraqi ex-pats to help the United States overthrow Hussein in 2003.

After writing "Republic of Fear," Makiya wrote "The Monument: Art, Vulgarity and Responsibility in Iraq." Returning to Arendt and taking on architectural theory and even Plato, he dissected Saddam's most frightening monument: two arches that open either side of a parade ground in Baghdad. They are casts, down to every detail, of Saddam Hussein's arms, wielding two giant swords grafted with Iraqi weapons from the Iran-Iraq war, their blades crossing at an apex over one hundred feet in the air. Bullet-pocked Iranian helmets are set in the ground and collected in baskets slung around the arms.

Makiya currently heads the Iraq Memory Foundation, which seeks to preserve Iraq's monuments and Saddam's statues for historical purposes, hosts a digital database of interior Baath documents uncovered during the U.S. invasion. The foundation also collects recorded testimonies of Iraqis who lived under the regime, broadcasting edited versions on Iraqi T.V. The group intends to eventually build an archive or museum in the vein of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, perhaps at the Victory Arches site.

Here's a short interview I did with him today, part of reporting I'm doing for a story on the past and future of Iraq's architecture and art.

PH: Explain the origins of the Iraq Memory Foundation.

KM: It was started in the summer of 2003 in Baghdad, Iraq, and it was a continuation of a project that I had been running for nearly thirteen years at Harvard, called the Iraq Research and Documentation Project. The project only involved documents from the former Baath regime, and then we enormously expanded the number of documents we managed to get a hold of and work on and archive. We also added history interviews, interviews with survivors of the atrocities during the Saddam era. We added another section on artifacts and paintings and works of art, generated by Iraqi artists during the Saddam era that dealt in some way or another with the cruelty of the regime.

PH: Where, and how, did you obtain these documents?

In the building that used to be known as the regional headquarters of the Baath regional command. It was like the central building of the Nazi party or something like that, in Baghdad. The building was being guarded by certain units. I went to visit. By chance conversation with the officer—he happened to be a historian, it was part of his job just guarding this building, in the summer of 2003, it was hot—he told me, quite by coincidence, he thought that in the basement they had all these documents and he had no idea what they were. I went down there. There were no lights or anything. I brought flashlights, carried away the rubble and saw a treasure trove of documents. That’s the origin of most of the important documents we got following the fall. We started classifying them and organizing them and putting them on shelves and so on.

PH: Why did you begin preserving old Baath regime artifacts?

Sort of overnight, all these posters—which I had written about in "The Monument"—most of those were starting to be torn down. We started a bit of a campaign in the governing council and amongst the public, with newspaper articles and that kind of thing, to say that these things had value and should be kept for historical purposes. The particular monument that we put a great deal of effort in was the Crossed Swords, which I wrote the book about. Eventually, it sort of temporarily belonged to the Memory Foundation to come up with ideas to what would be done with the site. And we started to put together—this took a long time, of course—over the next two, three years, proposals to transform it into a museum, perhaps equivalent of the Holocaust museum, and a starting point of an urban renewal of the central part of Baghdad, which was really run down.

PH: In a totalitarian or fascist system, the powers typically seek to destroy the old traditions and even the geographic make-up of a state, to build it anew. Do you see the current destruction--for instance, repeated attacks on the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, revenge attacks on Sunni Mosques, and the bombing of Baghdad's Al-Sarafiya bridge in April, which had a profound demoralizing effect on Iraqis in the area--as working in this vein?

KM: You have, essentially, an inverse version of the same thing. Different groups are each writing their own narrative, reading into the past their own interpretation of events. Sunnis looking at everything as against them, Shiites seeing everything directed against them, ending up with several totalizing narratives, all very biased. In other words, we have a war over narrative.

PH: How does that affect the work of the Memory Foundation?

It is making it very, very hard at the moment. We continue with oral history work, continue with the TV program. What we’re doing is in a certain sense ahead of its time. Iraqis are still fighting over what previous regime meant. Iraqis are not yet feeling common experience of totalitarian rule to develop a new identity, recognizing old regime. The real war is being fought now, a war over meaning and memory of previous era.

PH: How do you incorporate Islam, Kurdish, Jewish and Christian religion and culture into the Foundation’s work?

We equate peoples’ suffering with each other. So, following the airing of the interviews, we also have a one-hour program where people from different communities discuss the testimonies and we share documents that reinforce it. So suddenly Kurds see that their experience has been parallel to Arabs, and Shiites see their experience has happened to Sunnis, and Sunnis see that they, too, have seen what other people have gone through. And we don’t allow sectarian or ethnic considerations to come into the way in which we select or present these testimonies. That’s had a very powerful effect. We’re one of the few organizations that refuses to bend to the sectarian way of thinking. By the end of this summer, there will be two hundred testimonies. We are on our way to creating a living history, if you like.

PH: Does the organization make a lot of money?

Not really, no, especially not for cultural matters, efforts in making documentaries. We got a few grants, but they have all dried up now.