Just before the Gobbers flew off to Riga to do their next show, they left their mark backstage… Our Events and Media Production staff are going to continue the tradition ask the artists sign the wall as a momento.
Friday the Gobbers were on their way to Riga, Latvia to do a show called Room Service (Help Me Make It Through The Night)
Click to read more: http://www.gobsquad.com/current.php
Late junction (BBC) presenter Fiona Talkington explains how an exceptional young Tunisian musician found his creative home in Europe, and how his first three albums came about.
A small seaside town in Tunisia in the 1970s. A boy walks along a deserted shoreline picking up the odds and ends he finds lying around: A broken fishing net; a few discarded sardine cans; spokes from an old bicycle. His heart and mind are full of music and he wants to play. It’s as much as his father can do to put food on the table for Dhafer and his seven brothers and sisters. There certainly isn’t spare money for music lessons, let alone for an instrument. So Dhafer makes his own oud, the traditional middle-Eastern lute, using whatever he can find.
You’ve only got to listen to the achingly beautiful
first minute or so of Dhafer Youssef’s last album Digital Prophecy to hear how the passion for music, born in that small Tunisian town, still lives on.
The young Dhafer did what was expected of him and sang, having learnt at the traditional Koran school, but at the same time, he was hearing music on the radio - the only source of entertainment in this small town. “It was just music. That’s all I knew” says Dhafer “I didn’t know what was classical what was jazz and so on. Just music…” And so, on his homemade oud, Dhafer taught himself to play by ear. One day a friend came back from his travels with an electric guitar and a small toy one for his young nephew. Dhafer borrowed the toy for a week, at the same time secretly yearning to get his hands on the proper instrument. Eventually his friend began to lend it to him for a few days at a time: “days when I didn’t sleep, the time was too precious. I just played.” As he began to earn money by singing at weddings, he saved enough to buy his first ‘real’ oud for the equivalent of 100 Euros. This was frowned on by friends and family. “God’s given you a voice, you’ve got to sing.”
But Dhafer had fallen in love with the sound of the instrument. It was the sound of his roots, the country where he was born. “If I’d been born in Africa I’d have been a drummer. In New York- a sax player. But I was born in Tunisia -I play the oud. If I’d been brought up near a piano maybe I’d have played that, but actually I didn’t even see my first piano until I went to Vienna when I was 19.”
Vienna lured him with the promise of the opportunity to study music.
“I did anything I could to earn money. I washed dishes, cleaned windows, worked as an Italian waiter even though I wasn’t Italian. I did anything I could just to keep the music going. But I still couldn’t read music. I went to listen to lots of music: jazz, classical, anything. And I met a viola player Tony Burger who patiently helped me to write my music down, and we would just play together for hours. Then I met the tabla player Jatinder Thakur who really got me into Indian music. This was a BIG discovery. I fell in love with the sound. It seemed so near to my soul, and I played with him every day. He was at the heart of the first quartet I played with.”
“In Vienna, I was still working to survive. But, I have to say, it was the most beautiful time of my life. It was a dream coming true: I was doing my own music, bringing alive the colours in my soul, playing a lot of theater music with people like accordionist Otto Lechner.”
“Then along came an amazing opportunity. The Jazz club Porgy and Bess in Vienna would give a musician carte blanche to do what they liked, one night a month for the next twelve months. A new project every month. I could invite anyone I wanted to play with me so I just thought: ‘why not?’ and asked so many people I admired from all over the world: Iva Bittova, Peter Herbert, Renaud Garcia Fons and Christian Muthspiel for example.”
“It was a huge success and I got to do in nine months what might have taken ten years. I was doing something completely different each month and at every gig, people would come up and ask about the music. Sometimes, things went so well with the musicians that one night at the Porgy and Bess wasn’t enough and we’d go into the studio to record. That’s how my first album, Malak came about.”
“Well, after that, I thought I would go back to Africa in search of my roots, but after a while, I felt that Europe was where my home was. My creativity is in Europe and wherever that is, there is my home. Enja wanted another recording from me and I went to New York for a while and recorded Electric Sufi with a group which included Dieter Ilg, Markus Stockhausen and Doug Wimbish.”
The world was beginning to take notice of Dhafer’s captivating high vocals and intensity of playing and he considered settling in New York.
“But then came September 11th and I just thought in this troubled world I should return to Paris.”
“I began to have more and more contact with Norway and Nils Petter Molvaer invited me to play with him and the singer Anneli Drecker.” This lead eventually to his third album, Digital Prophecy. Here, Dhafer’s profoundly spiritual singing and playing become embedded in the Scandinavian, existentialist world of Norwegian music, embodied in the playing of Eivind Aarset on guitar, drummer Rune Arnesen, Bugge Wesseltoft on keyboards and Dieter Ilg on bass, along with the sampling of Jan Bang. “I just love playing with musicians from the North. They are more African than some Africans and they are an inspiration to me.”
“I am the only one who doesn’t speak Norwegian!” says Dhafer, “but our gigs together are not about what happens for an hour on stage. These are simply great human beings, and how we are as musicians comes as much from the time we spend hanging around: waiting at airports, traveling together, being on the road, in a bus, sharing good food.”
Performance Information
Date: Thursday, September 27
Time: 8:00 pm
Place: McGuire Theater
Price: $22 ($18 Walker members)
Related Links
Dhafer Youssef
http://www.dhaferyoussef.com
While local Bluegrass band The Moss Piglets will be opening for Deerhoof on October 2nd here at the Walker, brethren Moss Piglets (or more scientifically, Tardigrades) will be recovering from their ride in space. Probably one of toughest little guys on the planet, the animals can hang out at -200 degrees C for days. We may bring the band into the Walker admin offices to see if they can live up to their name in our air conditioning.
(Thanks Max!)
The truth about lies is in our eyes, it's in our hair, it is in our bodies inspired by, touching us everywhere her in lies the festival of lies
Art blends and synergizes a synthesis of threads weaving truth with lies and lies with truth not know who's truth or story is being told
Censored Art is not a lie but truth revealed in creative display
True Art is truth with a splash of lies beautifully distorted with a personal view
Lemons or propaganda is a lie celebrated when truth is designed in the form of art
There is always the lie in confidence of how to walk or where to dine what to say when you are drinking wine
We all find time to give honor to the festival of lies
Do you even know when I am say, Yes, I LOVE YOU?
Am I really saying No I don't
Is it the house or your religious beliefs that trickle the truth out about the pastor, is he the thief?
Mr. Master, Honorable, Constable, Lover of Friends
When will the lies we lead come to an end
Shuttle, Explorer or Aero plane, How much truth do we tell before a lies slips in again?
How much truth is said in what you say?
Or am I your brother or am I too heavy?
The truth about loss is really the gift
And a Kiss is a picture painted on your lips, not worth a thousand words,
It is a stolen moment in time, a little truth mixed with a little lie.
Written by (Nicole) Autumn Reign in response to a community gathering around Festival of Lies
Notorious for his hotly debated conceptual dance, Parisian provocateur/innovator Jérôme Bel returns to the Twin Cities November 14 & 15. From CocoRosie to Ranganayaki Rajagopalan, Bach to Chico Buarque, Bel’s current musical playlist is as diverse as they come. See for yourself!
Hope There’s Someone by Antony & The Johnsons
For Today I’m A Boy by Antony & The Johnsons
You Are My Sister by Antony & The Johnsons
Compositions by John Cage
Crazy In Love by Beyoncé
Essa Moça Tá Diferente by Chico Buarque
Gangsta’s Paradise by Coolio
Starman by David Bowie
Survivor by Destiny’s Child
Allah Ma’ak Ya Hawana by Fairuz
La Nuit Américaine - Grand Choral by François Truffaut
Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra
The Girl From Ipanema by Frank Sinatra
J.S. Bach: French Suites, BWV 812-817 played by Glenn Gould
Le tourbillon de la vie by Jeanne Moreau
Cantata ‘ich habe genug’ BWV 82: Aria: ich habe genug by Johann Sebastian Bach
String Sextet No.1 in B flat major, Op.18 by Johannes Brahms
Pais Tropical by Jorge Ben
Wagner: Tristan und Isolde conducted by Karl Bohm
Nouvelle Vague (Disc1) from Jean-Luc Godard
Musiques d’Histoire(s) Du Cinéma from Godard/Jousse
Where have all the flowers gone by Marlene Dietrich
Hung Up by Madonna
Cabo Verde by Cesaria Evora
Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass
Pallavani_Ragga Kalyani by Ranganayaki Rajagopalan
Terrible Angels by CocoRosie
Schubert: Sonata In A Minor, D 821, Argeggione
Spinoza : Immortalité Et Éternité read by Gilles Deleuze
Tosca: Vissi d’arte sang by Maria Callas
Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix - from Samson et Dalila sang by Maria Callas
The Ballad of Lucy Jordan by Marianne Faithfull
A Felicidade / Regra Três / Isso Aqui O Que É by Renato Vargas
No Woman, No Cry (Remix With Steve Marley) by The Fugees
Sunday Morning by Velvet Underground
Life On Mars? by Seu Jorge from The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Stravinsky: Le Rite Du Printemps-Le Sacrifice conducted by Pierre Boulez
J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations
Click the link below for a local fan’s video response to the Gob Squad’s September show at the Walker Art Center…
http://betteronme.blogspot.com/2007/09/gob-squad.html
With the Walker’s October 2 concert by Deerhoof nearly sold out, you might need another way of hearing the Bay Area avant-rock trio (and kids’ ballet inspiration). According to Spacelab.tv, the band has just released a free mp3 album of live performances, covers, remixes and other bits of weirdness.
A piece in the New York Times this morning highlighted a New York spectacle that is being deemed an “installation/street art hybrid”. Melena Ryzik’s article; Taking it to the Streets, is about a work by Yehuda Duenyas entitled "One Million Forgotten Moments” which seats an audience in a street front
window that has been refitted to look like a jewel-box theater. Not only is the performance laden with actors, dancers, chorus girls, a skateboarding team and a magician, but it also turns its eye out on the public. So the random pedestrian flicking his cigarette to the curb and the cab driver picking his nose in his taxi, when framed by the proscenium of the storefront window, become monumental performances.
In reading the article I couldn’t help but think that this is an performance theme that I’m hearing about with more and more frequency. Actors and dancers are taking our notion of what a theater space is and stretching those assumptions– or in some cases completely blowing them apart.
When Philip Bither gave his introductory talk about the Walker’s Performing Arts season, he talked about this being one of the curatorial threads he used in putting together this year’s season. What he’s calling the In:Site/Out series (Gob Squad, Miguel Gutierrez’s Powerful People, Claude Wampler, Faustin Linyekula, and Back to Back Theatre) will all be doing what Duenyas has done in New York by redefining audience/performer relationships and restructuring the way we think about theatrical space.
I think that there’s a certain sense of pride in knowing that the things that are turning heads in the Big Apple, the theater capital of America, are also turning heads here in…. well… the Minniapple.
Many will remember that in March the Walker’s film department screened Melody Gilbert’s film Urban Explorers– a documentary about a mischievous group of people probing the deteriorating history of urban environments. Gilbert isn’t the only one interested citywide reconnaissance missions. The themes of urban landscape exploration and documentation will be back at the Walker with this year’s Performing Arts season opener: Super Night Shot by the UK/Germany’s Gob Squad.
The Gob Squad group will hit the street an hour before the performance, armed with video cameras. While they’re out, we, the audience will be tipping back a drink in 20.21’s restaurant lounge. They’ll split up into four pairs, each group with a performer and a videographer. They’ll scour Minneapolis’ corners, and return to a hero’s welcome (us… partying in at 20.21…. armed with Silly String and confetti) with an hour’s worth of videotaped urban exploration. Then the performance itself will be a four-channel live mixing of the previous hour’s Minneapolitan exploration. It’ll be an amazing way to get a new perspective on your home town. PLUS, you get a free drink at 20.21 with your ticket!
The Walker’s 07/08 Performing Arts Season is just getting kicked off. Trumping last year’s 25-performance season, the 07/08 season steps it up with 27 music, dance, theater and performing arts shows.
On Thursday, September 6th at 7pm, as part of the Target Free Thursday Night events, Performing Arts Senior Curator Philip Bither will talk about the upcoming season. He’ll introduce this year’s artists and unpack a little of what goes on in his brain when he curates a year’s worth of performance.
This year, the folks in the Walker’s Performing Arts Department put together a short video trailer, just to whet your whistle:
Even without Deerhoof’s quirky, experimental music, the lyrics to the band’s 2004 song “Milk Man,” hardly seem like perfect kids’ fare:
Milk Man sleeps on the roof in the noon
Bana-na-na stabbed to the arms, weird manMilk Man sneaks in the house under moon
Miracle words come to a mouth you may hear
Peek-a-boo…Milk Man smiles to you “Hi” in a nude
This banana stuck in my arms, oh my love
Stabbed to the arms, ooh-la-la
Yellow one
But as an elementary school drama and music teacher told “Weekend America,” when she heard the song “Milkman” she had to use it for a project at North Haven Community School in Maine. Courtney Nalibof saw the connection immediately: both the band and her kids are extremely experimental with music. “When you listen to Deerhoof’s music and you teach an elementary music class, you hear a lot of the same things,” she said. “You hear a lot of really creative imagery. You hear a lot of non-sequiturs. And you hear a lot of sounds being made in ways you didn’t know they could be made. I think there’s a lot of crossover there.”
The result was Milk Man — “part ballet, part surreal performance art, and part rock show” — performed to sold-out crowds at the school in October 2006. (According to the project’s website, Deerhoof’s members made it to North Haven to offer pointers at rehearsals and see the shows: “They loved it!“)
But isn’t the story of a masked milkman who kidnaps kids and hides them in a clouds — and has bananas sticking out of his armpits — a bit… weird?
“They’re a little creepy, Naliboff admits, but adds, “Maurice Sendak books are pretty creepy too, but kids like those too.”
Here’s a videoclip from the North Haven school’s production, followed by a look at “Milk Man” performed by Deerhoof, who visit the Walker October 2 for a concert.
Listen to Weekend America’s report on The Deerhoof Ballet (RealAudio).
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