BEOGA

How to Tune a Fish

Compass 7-4561-2

****

County Antrim’s Beoga have released their fourth album. The last one was shortlisted for a Grammy, a hard act to follow, but this is a worthy effort. The band’s name means “lively” in Irish, an apt handle for tunes driven by the dual squeeze boxes of Damian McKee and Seán Ό Graham. Their collaboration gives Beoga a distinctive sound in that the accordions drive the melody lines, whilst fiddle and keyboards tend to join Eamon Murray’s bodhran in adding percussive backbeat. There’s lots of raucous racket on this album, though it’s actually a bit more subdued than the previous three. Not that this is a bad thing; the instrumental textures come through with a clarity that can get lost when bands dwell overlong in the midst of fast-paced big sets. Those desiring a funkier edge can find it on “Dolan’s 6 am,” a piece imbued with subtle whimsy and a bit of craic. No review of a Beoga album is complete without expending a few superlatives for the vocals of Niamh Dunne, who doubles as the quintet’s fiddler. She has a lovely voice characterized by clean sound and tones that range from whispers to wallops. She also likes to mix things up and we first hear her on this album doing an all-shucks country-like cover of “Home Cookin’,” a song penned by Rick Danko for The Band. She gives us some pretty stuff as well, including “Woman of No Place,” a tribute to Irish songstress legend Margaret Barry (1917-1989). Dunne stays in the past for her next song, but she travels to vaudeville for her version of the 1909 classic “Come in Out of the Rain.” Nice! Beoga are a band that do small things well and charm our socks off in the process.

Here's a YouTube of them performing on New Zealand TV.

Amira Sings Bosnian Gems

AMIRA MEDUNJANIN

Zumra

World Village 450012

* * *

Zumra is a Bosnian word that translates as “emerald,” a suitable title for this collection of fourteen Balkan gems. Vocalist Amira Medunjanin uses her glorious voice--full of keening, elides, emotion, and power--to interpret classics and standards. For those unfamiliar with Bosnian song--most of you I’d imagine--it’s what you’d get if you crossed fado and Greek music and tossed in a bit of the drama of North African singing. Much of that drama is due to the muscular accordion work of Merima Kljuco, who provides edgy notes off which Amira’s voice leaps and jumps. The duo draw upon the many passions emanating from Bosnia, including those of the heart, those forged on the battlefield, and those that come in dreams. As befits a nation soaked in as much tragedy as Bosnia, longing and loss appear more often than fulfillment and conquest. In fact, much like Bosnia itself, many of the songs are about continuing or unfinished journeys. This recording takes some patience as most listeners will recognize neither the language nor the styles, but it’s worth it--Amira’s voice is a treasure in any language.

Here’s a link to Amira singing “Mujo” from this album.

The Doors Acoustic? Yep. It Actually Works

JAMES LEE STANLEY AND CLIFF EBERHARDT

All Wood and Doors

Beachwood Recordings B004VMX65Y

****

Skepticism doesn’t even begin to describe my initial feelings about this project. Let’s see, let’s take a dozen classics from The Doors and let two folk music veterans cover them—two guys known for their guitar picking no less. Those who remember The Doors will recall it wasn’t a guitar-based ensemble; Robby Krieger played bass more than lead and the band’s distinctive melodies were built around Ray Manzarek’s organ riffs. “It can’t possibly work,” thought I. Wrong! It’s a very fine piece of work and another confirmation that if you’re going to mess with iconic stuff, take it to the limit. Neither Stanley nor Eberhardt seek to channel Jim Morrison, even though Krieger and John Densmore guest on several tracks, as do well-know folks such as Peter Tork (The Monkees), Timothy Schmidt (The Eagles), and Paul Barrere (Little Feat). If anything, a lot of the covers and harmonies evoke a slightly trippier version of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nothing here is quite as you’d anticipate. “Break on Through” has underlying Motown soul peeking through, “Love Me Two Times” feels like a country song, and “Light My Fire” is dreamy and slow. “Crystal Ship” as a folk ballad? Who would have imagined? Crisp guitar licks—mostly done on the “wood” of the album’s title—round out this thoughtful release. It’s way more than just another tribute album; this is a considered rethinking of The Doors—a fresh coat of varnish if you will.

Somewhere Goes Nowhere and Takes Forever to Get There

Somewhere (2010)

Directed and Written by Sofia Coppola

American Zoetrope, 98 mins. Rated R

*

Sofia Coppola’s fourth feature film, Somewhere, won a Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival. From this one can only conclude that the judges spoke no English. The appeal of Sofia Coppola escapes me entirely. Her reputation rests on being the offspring of a real director, Francis Ford Coppola, and for the hype given to a single highly overrated film, Lost in Translation (2003). The latter was so enhanced by Bill Murray’s droll performance that many reviewers were blinded by a script as lightweight as gossamer. It seems like an anvil compared to the inconsequential boredom of Somewhere, a film that goes nowhere--slowly.

Pay attention to the opening sequence of Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff) driving his expensive black Ferrari in circles. It lasts about three minutes and then Marco parks and steps out of the car. End of sequence. Pay attention because that’s absolutely riveting stuff compared to the rest of the film. (It’s also supposed to foreshadow something weighty, though it doesn’t.) Marco, it seems, is a disaffected Hollywood superstar. When he breaks his arm in a fall, he suddenly becomes aware that life in Hollywood is shallow. (Imagine!) Marco has become the kind of guy who falls asleep watching a private pole dance or whilst administering oral sex, and we’re to conclude that ennui, not painkillers, is to blame. So what will make Johnny Marco a whole man again? Why reconnecting with Cleo (Elle Fanning), the eleven-year-old daughter he had with his ex-wife. The latter has a mysterious (contrived?) mental collapse that forces Marco to take temporary custody of Cleo.

Because Johnny is a big star and has commitments he must honor, Cleo goes on tour with him. Insofar as I can tell, most of the film’s $8 million budget was blown on the Italian sojourn part of the road trip. Too bad; Coppola could have used some of the dough to hire a real scriptwriter. Here’s the film’s revelation, which I give away because I don’t want you to spend your time watching it: Johnny discovers that being a father is what’s missing in his life. He doesn’t want to have sex with any of the bare-breasted women who throw themselves at him. He couldn’t care less about the flash, fame, and fine food that surrounds him. He’d rather duck into an old church with Cleo. (Well who wouldn’t, eh?) That’s it--the whole film….

What the hell is this, a Hollywood version of a Family Values Epiphany? (I doubt that the Christian Right is watching.) Okay, fine, Johnny reconnects with his daughter. I’m sure this happens, though I suspect that most out-of-control thirty-seven-year-olds seek wisdom from mentors older than eleven. Somewhere isn’t as unrelentingly awful as Marie Antoinette (2006), Coppola’s previous film, but only because it didn’t have the budget to be as extravagant in its vacuity. Will someone please tell Coppola that she’s forty now and needs to make movies would more depth than the MTV videos she used to make. It’s also time to stop riding the old man’s coattails. I can’t escape the feeling that if her last name was Prole she’s the sort who would have earned a C in filmmaking at some second-rate arts college. Remove its accreditation if she gets above an F in scriptwriting.

Postscript: Apparently the public agrees with me. This film earned less than $2 million in its American and European release. It has made costs thanks to video residuals, but let me urge you again to avoid it lest you inadvertently encourage Sofia Coppola to make another feature.

Carmageddon Hoax Shows Media at Its laziest

Did the “Carmageddon” story capture anyone else’s imagination? I don’t mean did you hear about it, I mean did it strike you as lame as it struck me? Forget for a moment that it was as big a nonevent as Y2K or the (non) end of the world on May 21. Allow me to introduce another element and label all three as examples of how pathetic “news” coverage has been in recent years.

Carmageddon was never a real thing; it was a media invention from the get-go. In the golden (pun intended) days of yellow journalism, media sources creating stories out of thin air at least had the good grace to bring their inventions to life. The most infamous version of this occurred when William Randolph Hearst sent Stephen Crane to Cuba in 1898 to report on the “war” for independence from Spain. Crane arrived in tranquil Havana and cabled Hearst to report there was no war. Hearst was alleged to have wired back, “You provide story. I’ll provide war.” Maybe that’s apocryphal, but few historians doubt Hearst’s role in providing the drums that war hawks subsequently beat.

I’m not advocating that reporters start wars, but I would like them to get off their lazy rear ends and report on matters that require investigation and research more grueling than a half hour on Google. Carmageddon was perfect for the current breed of smug and sardonic typists. (They do not warrant the titles “reporter” or “journalist.”) First invent a phenomenon. Hey that’s a story. Then report on the buildup to the invented event--a second story. When nothing comes of nothing, story three becomes the reaction to what didn’t happen. Pretty neat--three stories without ever having to stray from the blue light of the computer monitor and the deskside stash of Cheese Doodles.

Where are the new Bob Woodwards and Carl Bernsteins? If Watergate happened today, who would have the patience to investigate a story for nearly two years? Yeah, I know; Mother Jones, The Nation, and one or two others still do this sort of thing, but who (besides me) reads these? What impact do they have? The mainstream media has practically much abdicated investigative reporting. Celebrity and junk news is so much more glamorous and so much less work. If one must go out into the field, by all means be embedded with your sources. That way all you have to do is cut and paste rather than check out the veracity of what’s being spoon-fed.

So what goes uninvestigated unreported? Only serious stuff like who’s behind the drive to gut Social Security. Wouldn’t you like to know about the network that convinces Americans that it would be a disaster to make rich people pay taxes? Wouldn’t it be nice to pull a Watergate and “follow the money” to see how bankers, investors, and CEOs managed to jam the T.A.R.P. bill down our throats and take billions from our pockets? How about why Pakistan still gets any U.S. aid? Where is the ongoing analysis of America’s failed mission in Iraq? Or the faux reasons for getting us there? Where are the critical voices questioning the presumption of a rise in “democracy” in the Middle East? I could name dozens of other stories that beg for investigation, but we don’t get them because, “Oh my God! It’s Carmageddon.” You can pretty much guarantee that if Carmageddon or the end of the world does happen, you won’t read about it in the paper or see it on TV. It will probably get reported on an obscure blog like this one. If you’re lucky, you’ll hear a rumor.

The Dim Bulbs of Congress

A new GOP trademark?

There are ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and against global terrorism. The budget runs out on August 2, and unemployment stands at nearly 10 percent. If you believe rightwing pundits, presidential hopeful Michele Bachman, and dim Republicans in Congress, though, the most pressing issue of our times is the right to buy energy-inefficient light bulbs.

In case you’re one of those Americans (God bless you!) who doesn’t fall pretty to what journalist Susan Jacoby astutely calls the “culture of distraction,” the GOP is trying to generate resource-depleting heat over the end-of-the-year ban of the sale of incandescent light bulbs; a 2007 law mandates that these will be withdrawn from the market and replaced by halogen or compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) that use less energy--generally about one-third less. To red-meat Republicans this isn’t an environmental bill; it’s just another needless government intrusion in our lives. Even worse, they argue, it’s a liberal-led plot to create the Big Brother State and destroy American liberty. Every Republican in the House voted to repeal the 2007 law. (It passed 233-193, far short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto.)

We have often railed against the culture of stupidity on this blog, but the light bulb kerfuffle takes us into deeper realms of darkness. As it so happens, we had an energy audit done on our home just before Bad Bulb Bachman went on her rant. We replaced all the incandescents left in our home, and the energy savings are real, not liberal fantasies. Every four bulbs you replace saves an average of $25 per year, even when one factors in the higher costs of CFCs. The payoff time for a CFC is just nine months and they last, on average, six to eight times longer than incandescent bulbs. Yes, they contain mercury, which is why you have to recycle them, not dump them in the trash. But I suppose recycling is another government intrusion.

GOP antigovernment rants have long crossed the border between cautionary and paranoiac. They’re also philosophically and politically unsound. Antigovernment activists (be they libertarians or anarchists) constantly confuse liberty, the freedom to move between socially sanctioned constraints, with libertinism, the right to do as one wishes without external controls. Rightwing libertines would--except in cases involving their own agenda--set individuals adrift in a Social Darwinian society in which the only rule is the right to do whatever the hell they want. Civil society doesn’t work that way. One of government’s roles is to “promote the public welfare.” (Look it up; it’s in theConstitution the Right references but never reads.) This is why, in recent history, we have passed things such as the Clean Air and the Clean Water Acts, both of which many Republicans wish to overturn. Promoting the general welfare is why we have criminal laws and civil statutes such as speed limits, food inspection, and building codes. Yes, sometimes the general welfare makes us do things we don’t wish to do, like stick a catalytic converter on our car or not smoke in public, but you might have noticed that none of the Doomsday scenarios predicted by ranters ever seem to materialize. (In our town, restaurant profits went up when smoking disappeared.)

I’d like to know what sort of logic says that government can’t mandate a consumer preference--which it does all the time through dozens of federal laws--but that it should take away a woman’s right to control her own body, forbid gay marriage, or impose school prayer. I’d also like to know why it’s all right for consumer choice to be abridged by private industry, but not government fiat. Did you vote on the decision of cable companies to dump analog in favor of digital, thereby rendering your faithful old Zenith incapable of receiving TV signals and necessitating the purchase of an expensive flat screen set? Were you in on the plan to replace self-maintained windup watches with those using batteries that only a jeweler can replace? Have you cast a ballot over the price of heating oil? Interest rates? And don’t give us that free-market dollar-vote nonsense, or we’ll invite you to cast that dollar vote and sit in the dark if you don’t like CFCs.

The discussion over light bulbs is so stupid that it’s a shame to waste 760 words on it. The only serious question it raises is whether there are any adults left in Republican Party leadership ranks. From where we sit, it looks like the party is controlled by burnt-out ten-watt incandescents.

Clark Exhibit on Pissarro Humanizes Impressionism

Pissarro’s People

Through October 2, 2011

Clark Institute of Art

Williamstown, MA

If one had to anoint a single artistic style as the global favorite, a strong case could be made for impressionism. Indeed, it’s so popular (and ubiquitous) that it runs the risk of stupefying modern viewers. We rush into galleries, seek the Monets, Renoirs, Cézannes, and so on, stand before them, drink in their colors, and enjoy our vicarious brushes with greatness. But do we see them? Do we get beneath the surface? Do we understand why or how they changed art history? Taking in the new exhibit at the Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts is a step in the right direction of reevaluating impressionism.

Impressionism was, of course, a French movement of trained young artists rejected by the official salon seeking recognition. It thus comes as an initial surprise to learn that the one painter--Camille Pissarro--who took part in all eight impressionist exhibits between 1874 and 1888 wasn’t a precocious youth, wasn’t French, and was a Jewish anarchist to boot. Pissarro (1830-1903) was older than his impressionist compatriots and his Danish nationality--he was born in the Danish West Indies--his anarchism and his secular Judaism made him an outsider in the France of the Dreyfus Affair and Third Republic crackdowns on radicals. Pissarro’s anarchism was not the bomb-throwing kind; he was a utopian who idealized plebeian life and dreamed of a future in which peasant life was one part hard work and several parts idyllic leisure. He sought to make the personal political and often frontloaded his paintings with his anarchist vision. Like so many aspects of impressionism, today’s viewers can easily forget how radical these images were in their day.

The Clark wisely focuses its exhibit not on the grand boulevards and tranquil landscapes with which Pissarro is now most remembered, but with his paintings of people: family members, friends, Normandy neighbors, and--when he finally acquired some discretionary income (he was never wealthy), his household staff. He treated the latter as equals; among the most radical aspects of this exhibit--aside from a seldom-discussed illustrated anarchist primer he made to instruct younger family members--are paintings of peasants and domestic workers at rest. A personal favorite is one of a young woman wholly focused on drinking her café au lait, a scene that might seem banal unless one knew about what passed for normal in master/servant relations outside the Pissarro household.

None of the works in the Clark show are “famous” in the sense that they would normally be part of a Pissarro retrospective, and quite a few of them are ones you’d not know were his without the signature: early figure drawings, market scenes with cartoon-like coloring, and works that stray from what we think of as impressionism, including some that approach pointillism. (Pissarro befriended Georges Seurat and famously badgered him to revise “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”) Not dwelling on iconic work helps us see Pissarro in a fresh light. He was an artist who worked in various media (oil, gouache, Conté crayon, charcoal, ink) and one whose brush strokes ranged from freestyle strokes to Van Gogh-like thick layers to images comprised of carefully calculated right-angled lines. On a single canvass he painted a peasant surrounded by cabbages, some “impressionistically” rendered by looping sweeps of his brush, and others of thousands of finely rendered tiny flecks of green and white paint.

If impressionism had a leader, it was Pissarro. The beauty of the Clark exhibit is that we get a better understanding of why everyone from Monet to Van Gogh tracked down Pissarro to discuss painting. Sometimes clues reside in ordinary details, not big spectacles. This exhibit is rare in having several paintings accompanied by all of the studies that preceded them. In the end, though, it’s not the sketches or the canvases that are Pissarro’s enduring legacy; it is the connection he made with his subjects. “Pissarro’s People” humanizes impressionism and strips away its clichés.

Congratulations to the Clark for cobbling together so many works from private collections and “lesser” works from museums such as Oxford’s Ashmolean and Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam. The museum has even spruced up its own buttoned-down image a bit by sprinkling the grounds with Pissarro tableaux fashioned from cloth and straw. If you’re anywhere near Williamstown before October 2, carve out a few hours for this show. And while you’re at it, clamber up the hill to the Stone Center to see Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui’s stunning large-scale flowing curtains fashioned from entirely of the bands from alcohol bottles. Trust me--you’ll be astonished.