Guadi Galego's Galician Feminism

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GUADI GALEGO

lúas de outubro e agosto

Fol 1078

Mention "Celtic lands," and chances are good few will mention Galicia–a northwestern region of Spain that bleeds into northern Portugal. That is unless you come from there, like Guadi Galego, who has devoted much of her musical career exploring its tunes and singing in the Galician language–an Indo-European Romance language that includes Celtic and Germanic vocabulary. For 18 years Galego played bagpipes and sang with Berroguito, an important regional Celtic-influenced band. These days, though, Galego is as apt to champion activist feminism as Celtic culture. For her second solo album, Galego takes up the cause of Galician mothers, whom she views as trapped within a capitalist, patriarchal, macho model of maternity. She's also expanded her musical palette on an album that freely mixes folk melodies, pop rhythms, jazzy torch singing, and arrangements that skirt the borders of theatricality–sometimes within the same song.

The album title translates "Moons of October and August" and pays tribute to the months in which she gave birth to her two sons. Those boys better grow up to be feminists, as Galego puts that spin on everything everywhere. "Matriarchas" was written as homage to the three Mirabal sisters murdered in 1960 for their opposition to Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. (Dominicans often view this as a key moment in the slow transition to democracy. Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, just five months later.)  It's one of Galego's hybridized tunes, one that begins quietly and mournfully, but she uses the considerable power of her voice to build it, add instruments and voices to the mix, and increase the drama. The album's opening track, "Merguillei," is similar in feel—quiet, then big. Is it folk? Pop? More the latter, I think, and that too is intentional. Galego has particular affinity for working women–the ones often pressured to find an impossible balance between work, parenthood, and an outside life that she insists includes the disco. Her drum-looped "Chea de Vida" and "Aromas de Terra" are so much in the pop vein that were they in English you might think them lifted from Robyn's dance club repertoire. But then what does one make of gentle songs such as "Pernoctei" or "O Muro," the first what you might get if you crossed smoky jazz with a flamenco singing; and the latter soulful and subdued? The last song translates "O Wall," and that's perhaps the best way to think of this album. Ms. Galego is no respecter of boundaries, including those dictated by men, commerce, or musical genres.

Rob Weir

Family and Irish Sagas from Sean O' hEanaigh

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Séan Ó hÉanaigh

The Tides that Bind Fånaíocht

Cló lar-Chonnacht 002

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With a name like Séan Ó hÉanaigh, d'ye think he might be Irish? hÉanaigh has a distinguished musical pedigree. He was born in Boston to Irish parents who moved the family back to Connemara when Séan was just ten. He literally grew up with music through recordings, live music, the radio, family gatherings, and sing-alongs with his mother, Kate, who collected and compiled songs in a big red notebook. Oh, by the way, hÉanaigh is Irish for Heaney and his uncle was the legendary Galway sean nós singer Joe Heaney (1919-84). In his youth, hÉanaigh has made a fair mount of music on his own, though this is his first album since 1992. Since then he's produced recordings, promoted Irish music, and co-hosted a radio show with Scots Gaelic singer Mary Ann Kennedy.

The Tides that Bind is apt on all levels. The cover sports a picture of the boat that returned his family to Connemara in 1966, and many of the songs are plucked from his mother's notebook or learnt from his uncle. There are also three English language songs, four originals, and two in Scots Gaelic that he learned from Kennedy. Kennedy appears on this album to play harp and sing backup vocals, as do other well-regarded musicians, including Allan Henderson (Blazin' Fiddles), Blair Douglas (Runrig), and Findlay Napier (Back of the Moon). But this is a wistful album, not one that spotlights virtuoso performances. hÉanaigh  has some miles on his voice, but he uses that to his advantage to evoke a homespun feel.  Akin to an intimate house concert, hÉanaigh wends his way through some Irish love songs learned from his mother ("Buachaill Caol Ard," "Brid Thomáís Mhurchadha") and intersperses change of mood and pace songs. For instance, a hÉanaigh original, "Óro mo Stórín," a regretful song of lost love, segues to "Time are Changing," his cheery English language song about a relationship that has endured the twists and turns of life's paths. He follows the well-known tragic song "A Nobleman's Wedding" (learned from Joe Heaney) with a bouncy Irish song in which he imagines the mayhem that ensues in a mix of a soldier, a tailor, and a lass. My personal favorite, though, is the more sombre "Bóthar An  Bhláth Buí" in which hÉanaigh muses upon the sorrows that lie amidst the rocky ruins of old cottages and abandoned fields. He also ends on a doleful note, his cover of "The Banks of the Lee" (which, of course, he learned from his uncle). So there it is: love, joy, and sorrow, the ebb and flow of life–the tides that bind. Rob Weir

The Onlies: Young Band on the Rise

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THE ONLIES

Long Before Light

Soft Day Records 003

Within recent memory, grizzled vets of the folk music scene were worried that both performers and audiences were getting too gray for the future health of the music. These days, there is such a wealth of new talent that observers wonder how all these promising upstarts can attract attention in an increasingly crowded field. This is especially vexing given that so many new bands have gravitated to bluegrass and old-time music. Sociologists can probably make a case that nostalgia is attractive when the future is uncertain, but I prefer the simpler explanation that young people are attracted to bluegrass energy, the rhythms of old-time music, and the time-honed gravitas of trad. Enter the Seattle-based trio (and occasional quartet) The Onlies, who specialize in all three and share an additional love of Celtic music.

If there is a single prerequisite for gaining attention, it's that you need to be very good at what you do. Music is like top-drawer spirits; it gets better over time. But wait! The Onlies–guitarist Leo Shannon, fiddler/banjoist Riley Calagno, and fiddler Sami Braman– are still in high school. True, but all three have played together since they were in grade school. And lord knows that they share good role models: Darol Anger, Liz Carroll, Bruce Molsky, Alaisdair Fraser, Brittany Haas, Tommy Jarrell…. Moreover, if the fiddle-centric Long Before Light is any indication, they already possess more poise than many of their elders. The Onlies exercise their interest in Celtic music on "Moll Ha' Penny," a set of two Irish tunes, and again on "Freddy's," a New Breton delicacy written by the late John Morris Rankin. We can also hear Tommy Jarrell's influence on "Cheese Closet," a deliberately raw tune penned by Shannon. He also does a nice job on the old-time standard "Jubilee," a song popularized by Doc Watson. But one of the one precocious things about this album is that 60% of its fifteen tracks are originals. That list includes Colcagno's "Skipping Stones," a lovely little song onto which Braman appends "North Fork," a pick-'em-up-lively fiddle tune of her own composition. Together with sweet harmonies it makes for one of those earworms you're happy to invite into your head. It's emblematic of most of the selections on the album: joyous, earnest, and nimble. Let me address the gorilla in the room, though. Does one also hear youthful inexperience? Mostly no, though there is, of course, room for growth. The harmony singing is much better than the leads at present, and a few of the tunes could benefit from being more adventuresome. Sure. Now ask yourself what you were doing in high school! Then listen to this CD and repeat after me: "The kids are alright. The kids are alright….."

Rob Weir

Here's a YouTube live performance.

Western MA Banish Misfortune's Homegrown Celtic Music

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BANISH MISFORTUNE

No Strangers Here

Self-Produced

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Since time immemorial Celtic music has been learned, honed, and perfected in gatherings known as sessions–informal get-togethers held in kitchens and pubs. The Western Massachusetts sextet Banish Misfortune is such a band. I can recall hearing them in the early days when some of them were learning new instruments and, other than being mostly in the same key, much of what they did was play around each other rather than with each other. To paraphrase an old advertising slogan, baby look at them now. That’s how sessions work—tunes are shared, ideas get discussed, kinks are worked out, and before you know it, synergies emerge. Banish Misfortune now takes its show on the road and you can literally feel the musical pulse getting stronger. Also firmly within the sessions spirit, many of the tunes we here are drawn from a traditional well and are familiar—community-based music is rooted in participation, not showcasing. For instance, the band opens with a familiar Turlough O'Carolan tune "Planxty Fanny Power," a perfect set piece for a coordinated mix of fiddle, flute, whistle, accordion and guitar. The famed blind Irish harper gets covered again later on, though "Máire Dhall" is given a quieter solo flute treatment from T. J. Ezold, before the band joins back in for a spritely take on "Rolling in the Rye Grass." Most of the tunes covered are traditional jigs, reels, and waltzes. Especially strong are the "Pigeon on the Gate" and "Silver Spear" sets, both of which are lively and finish big. The vocals on this CD are likewise plucked from old fields and includes: "Rambling Irishman," "Wild Mountain Thyme," and "Isle of Innisfree." The vocals can charitably be described as more heartfelt and earnest than smooth or polished, but keep in mind that everything on this album comes from people with others lives and are not professional musicians. Even the rougher moments are in keeping with the idea that music not shared is just a monolog. –Rob Weir

Postscript: The band discussed above is from Western Massachusetts. Here is their Facebook page. The name comes from one of the best known of all Irish jigs, hence there are numerous bands bearing the same name in North American, England, and Ireland.Also, for those unfamiliar with the term, "planxty" means a tune written as a tribute to another person.

Disclaimer: I have known guitarist David Meuser for many years. He's a great guy, like everyone in the lineup except for Kira Jewett, who is a great gal!

Overlooked Fims: The Monuments Men

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THE MONUMENTS MEN (2014)

Directed by George Clooney

Columbia Pictures, 118 minutes, PG-13

* * *

Great story in a not-so-great film

I avoided this one when it came out because I heard it wasn't very good. That's true. It's also not terrible—it's a classic Hollywood middle-of-the-road star vehicle. It's riddled with problems, but it's also a good way to pass a few hours on a slow night. (I saw it after a heavy meal on an evening too cool to walk it off!)

The Monuments Men is based (all too) loosely on the eponymous non-fiction book by Robert Edsel, which recounts the fascinating story of Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives (MFAA) program formed in the waning days of World War II. As most know, the Nazis looted tens of thousands of works of art from museums and homes in vanquished lands. All were destined for what was supposed to be the crowning jewel of Hitler's Third Reich: a massive Fuhrermuseum in Berlin. By 1944, it was clear that would not happen and rumors circulated of Hitler's "Nero decree" to destroy everything if the Reich fell. The Monuments Men were charged with finding and saving as much as they could. Especially at risk was "degenerate art" created by Jews and those considered to be of low character (like Van Gogh).

There were several dozen Monuments Men, but Clooney's film reduces them to a gang of seven, of whom all are composite figures except for Clooney in the role of Frank Stokes and Jean Dujardin (of "The Artist") in the role of Jean Claude Clermont. The rest of the cast was chosen largely for their star power: Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Hugh Bonneville ("Downton Abbey"), Bob Balaba, and Dimitri Leonidas. Cate Blanchett appears as Claire Simone, an art curator in Occupied France forced to aid the Nazis, though that character is also based loosely on others. What ensues is a combination buddy film and race against time, with pieces of art such as the Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna holding (often heavy-handed) metaphorical significance.

Keep in mind that this film takes more liberties than a drunken sailor. It is decidedly not an accurate historical telling of the MFAA program; for that you need to go to Edsel, where you'll find out, among other things, that a lot of the art was saved by either intrepid locals or by guilt-ridden Nazis who defied orders to destroy it. It is also fair to chide Clooney for shifting the focus from the art to male bonding rituals. One might forgive him for this too, if he hadn't scripted much of those relationships as if they were an extended Hogan's Heroes episode. It was also a mistake to cast so many well-known actors. Put simply, you don't hire Blanchett, Damon, Goodman, et. al. and not give them screen time. The film feels cluttered, despite the fact that the major characters were pared in number. 

All of this is to say that The Monuments Men isn't great filmmaking. It is, however, a terrific story about a little-known subject whose history should be told. Recent acts of art barbarism committed by groups such as the Taliban and ISIS are poignant reminders of the fragility of what gets labeled "civilization." Would that Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq had their own Monuments Men to protect their heritage from modern-day fascists in headscarves.

The Monuments Men is an imperfect telling of a heroic effort. At times Clooney's direction borders on inept and he sure as hell could have used some scholars to prevent him from making freshman mistakes (like color slides in the 1940s). But the next time you admire a Monet, a Van Gogh, a Klimt, a Raphael, or a Rembrandt, think of the MFAA. For all its flaws, The Monuments Men reminds us of what could have been lost forever. Like I said, an imperfect telling, but an important tale.—Rob Weir

Tintseltown: Hollywood's Always Been a Tough Town!

Tintseltown: Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood. By William J. Mann. New York: Harper, 2014.

Who killed Billy Taylor? Investigators, conspiracy theorists, and scholars have been asking this question since 1922, when William Desmond Taylor, president of the Motion Pictures Directors Association, was discovered in his Los Angeles bungalow with a .38 slug fired from close range lodged in his body. Writer William J. Mann–known for his biographies of Hollywood luminaries such as Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand–is the latest to finger a culprit. Although be builds a meticulous case for his suspect, he probably won't convince those invested in a different suspect. It's of little consequence, as the greater value of Mann's lies in its vivid portrayal of Hollywood in the silent era. 

Celebrity scandals, infidelity, substance abuse, bad behavior, and innuendo are the lifeblood of today's tabloid- and paparazzi-fueled culture, but those who consider Hollywood to be a modern-day Gomorrah will learn from Mann's book that it was always thus. His Hollywood is a literal Tintseltown–shiny and glamorous on the surface, but with a tawdry interior of casual sex, rampant drug use, ruthless ambition, backroom abortions, hard drinking, and poorly kept secrets. The biggest difference between then and now is that there were more powerful Americans disgusted by Hollywood immorality than fascinated by it. The history of the 1920s is often poorly refracted through a Jazz Age lens, a perspective that pays too little attention to surging fundamentalism, Prohibition, social intolerance, and the disproportionate political power held by rural conservatives. In short, powerful groups of religious and political moralists sought to cleanse American society and Hollywood was one of their main targets.

In 1922, the Hollywood film industry was not yet a decade old and movies themselves not much older. As numerous film historians have noted, early films were often more risqué than they would become when movies migrated from down-market working-class neighborhoods and into middle-class theaters. Not coincidentally, the industry consolidated into precisely the vertical monopolies attacked by Progressive Era reformers. By 1922, Adolph Zukor's Paramount Pictures was aptly named, and Zukor was so powerful that friends and foes alike nicknamed him "Creepy." Among Mann's fascinating insights is Zukor's megalomaniacal obsession with rival, Marcus Loew, who was as affable as Zukor was cold.

Zukor 's greatest insight was his realization that changing Hollywood's image was necessary to fend off regulators and moralists. Hollywood had serious PR problems, including starlet Mabel Normand's publicized cocaine addiction, Wallace Reid's dependence on morphine, the poisoning death of Olive Thomas, and the rape/murder accusation against comic actor Fatty Arbuckle, one of Hollywood's biggest stars. Although acquitted, Zukor sacrificed Arbuckle's career to keep moralists at bay. He also engineered the elevation of Will Hays to the post of president of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors of America in charge of censoring movie content–just enough to get regulators off Zukor's back, but not enough to dull salacious consumers. Mann argues that Hays was not the prude of legend. He took his job seriously but, if anything, he was star-struck and prone to follow Zukor's lead.

Director Billy Taylor was a fulcrum around which all that was promising and unseemly about Hollywood revolved. Mabel Normand, the last person known to see Taylor alive, acted in several Taylor films and, depending on whom one asked, was either a dear friend, a former lover, or a murderous revenge-seeker. She certainly kindled the jealousy of Mary Miles Minter, an ingénue in love with and obsessed by Taylor. Minter was also rumored to be a Taylor paramour–troubling, as she would have been just 16 when their alleged affair began. Minter's stage mother, former Broadway actress Charlotte Selby, believed the scuttlebutt and made numerous threats against Taylor. Margaret Gibson also harbored a grudge; she made four films for Taylor under the name of Patricia Palmer, before he dumped her because of a reprobate life that included running con games, consorting with organized crime, prostitution, and drug use. And Taylor had a passel of secrets of his own, including his birth identity and his bisexuality. The latter cast suspicion upon his flamboyantly gay black valet, but Gibson made a deathbed confession to the murder in 1964. Mann isn't buying any of those suspects and identifies a different culprit.

Tintseltown is a real-life Day of the Locust. It's a history book and could be usefully pared back in length, but it is frequently as gripping as a work of fiction. Mann shows that the Hollywood Dream Machine has always been just a fantasy.

Rob Weir

Overlooked Films: Still Alice

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STILL ALICE (2014)

Directed (and screenplay by) Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland

Sony Pictures, 101 minutes, PG-13

* * *

Julianne Moore won a Best Actress Academy Award for the title role of Still Alice, but there wasn't much Oscar magic in it; the film made a paltry $18.6 million in the U.S. market. Audiences did not flock to a  film about a vibrant 50-year-old Colombia professor prematurely felled by Alzheimer's disease. I ducked for a highly personal reason: my mother died of Alzheimer's and I feared that Hollywood would somehow present this faith-shaking malady with more hope and dignity than it merited. I also needed more emotional distance between my mother's death and the subject.

I am happy to report that, for the most part, this film—which is based upon Lisa Genora's best-selling 2007 novel–does a fairly honest job with Alzheimer's devastation. At several junctures, Alice is filmed as if all around her is hazy and indistinct, which accords with how I think my mother experienced things up to the moment where she didn't experience much of anything. Glatzer and Westmoreland also do a credible job of showing how families are cast into helplessness as the inevitable takes its course–in Alice's case her husband, John (Alec Baldwin), and their three children: Lydia (Kristen Stewart), Anna (Kate Bosworth), and Tom (Hunter Parrish). The directors try to provide back stories for each character, but the film is, by necessity, all about Alice. Moore is very good in the role. She's gorgeous, but not part of Hollywood's shiny wrapper/empty head crowd. Thus, she's totally believable as both a whip smart linguistics prof and as a desperate woman victim watching herself disappear piece by tiny piece. In one of the more remarkable transformations, Moore diminishes herself physically from a coiffed pulled-together Ivy Leaguer to a bedraggled lost soul–and she does so through sheer acting, not a bunch of make-up tricks. Her hollow eyes tell us all we need to know, as we watch the lights turn off.

Objectively speaking, though, Still Alice is merely a middle-of-the-road film. A good friend commented that it's a bit too obviously a Julianne Moore star turn and I find that fair commentary. Aside from Kristen Stewart–who has the chops to become this generation's Julianne Moore–no one else has much to do in the film. Frankly, the film also raises skeptical hackles. Alice is saddled with extremely rare Familial Alzheimer's. This explains her early onset Alzheimer's, but it's also convenient in that a bankable star such as Moore can play the part rather than someone who would appeal only to older viewers. This was, of course, how Genova wrote the novel upon which the movie is based, but it also means we do not see a 'typical' Alzheimer's profile.

I will give the directors a pass on this issue, but I cannot declare Still Alice the best film you can see about dementia*.  But that too can be forgiven as the competition is two genuine masterpieces: "Away From Her," Sarah Polley's stunning 2006 directorial debut–with Julie Christie every bit Moore's equal in the lead role–and Amour (2012) with the transcendent Emmanuelle Riva as a woman whose stroke leads her to descend into depression and (probably) dementia. Director Michael Haneke's Amour does something that Still Alice fails to do: ask what love (amour) means and what you would do in its name. Let's just say that Alec Baldwin is no Jean-Louis Trintignant when it comes to knowing what his wife would have wished.

Still Alice is a hard film, though if you can only stomach one movie about losing mental faculties, this one is the easiest of the lot. One can debate whether Moore's performance was Oscar worthy or simply just very good, but it's fine enough to justify watching the movie. After you do, pour yourself a stiff drink and give thanks for each day you live in which the only haze you endure is the one your sip from the glass.

Rob Weir

*No matter what Hollywood tells you, Alzheimer's, even the Familial variety, can only be definitively diagnosed posthumously. It is generally labeled via symptoms, but as long as the patient lives, the lines between Alzheimer's, severe depression, and other forms of dementia are, if I may, hazy.