Booka Shade and the Birth of Electro

Tonight, I will be seeing/dancing/being in the proximity of one of my favourite electro/house groups- Booka Shade from Frankfurt. Here is something to listen to and nothing to watch, Mandarine Girl by Booka Shade.

In high school I held strong opinions denying the status of "music" to anything with an electronic beat. Punk had taken its toll- largely in the shape of sore neck muscles, large blue/purple hair and a notion that "society" was something to be yelled about. A fortuitous meeting with a jazz guitar teacher ignited a revolution in taste and within months I was listening to jazz divas and big bands. Still, electronic music seemed rather too much like the soundtrack to car racing games to be of any interest. Hip hop DJs built the bridge for me, but it wasn't until I came to Europe, the global heart of electronic music, that I started to differentiate between genres, styles and quality, to discern what I liked and what to avoid. Now I'm fairly able to unpack the amorphous and rather hilarious genre descriptions of the electro world such as "happy hardcore", "goa trance" and "intelligent drum-and-bass". But there is one style that forms my nemesis, a style that has risen to immense popularity during my time in Amsterdam such that it is almost unavoidable on any given evening, a style known by its adherents and dark practitioners as "minimal techno".

To understand the travesty that is minimal techno, I have to take you back to the very beginnings of techno. And here's the catch, like veritably all modern western music genres, techno was invented by African-Americans! I hear minds being blown world-wide. Techno, seemingly pretty much the whitest music there is, looks largely designed for people who cant handle too many complications in their rhythm section. But travel back with me to Detroit in the pivotal year of 1980. Detroit had largely avoided the disco fad of the 70's but kept strong connections to Funk and Soul. Of course the big news in Detroit and everywhere else in 1980 was the coming computer revolution. And damn, a funk band leader don't need no degree from MIT to talk about "funk technology". A common view emerged that in the near future we would be typing on computers (possibly in space), wearing computers (possible in flouro colours) and listening to "computer music" (possibly in devices made by a computer company). Mix this funk-futurism with the emergent sounds of European synth-pop (Kraftwerk etc) and "computer music" of the future was only steps away. As Derrick May described, the sound of techno was "...like Detroit... a complete mistake, it's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company."

Now, minimal techno has nothing at all to do with George Clinton, despite being his estranged progeny. It is a repetitive melee of tiny bits and beats with no tempo progression, melody or build whatsoever. It is fau "arty" background music for imperceptibly nodding one's head to in elevators. There is no funk, no feeling in minimal techno, a music so stripped down that it tires the ears and bores the soul. Were George alive today (and he is) he would surely declare that minimal is all foreplay and no sex... A Maladaptive Melody... The Defunctive Funk.

Citizens’ rights and the rule of law in a civil society: not just yet

"On the 24th of November 2007, history presented Australia with a choice. To the surprise of some and the delight of a narrow majority, Australia chose the ALP and brought to an ignominious end 11½ years of John Howard’s Government... The magnitude of the choice became clear soon afterwards. In the first sitting of the new parliament, the Government said ‘sorry’ to the stolen generations. It seemed almost too good to be true: the apology so many had waited so long to hear. And it was astonishing and uplifting to hear some of the noblest and most dignified sentiments ever uttered in that place on the hill. It is worth recalling some of the words:

“Today we honour the indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were stolen generations – this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and Governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. …
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these stolen generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say ‘sorry’.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say ‘sorry’.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say ‘sorry’. …
We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.
A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again. …”

The 13th of February 2008 will be remembered as a day the nation shifted, perceptibly. The apology was significant not only for marking a significant step in the process of reconciling ourselves with our past: it cast a new light on the former government. It set a new tone. And I think it reminded us of something we had lost: a sense of decency.

Most of the worst aspects of the Howard years can be explained by the lack of decency which infected their approach to government. They could not acknowledge the wrong that was done to the stolen generations; they failed to help David Hicks when it was a moral imperative: they waited until his rescue became a political imperative; they never quite understood the wickedness of imprisoning children who were fleeing persecution; they abandoned ministerial responsibility; they attacked the courts scandalously but unblushing; they argued for the right to detain innocent people for life; they introduced laws which prevent fair trials; they bribed the impoverished Republic of Nauru to warehouse refugees for us. It seemed that they did not understand just how badly they were behaving, or perhaps they just did not care. And they are unable to change their ways in defeat: prominent back-benchers are scrambling for the lifeboats.
One of the most compelling things about the apology to the stolen generations was that it was so decent. Suddenly, a dreadful episode in our history was acknowledged for what it was. Unfortunately, when announcing that the Government would apologize to the stolen generations, the Prime Minister also said that the Government would not offer compensation. Let me explain why I think that was unfortunate. ..."

Excerpt from the Ninth Manning Clark Lecture entitled "Citizens’ rights and the rule of law in a civil society: not just yet". By Julian Burnside QC.

Full transcript is here, unfortunately the podcast has been removed.

Jon Stewart interviews Douglas Feith

One of the most dangerous and infuriating aspects of the Bush administration has been the media-spinning, propaganda producing, history revising, blank-faced lies and denials. Knowledgeable, respectful, willy and determined, Jon Stewart interviews a lead Neocon in the Bush Administration's planning, execution and justification of the Iraq War- former Undersecretary of Defense, Douglas Feith.

Feel it. That sweet sense of accountability, and almost.. almost a hint of justice.

Putuwa

The Cammeraygal were the Aboriginal group living near my home in Sydney at the time of the European settlement in 1788. They were members of the Eora language family group, one of hundreds of languages and dialects native to Australia.

In Eora, the word Putuwa means "to warm one's hand by the fire and then to squeeze gently the fingers of another person."

The language was first documented by William Dawes, a member of the First Fleet to Australa, a surveyor, engineer, astronomer and botanist. Dawes learnt Eora from a Cammeraygal girl called Patyegarang, being the first European to learn an Aboriginal language- a feat Europeans found incredibly difficult, although the Eora had no problems mimicking English.

Against his wishes Dawes was sent from Australia on the first voyage of marines back to Britain, for his refusal to join punitive expeditions against aborigines. By the early 19th century the Eora people had become extinct, due to European disease and decline in natural food sources.

"Putuwa" and the acts of Dawes are a reminder of how kind humans can be when we choose. The settlement, his expulsion and the extinction of the Eora people seem a clear lesson of the destructive danger of indifference.

With thanks to "Cacophony", by Lewis Nowra, The Best Australian Essays 2005.

Time for Philosophers

Travelling to work on this particularly sunny spring morning, I faced the sudden realisation that I was a "Block Universe" theorist. I felt mostly the same; my jaw was still unshaven and belly not uncommonly empty, but now, in this short mater of seconds my ideas were no longer my own and I could be labelled as a a mere member of the eternalist cadre.

Such is the danger of the podcast in the modern age (given that podcasts in all previous ages were no problem whatsoever). One may wake up an honest man- ideas of his own making- and return to the very same bed, a non-reductive physico- Kuhnian -psychoexistentialist, with troublingly liberal, anti-historicist tendencies. I might dare to think that this is all just names, but then suddenly this makes me either a staunch logical positivist or belong to any number of post-modern genera, and I'm stuck in a universe factory.

Today's realisation came about because of a podcast on the nature of time, from the ABC's Philosophers Zone. The discussion took place with Dr David Braddon-Mitchell, who was a philosophy professor of mine at the University of Sydney.

Dr D. B-M: "...the block universe (view) says that all of space and time is one ginormous, eternal thing, and it has parts which are temporal parts, if you like. So the moment that we're in now, is one of the parts, there are lots of future parts, all of which exist, and lots of past parts, all of which exist. So this is the Yes, it's all there view, that's the eternalist view."

I like this view of everything existing as a timeless whole. When combined with ideas emerging from quantum physics suggesting that there is only one kind of stuff, we get a picture that is not unlike the views of some ancient monist philosophers. When one tries to add/reduce consciousness into the picture the ontological (simply, what is) picture gets really interesting.

At the close of the programme, the host, Alan Saunders, read beautifully from T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

Burnt Norton, T.S. Eliot

The full programme can be downloaded from the Philosophers Zone website for a short time.

Come One and All the Springtime has Befallen

We wait; cold, damp, shrouded in the feeble greying light as color leaches from our skies, our streets and our souls. For long months it goes but this way. Winter passes in name alone, as Spring and Autumn offer no sign of release. Atlantic gales chill our very bones and mock the rare flashes of once pink skin. Those of us from southern climes reach for strong drink and palliatives to fight off insensible complaints.

Then BAMN, just as hopes were being crushed and curses reached the windswept boughs, the Amsterdam Magnificence Engine fires up and turns on this-

Photography by Tom Weaver

Come one and many, the grand summer of 2008 is beckoning from fair Amsterdam! With a great sadness I had to leave my wonderful room on Leliegracht before heading to Brazil. However, I have now taken residence in central Leidseplein, an environment equally comfortable and stimulating, if not rather decadent. Looking forward to sharing a remarkable summer with many of you.