Habib Koité & Bamada at the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation

 

Habib Koité playing in the midst of the not-so-few, the brave, the energetic - 
the people who got up and danced.

Heroic Pose, Crappy Photo

Towards the beginning of the two-hour set; 

the drummer - Souleymane Ann, I think! - also played the Calabash.

On the Talking Drum, Mahamadou Kone with Bassist Abdoul Wahab Berthé.

The Guitarist - Le Professeur Boubacar Sidibé! - and the Balaphonist - name unknown, sorry.
(ETA: The Balaphonist is Fassery Diabaté; thank you, anonymous tipster!)

The Bassist had this perpetually khadoos expression on his face. Why?

Koite kept the audience laughing with banter between songs, but he did make the serious point that he wants young Africans to dream of Africa - not the USA, not Europe but Africa. 

Like the song says, "L'Afrique fera son chemin..."

Habib Koite and Bamada - if you get a chance to see them, don't miss out.

They're playing Toronto the 25th of March as part of a North American tour, so definitely pencil that in.

Music & Lyrics (but no RomCom)

Time for the year-end music meme! Now, I'm not sure if this is an existing meme or if I've just invented it, but the rules are simple.

1. List the five songs you listened to most often in descending order
   
2. Include four lines from each

Here I go:

Ladyhawke - Magic  
You stayed in my head where I saw you all the time
I didn't think you'd care, I didn't think you'd care
I found you one day with a mouthful of attitude
And you stole me away, you stole me away

Bat for Lashes - Siren Song

My name is Pearl & I'll love you the best way I know how
My blonde curls slice through your heart

And the stars are exploding in your eyes
It won't be long until you'll be running

Ellie Goulding - Guns and Horses

It's time to come clean and make sense of everything
It's time that we found out who we are
Cause when I'm standing here in the dark
I see your face in every star

Fleet Foxes - Quiet Houses 

Don't give in
Don't give in
Don't give in
Don't give in

Bell X1 - Flame

You brought your flame
Into the chambers of my heart
You brought your flame
Where all's been condemned to dark

Feel free to tag yourselves. Allez-y!

Hallelujah Blues

Me and the family - "The Family and I," insists Mrs-B-in-my-head, but I shush her - have just been to hear Handel's Messiah performed at Roy Thompson Hall by the TSO and the Mendelssohn Choir. The only word for it is Epic. Actually, there are many other words - proper, music-critic-type words - but the other one that I will pick is capslock-inducing. "WASN'T THAT AWESOME?" I said on exiting the hall, in a remarkably even tone considering all the capslock. "DIDN'T IT SEND SHIVERS UP YOUR SPINE?" But sadly, not all the capslock was CAPSLOCK OF AWESOME; thanks to the fellows sitting in front of us, there was also an unhealthy dose of CAPSLOCK OF RAGE, which means it's time for another edition of Dear So-And-So.

Dear Jackasses,

I get that you are excited to be at this performance. I was too! But excited does not mean you get to videotape huge chunks of it on your iPhone. One shot, or one recording, I would have understood. But you, Jackass-on-the-right, did it six separate times - and then left ten minutes before the end, which, what? Come back, man! Stay and record the ending too, so you can paste it all on Facebook!

You were a class act, Jackass-on-the-right, texting when you weren't taping, which I'm curious to know how you managed because I had no reception in the hall, and as far as I know, most music halls have anti-cellular-reception-hardware in place to stop Jackasses like you. Is this some special iPhone voodoo of which I am unaware? Also, that nose piercing? Makes you look a total wanker, just so you know. The ear piercings were very anthropology undergraduate - and thus, I suppose, understandable - but the nose piercing was 14-year-old high school girl (I know whereof I speak.)

Jackass-on-the-left, you weren't really that bad. In fact, you're mostly on here because you were friends with Jackass-on-the-right, and thus contaminated by his douchery. But seriously, was it necessary to bring your grandfather's old binoculars? If he told you those were opera glasses, he was lying. (Also, Santa? Not real. Sorry!) And it's not like you were watching the stage with them anyway! First you were looking at your friends in the left parterre, then you were observing random audience members. My mother goggled (excuse the pun) when you extracted that contraption from its case, but she was polite enough to wait till the intermission to whisper, "What is he doing with that thing, birdwatching?"

And the both of you, was it necessary to talk through the whole thing? You will probably never read this blog, and so you will never know how close I came to kicking the two of you in the head, and then yelling, "SCARBOROUGH REPRESENT!" But as it stands, you escape unscathed - but I admonish you now with a quote from part II of the oratorio, from the book of Psalms, chapter 2, verse 4: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn; the Lord shall have them in derision."

Go forth and sin no more, jackasses - or atleast, not where I can see you.

Yours irritatedly,

Sharon

It's like you hit me with lightning

Awesomely, Ellie Goulding made Auntie Beeb's Sound of 2010 list! Have a listen:

Like all the boys before, like all the boys, boys, boys

You left a blood stain on the floor
You set your sights on him
You left a hand print on the door
Like all the boys before, like all the boys before

This is our luck, baby, running out
Her clothes were never off
We still have our lives to run about
To steal the map, steal the map, to get us back on track
I've seen you in a fight you lost, I've seen you in a fight

We're under the sheets and you're killing me
In our house made of paper, your words all over me
We're under the sheets and you're killing me

(Like all the boys before, like all the boys, boys, boys)

In here the world won't bring us down
Our plan is golden
Out there a lonely girl could drown
In here we're frozen

Where did the people go?
My hands are empty
You're not the answer I should know
Like all the boys before, like all the boys before
(whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa)

We're under the sheets and you're killing me
In our house made of paper, your words all over me
We're under the sheets and you're killing me

We're in a mess babe, we're in a mess babe
Your more is less babe (oh, oh)

We're under the sheets and you're killing me
In our house made of paper, your words all over me
We're under the sheets and you're killing me

(I've seen you in a fight you lost
Like all the boys before, like all the boys before)

We're under the sheets and you're killing me
In our house made of paper, your words all over me
We're under the sheets and you're killing me

Killing me, killing me, killing me

This Is How You Remind Me... How Much I Hate You.

- Che... You haven't heard?
- What?
- Maybe you should sit down.
- No, just tell me! Oh God, what is it?
- I didn't want to be the one to tell you -
- WHAT IS IT?
- Nickelback is Billboard's group of the decade.
- Nooo...
- Here, sit down... Can I get you some tea? Coffee?
- Hemlock!!!
- It's not that bad...
- Not that bad?!
- This Is How You Remind Me is only the 4th biggest song of the decade.
- Ohhh.
- Yeah.
- My soul hurts.

Through A Glass, Darkly

Philip Glass' new work, Violin Concerto No 2, may be called "The American Four Seasons" but try as I might, I really couldn't hear anything like Vivaldi tonight at Roy Thompson Hall, where the work was played for only the third time since it was premiered there on Wednesday, December 9th.

Despite the distraction of the title, the piece in question is georgeously complex and darkly soul-stirring. It evokes flight and pursuit, a labyrinth with no centre, discord and intrigue, and when it is finished you want it to begin all over again. A good deal of the credit must go to Robert McDuffie, the solo violinist for whom the piece was composed: his vigorous yet thoughtful performance was the perfect anchor for the strings section and synthesizer, conducted by TSO music director Peter Oundjian.

Structurally though, the piece is hobbled by the cadenza, which comprises the prelude as well as the three "songs" that appear between the four movements of the main piece. In Glass' own words:

"... I would only add that, instead of the usual cadenza, I provided a number of solo pieces for Bobby - thinking that they could be played together as separate concert music when abstracted from the whole work."

Perhaps because of their stand-alone nature, these solo sections, though testimony to McDuffie's undoubted skill, seem to bring the momentum of the concerto as a whole to a screeching halt. During the first song, as McDuffie valiantly sawed away, a cellist looked at his watch, a mini-epidemic of coughing and sneezing broke out in the audience, and another cellist looked out as if to say, "What? Haven't you people heard of Halls?" When this piece is released on CD, it would be intriguing to listen to it without the songs, and see how different the energy of that Concerto No 2 Redux might feel.

Beethoven's Symphony No 6 in F Major, "Pastoral" was the appetizer for the evening. Romantic and richly evocative of the countryside Beethoven loved so much, it is, as John Terauds noted in the Toronto Star, more counterpoint than counterpart to the Glass piece, which made it quite an intriguing symphonic palate-cleanser.

Not Getting Sexyback

The first time I heard this track, I had no clue who was singing. There’s something familiar, I thought, but damned if I know what that is. Halfway through the second time I heard it, something clicked. That… that’s not Justin Timberlake, is it? Since when has he sounded like a girl?

I like the song. It gets under your skin, drags you out of your chair and has you shimmying and dancing on the spot. Here’s the question, though: why is it that Paris Hilton’s first album is universally condemned as being over-produced, when her braying gets modulated down to singing – while here, Timberlake’s admittedly higher register gets bumped into a whole different sex, and no one says anything?

Ben Rayner on Paris Hilton in the Toronto Star, Aug 27th 2006: "Of course Paris sounds decent. The girl has more money than all of our gods combined and about equal "pull," at least in those rarefied celebrity circles where "pull" is considered next to godliness.

If the first 15 runs at the thing had turned out something that gave listeners brain aneurysms and wiped out migratory bird flocks, the cash would have kept flowing until the evil was sufficiently contained for mass distribution at Wal-Mart. The music industry needs customers; it's not gonna kill them outright."

Timberlake, on the other hand, made the cover of Rolling Stone in September.

Huh? I'm so confused.

PS - The fact that I’m - in a sense - defending Paris Hilton actually makes me dislike the song more than I would've under normal circumstances.

From halfway down that slippery slope

I think I might be developing an addiction to classical music.

Stop laughing! It’s not funny, damnit! Okay, fine – maybe just a little.

Let me be more specific – I think I’m growing just a bit too fond of live classical music. See, the TSO has this program called TSoundCheck through which those classical fans between the ages of 18 and 29 can get cheap tickets to certain TSO programs. I don’t think it’s too often that a venerable institution like the TSO shares a selling strategy with your average drug dealer – but it’s the same principle, pretty much: first given them a taste for cheap ($12 a pop!), then – once they’re hooked – jack up the prices (anywhere from $35-$140!) and they’ll pay through the nose to get their nose ear candy.

And what can I say? I’ve always wanted to pretend to be an aesthete.

Thursday, they did Beethoven’s 2^nd and 6^th symphony, along with Mahler’s Rückert Lieder; and oh, how I loved it. It’s especially odd, as I have something of a tin ear for classical music: especially on CD, it all starts to meld into an aural blob of crazed violin bowing to me. Live, though, it comes alive, with people playing in unison, in opposition to synthesize sounds that you can almost feel on your skin. I had no idea music could actually be tactile before; the first time, I couldn’t stop smiling goofily because I had no idea music could feel like that.

I console myself with the thought that there are worse things to be addicted to.

It helps too that the performances aren’t note-perfect. On Thursday, Marie-Nicole Lemieux’s vocals on the Lieder were overshadowed by a too-exuberant orchestra, and perhaps the less sophisticated among us would be better able to appreciate Ruckert’s poetry if the text and a translation were provided with the programme, as was done for the Mozart@250 festival. Nevertheless, if you’re in the GTA area, and you’re between 18 and 29, TSoundCheck is very well worth a try.

Great. Now I’m a pusher.