Reverend Billy Talen and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir debut We Are the 99%. The song’s lyrics are taken from the policy working groups declaration. It was an amazing moment and song. Share and share alike. Words by Occupy Wall Street, song by Nehemiah Luckett and Laura Newman, lead vocal by Laura Newman. More Reverend Billy & The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir at http://www.facebook.com/revbilly.

Occupy the Nor-easter – Wall Street October 29, 2011. This video illustrates the resolve those folks in NYC are showing by withstanding the first onslaught of Winter over the weekend. Unfortunately the band members were not identified for us to share.

Many thanks to Peter Brauer for shooting and sharing these videos with us!!!

And just a reminder below…

http://www.occupyoakland.org

An open call to all!  Join like minded bands in Paris, from April 28th to May 1st, 2012.

La Fanfare Invisibleʼs initiative :  Because we live in an era of anxiety, because the worlds complexity sparks off resignation, because our future promises to be full of threats, we decide to set up conditions for a joyful resistance, which could strengthen social fabric.

Led by the desire to initiate a project of fight, entertainment and exchange, while standing shoulder to shoulder with social movements and the “Mouvement des Indignés!”, we awake our capacity to act with this initiative of an international brass band meeting.

In a state of alert, we follow a violence-free strategy of action. We are forming a “block of brasses”, standing in the capital with a subversive musical state of mind, for the invisibles ones to be heard !

Programme :

Late morning:  collective rehearsal.

Afternoon:  popular initiative.

Evening:  concerts, parties, meetings…

The preparation collective will try to provide a meal per day and solidarity accomodation. Trip expenses, transport on location and any purchases will be on the brass bandʼs responsibility.

To organize this event, interested brass bands should inform us before the end of January 2012, with a rough number of musicians.

Brass bands from London, Madrid, Berlin, Bruxelles, Bologna, Milan, Geneva, Brest, Marseille, Nantes and beyond… are expected and called upon.

Visit http://lafanfareinvisible.free.fr for more information.  Viva la Resistance!

At the last convention of the Society for Ethnomusicology, folklorist Lisa Gilman presented her paper on how GIs use music to mediate their experiences in war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. This was one of the most socially relevant presentations among the hundreds presented.

She has recently released her documentary, Grounds for Resistance. In November 2008, a group of U.S. veterans opened COFFEE STRONG, a coffee shop located outside the gates of the U.S. Army base Fort Lewis in Washington. Inspired by the Vietnam-era G.I. coffee house movement, Coffee Strong provides a safe space where service members, military families, and veterans can drink coffee and discuss issues, such as their experiences of war, deployment concerns, the hardships of life in the military, and veteran benefits.

Visit the website: http://groundsforresistance.com/. Screen or distribute Lisa’s documentary in your community http://groundsforresistance.com/grassroots-distribution/.

Currently scheduled screening dates and information

When: Friday, Nov 4 at 7PM, free. Where: Seattle, WA at Keystone Congregational United Church of Christ, 5019 Keystone Place N.

Friday, September 16 at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Media Education Foundation (in the Frances P. Crowe Community Room), 60 Masonic Street, Northampton MA Sponsored by: the Northampton Committee/Friday Night Free Films and IVAW, Amherst chapter.

For more screening dates, see: http://groundsforresistance.com/category/screening-dates-and-information/

HONK! photo by Ben Greenberg as part of the current photo exhibition now up in Davis Square

SIXTH ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF ACTIVIST STREET BANDS

September 30 – October 3

this year featuring
[subject to revision]

~ Young Fellaz (New Orleans, LA) ~
~ What Cheer? Brigade (Providence, RI) ~
~ Titanium Sporkestra (Seattle, WA) ~
~ Springville All Star Marching Band (Springville, NY) ~
~ Seed and Feed Marching Abominable (Atlanta, GA) ~
~ Rude Mechanical Orchestra (Brooklyn, NY) ~
~ Open Hand Orchestra (Portland, ME) ~
~ Minor Mishap Marching Band (Austin, TX) ~
~ Leftist Marching Band (Portsmouth, NH) ~
~ Hungry March Band (New York, NY) ~
~ Forward!/Milwaukee Molotov Marchers (Milwaukee & Madison, WI) ~
~ Extraordinary Rendition Band (Providence, RI) ~
~ Expandable Brass Band (Northampton, MA) ~
~ Environmental Encroachment (Chicago, IL) ~
~ DJA-Rara (Brooklyn, NY) ~
~ Detroit Marching Band (Detroit, MI) ~
~ Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble (Montreal, QC) ~
~ Carnival Band (Vancouver, BC) ~
~ Caka!ak Thunder (Greensboro, NC) ~
~ Bread and Puppet Theater Circus Band (Glover, VT) ~
~ Brass Messengers (Minneapolis, MN) ~
~ Brass Balagan (Burlington, VT) ~

with locals
[subject to revision]

~ AfroBrazil (Boston) ~
~ Dirty Water Brass Band (Somerville) ~
~ Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band (Somerville) ~
~ Factory Seconds (Boston) ~
~ Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band (Somerville) ~
~ To Be Named Later Brass Band (Boston)~

events based in Davis Square, Somerville, Harvard Square, Cambridge & Boston Harbor

ALMOST ALL EVENTS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE
[THE FRIDAY NIGHT KICKOFF & SUNDAY NIGHT BOAT CRUISE ARE VERY AFFORDABLE!]

(Somerville, Cambridge, & Boston, MA)  HONK!: the worthy craze sweeping the nation – from Boston to Providence to Brooklyn to Austin to Seattle — and every Fall back to Boston, with HONK! bands migrating from far and near, descending upon the HONK! epicenter, where festival participants (including the audience) can gaggle, gander, and generate the gregarious racket that signifies the HONK! experience.

The HONK! phenomenon was born 6 years ago in Davis Square spurred on by a need of a certain species of street band to congregate and celebrate their social activist side. HONK! lets the good times roll while being ever mindful that some bad times need fixing. HONK! believes that street-wise music can be the agent of change for the better. HONK! is the universal tongue for hey-wake-up-and-pay-attention!

This year there will be honk-like opportunities galore with outdoor band concerts in Davis, spilling over into Harvard Square and surrounding neighborhoods, and for the first time ever, splashing out into the Boston Harbor. Rain or shine from September 30 through October 3, HONK! will release its clarion call throughout the Boston-area – a call to wage peace, harmony, and just plain fun.

The confirmed HONK! band count is currently almost 30, with one to two new ones being added weekly. But when the final count is in, there’ll still be plenty of chances for folks to jump in at the last minute and join the merry fray. For example, individual musicians not connected to any particular HONK! band are invited to participate on Sunday, October 2^nd, in the impromptu “community band” which will be part of the gigantic HONK! Parade to Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes and Feet.

Take note that in previous years HONK! has been held on Columbus Day weekend, but due to the 2011 dates conflicting with Yom Kippur, the festival has been scheduled a week earlier. Festival updates can be found at www.honkfest.org, http://twitter.com/honkfest, and www.facebook.com/honkfestival, or by calling 617-383-HONK (4665). Listed below is the festival schedule as it now stands:

2011 WEEKEND SCHEDULE:

Friday, September 30, 10 pm-midnight:
HONK! Kickoff!
A spectacular kickoff to the weekend, featuring Boston’s own urban tribal brass band Revolutionary Snake Ensemble, joined by an impressive guest roster of HONK! band members!
Johnny D’s Uptown, 17 Holland St., Davis Square, Somerville
[Conveniently located near the Davis Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Ticket: $10 general admission, available at the door.
For information: 617-776-2004, www.johnnyds.com

Saturday, October 1, noon-9 pm:
HONK! Davis Square
Up to thirty (or more!) activist street bands, from near and far, will perform outdoors for free.  An Opening Ceremony to be held at noon in 7 Hills Park, Davis Square, Somerville, with music following, performed throughout Davis Square, from 1-9 pm.  At this writing the following bands will be participating during the day on Saturday, listed in alphabetical order: AfroBrazil, Brass Balagan, Brass Messengers, Bread and Puppet Theater Circus Band, Caka!ak Thunder, Carnival Band, Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble, Detroit Marching Band, Dirty Water Brass Band, DJA-Rara, Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band, Environmental Encroachment, Expandable Brass Band, Extraordinary Rendition Band, Factory Seconds, Forward!/Milwaukee Molotov Marchers, Hungry March Band, Leftist Marching Band, Minor Mishap Marching Band, Open Hand Orchestra, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Second Line Social Aid & Pleasure Society Brass Band, Seed and Feed Marching Abominable, Springville All Star Marching Band, Titanium Sporkestra, To Be Named Later Brass Band, What Cheer? Brigade, and Young Fellaz.
Davis Square, Somerville
[Conveniently located near the Davis Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Free and open to all; rain or shine.
For information: 617-383-HONK (4665), contact@honkfest.org

Sunday, October 2, noon-2 pm:
HONK! Parade to Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes and Feet
The theme for this year’s Parade is SHARE – sharing the road, sharing our skills, our resources, our upbeat HONK! spirit. Led by the Mayors of Somerville and Cambridge, the parade will feature all the HONK! bands, plus the Bread & Puppet Theater, the impromptu “community band,” and many local arts and community organizations, such as Green Streets Initiative, Bikes Not Bombs, 350.org, Open Air Circus, Puppeteers Cooperative, Livable Streets, and Sprout. The parade assembles at 11 am, and the route starts in Davis Square, Somerville, at noon, making its way to Harvard Square’s Oktoberfest celebration in Cambridge. To participate in the parade or to volunteer as a parade facilitator, contact parade@honkfest.org.
[Conveniently located near the Davis, Porter, and Harvard Square stops on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Free and open to all; rain or shine.
For information: 617-383-HONK (4665), contact@honkfest.org

Sunday, October 2, 2-6 pm:
HONK! Oktoberfest
Several HONK! bands will be featured in Harvard Square’s Oktoberfest.
[Conveniently located near the Harvard Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Free and open to all; rain or shine.  For information, visit www.harvardsquare.com, 617-491-3434, hsba@harvardsquare.com

Sunday, October 2, 8-11:30 pm:
HONK! On The Water
Boston Harbor boat cruise, featuring many of the HONK! bands, each performing a short set.
Bay State Cruise Company,  200 Seaport Blvd., Boston
[Conveniently located near the World Trade Center stop on the Silver Line.]
Ticket: $10 general admission, available at the dock; rain or shine.
For information: 617-383-HONK (4665), contact@honkfest.org

Monday, October 3, 10 am-2 pm:
HONK! Music Education Conference
Includes a panel discussion on “Learning HONK!-Style: An Alternative Model for Music Education?” and presentations on “The Roots and Routes of HONK!: A History of HONK! Through Music” and “HONK! Activism: Experiential Education in Action.”
Gutman Library Harvard University, Graduate School of Education/Arts in Education Program
Appian Way, Cambridge  [Conveniently located near the Harvard Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Free and open to all.
For information: 617-383-HONK (4665), contact@honkfest.org

Monday, October 3, 3-5 pm:
HONK! In The Neighborhoods
Visiting HONK! bands will team up with their local counterparts to perform and interact at 5 Boston-area Boys and Girls Clubs. At this writing the following clubs participating are:
Blue Hill Club (15 Talbot Ave., Dorchester, 617-474-1050); Charlestown Club (15 Green Street, Charlestown, 617-242-1775); Jordan Club (30 Willow St., Chelsea, 617-884-9435); South Boston Club (230 West Sixth Street, South Boston, 617-268-4301); and Yawkey Club of Roxbury (115 Warren St., Roxbury, 617-427-6050).
Free and open to club members and their families.
For information: 617-383-HONK (4665), contact@honkfest.org

Leading up to this year’s HONK! weekend events, there are several preliminary events worth noting:

Friday, September 2 through Sunday, October 2, 24 hrs./day:
HONK! Photo Exhibit
Features 5 photographers: Greg Cook, Mark Dannenhauer, Jesse Edsell-Vetter, Ben Greenberg & Chris Yeager. Their photos are inspired by HONK! Festival 2010.
The Inside-Outside Gallery (aka the CVS windows)
CVS Pharmacy
1 Davis Square, Somerville
[Conveniently located near the Davis Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
Free and open to all.
For more information, contact photoshow@honkfest.org.

Monday, September 12, 6:30-8:45 pm:
HONK! Volunteers and Parade Meeting
Sign-up gathering to help in all the ways that make HONK! possible. Individuals and groups interested in participating in the HONK! Parade to Reclaim the Streets for Horns, Bikes and Feet, to be held from noon-2 pm on October 2^nd, are also encouraged to attend. The theme for this year’s parade is SHARE. The bands and community groups in the parade will investigate the dynamics of SHARE by creating actions, images, slogans, concepts, choreographies and other elements that explore how we can share our lives, communities, resources, and spirited energy.
Somerville Public Library (West Branch)
40 College Ave., Somerville
[Conveniently located near the Davis Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
For more information, contact volunteers@honkfest.org.

Tuesday, September 20, 10 am-11 pm:
HONK! Flatbread Pizza Benefit
Flatbread in Davis Sq. is donating a portion of the cost of every pizza pie purchased during the day to the HONK! Festival. Diners can also look forward to hearing some subtle HONK! sounds between  6:00 pm and 7:15 pm.
Flatbread Company, 45 Day Street, Somerville.
[Conveniently located near the Davis Square stop on the Red Line and several MBTA bus connections.]
For more information, contact contact@honkfest.org.

The HONK! Festival is a great idea come to fruition. HONK! festivals are cropping up everywhere since a need has been identified, not only on the part of musicians everywhere — of a particular persuasion — who have a penchant for gathering to raise awareness about issues that need attention. But also a need is there on the part of audiences everywhere — not necessarily of any persuasion — to bask in the glow of this unusual phenomenon.

HONK! photo by Jesse Edsell-Vetter as part of the current photo exhibition now up in Davis Square

As often as bands congregate to HONK! in protest, they also perform to celebrate the causes and institutions they support in their own communities: multicultural festivals, peace conferences, social forums, artists’ collectives, community gardens, block parties, neighborhood fundraisers, relief benefits and homeless shelters. In every case, the HONK!ers’ ultimate goal is to have fun, to relish the art of making fun as a form of individual and collective transcendence, and to encourage others to see and do the same.

The HONK! Festival Committee would like to give special thanks to the following for their support of this year’s HONK! Festival [sponsorship updates at www.honkfest.org]: City of Somerville, the Somerville Arts Council, Harvard Square Business Association, MySecretBoston, Davis Square businesses, and last but not least, the local Davis Square community, whose support in terms of in-kind donations of food and public services, housing for upwards of 300 musicians, and cash contributions, is vital to keeping the HONK! effort going.

[previously published in Ethnomusicology, Vol. 26, No. 3, September, 1982 by the Society for Ethnomusicology]

send heart boldly travelling
on the heat of the dead and down

Gary Snyder, “Towards Climax” (1974)

Trusting my colleague Gourlay to address the broader theoretical questions about ethnomusicology’s future, I would like to focus on a needed third area in ethnomusicology beyond research/writing/teaching and the more recently evolved performance-group orientation. I call this third area “applied” because it suggests that our work can make a difference, that it can intersect both the world outside and the university in more challenging and constructive ways.

Charles Keil wants you to know about his groove - Image courtesy www.lolculture.com

In writing my abstract I had thought it a good idea to move from (I) a discussion of resistance to written music (bourgeois culture) and electrocuted music (mass culture) through (2) an assessment of what there is in existing communities that can be assisted, and only then move to (3) an insistence upon putting music into play wherever people are resisting their oppression.

But as I think about my own limited practice, all three aspects of applied ethnomusicology are linked together. The best defense against any kind of mediated or commodified culture, whether “high” or “mass,” is always a good offense, doing it, and doing it well invariably requires drawing upon the oldest and strongest techniques of the existing communities.

When I go to demonstrations I find myself beating out old African rhythms on an old Asian drum—the drum my mother got at auction and gave to me when I was about eight years old, putting me on the path. It’s a simple barrel drum with tacked-down heads, almost identical to drums I’ve seen in Beijing music stores, and it has kept its tone over many years and through all kinds of weather. Originally painted red, now touched up in black splotches, it’s a palomino anarchocommunist mother drum whose very sight and sound knit my life and work together. Most of the rhythms come from Africa or Afro-Latin research and practice, and they blend easily with whoever wants to add another drum part, cowbells, shakers or the Asian gongs I’ve been bringing along recently. Pennywhistles or reeds can be added, but much of the time at demonstrations the percussion has to support and blend with the chanted slogans and there isn’t that much space for horns.

The Afro-Asian outdoor blown and beaten Dionysian sound is long overdue on the left, where for many years protest music has meant mainly picking and singing, a Euro-American indoor sound of Apollonian or Apallachian strings and a heavy emphasis on words, We surely need this stream of strung-sung forms, but the other, and perhaps more powerful, half of the musical powers that be hasn’t really been applied to the struggles for justice and equality.

For me it is a matter of faith that what Bergson called “duree,” Levy-Bruhi describes as modes of “participation,” Jane Ellen Harrison defined as “that life which is one, indivisible, and yet ceaselessly changing,” and Amiri Baraka named the “changing same,” is best understood as “music” generally, and best heard in the blown and beaten styles of the third world specifically. Finally, this sound is recreatable anywhere, anytime, by any group of people who really need it.

This faith that everyone can reclaim their sociable musical nature also underlies a course I teach each semester, American Studies 128, Afro-Asian Musical Praxis, that accepts everyone without prerequisites, with or without musical experience, and works with them on basic Afro bell beats, clave rhythms, conga patterns until everyone can play all the parts and instrument’ for cha chas, sambas, mamboes, and improvise a bit. As the semester progresses we drift into pennywhistles, flutes, Asian reeds and gongs. Sometimes it seems unfair to be earning a university salary for teaching what some might call a kindergarten – rhythm band. At other times it seems to be the very best thing I can do for students. Perhaps there is no other course at my university where students are as consistently open and audible to each other; for the class to happen at all everyone has to participate constantly and listen carefully to all other participants simultaneously. To make this point of John Chernoff’s (1979), in every practice has to be good education, though admittedly remedial. Why can’t these socializing and liberating modes of music-making be taught in the early grades? This applied ethnomusicology has been urgently needed for decades, but while bourgeois ideology holds its grip on music educators, “stage bands” in high school is just how far the “jes’grew” (Reed 1972) can grow.

If the continuing reverence for written music by the masters denies the promise of applied ethnomusicology in the schools, it is the seductiveness of electric amplification and mediation that makes application difficult in the world. Between street agitating and classroom capacitating lies the problem of “party building,” how to get people singing and dancing for themselves and away from the aesthetic and antiaesthetic posturing of punk rock on the one foot and packaged disco distortions on the other. People may be moving to both musics but not in any way that creates a sustained community or vision of happiness.  When I feel like I’m getting somewhere in the street and in the classroom, a consistent musical relationship to the world of “weekend entertainment” has been eluding me lately.

The small group of black post-jazz experimentalists in Buffalo believes strongly in keeping the vibrations unamplified and undistorted, but they are not very enthusiastic about playing in rhythm and for the dancers. That would be too commercial and/or too primitive, not open enough to the spirit of randomness, chance, “freedom.” But the musicians, again mostly black, who want to draw on the Afro- Cuban basics for dancing are also eager to put on a precise and predictable show, a microphone on every cowbell and conga drum and saving up for still more electrical equipment. If you want to work with and for the people, break down the “artist” and “entertainer” roles, involve the audience to the point of dissolving it, not lay a power trip on people, and so forth, it is not clear who I should be playing with, the “free” and acoustic mystics or the amplified show-time Afro-beaters.

Should I try to persuade the latter to unplug and free themselves, or the former to play with a consistent pulse for dancing? Should I try to build my demonstration drumming friends and/or fuse the graduates of the classroom application into a band for dancing? Should I stop trying for the sound and situation I believe is best and try to blend with one of the existing ethnic working-class traditions in Buffalo, flipping a coin to choose between polka, salsa, or disco-funk-soul? These are personal questions for me now, and I wonder if they resonate with anyone else’s efforts to create music that serves the people.

The following analysis explores some of these same issues from a more classical or world historical perspective.

THE REBIRTH OF MUSIC FROM THE SPIRIT OF TRAGEDY

Nietzsche’s “Birth of Tragedy From the Spirit of Music” (1956), first published in 1872, and the works of L. H. Morgan, Marx and Engels, Gilbert Murray, Jane Ellen Harrison at the turn of the century, pulled away many of the veils that hid the realities of Ancient Greece from view. Since then, the discipline called classics has given us many fine pieces of scholarship. Our most interesting social scientists have pushed their problems back to Plato and the social evolution that made the emergence of philosophy, science; and history possible. Many poets point to that same transitional period. Fictional accounts, like those of Mary Renault and Michael Ayrton, have spread both a knowledge of and a feeling for that world where Western history begins. One basic theme in much of this writing, for me at least, is the relationship between tragedy and music on the one hand and the emergence of class society on the other. For it seems that class society is The Great Tragedy and until we bring down the final curtain on it we won’t get our music back.

At that point in time where ritual-song-dance-poetry (that good old-time religion) is broken up and portions are given to the ruling aristocracy to cherish, the people are given a big blood sacrifice in exchange. The king must die. As a ruling class emerges, its leading representative must die annually to renew life and fertility, or if not annually, at a prime time indicated by the gods whose representative on earth he is. That is the superstructural or ideological explanation for the sacrifice of divine kings. The social explanation and half of the psychological explanation for this event is that the ruled class must have its revenge and an anarchic interregnum which reestablishes the need for authority. The king must die for the sin of having risen above his fellow men. In the Christian version of this universal class society myth, the king dies so that we may all rise together in equality at some later time. Much later.

Once the ruling class is surer of its position, then tragedy can offer a substitute catharsis: the king dies, but only symbolically. The big man is brought down, the ruling family humbled on a stage filled with religious overtones and underpinnings, but it is a play and the patrons of the art just might have known what they were doing.

Let us take as an example the great tetralogy of Aeschylus, the Oresteia. The story, taken from mythology, contains many primitive features, such as the ancestral curse and the blood feud, but at the end of the trilogy these are all relegated to the past. The story is as follows. In the first play, Agamemnon is murdered on his return from Troy by his wife Clytemnestra. In the second, she is murdered by their son Orestes at the command of Apollo. In the third, after being purified by Apollo and persecuted by his mother’s avenging spirits, the Furies, Orestes is brought to trial and acquitted before a court of justice founded for this purpose by Athena, goddess of democratic Athens. She resolves the conflict between Apollo and the Furies by inviting them to co-operate in supervising the new court. The reign of law has begun…

Aeschylus was a democrat and a Pythagorean. He believed that the conflict between tribal custom, represented in this drama by the Furies, and aristocratic privileges, represented by Apollo, has been resolved in democracy, which accordingly he regarded as the fusion of opposites in the mean. In the trilogy, therefore, which represented the offence, the counter-offence and the reconciliation, he created a dramatic form which provided a perfect vehicle for the dialectical movement of his thought (Thomson 1974:91—92).

I’m afraid that Aeschylus only thought he was a democrat. His plays freed neither slaves nor women, but rather reinforced ruling class morality, legitimated the role of patriarchal law replacing matrilineal custom, and told the citizenry that the destiny of their leaders and their own fates were as one.

The rebirth of tragedy in Shakespeare’s time also focuses upon kings who must die, but this time the real kings are working out alliances with a rising bourgeoisie. The masks of Greek tragedy are off. The chorus and the Furies are gone and individualism is about to burst the bonds of collective poetry.

Tragedy appears in the rapid evolution of Greek classes out of the Greek gens and blossoms again with the rise of bourgeois productivity in the drama of the Elizabethan stage. In both, poetry still soaks it because the drama is a transitional stage in class society. It is the product of a society passing from collectivity to individuality (Caldwell 1937:254).

Tragedy, then, is the theft of what was once collective ritual-song-dance- poetry, and the staging of this energy in a form that fits class society and its guiding ideology.

In the century of advanced capitalism and imperialism the kings must survive and the peoples must die: the Armenian tragedy, the Jewish tragedy, the Palestinian tragedy, the Lebanese ‘tragedy, the Biafran tragedy, the Vietnam tragedy,the Cypriote tragedy, the Cambodian tragedy, and so forth. These sacrifices, these mass murders of innocents that disgrace us throughout the world, make up a very long list, for one can put the word “tragedy” after the name of almost any nation state and think of a slaughtering of the people. In our time attempted genocides have replaced symbolic regicides. It is a tremendous error of rhetoric to dignify any of these administrative massacres with the word “tragedy” for no one is ennobled by them in any way, though, of course, a very few continue to be enriched as the death tolls mount.

At this point in time the hubris, the pride, of our rulers knows no bounds. They are killing us and all life on this planet. And some of the biggest killers are given prizes for peace! These kings must die, like in the good old days, but no one should think of their destruction as tragic. Our anger, springing from the deaths of so many innocent millions, must be used to nurture revolutionary organizations and ritual-song-dance-poetry. Without these rites our revolutions will go wrong. Without a rebirth of music from the spirit of tragedy, our pent-up anger is likely to find outlet only in random terrorism, or in Cambodian forced marches, the kinds of bloodletting that stain the name of socialism and bring on even bloodier counter- revolutions. Yet without a revolutionary party that can impose justice, our musical joys will always be limited in time, shallow in feeling. No justice without joy. No joy without justice.

How will music be reborn from the spirit of tragedy? By doing it. “send heart boldly travelling on the heat of the dead and down”… And also by thinking about it: reworking that fertile ground where the classics and the anthropology of classless societies meet. By using the long-playing “wreckords” that have been made of primitive musics as clues and reference points. But basically, by doing it, playing together, building the party without amplification or mediation, listening and looking and feeling for the ways to bring song and dance and poetry and human rites back together again.

REFERENCES CITED

Chernoff, John
1979 African Rhythm and African Sensibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Reed, Ishmael
1972 Mumbo Jumbo. New York: Doubleday.
Snyder, Gary -
1974 Turtle Island. New York: New Directions.
Caudwell, Christopher
1937 Illusion and Reality. New York: International Publishers.
Thomson, George
1974 The Human Essence. London: China Policy Study Group.
Nietzsche, Friedrich
1956 The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music. New York: Doubleday.

Help HONK! #6 happen!

The HONK! Committee intends to raise $10,000 by August. 18th – with more details about this year’s better-than-ever-HONK! to be made available by late August.

No donation too small or too large!  It only takes a few minutes to make a pledge.  Thanks in advance for your support!

By Eric Pearce, Leftist Marching Band

On a beautiful sunny afternoon in the summer of 2005, our Leftist Marching Band found itself honking (and squawking) some spirited patriotic and protest tunes at one of our semiregular “just for the heck of it” performances. We were in front of the North Church in the center of our home base of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, entertaining, possibly irritating, but hopefully at least giving pause for thought to a group of about 60 or more onlookers.

About a third of the way into our performance, one of our drummers decided to lay his skinless tambourine on the ground in front of him so he could continue playing his drum with both hands. A gentleman from the crowd approached with a dollar bill, looked into the bottomless tambourine with a quizzical expression, shrugged and dropped the note into the ring.

We began shooting our own quizzical expressions—some with a touch of panic—at each other. We were in the middle of playing a song, and the head-shaking and mental telepathy signals of “No, no, take it back, we don’t accept money” just weren’t registering with the kind giver.

In the next moment, a flood of generous and/or sympathetic audience members came forward with their contributions. By the time the song was over, the bottomless ring of chimes was overflowing with $54.61. Now what…?

Money tends to ruin everything: The Leftist Marching Band formed out of frustration and outright disdain for the Bush administration and its policies. Declaring itself “ a pep band for the Left,” it is a band run by consensus that plays for and supports what we deem “good causes” and is open to anyone interested in participating. The band is an outlet for expressing both political dissent and social support in a fun, exciting, active and interactive way.

The Leftist Marching Band gets ready for the HONK! parade in Somerville MA, 2008

One of the very few “rules” we established from the start was that we would not accept payment for playing, as it was declared that “money tends to ruin everything.” The gold we seek is the satisfaction and peace of mind that come with actively supporting what we believe in. The audience appreciation (and occasional antagonism) is the sugar on top.

Our reasoning is that we won’t have to deal with the time, emotion and occasional strife that go with money.  As an open band with no money, we don’t worry about people joining to get a slice of the pie; they join to stand in solidarity on the proverbial soapbox and bring pep to those fighting the good fight. We have had folks join simply because they want to play in a band (we affectionately call them Gig Whores), but that’s OK because either the politics become too much for them and they leave, or they become enlightened—and that’s the cherry on top of the sugar.

How do you pay for expenses? One year, in a band discussion forum at the HONK Festival (http://honkfest.org/) in Somerville, Massachusetts, someone said they didn’t think a band could survive without making money. Another asked, “How do you pay for expenses?”

The simple answer is that we survive the same way a person would to keep a personal hobby going: we simply don’t incur expenses that aren’t necessary. We help each other find instruments on the cheap or free. We pay for our own reeds and drumsticks. We carpool to gigs and pitch in for gas.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Good fortune and luck may play a role too, if you believe in that. We have been fortunate to have practice space at no charge, but I guess we’ve been most fortunate to have a group of people who get along and work so well together. We’ve also received a lot of love, gratitude and support from our community.

Now what?! So what did we do with $54.61? We asked the community. An audience member pointed to the historic old church behind us, one with a slowly decaying steeple, and said, “Donate it to the steeple restoration project,” and the crowd agreed.

Perfect! “All in favor?” “Aye!” Meeting adjourned; on to the next song. We squawked out the rest of our Bush-bashing set list, out of tune, full of clams and looking confused. But hey, what do you want for free?

North Church on Congress St. in downtown Portsmouth, NH. photo by Joe Hardenbrook

For the 2009 HONK! in Somerville, the HONK! committee outlined these goals for opening day, Friday:

• to open the festival with music rather than speakers
• to decentralize HONK! geographically and organizationally
• to bring new features into the festival, so it changes each year
• to increase diversity in HONK! participants and audience

HONK! Friday in 2009 involved 14 bands and 7 venues; 2010 was the second year of HONK! Friday. This report to the Somerville HONK! committee sketches the lessons, successes and potential of this style of HONK! outreach from 2010.

This year the HONK! Festival (http://honkfest.org/) sent members from 10 bands out to 7 sites to perform with and among young local musicians and to interact with neighborhood residents, political groups and community organizations. Among the sites were a number of Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston (BGCB) (http://www.bgcb.org/) which provide after-school activities for kids ages 6-18. Another site, Zumix (http://www.zumix.org/index.php), is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) cultural organization dedicated to building community through music and the arts. The Boston Commons and Union Square, Somerville, locations gave bands an open-air public performance space for passersby.

Leftist Marching Band at HONK! 2010 by Tim Pierce

HONK! Friday 2010 was marked by a spirit of exploration, collaboration and sharing across lines of class, race, gender, sexual orientation, musical aesthetics and performance styles. And what is most incredible to me is that we managed to make all of that fun! I am proud to be associated with such a rare and talented group of people who give of themselves so tirelessly to make the world a better place.

For me this was the best HONK! yet, and the Friday Neighborhood HONK!s were no small part of that. Thanks to all the bands for their talent and commitment, and their ability to deliver such a loud and joyful noise. You are most appreciated.

As we pursue this aspect of our activity more systematically, it seems to me that we are in a position to develop some very effective models for linking community engagement and music education. Here are the report-backs from Friday Neighborhood HONK!s 2010:

Blue Hill Boys & Girls Club (Dorchester, MA), Brass Liberation Orchestra (BLO - San Francisco, CA), and Expandable Brass Band (EBB , western Massachusetts)

Rick Aggeler (BGCB): So I’m gettin’ really excited for everyone to come down this Friday. We’ve made kind of our own remix to “Ya Move Ya Lose” (we’ve been listening to a version of it online), and it’s gonna be so awesome to play it with you guys. Right now the kids wrote an 8-bar hook to it, and we have, I think, 8 kids who’ve written 16-bar raps as well. The ages are 10-14.

Bob Follansbee (HONK! Committee): Thanks to all—BLO members, EBB members, volunteer Julia, Rick at the BGC—for making this a special afternoon. Your willingness to let the kids take the center stage was fabulous, and I think it was a great opportunity for all of them, including those who had a chance to play your instruments and admire your various dresses.

Rick Aggeler: I want to second what Bob said. But before that, a big thank you to Bob for helping coordinate all this!  For me, watching the kids interact with the bands, see the instruments, play the instruments, and collaborate with cats from the West Coast and western Mass it was a very special occasion for us at Blue Hill and the Studio Heat team. While it’ll sound corny, you guys really brought joy through music to our kids and exposed them to a whole new world of art, and I really, really appreciate it.

Sarah Reilly (BLO): Thank you, everyone! HONK! once again proved to be a weekend of continual, unparalleled fun, and being at the Blue Hill B&G Club was definitely the icing on the cake! It was amazing.

Iris Arielli (EBB): Please pass this on to the BLO, HONK! organizers, and, of course, the talented young rappers, dancers and musicians at Blue Hill Boys and Girls Club: Check it out—more photos, but even better, recordings of our time together in Dorchester last Friday! Thanx to fellow EBB drummer, Jeff, for documenting and editing. We had such an awesome time playing; thank you all for making it happen—it will continue to be one of my best HONK! memories. I posted the recordings here so you can download them (requires a free app): http://kiwi6.com/file?id=d52ka05rj6; http://kiwi6.com/file?id=yvevd60j9c; http://kiwi6.com/file?id=7cj1zbph4f. Now turn up the volume and sing along!  It’s got such a great groove to it.

Bob Follansbee: These are great. The interactions between individual kids and band members were priceless and one of the things that made the afternoon special. And the recordings are terrific. They really capture the wonder and energy of the afternoon. For example, it was great how one of the kids referred to “the band from Cali.” I’d also forgotten that “J” called for a trumpet solo after the rapping on his own. Then there were the girls rapping and driving the bus on the Blue Hill Shuffle. The spontaneous “Smoke on the Water” that came out of Jeff’s work with the kid playing the riff on guitar, then the rappers putting their raps over the song without any preparation . . . many other great moments. Too bad BLO and EBB don’t live here—that collaboration could really take off with more time to develop it. I keep singing that little riff:

Party party, we’re gonna get crazy

Party party, we never get lazy

Blue Hill

We’re all goin’ in and that’s the deal!

I hope you are decompressed from the HONK! intensity. I wanted to pass along my pix, which are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/52184139@N02/sets/. More as that develops.

Charlestown Boys & Girls Club—Springville All Stars Marching Band (western New York State)

Ken Field (HONK! Committee): The Springville Marching Band started playing just before 3 p.m. and immediately did a procession, many kids in tow, through the clubhouse, which mainly caters to younger kids, then out and up the sidewalk and around the block to the other building, which caters to teens, and then back to the first building.  It was a big hit.

The Springvilles played for about an hour and a half outside, fully engaging about 60-75 kids, who danced, sang, clapped and smiled a lot.  There were a number of kids who watched from a safe distance, but the band often walked around and sometimes moved into the “spectators” faces, which worked well.  There was a krewe of young break-dance types, and though they initially deferred on getting involved, the band moved over to where they were hanging, and they basically couldn’t keep themselves from dancing to the music.

John Killoran (BGCB): I think Ken was right on in his account of today’s event. The band was terrific (musically) and were even better (personally) engaging our kids and putting on a fun show. It’s after 6 p.m. now, and the energy is still high among club members.

South Boston (Southy) Boys & Girls Club—Extraordinary Rendition Marching Band (ERB - Providence, RI)

Tim Bothwell (BGCB): I just want to thank you all again for coming today. The kids had an unbelievable time, and you could feel the positive energy in this place even after the band left!

Avi David (ERB): Thanks so much! We had a great time as well—thanks to all for organizing the event!

John Bell (HONK! Committee): Here are two images [add link?] from ERB’s playing at South Boston BGC.  A good time was had by all!

Yawkey Boys & Girls Club of Roxbury—Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band (http://www.ensmb.com/) Somerville

Chuck Lechien (Emperor Norton): Now that the dust from HONK! has settled, I just wanted to say thank you so much for having us be a part of the neighborhood HONK! in Roxbury. The band had a blast playing with the kids, and it was a wonderful afternoon. I hope the kids had a good time and that we were able to impart some amount of enthusiasm for music and performance to them.

Jeremy T. Butler (BGCB): We had a wonderful time over at Roxbury as well, and I would like to thank you again for the energy and passion you brought to the club. The kids had an amazing time, and I did as well. As a matter of fact, the entire club loved it. It came up on our agenda for staff meeting the next day, and we got some really good feedback. So, thank you, and I hope we get to do it again in the future!

Margery Meadow (HONK! volunteer): One of the kids eagerly asked me, “Are you coming back next week?”

Zumix (East Boston)—Environmental Encroachment (Chicago, IL) Zumix brass and percussion ensemble

Mike Romanyshyn (HONK! Committee): The afternoon at Zumix with Environmental Encroachment was very good. There was a sizable contingent of Zumix horn players and drummers who showed up in their beautiful new space. Madeline, the director of Zumix, along with two teachers and an intern, joined the group of about 15 teenagers. Mike Smith from EE led a half -hour rehearsal getting five tunes together with everyone before we paraded to the Maverick T-stop via the waterfront park. The whole group played there to the 5 p.m. going-home crowd for about an hour. Very enthusiastic response. Nice all around.

A continuation of this collaboration took place at the parade on Sunday. Most of the same people from Zumix joined EE in the parade, and they played the tunes they had gotten together on Friday. Madeline led them, looking very happy.

Madeleine Steczynski (Zumix): We were just looking at photos from the East Boston HONK! parade on Flickr http://honkfest.org/pictures-videos/pictures-and-videos-2010/ There are some great shots!

Thanks to Minor Mishap (Austin, TX) and Leftist Marching Band (Portsmouth, NH) for their Friday interactions at Boston Common and to Rude Mechanical Orchestra (New York); the Somerville High School Marching Band, Drum Line, and World Percussion Ensemble; and SheBoom for their performances at Union Square, Somerville. Send us a report!

by Peter Lippman

Thirty protestors demonstrated at Benaroya Hall on February 26 before the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s appearance. The protest was organized by Palestine Solidarity Committee–Seattle (http://www.palestineinformation.org/main.htm) and Voices of Palestine (http://www.voicesofpalestine.org/).

Don't you DARE use my music to whitewash Israeli tyranny! - Beethoven

In 30-degree F weather, the demonstrators were accompanied by the Anti-Fascist Marching Band (http://antifascistmarchingband.110mb.com/)playing “Caravan,” “Misirlou,” “Masters of War,” “Oseh Shalom/Khaveynu Sholem Aleichem” and other thematic tunes.

Demonstrators handed out a PSC-designed leaflet with one side detailing the ills of the occupation and noting the IPO’s role in the “Brand Israel” campaign; the other side explained the goals and specifics of the academic and cultural boycott.

AFMB outside Benaroya Hall

Inside: The orchestra’s politicized role in whitewashing Israeli apartheid was apparent from the first moment of the concert, when the orchestra members stood and played both the US and Israeli national anthems.

While American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (http://www.afipo.org/) had bragged that the concert had been sold out for five months, it was apparent that there were empty seats in all sections of the house. It was also apparent that a significant number of the occupied seats had been reserved for Israeli security personnel.

Eight human-rights activists had entered Benaroya Hall as concertgoers. Some of them played a cat-and-mouse game with plainclothes security officers, who were present in abundance. Many of these sported ear wires and were heard speaking Hebrew.

The activists managed to distribute more than 400 stylish postcards throughout the hall both before the concert and during intermission. The front of the 5” x 7” card displayed a white bust of Beethoven on a black background, with the heading “Noble Music.” The back of the card read “Shameful Occupation” and outlined the nature of the occupation and the apartheid situation within Israel. At the bottom it read “Stop US Aid to Israel; End the Occupation.”

Activists placed the cards on seats, handed them to audience members, and left some in the washrooms. Clearly, part of the security force’s objective was to eliminate this message countering the orchestra’s “Brand Israel” “cultural diplomacy,” as agents were seen gathering up the “Shameful Occupation” cards as fast as they could.

Two who were passing out cards were ejected early on. Four more continued to pass out cards, being more surreptitious about it. Two other activists waited until the last note of the concert had sounded and then raised a 10-foot “END THE OCCUPATION” banner from seats in the center orchestra section. These people were made to leave the concert hall, but not arrested.

I hadn’t expected to meet Burundi musicians in the Anglo city of Perth, Australia, but it happened that we landed in the midst of these East African refugees one golden, sunny afternoon in February 2010. There they were, some 30 of them assembled at ASseTTs–the Center for Assisting Torture and Trauma Survivors (http://www.asetts.org.au/): dads coming in after a day’s work, moms with babies held by cloths wrapped onto their backs, adolescent girls and boys in ultracool headgear of colorful bandanas, and a band of guitars, a keyboard and a drum kit at the back of the room. For most of two hours, the Burundis sang, swayed, played and musically made their marks for Robert Faulkner and me.

We had come to listen as part of early efforts to set up research on “migrating songs” and the role of singing in maintaining, re-creating and negotiating identity among recent immigrants in their new communities. The research team consisted of Jane Davidson and Andrea Emberly, colleagues with Robert at the University of Western Australia, and me, all of us intent on knowing more about singing’s potential for social integration and the re-creation of cultural heritage in places far from home. We were collaborating on an investigation of recent-migration sites, wondering how and why musical artifacts (chiefly, songs) transform as people migrate and relocate across national boundaries. Someone had mentioned to us that a group of “Africans” were making music at ASseTTs every Tuesday and Thursday at 5:00 p.m., and so we stumbled our way over to the center. We found that ASseTTs is a community development program in Perth where refugees from war-torn nations, and especially survivors of torture and trauma, are helped in restoring their mental health and in building on their individual and group strengths, resources and skills.

Master Drummers of Burundi: Remembering the the musicians featured on Joni Mitchell’s 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns when I learned that we would visit the Burundi-Australians, I had in mind the thumping of cross rhythms. The tradition of the Master Drummers of Burundi has been around for centuries, using drums made from hollowed tree trunks covered with animal skins for coronations and for births and funerals of the Burundian royal courts. I imagined lots of single-headed drums, which look like a crosses between congas and djembes, and drummers with hands flattened to their drumheads, slapping away.

Burundi Band and Peace Choir: However, the Burundis of Perth took us to a different musical zone altogether. Their sound was soulful group singing, harmonized in standard pan-African I-IV-V pop style, choral and chordal, with occasional solo segments in call-response format, complemented by ostinato-like guitar rhythms. The singers were in perpetual motion, their whole bodies moving forward and back, heads bobbing, arms extended up, down and sideways and expressive of the texts they sang. (Hear them at www.burundipeacechoir.com/about/.) Their songs were self-composed praise songs in Twa language (one of three mother-tongues in the country, along with Tutsi and Hutu), songs of thanksgiving (that they had made it to Australia from hard times in Burundi), and prayers of hope that others could share their good fortune of making it out of wartime and into places of peace.

They had known extremely hard times, coming from ethnic conflict, political unrest and massive devastation. Like Rwanda, Burundi was the scene of growing tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi, with the Hutus intent on annihilating all the Tutsis in the early 1970s. The Tutsi-led military responded by targeting the Hutus, and a civil war erupted in the early 1990s, which amounted to the death of at least a half-million Burundis. Those who could escaped to refugee camps in Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire, where many more died of dysentery and cholera.

The Twa-speaking Burundi of Perth had started to make music in their refugee camp in Tanzania. Their leader, Jean Phillippe, believed that if he could get people singing, dancing and playing, they would overcome the trauma of the war (and the squalor of the refugee camps). They made guitars from wood and the wire spokes of abandoned bicycles; they made amplifiers from clay bowls. They played when they could, even daily, and traveled to different parts of the refugee camp and to churches to perform their praise songs. People listened, danced and sang along. They found strength in the songs, and they created happy memories. Their expressions were an exemplar of the principles of music as community, music as therapy and music as education for the young who could acquire the values inherent in the song texts and participate in the joyful music-making of their Burundi-Australian community.

The power of song: The Burundis of Perth proved music to be critical to their own well-being in that they could gather twice weekly at the center, where they could express themselves freely and engage with their community. ASseTTs provided little more than a space for their meetings but ensured that community development could happen. One Burundi woman explained her involvement in music (through her brother, who translated): “Our dream is to sing songs, to make our dreams so that everybody can hear it—Australia, different states, even different countries.” Group leader Jean Phillippe clarified their long-term goal: “If the choir has the means to do so, we would like to help our people back home in Africa: sing, make money and send it home for those of our families who need it.” These Burundi-Australians, like others in similar straits before them, had found music to be a means of sustaining and strengthening themselves, even as they flash-forward to how they might help those they left behind in their first home in the forests and towns of Burundi.