Monday night, September 13, Omar Rodriguez Lopez and his group comprised of Juan Aldrete De La Peña (bass), Deantoni Parks (drums), Marcel Rodriguez Lopez (keys), Lars Stalfors (laptop)and Ximena Sariñana Rivera (vocals), played a far out set at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. I almost didn’t go. Irrational fears of dying in a firey car wreck, caused by an inability to see clearly at night, had me hesitating but I told myself to take heart and get in the car otherwise miss out on what was sure to be a monumental experience. I drove the hour and a half to Frisco listening to my new favorite band, San Francisco natives, Fops, without incident. I barely hit any traffic and even found free parking around the corner from the venue! The stars were surely aligned.
All posts tagged rock
Podcast #6: Ian Eagleson, Golden & Extra Golden
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Ian Eagleson has been studying Kenyan music, specifically Benga, for a really long time. So long, in fact, he will have a Ph.D in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan College by the end of this year. That’s the sort of dedication that rarely attracts accolades because it wrongfully alludes to a stuffy, overly academic approach to music. Not so, in the case of Extra Golden, a band Eagelson formed with former Golden bandmate, Alex Minoff, and his Kenyan friends, Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Omari. For one, Eagleson is a practicing musician unlike those nerdy musicologists who taught your Intro to Jazz class. He’s paid his dues traveling the land in a shitty van with his sweaty compadres playing in mostly empty venues. That’s the kind of music professor you can respect!
His expertise in Benga, coupled with ten years in Golden (a really awesome band that didn’t get it’s due back in the day but probably could now, and so, should re-form immediately) make Extra Golden a genuine expression of global rock fusion, or ‘Brock,’ as Ian calls it. Though the band netted some positive reviews for their 2009 release, Thank You Very Quickly, it was nothing like the overly unctuous reception the less sophisticated, Vampire Weekend, received from the major music magazines.
Whatever, their inability to hear greatness is our gain! We can smugly proclaim, “We were into Extra Golden before Spin magazine.” And that’s all that really matters. That, and the possibility we could see a Golden/Trans Am/Extra Golden tour some day in the future.
Visit these websites to purchase Extra Golden/Golden or African Music:
Kanyo Records | Extra Golden | Thrill Jockey
Photo Courtesy: Ian Eagleson
Val Kilmer’s Bad Blues
You may not know this but the great chief has a MySpace music page. You can purchase songs from his Sessions with Mick CD along with his recent volume of poetry for a mere fifty bucks. The proceeds from sales go to support his various charitable ventures, one of which is the Association on American Indian Affairs. Kilmer is a good Indian like that – looking out for his brethren by kicking a few dollars their way when he can sell a CD/poetry book or two.
We obtained our copies from a Kilmer associate who maintains his official MySpace page as well as his official website. She informed me he wanted NAICA to have a copy of the CD on the house, free of charge. That was a nice gesture. Now for the not so nice gesture that will be this review of his CD:
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