A short trip to Austin earlier this month felt like a homecoming, even though I’ve never been there before. I’ve rarely been bombarded with so much music, with so little planning or effort, for so long into the night, since I left Chicago for California more than two decades ago. Austin is the sort of place where you venture out for coffee after your night of music and find out that the coffeehouse (in this case, Jo’s Hot Coffee on South Congress) has its own house band playing a bang-up set of western swing. A record store mural across the street from the UT/ Austin campus registers the city’s sense of music history: among others, Buddy Holly, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash share wall space with Dylan, Iggy, and the Clash.

If one figure spans all those influences, it is the provocateur, painter, raconteur and raver Jon Langford. The Welsh-born Leeds-to-Chicago transplant and Bloodshot Records mainstay has—in the 23-year stretch dating from the Mekons’ often-mentioned, seldom heard Fear and Whiskey—done more than just about anyone else to resuscitate the withered heart of post-punk and reclaim the tarnished soul of American country. In Austin, I was thrilled to discover that the Yard Dog Gallery has a fantastic collection of Langford’s visual art, mostly densely layered, distressed images of iconic American roots musicians in graveyard settings. Blindfolded, sullied and marked for extinction, the characters remind me of Chicago artist Ivan Albright’s studies of decay and corruption; constantly “dancing with death,” they are unsettlingly alive and a reminder of the slow death that comes out of greed, fear and homogenization.

As a curmudgeonly first-generation art school punk who writes lines like “John Glenn drinks cocktails with God at a café in downtown Saigon,” Langford is smart enough to realize he doesn’t play or paint “authentic” honky tonk any more than Vampire Weekend is a gang of African tribesmen. And unlike some of his retro-worshipping peers, he acknowledges that the “golden age” of county music had its own problems with pills and pretenders and poor directions. Yet he uses his outsider’s distance as an advantage. While bemoaning the death of country music at the hands of what he calls “suburban rock music with a cowboy hat on,” Langford’s work cuts deeper than that, excavating the signs of life in a cultural landscape pockmarked with interchangeable strip malls and Kenny Chesney records. There’s also a redemptive element in the search; like his protagonist in his Waco Brothers anthem “Hell’s Roof,” he’s reclaiming a lost history, “walking on hell’s roof, looking at the flowers” (and not “walking in a clown suit, looking at the flowers,” as I misheard Langford’s impassioned growl for more than a year).

Jon Langford, “Hell’s Roof”

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Although Cuban bass virtuoso Israel “Cachao” Lopez took his final breaths this week, it’s hard to imagine this humble giant, who played in more than 250 groups from the 1920s on, as not having a pulse. Cachao would have been legendary even if he had retired around 1940. As a member of Arcaño y Sus Maravillas in the late 1930s, Cachao and his multi-instrumentalist brother Orestes “Macho” Lopez reworked the rarefied French-influenced parlor music of the danzón into the mambo. But by the 1950s, when Perez Prado and many others (from Rosemary Clooney to Bill Haley) rode the mambo to international fame, Cachao had moved on to perfect the descarga, the “jam session” format that provided breathing room for serious instrumental improvisation. More than a rhythm master, Cachao united melody and harmony into an irresistible connecting thread—what George Clinton would later call a “groove.”

Because Cachao was a Cuban expatriate who spent his postwar years in places ranging from Madrid to Miami, it would be easy to give his career the Buena Vista Social Club treatment, viewing him as a nostalgic relic of Cuba’s romantic past. But that would understate his legacy. One of Cachao’s few peers, pianist Bebo Valdes, has noted that before Cachao, Cuban music had counter-tempo, but still lacked real syncopation. Cachao, who spent decades in the Havana Symphony performing with conductors ranging from Ernesto Lecuona to Igor Stravinsky, elevated the seriousness of the bass even as he made it dance, swing and shimmer.

Some of Cachao’s obituaries quote from a hero of mine—musicologist and “cowboy rumba” innovator Ned Sublette–whose astonishingly good book Cuba and its Music describes Cachao as “arguably the most important bassist in twentieth century popular music.” While this may beg the question of whether Charles Mingus was “popular,” Sublette has a point. As he notes, “with Cachao, the modern bass feel of Cuban music begins. And with that begins the bass feel of the second half of the twentieth century in U.S. music as well—those funky ostinatos that we know from later decades of R&B, which have become such a part of the environment that we don’t even think about where they came from.”

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We can all breathe a sigh of relief now that last week’s Super Bowl managed to conclude without a Tom Petty wardrobe malfunction. Petty’s halftime set was solid enough, although Patriots fans would probably have substituted “Even the Losers (Get Lucky Sometimes)” for “Free Fallin’.” It could have been much worse, and at the Super Bowl, former host of the Up With People Singers and a wax statue resembling Paul McCartney, it often has.

Still, the Sedentary Wilbury didn’t seem up to the task of accompanying one of the most electrifying games in the sport’s history,won on the underdog New Jersey Giants’ last-chance power drive. That task would have required something else, and I don’t mean the Boss. I’m talking about phallic guitars turned heavenward, funky drummers fighting foo, backup dancers with rain-resistant hairdos, and the wankiest stadium-show riffing since Jimi Hendrix cut his teeth on the National Anthem. In short, it would have required last year’s halftime show.

With a week’s reflection and time off for an adult cartoon (and there’s nothing more cartoonish than hearing the phrase“SuperDuper Tuesday” drop out of George F. Will’s mouth), I decided to compare this year’s Super Bowl MVP, occasional karaoke singer Eli Manning, with last year’s Super Bowl MVP, Prince. It helped that Scot hosted a home screening of Purple Rain, which I hadn’t seen since it was really still 1984. After the click-through, I’ll score how Prince and Eli stacked up.

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As our website returns from a winter hiatus, poll results are everywhere, and not just in Presidential politics. When I still voted in the Village Voice’s Pazz and Jop critics’ poll, I remember thinking how absurdly fast it seemed to rank the previous year’s best music in January. But this time, when Pazz and Jop followed the Idolator poll and dozens of other young rivals, it already seemed like old news. With a few variations, the top poll results roughly resembled the “year-end” list the now-defunct Stylus Magazine posted in late October.

I can’t complain about multiple poll winner LCD Soundsystem, the brainy dance band that tossed off the best rip I’ve heard on New York’s Michael Bloomberg (“your mild billionaire mayor’s now convinced he’s a king”). I’m also thrilled at the top-ten consensus for M.I.A.’s Kala, which gave a trans-global boom-boom-boom to those of us who have, like the National, spent too long feeling half-awake in a fake empire. Still, there’s a problem in treating lists like these as canons of coolness. They call to mind my favorite 2007 music review, which was so fake it’s real. The Onion reported that Pitchfork gave a rating of 6.8 to “music”—not any one recording or genre, but its entire history. It seems music, while brilliant at times, is weighed down with too many “mid-tempo ballads,” and worse, “the whole medium comes off as derivative of Pavement.”

Maybe I’m just getting as cranky as the music geek in LCD’s earlier song “Losing My Edge”—the guy who was “there at the first Can show in Cologne,” only to get upstaged by “the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978.” But I decided to avoid premature evaluations and go where nobody else seemed to be heading: 2006. With a year’s reflection, I wondered, how had my presumed favorites of a year ago held up, and what had I missed that meant more to me now? The results weren’t quite what I expected.

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Canadian reggae and soul, eh? If you expect that combination to go down as easily as curried goat with a side of Canadian bacon, you may be surprised. By the late sixties, economic strains, liberalized Canadian immigration laws, and fear among draft-age men that a United States passport would lead straight to Vietnam led a growing number of Jamaican expatriates to relocate in Toronto. Just 236 miles from Motown, visionary keyboardist/ arranger Jackie Mittoo, who had already cofounded the Skatalites and served as music director at Jamaica’s Studio One, helped guide a gang of upstarts eager to mix their Island recipes with generous helpings of sweet soul and heavy funk. The Jamaicans in Toronto included rhythm king Wayne McGhie, gritty vocalists Johnny Osbourne and the Mighty Pope, dub-savvy crooner Noel Ellis (son of rocksteady legend Alton Ellis), and roots rocker Willi Williams, whose “Armagideon Time” (”versioned” from a Mittoo riff and showcased below) later became the Clash’s most moving reggae cover. The Toronto scene produced music of surprising range and vision for almost two decades, and then seemingly disappeared.

Thanks to Vancouver-based music historian Sipreano (AKA Kevin Howes) this vibrant body of work has been brought back from cultural extinction. The innovative small label Light in the Atttic—whose catalog includes everything from Brazilian iconoclasts Os Mutantes to the Velvets-meets-Roky apocalyptic sound of Austin’s Black Angels—has released two fascinating anthologies and reissued several crucial solo albums (by Mittoo, McGhie and Noel Ellis) chronicling the best of the Toronto scene. Last year’s mostly soul and funk-centered Jamaica to Toronto anthology, discussed more below, already ranks as one of my favorite music collections released in the Zeroes. Worth the price all by themselves are the tracks by Jo-Jo and the Fugitives—the righteous wanderers’ anthem “Fugitive Song,” and the delicious, McGhie-penned “Chips/ Chicken/ Banana Split,” whose huge break-beat deserves a place on your ultimate chicken dance playlist alongside the Meters’ “Chicken Strut” and Cibo Matto’s “Know Your Chicken.”

Jo-Jo and the Fugitives, Fugitive Song

Jo-Jo and the Fugitives, Chips/Chicken/Banana Split

The new Summer Records Anthology, 1974-1988, captures Toronto’s homegrown reggae as it traversed the path that Sipreano describes as “dub to digital,” although only Unique Madoo’s spirited dancehall workout “Call Me Nobody Else” really represents the latter. After a few tracks of Johnny Osbourne’s soulful crooning and house band Earth Roots and Water’s supple rhythms, it becomes easy to forget that Lee Perry’s Black Ark Studio, which operated around the same years, was thousands of miles away. An interesting short film (excerpts below) accompanies the anthology. In it, Summer Records vocalist/ impresario Jerry Brown, Willi Williams, and Jackie Mittoo weave a cosmic, rhythmic and economic thread that connects dub reggae, bicycling and auto body repair. Did you really think those rat-a-tats were just random noises?

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On the second anniversary of the Hurricane Katrina disaster, I’m posting my New Orleans odyssey, “Listening to the Water.” The soundtrack to the story features Irma Thomas, Mos Def, the Meters, Amerie, Bessie Smith, Randy Newman, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, with a special public service announcement from Kanye West.

The man at the door of the Blue Angel nightclub had the ugliest mustache I had ever seen. It looked penciled on, like he was playing Rhett Butler in a school production of “Gone with the Wind” without really giving a damn. I moved toward my sister, trying to look married. The man grinned. “Uh, y’all are eighteen, aren’t you?,” he asked. “Yes—uh YES,” I croaked. “Well, come on in,” he said, “don’t get too crazy all at once, you hear?”

It was May 1977. So far, I’d had a New Orleans experience the Chamber of Commerce could have scripted. Stroll the French Quarter’s sunshine-filled streets. Inhale chicory-scented coffee and beignets. Clap as ancient tuba and banjo players at Preservation Hall trot out their millionth rendition of “St. James Infirmary,” and clarinetist Pete Fountain entertains your mom’s corporate convention.

At 15, I didn’t understand that to natives, most of this signifies “New Orleans” the way Rice-a-Roni is the “San Francisco treat.” But inside the smoky club, I sensed more mystery. The cornet player stopped his Dixieland riffing and hit a note so hushed and low it hinted at another New Orleans behind the tourist curtain. Outside the nightclub, a street drummer coaxed ripples and torrents out of garbage can lids. He motioned to me, as if to share a secret. But he only said one thing: “The sound is in the water.”

Irma Thomas - It’s Raining

Mos Def, “Katrina Klap”

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Against my better judgment, I’m succumbing to the craze among online music fanatics to rewite songs in limerick form. Borrowing the popular idea to rewrite famous poems, Carl Wilson at Zoilus wrote limericks for an assortment of rock chestnuts ranging from Zep’s Jurassic classic “Stairway” to Sonic Youth’s adult-aged “Teenage Riot.” Rock, soul and hip-hop limericks started spreading like wildfire.

While this was all good fun, most struck me as stronger in concept than in execution. Then Idolator directed me to “There Once Was a Man From Garageland,” Twin Cities critic Nate Patrin’s Ogden Nash-worthy limerick version of the Clash’s entire London Calling album for his excellent site, Rebel Machine. It’s a complete tour de force. Here’s Patrin’s version of “Lost in the Supermarket“:

Ennui strikes in the middle of Tesco
I don’t fit in where all of the rest go
My life is the pits
But at least Salsoul Hits
And some lager will make it feel less so.

All of the attempts I’ve seen, including Patrin’s, at least have lyrics that can be condensed in limerick form. To make things more sporting, I decided to try John Coltrane’s Live at Birdland album, one of only a few that has changed my life as much as London Calling. Here’s my limerick transcription of Live at Birdland, including the bonus track available only on CD:

Afro-Blue

A fleet-fingered drummer named Mongo
Wrote a rhythm best suited for bongo
But Trane tore it asunder
Elvin thrashed through the thunder
You could hear it from Jersey to Congo.

The rest of the album follows after the click.

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When I think about Tom Snyder, the talk show host who passed away earlier this week, the first thing that comes to mind is his laugh, an old-school guffaw that bordered on self-parody long before Dan Aykroyd made it the centerpiece of a Saturday Night Live routine. Then I think about the eyebrows, twin black caterpillars that gave away his mood just as convincingly as Sam Donaldson’s as he made conversation with guests ranging from Ayn Rand to Charles Manson (and no, I’m not drawing any connection here). But most of all, I remember the music and interviews on Snyder’s signature program, The Tomorrow Show, which ran in my formative years between 1973 and 1982. At a time when even SNL had distinct boundaries on what could be played and discussed during the show, Snyder took risks with performers considered too edgy or unpredictable for most of the “alternative” shows of the day.

Superficially, the slightly haughty Snyder could come off a bit like the Mr. Jones of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man” (“something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is”). But Snyder didn’t patronize the performers, wasn’t afraid to call them on their own contradictions, and got some unlikely subjects to stand and deliver. Many of the highlights (although conspicuously, not the Clash and U2) are included in Shout Factory’s recent DVD release The Tomorrow Show: Punk and New Wave, which captures appearances by the Jam, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, and the Ramones, among others. In the rest of this post, I’ll share a few memorable Tomorrow Show moments. (Also discussed below: the hidden connection between Martha Stewart and the Plasmatics.)

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One of our oldest and dearest friends, who goes by the name Rinchen, is a devout Buddhist currently two thirds of the way through a three-year hitch in a monastery in the Santa Cruz mountains, where he is studying with the teacher he’s chosen for life, and practicing almost total silence. Rinchen has no access to the outside world — no phone calls, no newspapers, no internet, no television… and no music. The latter fact is particularly striking, as Rinchen is one of the deepest listeners we know - a man who could spend an entire day tapped into an 8-disc Cecil Taylor free improv set, then put on some Parliament or Missy Elliott and jam the night away. Rinchen’s music collection was breathtaking — before he sold it all to finance his silent expedition.

A few times a year, Rinchen is granted a day or two to visit with family and to write letters to friends. We wrote him a few months ago asking what music runs through a monk’s mind in between the long periods of silence. Today we received the following poem/riff on Cage, Monk, Miles, The Meters and more (with bundled playlist).
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Part One: International Sheep of Mystery

With a style that veers between downright rude and merely impudent, Rufus Leaking isn’t your usual music reporter. He began an interview with funk legend George Clinton by introducing him as the “42nd President of the United States,” and spent most of the time asking him where he thought he could park the Mothership in downtown Washington, D.C. He virtually forced Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips to join him in a karaoke version of Starship’s “We Built this City,” even though neither of them actually knew how the song went. He gave members of Cypress Hill an impromptu anatomy quiz, compared singing actress Juliette Lewis to Corey Feldman, and confused Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst with Frank Sinatra (Bright Eyes, Blue Eyes, whatever). Yet musicians have clamored for a chance to appear on his obscure, low budget television show, whose roster of visiting talent could give the Lollapalooza, Coachella and Roskilde festivals a run for their money.

Who is this man? Actually, Rufus Leaking is a puppet with an identity crisis. Self-described on his website as an “international sheep of mystery,” he’s sometimes described in media accounts as a goat puppet. Whatever his barnyard origins, he’s the host of a wonderful Washington, D.C.-based children’s television show called Pancake Mountain, presently on hiatus while its creator, film producer Scott Stuckey (grandson of the roadside snack empire’s founders) revamps its format and tries to expand its reach. Previous episodes are available on DVD. Let’s hope Stuckey succeeds, because at its best, Pancake Mountain celebrates the simple pleasures of making a joyful noise, or at least a tremendous racket. In one of the inaugural episodes, D.C. punk pioneer Ian MacKaye used the show to introduce the Evens, his pop-savvy duo with former Warmers drummer Amy Farina. The Evens’ “Vowel Movement,” a charming ode to “six important letters,” makes you wonder what might have been if Fugazi and Minor Threat had smiled a bit and performed in matching jumpsuits.

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I’m on my annual pilgrimage to New Orleans, the big not-so-easy-anymore, checking out the first weekend of the Jazz and Heritage Festival, or JazzFest for short. Fest is an orgy of music, food, and crafts, not necessarily in that order. Every year we try to revisit some old favorites, check out a few ringers, and stumble over some music we’d never heard before. Last year’s discovery was twisted Louisiana piano perfessor Bobby Lounge, who we’ll be seeing again tomorrow. This year so far I’ve fallen in love with Bonerama (not what it sounds like) and have two more days to discover something totally fresh.

Between the soft-shell crab and cochon du lait po-boys, rosemint ice tea, popcorn shrimp, and beignets today we heard jamming’ string-band music from Jeff and Vida and caught snippets of Zachary Richard, Trombone Shorty, Soulive, and Percy Sledge. We ended the day by shoving our way to near the front of the Acura stage (where they’ve finally outlawed those obnoxious frat/sorority style easy-chair encampments), to watch Van Morrison prove he’s still got it with a country-ish (dobro and fiddle included) band offering five-party backing harmonies. Dr. John came out to sit in on a Fats Domino tune but it looked like they had woken him up from a nap or a nod, because he tootled on the piano just a little bit and interspersed a little response to Van’s call in his inimitable “Y’at” drawl. Van opened with “Moondance” and took his time with “Cleaning Windows” and country classics like “There Stands the Glass” before my arthritic knee threatened to kill me if I didn’t hobble off the green and find some place to rest.

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It’s time to play a punk rock variation on the ancient What’s My Line quiz show, where you guess the musician and his new career direction. Here are the clues:
• Suppose your guitar playing and threadbare singing carry such coruscating intensity that concertgoers can hear their ears ringing days later—and this is after your solo acoustic shows.
• Suppose you were the grittier part of a songwriting team often described as punk’s Lennon and McCartney.
• Suppose Nirvana, the Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, Green Day, the Hold Steady, and much other “alternative rock” couldn’t have existed without you, and yet none of your offspring matched the melding of noise and melody, and the sheer adrenaline rush, that spills out of your best work.
• Suppose a British website theorizes that you and Bobby Hill of King of the Hill are, in fact, the same person.

The mystery guest is Bob Mould, former leader of the umlaut-worthy Twin Cities power trio Hüsker Dü, and later the potent and more refined Sugar. And his new career direction? As I discovered on a recent trip to Washington, D.C., Mould–who has been a dedicated blogger, electronica DJ and man-about-town in the district for several years–is the new advice columnist for an alternative weekly, the Washington City Paper. In his Ask Bob column, Mould invites readers to ask him questions about “music, cooking, travel, politics, religion, neighborhoods, and sociology.” (more…)

In an interview I did once with psychedelic guitarist Steve Kimock, I asked him why, when I hear music that isn’t familiar, I often find myself relating it to something I do know. For instance, a song by his then-band Zero had a hook that reminded me of the chorus of a Beatles song. One of his guitar riffs reminded me of Mark Knopfler’s playing on “Money For Nothing.” Zero’s cover of “Baby, Baby” (aka, “Baby, I Love You,” made famous by Aretha Franklin) smacked of a Dead song (”The Love Each Other”).

“Cultural preconditioning” was Kimock’s explanation. He was also talking about our familiarity with western scales and harmonies.

I can’t help thinking there’s something a mite odd about the way my brain will take some string of music fed into and run this frantic search to find even an approximate match in my memory. But then, it’s not just me, is it? In the Onion’s ‘03 classic “I Have An iPod—In My Mind,” the fictional writer touts the superiority of his built-in iPod:

There are no firewire cords or docks to mess with. I just put my hands behind my head, lean back, and select a tune from the extensive music-library folder inside my brain….

You say those iPods have customizable playlists that allow you to line up songs of your choosing? Primitive! I can put together a playlist, say “Best-Ever Heavy Metal Anthems,” while I’m sitting in traffic. My mind is light-years beyond that, though. Does your iPod have the “That Reminds Me Of Another Great Song” feature? Well, my mind does!

But I can go the fictional Ted Lascowicz one better. Given an arbitrary string of words my mind will come up with a somewhat relevant lyric. For years I’d find myself humming “Ruby Tuesday” (in my mind, that is) while shopping at the legendary Berkeley Bowl. Eventually I realize this song recall was being triggered by the stacks of ruby grapefruits.

And just this morning I noticed a bilingual wet floor sign in a stairwell at work. I’m going to assume that piso mojado means what I think it does. But a good ten minutes later I caught my mind cueing up Janis Joplin as she broke into perhaps the greatest cover song of her career, and singing

I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it,
Take another little piso mojado, baby,
Break another little bit of my heart now, darling, yeah.
Hey! Have another little piso mojado, baby, yeah.
You know you got it if it makes you feel good.

Oh yes indeed.

The Arctic Monkeys’ reworked version of “Dancing Shoes” with a ridiculously catchy Cuban rhythm, featured on last fall’s Rhythms del Mundo compilation, first seems noteworthy simply for its goofy exuberance. A YouTube video, which borrows a classic Bollywood dance sequence, makes the song even more relentlessly silly. But beneath the surface humor is a desperate plea for help, revealing the Arctic Monkeys’ struggle for survival in an increasingly inhospitable climate.

Sadly, the Arctic Monkeys’ plight is representative of a huge, and until now, underreported problem: the threat climate change poses to the world’s music supply. This six-part essay reports on the impending musical catastrophe and the global efforts, spearheaded by international celebrity and unofficial “fifth Monkey” Al Gore, to bring about a saner and more musically balanced future.


Holiday in the Sun

Between 1971 and 2000, July high temperatures in the Arctic Monkeys’ hometown of Sheffield, England averaged a moderate 67.1 degrees Fahrenheit. Monkeys members fear a rise of several degrees could induce a complacency that would thwart their ability to turn aging Buzzcocks and Libertines riffs into snappy pop songs. It’s hardly a coincidence that the Arctic Monkeys’ new album is titled Favorite Worst Nightmare. “This is serious, man,” remarked lead singer Alex Turner. “Take away that distinctly British chill, and before you know it, we’d be crooning bloody Cliff Richard songs on ‘Top of the Pops’ for me bloody mum and auntie.”

British musicians fear that warming trends threaten the supply of angst, guilt and irony, the three pillars of British musical expression, and arguably of all Anglo-Saxon culture. MySpace ska-pop princess Lily Allen announced she is canceling a spring break in Ibiza and touring by dogsled in Lapland instead. Allen, who asked “sun is in the sky, oh why?” on last year’s prescient “LDN,” wants a secure place for her music. “The reindeer are a bit daft, but I feel safe here,” she said, sipping Absolut vodka in Sweden’s Jukkasjarvi Ice Hotel, 200 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle.

The direst warnings came from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. “Look, I’m not trying to get all Bono on you about global warming,” he said, “but I think we may already have reached the tipping point. You know that old Pink Floyd concert movie filmed at Pompeii, where the lads are so out of it that they sing a 23-minute song about an albatross and babble incoherently about wanting pie with no crust? Well, that would be Radiohead in a warmer world. If you thought Kid A was already full of little blips and burps, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

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When he tired of the expense, the navel-gazing, and the circular conversations in the weekly sessions of therapy, his bright idea was to revive his interest in drumming, and what he lacked in actual ability he could always compensate for with enthusiasm and volume. This was not music to the ears of his wife, for if there was one trait she brought from her four-year tenure at UC Santa Cruz, other than a healthy respect for diversity and an unhealthy interest in thrift-store bargains, it was her fear of drum circles. But a drummer in Berkeley, like an addict in a methadone ward, needs more than words to make him stop, and besides, it felt so good.

It brought him back to when he was fifteen, staring in the mirror with sticks in hand, thinking, well, they may think I live in the library, I may be the captain of the debate team, but damn it, I will be the next Zigaboo Modeliste.

They met every Monday. They studied a different Third World rhythm every month, and to assuage the guilt that accompanied their idleness, they tried to discuss the human rights problems of every country whose rhythms they clumsily appropriated. And it therefore came to pass that blond-haired, blue-eyed misapplications of son and rhumba rhythms were downed in minty mojitos and debates about the legacy of Castro. The rat-a-tatting of failed doumbek rhythms led to hooka pipe and hash-intensified meanderings about the problem of Palestine, the multiple meanings of Zionism, the dreams of diaspora, and the wandering of Western Sahara. Borderline unlistenable tappings on a tabla, coupled with too many six-packs of Singha beer, led his little circle to tie themselves in knots over nuclear proliferation between India and Pakistan and the unresolved status of Kashmir. The hollow echo of the talking drum, and the ingestion of a green substance he could barely hold, much less identify, left him with a vague sense that something was amiss in the slums of Lagos. Fumbling attempts at samba rhythms brought an appreciation of the old souls of Bahia and a sense of wonder about the Brazilian rainforest. Then came the steel drums of Trinidad, the reverb of reggae, the deluge of rum punch, and the sudden desire to atone for 500 years of colonialism in the Caribbean.

He couldn’t stop himself. He may have been white, and born to parents who revered Pat Boone and Andy Williams, but he was damned if he wouldn’t at least try to understand the world and its conversant rhymes, the march and pacing and order that spoke a universal language in which he was only a beginner, but determined to try.

The restless searching finally ended the week he saw his Middle Eastern drumming teacher play in a large festival with her star pupil, who performed the same rhythm he had learned in class, yet flawlessly and five times faster. The star pupil was eight. He went home, put his sticks and worldwide collection of percussion instruments into a box in the basement, and opened a book for the first time in months.