Slinging Mud & Kicking in Teeth: MOPDtK & When Irony Becomes Racism

[UPDATE 2/22/15: The following piece was written two days ago, in response to the promotion of the band's performance in Philadelphia. After writing this, I got more context about & from the bandleader. One thing I learned in particular is the bandleader's sincere reverence for the music he parodies. But such sincerity neither appears in the way the band is promoted, nor the way the music is presented. Some of this is in the band's control, some of it perhaps less so. At any rate I have changed the title & some of the language of the original text to reflect the conversations I have had in the last few days. I still think the problem discussed herein exists. I hope that the conversation this has instigated encourages the band, & those who promote them, to demonstrate respect toward the culture to which they are indebted for the content of their music.]

I need to talk about a band from New York City that I am loathe to name because they don't deserve any more attention. Yet I know that it does no good to address racism without naming its perpetrators. This band is called "Mostly Other People Do The Killing." They credit themselves with making "terrorist be-bop" and their m.o. is churning out frenzied, ironic pap that mocks jazz idioms and jazz history. The bandleader, Moppa Elliott, is a conservatory-trained bassist and music educator. They are probably best known for their note-for-note rendition of the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, which created some controversy for a few people. They have been on the scene for more than a decade. None of the band members are African American.

A relevant excerpt from the promotional text for their concert in Philadelphia tonight:

"MOPDtK formed in 2003, although founding members Elliott and trumpeter Peter Evans began playing together in 1998 as students at Oberlin Conservatory. In the liner notes to the band’s 2004 self-titled debut, Elliott states the band’s philosophy: “I would rather make music that uses jazz’s identity crisis against it, piling as many nonsensical musical associations together as possible to create music that is aware of its own inconsistencies, ironies and contradictions and likes it that way”. Elliott makes it clear he is avoiding the idea of “jazz as repertory” - “I like my jazz with some dirt on it,” he says before adding, “Bring out the mud. Standing on the shoulders of giants makes it easier to kick them in the teeth.”

To which I want to respond: black lives matter. Black cultural legacies matter and jazz is a black cultural legacy. Here is a white musician making light of centuries of cultural appropriation and theft under the cover of "irony." Here he is claiming to stand on the shoulders of giants, the easier to "kick them in the teeth." Here he is slinging mud - mud, y'all - at black cultural history.

This is the language of racism. It doesn't matter if it's an ironic gesture, such language engenders real violence perpetrated by white supremacist culture against black people. To state it another way, real violence is founded on language that often seems (to white people) to be innocuous. I don't know this person. I don't know what he's like in other areas of his life. But in the text above his own appraisal of the band's work is in conflict with the notion that black lives matter. To kick black culture in the teeth is to say black culture doesn't matter. It is to say black people, thus, do not matter.

Who are these giants at whom he's slinging mud? They are Armstrong and Ellington, Mingus and Monk, Parker and Coltrane. They are the elders of the music, the grandfathers, the ancients. They are the inheritors and carriers of what W.E.B. Dubois called the Sorrow Songs, the music that gave a people - against whom an attempted genocide has been perpetrated for centuries - their life. Cultural forebears such as these are meaningful in ways that many white folks cannot understand. Yes, some of us lost our family trees escaping persecution in Europe, but we don't continue to face persecution walking to the store.

For a people whose family histories are twisted and lost amidst white violence - kidnapping, enslavement, enforced poverty, mass incarceration, cultural appropriation - playing ironically with their legacy is deeply offensive. It is menacing, threatening. It is unconscionable. It is also not new or novel, and black people in America have continually created globally significant cultural currents despite this legacy of white violence.

The giants whose shoulders Elliott claims to stand on are musicians who reinvented and advanced the music not by slandering and dishonoring their forebears, but rather by respecting and building on their heritage. Folks with a deeper knowledge of jazz and its repertoire will understand that Cecil Taylor's music is not a kick in Ellington's teeth; Albert Ayler's music was not a kick in Lester Young's teeth; William Parker's music is not a kick in Mingus' teeth; Matana Roberts' music is not a kick in Charlie Parker's teeth.

I recently read something that author Junot Diaz had to say about Toni Morrison, who just celebrated her 84th birthday. He said that the best writer in the world is of African descent. He said that despite the ills of the world, this fact allows him to sleep well at night. (Let's add: the world's finest living author is also a woman.) Now: imagine Diaz writing "standing on the shoulders of giants makes it easier to kick them in the teeth." You dig?

To my ears, Elliott's music does not have the stature or quality of Diaz's writing. But the point I want to make is a question of degree, of reach. If someone were to come into my home and talk about kicking black culture in the teeth, such racist speech wouldn't become excusable - or ironic - simply because it is said behind closed doors. Or simply because the speaker doesn't intend to act physically. I'd call the motherfucker out on it, and show him the door.

People of conscience, people who want to challenge the power dynamic that maintains white supremacy and all of the physical, cultural, and emotional violence it brings with it, have to prevent racism from reverberating throughout the culture. I note with continual disappointment the lack of commitment from my peers to challenging oppressive power structures. If the band and its members don't intend to maintain a stance of violence toward black culture and, thus, black people, the language that is used to speak about their work ought to reflect that. Otherwise, the language (and thus the notes) reverberate racism. And if that's the case, I propose to turn it off, shut it down, and call them out on it.

Philadephia 2/20/15

LINER NOTES 2011!

Twenty eleven. I really liked the part where so many people, in so many places, in so many beautiful, creative ways, for so many reasons, in so much solidarity, with so much determination, looked the Establishment in its ugly face & said fuck off already.

An apt theme for the past year, as I experienced & observed it, would be community. It describes the successes of the socio-economic awakenings, the challenges to political establishments, the encampments, the risk-taking of activists for social justice & self-determination, the widening scope of movements against war & to protect water, soil, air, forests, rivers, cultures.

In a year largely defined by people taking to the streets, my year was spent, for better & for worse, less in the street than on the road. I travelled more heavily this year, to perform, than in any other year of my life. It has been utterly fulfilling & I look forward with enthusiasm to more. Everywhere I went I met people eager to create & strengthen the community of experimental & independent music & art. A polemic: real music & art cannot be expressed in market terms, & is a crucial component of societies actively challenging the political, economic, & cultural hegemony of the Establishment.

The following lists are an attempt (probably incomplete) to articulate & thank, in one place, all the wonderful people, venues, & organizations who are nurturing meaningful community in the places I performed & exhibited my work in 2011. What an honor! What a privilege!

THANKS FOR SETTING UP SHOWS! THANKS FOR HOSTING!
Tad Michalak (Burn Down the Capital), Dan Smalls Presents, Tom Orange (Cleveland), Kevin O'Brien Cain (Buffalo), Squeaky Wheel, Brandon Hawk (Dayton), Joel Peterson (Bohemian in Exile series, Detroit), Gabriel Beam (Robinwood Concerthouse), Bubba Crumrine (Ithaca Underground), Martin Blazicek (Bludny Kamen, CZ), DC Sonic Circuits, Vicky Chow (Contagious Sounds, NYC), Santo Pulella (Head West), Mike Kramer ((h)ear Festival), Adam Schatz (Search & Restore), Paul Baldwin (Black Sparrow), Pete Lebel, Stephen Pellegrino, Anne Wellmer, Dewi de Vree, KG Price, Kaleid Series (Chicago), Quiet Cue (Berlin), U-Ex(perimental) (Utrecht), Peter Bradley (Schoolhouse, Guelph), Harold Arts, Jacob Kart (Chicago), Marie Guillerey, Gregory Clow, Joseph Hess, Aaron Hefel (Counter Productions), Thom Elliot (Pleasuredome), Jessica Puglisi, Sam Sowyrda, Rozz Tox (Rock Island IL), Good Style Shop (Madison WI), Nowy Wspanialy Swiat (Warszawa), Bomba (Kraków), Kevin Ernste (Cornell University), Brad Thorla (Anabell's, Akron), Stephen Crowley (Iowa City), Culture Shock & The Westy (Ithaca).

THANKS FOR COLLABORATING WITH ME!
Rafal Mazur, Ensemble Klang, dj sniff, Reuben Radding, Andrew Drury, Red Trio, Joe Sorbara, Paul Dutton, Chad Taylor, Jonathan Goldberger, Alyssa Duerksen, Lindsay Gilmour, Chris Seeds, Michael Stark, Zaun Marshburn, Ryan Zawel, Hank Roberts, Walt Lorenzut, Ross Haarstad (Theatre Incognita), KBD, Dan Friedman, Heather Seggar, Alter Koker, Mark Alban Lotz, Dick Toering, Johanna Varner, Antibody Xtett (Manuel Miethe, Anna Kaluza, Max Andrzejewski, Stephan Bleier, Nico Meinhold, Wolfgang Georgsdorf), Johnny Dowd, Krzysztof Wolek, John Ritz, Margaret Lancaster, Nils Hoover

THANKS FOR SHARING BILLS WITH ME!
Deerhoof, powerdove, Matt Bauder, Hyrrokkin, Nick Millevoi, Fred Thomas, Alter Koker, Seth Graham, Andrew Weathers, Tristan Trump, Forget the Times, Rowan (Shelley Burgon), Rambutan (Eric Hardiman), Holland Hopson, Matta Gawa, Mouth to Mouth to Mouth, Sid Redlin, Arrington de Dionyso, Steve Baczkowski, Sinjo Thraw Mash, Loop Goat, Chris Seeds, Frass Accolades, Wind Farm, Stephen Pellegrino, Joel Peterson, Joe Panzer, Raphael Brim, Mall Mutants, Michael Attias.

THANKS FOR PUTTING OUT AWESOME RECORDS THIS YEAR!
Matt Bauder, dj sniff, Tomek Choloniewski, Matt Wright & Evan Parker, Jason Ajemian & the HighLife, Hyrrokkin, Red Trio, Jennie Stearns, Matta Gawa, Go-Go Beuys Band, Big Mean Sound Machine, Travis Laplante, Colin Stetson

THANKS FOR RECORDING (WITH) ME!
Dana Billings, Michael Perkins, Jason Ajemian, Edward Ricart, Brett Nagafuchi, Danny van Duerm

THANKS FOR HAVING ME TALK TO YOUR STUDENTS!
Krzysztof Wolek (University of Louisville), Marek Choloniewski (Studio of Electroacoustic Music, Academy of Music in Krakow), Michael Hersch & Oscar Bettison (Peabody Conservatory), Joe Sorbara (University of Guelph)

THANKS FOR PLAYING ME ON YOUR RADIO SHOW & WRITING ABOUT ME!
Greg Baise (WCBN 88.3FM Ann Arbor), Needles Numark (Upstate Soundscape, Buffalo), Tom Orange (Brewing Luminous, Cleveland), Taran Singh (Taran's Free Jazz Hour), Ken Waxman (Jazzword), Bartosz Adamczak (Free Jazz Alchemist), Guy Sitruk (Jazz à Paris), Mechanical Forest Sound

THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO TURNED ME ON TO THESE NICE OLD RECORDS I NEVER HEARD BEFORE!
This Heat, Deceit; Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden; Cabaret Voltaire, Micro-Phonies; Einsturzende Neubaten, Kollaps; Pere Ubu, Dub Housing; The Stooges, Fun House; Nas, Illmatic; Wire, Chairs Missing and Pink Flag; Death, ...For the World to See; Television, Marquee Moon; Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blank Generation.

THANKS THANKS THANKS!

Hell No We Ain't Alright

Hurricane Irene made me think about Hurricane Katrina. I imagine I'm not alone in this. It made me wonder: how have things changed? How have they stayed the same? How have they improved? How have they gotten worse?

Have a listen to the three great tracks below - by Mos Def, Public Enemy, and the Legendary K.O. - made in the aftermath of Katrina. Check the lyrics. These are songs that gave voice to widespread anger and outrage over the Bush Administration's non-response to the tragedy that befell New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August 2005. But they also speak, powerfully and timelessly, to backward national priorities, institutional racism, poverty, police brutality, anti-war sentiment, and other pressing issues that continue to receive scant attention in the post-Bush era.

Intelligent people (but few in positions of power or influence) wrote and spoke insightfully at the time about Katrina's extreme strength and destructiveness as symptoms of climate change. Six years later Hurricane Irene is a manifestation of the same. Though disaster preparedness may have improved, the discussion about climate change has been largely left out of the vocabulary of those who govern and report.

Hurricane Irene coincided with a weeks-long mass mobilization of environmental groups in front of the White House. Hundreds of people from around the US are lining up to be arrested (over 500 arrests as of this writing) to raise awareness of the Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline that will carry highly toxic oil from the Alberta tar sands (an environmental catastrophe in and of itself) in Canada, through fragile ecosystems in the US, to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico for global export. The State Department has signed off on the project and it is up to Obama to make the final decision of whether or not the Keystone XL is in the national interest. Climate scientists and environmentalists have declared loudly and clearly that the mining of the tar sands is an enormous "carbon bomb" and is absolutely counter to the urgent need to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.

Obama, remember, has signed deepwater drilling permits in the wake of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. His administration stacked a seven-member advisory panel on gas hydrofracking with insiders from the energy industry. He is a recipient of large campaign contributions from the nuclear industry, and a zealous supporter of it.

It is certainly curious. One could see the racism, hatred and deceit of George Bush and his administration unmasked, not only in the whole of his years-long, bloody war on terror, but also in moments like the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Since he entered office Obama has been cultivating his own hatred and deceit, with his bloated war on terror, his ever-expanding drone bombing programs, and horrifically malfeasant energy projects. His refusal to deal honestly with climate change and his willingness to sign off on one environmental disaster after another begs the question: is there anyone he doesn't hate?







(Post script: have a look at this article from the New York Times, about the devastation from Hurricane/Tropical Storm Irene to communities in Upstate New York and Vermont. It is also typical of the reporting I listened to on NPR over the weekend: devoid of any mention of climate change. It's like reporting "bombs dropped on houses" but failing to mention who dropped the bombs. Oh but I guess they do that too.)

Another Great Insurrection

Among the disappointments out there, some are great, some are small. I want to mention one that is a little smaller than those I usually speak to. Amidst the turmoil in the UK this week, 150 independent record labels have had much of their stock destroyed in a warehouse fire in London. (I imagine those labels will appreciate some digital sales to help them bounce back without putting pressure on them to move physical stock, if you're so inclined.)

In London (and other English cities) there is mass civil unrest that some folks call riots and some folks call insurrection. The initial spark was the institutional racism of the police state and the way it intersects with economic oppression and other class issues. These issues often affect musicians and artists whose work is not expressed in contemporary economic terms.

So I hope that people who love the great music on some of the affected labels can appreciate how important it is to lend sympathies (and solidarity, and material support) to the marginalized over the oppressive. I think it is mindless, privileged drivel to dismiss the unrest and property destruction outright as the work of thugs and criminals. Only politicians and the BBC speak with such willful lack of subtlety or understanding.

There are folks venting legitimate grievances. And surely there are people coasting along and enjoying the chaos. And surely there are brutes in the streets taking advantage of it. But these brutes, it must be said, are far outmatched in their brutishness by the people in power, who wage aggressive war in faraway places, who dangle education beyond the reach of those who need it, who force an eternity of nuclear devastation on the soil and water, who enact policies that further marginalize culturally meaningful pursuits (like making good music and getting it to the public).

I think it is important not to vilify the insurrectionists and their legitimate grievances in the same sentence as we regret the damage seen by these independent labels. What is the incidental burning of records to the intentional burning of villages? Speak of strategy and effectiveness in expressing anti-establishment unrest, sure, but not in the absence of a clear, outright condemnation of a systematically racist political establishment that would burn our records, our instruments, and our children in a flash if it was economically expedient.

The Next Revolution is Now

I just caught this opinion piece by David T. Little in The New York Times. The line of inquiry is eminently fascinating and frustrating to me. After giving some background on himself, Little asks whether music should be political, divides political music into "revolutionary" and "critical" categories, names some historical and contemporary examples, and claims that our "historical moment" is no longer revolutionary. I should clarify he is writing within narrow confines for a series the NYT is running on "21st century classical music". I am still troubled by many of his conclusions, as are some of the commenters online.

I read it and thought "no, no, no". "Political" gets treated as a mannerism, or a device, or something from which to derive content. But music is a social phenomenon. What are the social implications of the way we make music? I don't see this addressed in the piece, and I think this is the most important political question we must ask ourselves as music makers.

We delude ourselves if we think we can walk into the halls of the establishment and decry them to any effect, let alone tear them down -- not to say we shouldn't try. There are repercussions for doing so, of course, and a sense of self-preservation often impels us to find some good in whatever stages we can get access to.

Still, "political" needs to be in the context of our music, not just the content. What are our allegiances? What devils do we make deals with to find an audience? That Thoreau quote I always bring up is relevant here: "Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence." What's the use of writing a piece about the evils of war without calling out, before the concert, after the concert, the names of those who make war?

I imagine that as compensation for the things I say about American politicians I probably won't be invited to perform at the Kennedy Center anytime soon. That's OK. I just hope that by saying those things (like, for example, Obama is a fucking war criminal for the continued indiscriminate drone bombing and night raids perpetrated on civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan) other folks will be encouraged to live lives of political consequence -- to cast their whole influence. Imagine if I wrote my Elegy for the schoolboys at Ghazi Khan and left it at that! You might know about the atrocity at Ghazi Khan -- ten innocent people, nine of them boys, woken from their beds, handcuffed, and executed by US Special Forces in December 2009 -- but you wouldn't have that reminder from one more person, made at every opportunity I have, that such an action is a war crime and Obama bears culpability.

This is a paragraph in which I take a deep breath. (And parenthetically say that my work is not solely devoted to the trial of the current US president, whoever that may be. This is just an example.)

I suppose what I'm feeling at this moment is that the NYT piece that Little penned played it safe. We need to not do that. We can talk about political music, sure, but then let's talk about politicians. Inevitably, we're going to be talking about war criminals. Inevitably. In our music let's do whatever it is that moves and inspires us and moves and inspires our listeners. But when we write about it, about politics, let's get specific, name names, consider actionable offenses, ask how the Nuremburg laws apply, that stuff.

I imagine that, writing for the NYT, Little was not commissioned to think beyond certain self- and externally-imposed borders, specifically those of the economy and etiquette of classical music. Of course music will be politically benign if from the outset we accept the constraints that cause it to be so. "Political" needs to be context, not merely content. Little imagines that this "historical moment" is not revolutionary. But we are amidst many historical moments right now, making music in shiny concert halls and grungy basements and within and around various ideologies. And I think beyond the constraints and the borders imposed by convention, revolution certainly happens, needs to happen, is happening now.

*

PS: h/t to Dutch composer Samuel Vriezen.
PPS: this is a reaction to Little's opinion piece, not Little or his music.

If the music isn't activism, it's the wrong music

Excellent, brief essay by composer John Luther Adams: Global Warming and Art. From the essay:

Three decades ago I came to Alaska to "get away" from the world. But the world has followed me here in an inescapable way. I came here also to help save the wilderness. For years I worked as an environmental activist. When I left that work I did so feeling that someone else could carry it on, but that no one else could make my music. Implicit in this choice was my belief that, in a different way, music could matter as much as activism.

Decay, Destruction and Waste

Note: written for the program book of the fourth edition of new music festival Dag in de Branding. Also appears at the <>TAG website.

Decay, destruction, and waste. I could be writing a history of the decline and fall of an ancient empire. Or a modern empire. Or the much more devastating and long-lived empire of Civilization. But I’m not: I’m describing the twelve hours of new music that make up the fourth edition of the Dag in de Branding Festival.

If you’re inclined to see this red thread of explicit decadence as just so much doom and gloom, I invite you to look more carefully. Albert Camus, a hero of mine who worked in times not unlike our own---times that were and are unfortunately “interesting”---wrote that the greatest art speaks to the time in which it is created. That is exactly what the events in this program do.

This is not doom and gloom. It is an absolutely essential state of the Arts at this interesting moment. Indeed at any moment. I have written elsewhere that artists are the sensory organs of the culture. We are its eyes, its ears, its mouths and its hands. If our works of art fail to recognize the decay, destruction, and waste, then our eyes, ears, and mouths are shut, and our hands are bound. How encouraging then, in these seemingly senseless times, that (some) artists haven’t lost their senses. To rephrase yet another observation of Monsieur Camus, art may dispute reality, but it does not hide from it.

How so? At the start of the program we are brought face to face with the reality of decay in the abstract in Bill Morrison’s film to Michael Gordon’s extraordinary symphony Decasia wherein ancient filmstock is seen suffering the ravages of time. But the work masterfully disputes this reality by preserving the decay itself, turning the visible death of a beloved artifact of industrial civilization into a thing of aesthetic beauty. An underlying question of this work, at least for me, is whether to mourn or celebrate the decay of a culture that has paid for its wonderful creativity with unspeakable environmental devastation.

Or this: the destruction referenced in Bob Ostertag’s music to the Living Cinema project Special Forces is the real destruction that the world silently (and to its great shame) witnessed in Lebanon last summer. Ostertag is never one to hide from the reality of destruction, having earlier brought his Yugoslavia Suite to the Balkans, post-Nato, and Special Forces to Beirut. Yet, I think, he disputes this reality, constantly, by using these works as opportunities for beginning dialogues on the themes he treats. Ostertag disputes the reality of the destruction his work reflects with uncompromising dedication to social justice through and beyond his music.

Or this: Egon Kracht and the Troupe bring us the Faust story as a rock opera (with a nod to Frank Zappa) in The Seduction of Harry Faust. In this updated version, guess how God, Mephisto, and Faust are portrayed? As a media tycoon, his marketing expert son, and a loser they destroy by bringing him into their world, of course. This is right on target for our uber-consumerist, narcissistic, and celebrity-infatuated culture (though I must say, sadly, that satire and reality are more often than not one and the same thing these days).

Or this: Boxing Pushkin, ostensibly about the life of the famous Russian author, consciously throws the audience into the role of spectator. Meanwhile the very definition of freedom, as embodied by Pushkin, seems to be at stake. While this work is perhaps the least overtly connected to our red thread, even a cursory glance at the synopsis (and the battles over Pushkin’s legacy) calls to mind the violence one witnesses done to language to legitimize this or that regime.

Or this: “Waste equals food” write the authors of Cradle to Cradle, a remarkable book that examines natural life cycles and nutrient flows as paradigms for how to reinvent industrial design in environmentally sane and ethically responsible ways. I mention it here in connection with Wasted, the mini-festival of decayed, destroyed, and degraded sounds-turned-breakbeats (and more) hosted by Jason Forrest and Pure. This gathering feeds its audience-participants with energy, exuberance, and catharsis mined from some of the darkest reaches of our culture. What is wasted here and what is eaten, I will not say, nor will I venture to put into words what reality is under dispute.

* * *

“Create dangerously” urged Albert Camus toward the end of his life. The American civil rights and social justice leader Martin Luther King, Jr. declared that “the world is in dire need of creative extremists.” Both were destroyed early by two of the more nefarious designs of Civilization: the automobile and the gun. What a waste.

We may not have asked for this red thread---I mean the red thread of decay, destruction, and waste running through the lives of humans and non-humans, through our values and wound tightly around our planet---but it is what we have and what we are. To present a program of new music revolving around aspects of the decay, destruction, and waste of our culture, our Industrial Civilization, from material to social decay, from self-destruction to the destruction of our neighbors, from the wasting of our planetary environment to the wasting of our youth---to present works that reflect this historical moment is not necessarily to celebrate it, but to recognize it.

It is to come to our senses as listeners, as artists, as social beings.

It is to know who we are, what we are, and what we must do. It is to be awake, alive, and up to the task.

Doom and gloom? If art should be uplifting, and if the world is in fact in dire need of creative extremists, what could be more uplifting than that?

Breaker

These are the lyrics to the new song "Breaker" by Low:

Our bodies break
and the blood just spills and spills
but here we sit debating math.

It's just a shame
my hand just kills and kills
there's got to be an end to that.

There's got to be an end to that.

Strong stuff. The video is here.

This one is for the children

Funny thing happened last week. My thirteen-year-old drum student and her family found my weblog and discovered my not-so-secret life as a foul-mouthed commentator on the wilful destruction of the planet by the high, the mighty and the rest of us.

So this one is for the children, for those innocent people unjustly exposed to radical political views and strong language not suitable for the young. Exposed to ugly ideas. Exposed to sick concepts and vulgar vocabulary. Exposed to dirty words like "Condoleeza", "powersuits", and "AIPAC".

Honestly? I must say I am thrilled that my student and her younger brother were confronted with the unrestrained and justified outrage the writings here generally represent. The drum teacher who shows up once a week is not only the drum teacher, but a concerned human being as well. Young people must be aware of the danger in the world. If I was young it would terrify me to think others were unconcerned, that they failed to be outraged, that they were unmoved to respond to the dangerous world. So I'm perfectly happy they found these words. And of course I am fine with the fact that they know I think both Condoleeza Rice and Hillary Clinton are assholes.

Of course, I hope they will discover a power of language that reaches beyond the cheap and vulgar . . . but kids I can't help it if the US Vice President is a total Dick.

It was funny when suddenly, in the middle of last week's lesson, my student asked if I was a communist. We were working on the drumbeat to a Coldplay song, and she seemed to guess I didn't like the band very much. I mentioned UK environmental writer George Monbiot's strong criticism of the false environmentalism of Coldplay leader Chris Martin. And I said that I thought it was important for musicians to be concerned about the state of the world in real ways, not just as a hook for their songs. She said: "so are you a communist?"

She wasn't kidding.

I thought for a moment about what "communism" meant to me in 1989, when I turned thirteen myself. The "communists", I was brought up to believe, were evil incarnate. They hated freedom and democracy and Jews and color television (sound familiar?). People forced to live under "communist" rule knew deprivation, decay, and despair, and the horrors of an enormous prison-industrial complex (sound familiar?).

I remember thinking that the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Moscow in the mid-80's was a major victory, that Ronald Reagan was fighting to liberate millions of near-starving children from leaders who incessantly threatened the peaceful West with nuclear holocaust. I thought the US was responsible for taking down the Berlin Wall, for Solidarity's triumphs in Poland, and for dismantling the Soviet Union.

Was I a stupid kid? No. Was I specially targeted for indoctrination? You bet. We all were. We all are. Which is why I think it's perfectly fine my student has read her music teacher's angry little articles about officially sanctioned and culturally encouraged political, economic, and environmental violence.

I would be a rotten teacher -- of any subject -- if I didn't encourage my students to think critically, to examine what they're taught, to challenge ideas that they find intuitively repellent.

Just as I want my student to find and develop her own way to play the drums, I hope she will find her own path through the information she is exposed to. At her age I had seen enough Time magazine covers to truly believe that deceitful, murderous Ronald Reagan was fighting against bad guys and for such vaunted concepts as equality, justice, freedom, and democracy. The magazine covers, the network news, pop culture and even the new CNN taught me this while Reagan's administration sent more and more arms and money to (non-communist) blood-thirsty psychopaths around the world.

Don't get me wrong. The bastards running the Soviet Union and its satellites were criminals too. There really was deprivation and despair. The utopian social system really did crumble while some of the same mafioso-types who are running those countries now lined their pockets, spied on people, and threw money at a bloated and unnecessary military (sound familiar?).

It's worth mentioning now that the mistake has always been to see leaders of adversarial countries as real adversaries. Remember: people like Donald Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein belong to the same club, and club members have never been adversaries of each other so much as they have set themselves up as constant adversaries of us. In my moments of greatest optimism I believe we could, if we chose to, cease fighting their wars, cease allowing them to enrich themselves off of the blood of people and the planet. And young people have to know this.

So this is what I said when my student asked if I was a communist: I said it doesn't matter what I am -- I believe that you and I and everyone else have the same rights to food and security and housing, regardless of how we look, where we come from, and where we live. And then I said this is a drum lesson, so let's get back to the beats.

If my young student of the drums continues to search, she may find some of the ideas that I touched upon in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And if she reads it and keeps it in mind when she catches the news or sees Hollywood's latest, I have no doubt she'll become a truly radical drummer.

Love and Ambiguity

"Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality."
---Theodor Adorno

"The greater the ambiguity, the greater the pleasure."
---Milan Kundera


I'm finding governments to be terribly intolerant of ambiguity these days. Just today I was listening to a news broadcast referring to the insistance, by the extraordinarily insane Condoleeza Rice, that Palestinians (and only Palestinians) renounce violence as a prerequisite to peace (or, ostensibly, even modest attempts at human rights guarantees under international law).

Is the US Secretary of State totally out of her fucking gourd or what? How's that for unambiguous? You have to put down your weapons, but the Israelis don't. And we don't. Just you.

As it happens, Israel and the US insist that Iran unambiguously cease its nuclear power program. US Presidential hopeful and all-around rightwing-asshole-in-a-powersuit Hillary Clinton has unambiguously stressed to her sugardaddies at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) that the US will continue to stand with the criminal Israeli government against the people of Palestine. And at her second talk delivered to AIPAC in as many months, Clinton told those assembled: "in dealing with [Iran]...no option can be taken off the table." That's Washington-bullshit for "Yes, I would assert my humanity by dropping atomic bombs on people who live in Iran."

Now Israel, of course, has maintained a policy of ambiguity about its hundreds of nuclear warheads since the 1980's. Israel's is the only nuclear arsenal in the Middle East, other than Dick Cheney's in Iraq.

(Incidentally, here are some talking points by Phyllis Bennis on the Iranian non-issue.)

So this past weekend I went to a noise-music event organized by some people I know in The Hague. As one of the organizers said to me, it was a "package deal", meaning some of the acts he wanted to present were touring with some acts he was less interested in. Most of the music was loud and unfriendly. Difficult, but not thought-provoking. Thoroughly "more-underground-than-thou" and I felt like I was in a scene from a David Lynch film most of the night.

One of the acts involved two costumed men standing behind a table with some electronic music gear on it. Draped over the table was an American flag. One of the performers was dressed up like a "terrorist" (as any typical Hollywood movie-goer would be expected to recognize). The other was dressed up as a US soldier, but with a "scary clown" mask. The music -- poorly constructed feedback and noise -- was also supposed to be "scary". You can sense the subtlety of the group's political critique, right? The performers jumped around a little bit, got in the faces of the audience, and at one point kicked a few beer bottles at those of us standing in the front.

I said to someone, a reader of this very weblog: "these fascist Americans aren't making any friends". I was kidding. At the same moment someone else said "I hate this socialist bullshit." That was funny. At one point an audience member tried half-heartedly to light the flag on fire.

The performers eventually exited the space in a feigned fury, the "terrorist" strangling himself with the American flag. They left all their gear on and loud noise fuming out of strained speakers. Everyone just watched and waited. I hesitated for about ten seconds and then walked to the table and shut off the power. I got some applause for that, and shouted "USA! Number ONE!" I wonder if anybody got it. I wonder if anybody didn't. I left things ambiguous.

I go and see a lot of music and art and lately I find myself asking "where is the love?" (On constant rotation in my cd-player at the moment are discs by Philip Jeck, some of the warmest, most hauntingly nostalgic and beautiful stuff I've heard in a long time. The love is definitely there.)

Not to be mistaken myself, at my solo concert at STEIM earlier this month I mentioned something I had heard in this video of a speech by architect-designer William McDonough. In the video McDonough looks at his audience and asks "How do we love all of the children of all of species for all time?" He presents it as a design question, as a problem for his discipline. I did the same before I began playing.

Well. It's a monumental question. Maybe the question. For any of us. Check out the video to get the proper context.

You know, I don't think the powersuit assholes are working on this question. I don't think the Presidents of this or that or any country are working on this question. Are you? As the planet heats up impossibly and the powersuits prepare more warfare, "security", and economic dominance, at least one thing we need to be unambiguous about is love.

A Man Without a Country

I just finished Kurt Vonnegut's latest book, A Man Without a Country. Superb. In it, Kurt says

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

And Kurt Vonnegut says

Evolution can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet--the only one in the Milky Way--with a century of transportation whoopee.

And he also says

"Socialism" is no more an evil word than "Christianity." Socialism no more prescribed Joseph Stalin and his secret police and shuttered churches than Christianity prescribed the Spanish Inquisition. Christianity and socialism alike, in fact, prescribe a society dedicated to the proposition that all men, women, and children are created equal and shall not starve.

What else?

I have some good news for you and some bad news. The bad news is that the Martians have landed in New York City and are staying at the Waldorf Astoria. The good news is that they only eat homeless men, women, and children of all colors, and they pee gasoline.

But this is not a funny book. Vonnegut says as much himself. To him, this is no time to be funny. I was talking about this with my friend Joel Ryan yesterday, who said that a film like M*A*S*H would be impossible today. Too true. Vonnegut again:

The good Earth--we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.

Vonnegut, at 84, shames the rest of us for our lack of outrage. He obsesses over global meltdown so severe--with his country at the helm--that he cannot even do his job.

I don't think I would be able to do my work if I lived in the United States of America either (although at a very meaningful level, the US is a prison we are all living in). Art springs from context, and I do not think I would be able to produce anything good over there--regardless of whether the Asshole-in-Chief is named George or Hillary. Or Barrack.

That's just a feeling, nothing "anti-American" about it. A few years ago, my good friend Greg Altman visited me here in The Hague. We grew up playing funk music in bars together. Greg is a phenomenal drummer. He produces television shows now. I arranged a gig for us at <>TAG, in fact, it was the first event I curated there. We performed a piece I wrote called Dodging Bullets. A audio waveform of a skipping CD is visible on a large screen, and there are markers with text placed in the waveform to pass by the cursor in the middle of the screen. The music on the CD is aggressive and noisy. The "rule" of the piece is that each time a marker connects with the cursor the musicians must choose from three very simple musical gestures to play. By the end of the piece (twenty minutes later) everybody is wiped out, exhausted. Cathartic stuff.

Anyway a lot of the crowd loved the piece and said as much. Greg was shocked the audience didn't walk out. They would, he felt, in New York. He tells that story whenever we see each other, how we performed this crazy music and people listened. And liked it.

Or this: a week ago I performed in Krakow with Rafal Mazur and Morten Nottelmann. Imagine the worst scenario to try to get people to come listen to a free-jazz trio. Almost no promotion. Snowing. Venue in the middle of nowhere. Hard to get to. Cold. 7PM on a Saturday night. No famous last names on the bill. No bar at the venue. But the people came out. And they enjoyed themselves. In my experience people in Manhattan rarely go to Brooklyn to see live music, regardless of the weather. It's like pulling teeth.

When I first arrived in Krakow to study in 1999 and told people that I was a composer (that's how identified myself then), I would receive the same nod of respect one might get in the States if they were to say they were a doctor . . . with a private practice. It was nice. No one, not a single person in Poland, ever suggested I teach music to make a living (for years that's all I got from people in the US).

It's all just a feeling and I could very well be full of shit. Fact is, I'm not a big fan of countries per se, and I don't mind being a man without one (I would like that residence permit I've been waiting six months for, though, please, already, Dutch bureaucrats). I don't like the idea of the US anymore than I like the idea of The Netherlands, or Poland, or Iraq. I do like the idea of people, different, talking to each other, making things together, trying to dig their way out this hole we're in, that's OK.

As Morten was saying on the way to the gig in Krakow, there are two strata of society, and we operate amongst the people, not amongst the politicians. Yes, and sometimes it can be fun up here.

Busy

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

---George Bernard Shaw


And so it remains the policy of this government to use every lawful and proper tool of intelligence, diplomacy, law enforcement, and military action to do our duty, to find these enemies, and to protect the American people.

---George W. Bush (2007 State of the Union address)


Nice one. And where have I been?

Been busy. In December I finished and exhibited an audiovisual installation (Another World Bank), screened my video Revolution 5 at Resfest, performed a (disastrous) live electronica/live video solo set at the Sugar Factory in Amsterdam, and visited family and friends during New York City's first winter since the 1890's without snow.

In January I played a bit with my old bandmates from the States, produced five short videos for Ensemble Klang, performed and recorded with Matt Wright in Canterbury, and I'll be doing the same this weekend in Krakow with Rafal Mazur and Morten Nottelmann in our trio Stability Group. On the first of February I'll be performing a solo saxophone set at STEIM and joining Kerbaj, Sehnaoui, and Yassin for the second set of their trio gig at <>TAG in The Hague on February 4.

Yes, I'm busy. But I'm not nearly as busy, apparently, as these twisted scumbags in US Army uniforms, armed to the teeth and protecting the known universe from the scourge of terrorism that manifests itself as a lone, defenseless, and crippled dog. As I wrote in a comment on Mickey Z.'s blog where I first saw the video, I wish these assholes all the mercy and compassion they show in their treatment of this poor animal. Then I hope they are torn to shreds by wild dogs.For the sheer amusement of the dogs.

In these busy two months I have necessarily distanced myself from "the news", although I have been observant enough to know that tonight George Bush, undoubtedly one of the worst human beings ever born, announced to the world that he---soulless chickenshit criminal that he is---would send more armed and indoctrinated children to murder and torment people (and other creatures) in Iraq.

I have not been busy enough. The planet's crumbling and we're still putting people like this, like this fascist psychopath Bush, up on pedastals. Adoring him with air time. Showering him with money and power. Letting such people determine how our world works. Surrendering our dignity to their perversions.

Hooray for my busy career. Hooray for yours. But please. We need to get busy. NOW.