Summer’s not over yet, Best of the Fests yet to come- Electronicaboriginal, maybe?

When you think of music festivals, in the US at least, you probably think of Coachella or Lollapalooza, maybe Bonnaroo, all of which boast of daily attendance numbers well into five figures, with overall totals into six.  This pales in comparison with many of those in Europe, though, at least half a dozen of which show numbers well above that, with Glastonbury UK topping the list at some 175, 000 souls per day.  Of course ‘Hardly Strictly Bluegrass’ festival in San Francisco this month might have that many if anybody bothered to count.  It being a free festival, the only numbers are from the crowd controllers, i.e. police estimates.  Nevertheless, Europe has so many festivals- in an area half the size of the US with twice the population- that it becomes something of a Mecca for many US bands looking to make hay while the sun shines.  This leaves US fests to concentrate more on, how do you say, the ‘indie’ groups?  Yes, with the exception of Bogota’s major festival, you would recognize the names of many, if not most, of the acts at the biggest festivals worldwide.  We’re the jugglers and the clowns.

If you’re looking for ‘world music’ fests- (sound of loooong needle scratch on vinyl LP)- the selection goes way down way fast.  Peter Gabriel’s WOMAD festivals set the standard worldwide, with long-running events in UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, and elsewhere subject to local funding, Dubai being one of the newer more interesting offerings.   Here stateside it’s pretty grim for the most part.  We create most of the world’s music, remember, along with the UK, so there’s not much initiative to look elsewhere.  ‘World music’ itself- music of other languages, cultures, and traditions besides the predominant Anglo one- come largely from the ex-pat African and Latino communities in our largest cities, and France, in addition to major ‘emerging countries’ themselves, such as India, Brazil, and Mexico.  People gotta’ eat.  Besides that the best music in the world today probably comes from tiny remote impoverished Islamic Mali, the landlocked heart of West Africa, the jigsaw puzzle piece linking African communities black and semitic, woodlands and desert.  

!Globalquerque!, in (almost) equally remote and scenic Albuquerque, NM is one of the best world music festivals in the US.  This year’s festival takes place on 9/16-17 and features such top world music acts as Los Amigos Invisibles, Cedric Watson, the inimitable Buffy Saint-Marie, and many others, google ‘em.  The overlapping World Music Festival in Chicago hasn’t released their schedule yet, but usually shares some of the same bookings, convenient if you don’t happen to live in the greater Albuquerque metropolitan area.  Other than that, Francophone-oriented Festival Louisiane in Lafayette, LA simultaneous with the jazz fest in N’awlins in April is by far the best… unless you count the entire summer in LA. 

‘World music’ is to be found in North America, too, of course.  Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Cree from Canada, and Andrew Thomas, also performing at !Globalquerque!, is a Dine’ (Navajo).  When you think of Native American music, what do you usually think of, maybe the sound of a lonely flute echoing over the vast expanses of the Grand Canyon, perhaps best exemplified by Carlos Nakai?  I like that, too, but ‘Indian’ music is much more than that, almost anything imaginable, actually.  Native American music is not limited to the American Southwest, either, of course, nor does it stop at the two borders.  In addition to Buffy Sainte-Marie, there are many others, both north and south.  They’ve got shows for that now, too, in the spirit of SXSW and NXNE, specifically to showcase that talent and open them up to increased opportunities.  

One of the newer showcases is the Aboriginal Music Week in Winnipeg, Manitoba, November 1-6, which should be diverse and good.  The show will include the spacey Indie vibes of World Hood and the Metis fiddle of John Arcand.  Then there’s the hip-hop of Winnipeg’s Most and Derek Miller’s roots-rock.  Leela Gilday’s introspective folk-rock offerings are as good as any singer-songwriter in the business today, and the Electric Powwow electronica mind-bumfuggle of A Tribe Called Red simply has to be seen- and heard- to be believed.  Check ‘em out.

Then there’s LA, which is something of a giant festival all summer… if you know where to go.  I haven’t been out as much as usual this year, but still managed to catch Debo from Ethiopia, Bombino from Niger, and others, while missing far more than that simply because of scheduling conflicts or because I’d already seen them.  Best part?  It’s all free…  So, if I achieve escape velocity to actually get out of the crib this weekend, I guesss I’ll just have to content myself with maybe Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loka at LACMA tonight or maybe Quetzal and Conjunto los Pochos down at Celebracion Mexicana in Macarthur Park on tomorrow, or possibly Pete Escovedo at Rum & Humble (yeah) in the courtyard at Hollywood & Highland on Tuesday.  Then there’s Ernie Watts at the Farmers’ Market next Thursday.  Damn!  That’s as many shows as I’ve been to all summer!  I used to do that in a single night.  I’m younger than that now.  C U there.  Drive carefully.     

It's party season in Thailand

Sounds a bit superfluous, doesn't it, in the party capital of the world? But this is certainly the prime season for it, and Loy Krathong last weekend probably qualifies as the second largest festival in Thailand, after Songkran. Not that Thais need any reason to party any more than they need excessive reasoning for anything else, still it's nice to know where the festivities originated before they degenerated into generic loud fireworks-fests reeking of beer and teen spirit. For those of you who don't know, Loy Krathong is distinguished by the floating of candles down rivers and the lighting of lights. Though it's now increasingly called 'Festival of Lights' and current interpretations try to connect it at some point in the remote past to the Hindu festival of the same name, I've never heard it called that until recently and suspect some retrofitting of history for dramatic effect. Though the drifting hot-air lanterns would certainly dove-tail nicely with both lights and floating ('loy'), the krathong is invariably a water-borne device and I've always associated the festival more with water than the lighting of lamps. The fact that the Khmer water festival occurs on exactly the same day, the same full moon, and considering the large amount of Thai culture borrowed wholesale from the Khmers, that is at least a possibility. The Khmer water festival consists now largely of boat races and competitions, though, while the Divali festival of lights occurs on the new moon, not the full moon.

I heard years ago that the Loy Krathong festival originally derived from the Mons, who once were a great people and author of the Dvaravati culture, with connections to Thailand, Cambodia, and India, but who are now sharply reduced, on the road to assimilation and extinction as a distinct culture. I don't hear that story anymore, but it bears merit, given Loy Krathong's northern roots and the Mon's once-vast extension there, in both time and space, which persists to this day in isolated pockets. And let's not forget the Thai love of cultural syncretism, especially when it comes to holidays, nor their love of historical, uh, relativism. At some point in the future, Loy Krathong will likely be known as 'the fireworks festival'. That's why I don't go anymore. After having an M-80 (or was it an M-150?) blow up in my face one time in Chiang Mai, I decided that sometimes it is indeed best to save face, in order to save one's life, if nothing else. So much for the advantages of being 'Farang'.

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival last month in Phuket has equally murky origins, if more straightforward manifestations. Basically it's an Indian thing that Chinese people do, eating only vegetarian food for nine days during the ninth lunar month (sound Chinese?) in order to purify the self physically and mentally. I've never been, so claim no relevant experience, but the pictures are pretty gruesome. I personally don't see the connection between purification and self-mutilation, but maybe that's just me. It also seems that that's what the Buddhist 'middle path' seeks to avoid in the path to enlightenment, extremes of any form. But, though most participants are Buddhist and Buddhism comes from India, this is more like some Hindu festivals, perhaps the Navaratra ("nine nights") which occurs at the same time of year in India, or perhaps the chariot festival for the god Jagannatha (from whence 'juggernaut') a procession famous for its excesses and held in the town of Puri in Orissa, a notable point for dissemination of Hindu culture overseas to southeast Asia. Phuket is a likely entry point for that culture en route to Nakorn Sri Thammarat. Chinese people performing Indian ceremonies? Sounds like Thailand to me.

Did you know that Phuket used to be called 'Junk Ceylon' on 19th century maps? Well, that set my little brain to clicking, imagining the fifteenth-century Chinese admiral Zheng He beating the Arabs at their own game, usurping their trade routes and clearing the way for the eventual arrival of the Portuguese to the region. Turns out its just a mis-pronunciation (presumably British) of the Malay name Ujung Salang. A Tai Dam (tribal 'Black Tai') girl in Meuang Sing in northwestern Laos once told me her people came from Vietnam, certainly the Black Tai homeland and likely the original dissemination point for the whole race, but a long way from Meuang Sing. I was imagining ancient trade routes and circuitous paths, cultural survival through the most impossible of circumstances. Then she informed me that that migration had occurred three years before. She probably got on a bus. Tai Dam people are in Luang Prabang now. They weren't ten years ago.

I personally like the so-called 'Elephant Round-up' in Surin, in southernmost Isan, which occurred last week. For one thing I like Surin and the Thai-Khmer borderlands. For another thing, the show is pretty surreal, like the movie set of Bangrajan, with opposing sides fighting it out with elephants and horses in a football stadium. You almost expect the Carabao soundtrack to start blaring out the loudspeakers at any moment. The origins of this festival are anything but mysterious, starting around 1960 as the logging trade upon which elephants and their handlers depend began falling upon hard times before its eventual banishment. The 'round-up' helps preserve the elephant culture in an eco-friendly way, certainly better than roaming the streets of GT Mahanakorn and begging for bananas. Unfortunately the town is covered with random elephant defecations when it's all over, especially around the railroad station for some reason, but that's the price of diversion.

Personally I was there last year to listen to Thai-Khmer 'gantreum' ('kantrum') music, which is found in the Surin area and no where else, and which shares affinities and likely cultural ancestry with 'mor lam' from rural Isan, given their similar rhythms and intonations. Unfortunately it's unknown outside the region, being ethnic Khmers, though they all speak Thai and tend to mix it up. The album covers even write Khmer words with the Thai alphabet, strange considering their similarities and the ease of learning one if you already know the other, until you realize that ethnic Laos do the same in Isan, and those two are much closer, maybe a ten percent mutation, a mere few hundred years on the glotto-chronological scale. But I like 'gantreum', especially in a Southeast Asia with very little 'roots music', and it shows signs of adapting to survive, now using guitars and modern arrangements instead of the previous 'sor'-based dirges, though still relegated to weddings and local Khmer parties. Hey, that's where Ch'hom Nimol of Dengue Fever was five years ago, playing Cambodian weddings in Long Beach, USA, so work's work. I particularly like Dao Rung Buriram, though she maybe uses the term 'jeut k'mao' ('jai dam'- evil heart) a bit much. She's been hurt. She's not alone.

Nevertheless 'gantreum' music has long since been superseded by more popular Thai genres for the Round-up. I got stuck in the stadium waiting for Loso to show up, unable to swim out against the massive inward tide. I noticed the police weren't having that problem, so I attached myself to their group, who were anxious to clear up a little traffic problem outside. Well, the ruse worked, but there's still no explanation of why a van would be stuck trying to drive through this swarm of people, aggravating an already bad situation. Must be somebody important. Out of the claustro-cluster now and breathing easier, I stuck my big head up to the window to see who it was causing all the traffic jelly. Sek Loso stuck his big head up to the other side and looked back, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. Welcome to Thailand.

Of course the real party season doesn't start till next month, beginning with Father's Day (the King's birthday), building steam with Constitution Day, gaining speed with 'Trut Farang' (Christmas), and culminating with New Year's Eve, pretty similar to New Year everywhere. Then you barely catch your breath before it starts up all over again with Valentine's Day (a natural for Thai conversion), 'Trut Jeen' (Chinese New Year) and finally the Songkran Buddhist New Year water-fight and general mayhem blow-out. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it, and feeling a bit tipsy, too. At last count Thailand celebrated about four different new year's days, but those figures are tentative. Stay tuned. There's more.