For more information on the Insulting Cabaret which takes place on Saturday 12th April at the National Theatre in London, click here. Or go to the P.E.N. site.
As part of the Insulting Cabaret Jason Phipps will be playing a selection of music under the title 'Censoring Song'.
Jason Phipps has worked as arts and specialist music producer for the BBC for eight years, working with such luminaries as Norman Jay MBE and Charlie Gillett. Like all former fine art students he spent more time and money collecting and discussing music then making art over the years and so has accrued a mighty collection of records many of which have caused offense, stirred the social and political firmament and incurred the wrath of the censor. Jason will be presenting a collection of these records representing banned and protest music from around the globe.
The songs played on the night are:
Intro music - 'Himno De Riego' - This is the a march that became the alternative Spanish national anthem during the first (1820-23) and second Spanish Civil Wars (1931-39). In Catalonia a particularly rude version of the lyrics was very popular during the civil war. One stanza went thus;
(From Spanish)
"A man was pooping
But had no paper.
King Alfonso XIII came by
So he wiped his ass with him."
Extract from Frank Zappa's appearance on the American political discussion programme 'Crossfire' in on CNN 1986.
"Requerimento A Censura" - This is a song by the great Brazilian iconoclast Tom Ze. The song is actually written as an appeal to the state censor to approve the song. Ze and many of his generation of musicians lived under the military rule of the National Renewal Alliance Party which over threw the Joao Goulart presidency and brought a period of severe state censorship. Ze along with Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso amongst others. Tom Ze fell into obscurity until the great David Byrne revived his recordings and career by making him the first signing to Byrnes label Luaka Bop. Click below to see Ze in action, this is another overtly political song from the same album, Companheiro Bush, enjoy.
"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" - This is a song written by Pete Seeger in 1967 during the Vietnam War. The song is the story of a platoon that's waist deep in the Mississippi River in Louisiana on a practice patrol in 1942 but the captain orders the platoon to continue, until they're finally up to their necks. The song was an obvious metaphor for the Vietnam War as a whole, and how the United States kept getting deeper and deeper into the war and eventually became so drawn into it that withdrawal was nearly impossible, but kept pushing on anyway. It's contemporary resonance is glaring. Pete Seeger sang the song on the taping of the CBS show, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in September, 1967. However the CBS top brass objected to its political tone, and censored the song prior to broadcast. CBS later relented, and allowed Pete to come back and sing the song on the Brothers' February 25, 1968 show. Here is the original recording of Seeger on the show and of course he could not let the chance without giving the American public a history lesson.
As part of the Insulting Cabaret Jason Phipps will be playing a selection of music under the title 'Censoring Song'.
Jason Phipps has worked as arts and specialist music producer for the BBC for eight years, working with such luminaries as Norman Jay MBE and Charlie Gillett. Like all former fine art students he spent more time and money collecting and discussing music then making art over the years and so has accrued a mighty collection of records many of which have caused offense, stirred the social and political firmament and incurred the wrath of the censor. Jason will be presenting a collection of these records representing banned and protest music from around the globe.
The songs played on the night are:
Intro music - 'Himno De Riego' - This is the a march that became the alternative Spanish national anthem during the first (1820-23) and second Spanish Civil Wars (1931-39). In Catalonia a particularly rude version of the lyrics was very popular during the civil war. One stanza went thus;
(From Spanish)
"A man was pooping
But had no paper.
King Alfonso XIII came by
So he wiped his ass with him."
Extract from Frank Zappa's appearance on the American political discussion programme 'Crossfire' in on CNN 1986.
"Requerimento A Censura" - This is a song by the great Brazilian iconoclast Tom Ze. The song is actually written as an appeal to the state censor to approve the song. Ze and many of his generation of musicians lived under the military rule of the National Renewal Alliance Party which over threw the Joao Goulart presidency and brought a period of severe state censorship. Ze along with Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso amongst others. Tom Ze fell into obscurity until the great David Byrne revived his recordings and career by making him the first signing to Byrnes label Luaka Bop. Click below to see Ze in action, this is another overtly political song from the same album, Companheiro Bush, enjoy.
"Waist Deep in the Big Muddy" - This is a song written by Pete Seeger in 1967 during the Vietnam War. The song is the story of a platoon that's waist deep in the Mississippi River in Louisiana on a practice patrol in 1942 but the captain orders the platoon to continue, until they're finally up to their necks. The song was an obvious metaphor for the Vietnam War as a whole, and how the United States kept getting deeper and deeper into the war and eventually became so drawn into it that withdrawal was nearly impossible, but kept pushing on anyway. It's contemporary resonance is glaring. Pete Seeger sang the song on the taping of the CBS show, the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in September, 1967. However the CBS top brass objected to its political tone, and censored the song prior to broadcast. CBS later relented, and allowed Pete to come back and sing the song on the Brothers' February 25, 1968 show. Here is the original recording of Seeger on the show and of course he could not let the chance without giving the American public a history lesson.
"Canto Libre" - This is a song by the great Chilean poet, playwright and songwriter Victor Jara. The song title translates as 'Freedom Song'. Jara was one of a number of singers and songwriters to breath life into the Chilean folk tradition which became known as the Nueva Canción Chilena or New Chilean Song. Jara's floating dreamlike voice and the beauty of his writing was to connect deeply with his country men and women. It was this connection and his political activism which led to his torture and execution in 1973 at the hands of a U.S. backed coup led by General Pinochet. Jara's influence only grew after his death and the suppression in Chile of his musical legacy. They are still re-issuing his albums and somewhere in Hollywood a film script or two is floating about. Below is a montage of archive footage set to the song.
"Amazing Disgrace" - this is a song by the great jazz collective the World Saxophone Quartet. Sung by the great gospel singer Carla Amba Hawthorne. "Amazing Disgrace" is a post-Katrina cry of pain and anger, Carla reverses the lifting nature of the original spiritual and renders it as a cry of desperation, exacerbation. Not surprisingly this song was not given much radio play in the U.S. In this interview with WSQ David Murray and his fellow musicians outline why there music has taken an overt political turn.
"Road Ladies" - Frank Zappa is probably the most demonised and censored artist in modern times. Ironically he lived and worked in a "democracy" the United States of America. Zappa is a true libertarian and was not afraid to go on national television and defend freedom of expression against encroaching censorship. Many songs are censored for their political content but more often songs are censored because they are deemed pornographic or morally dubious. Zappa was the king of the morally dubious song and his razor sharp wit was directed as much at himself and his peers as it was at the censorious political culture in Washington. The song "Road ladies" is from the album Joes Garage and is just a funky and funny poke at the sexual proclivities of touring musicians. Zappa for all his acclaim and continuing fame around the world is still a 'persona non grata' on the airwaves. I once found one of his records stacked neatly in a BBC library, beside each of the tracks there was a small red sticker and a note "do not play". There was not one track on the entire album that was deemed safe enough to play. What a shame. Here is a rare clip of one John Lennon and Yoko Ono hanging out with their hero Frank Zappa on stage in Filmore East June 5 1971.
"Don't Call Me Red" - This is a song written by Ry Cooder. Latin America and in particular Cuba has been a source of inspiration and musical collaboration for this legendary guitarist and composer for much of his musical career. Considering that Latin America has been such a hot-bed of social and politcal unrest during Cooder's lifetime it seems strange that his most overtly political music should happen in recent years. Cooder's album 'Chavez Ravine' 2005 is a record that remembers the struggle by L.A.'s Latino community to retain an informal town known as Chavez Ravine which was forcibly repossesed in the 1950's to make way for the L.A. Dodgers baseball stadium. The reposession of the land revealed the contempt with which the authorities treated the Latino community. I chose the song 'Don't Call Me Red' as it traces the story of the public housing planner Frank Wilkenson who tried to build low-rent housing for the citizens of Chavez Ravine but as part of the repossession process was hounded out of his job, accused of being a communist and eventually sent to jail. Click here to find out more about this song and the record. Here is a short report about the story of Chavez Ravine.
"Buka Tiende" - Loosely translated the title of this song translates as "my way" and is by the Zimababwean Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited. Mapfumo's early music supported the struggle for independence and the eventual presidency of Robert Mugabe, however Mapfumo's strident independence eventually attracted the ire of the Mugabe regime and the strong arm of the official censor in his homeland. In 1989 Thomas Mapfumo released the album 'Corruption' and from that point on Mugabe was to hound and harass him until he was exiled to the U.S. in the late 1990's. Here is a 2004 interview with Mapfumo in which he tells of his hope that change will come to his country so his people can live in freedom and perhaps he can return.
'Dunnes Stories' - This song by the Irish songwriter Christy Moore is a song close to my heart. On a recent trip to Robben Island in South Africa the tour guide recounted the many sacrafices made by International supporters of the Anti-Apartheid movement and their struggle to bring freedom to the people of South Africa. One of the struggles declared by our guide was the Dunnes Stores strikers who in 1984 refused to handle South African fruit which resulted in dismissal and a protracted strike. The strikers where predominantly women and had extraordinary grit and determination. They eventually forced the government of the Republic of Ireland to issue a ban on all South African fruit and vegetables. This song honors their struggle.
"Tchourt Sanna" - This is a stirring song by the Ensemble Aznach from the Pankissi Valley in Georgia, home to a large community of Chechen exiles. The song tells of Stalin's mass deportation of Chechen people to Siberia and Kazakhstan in 1944. The song's title translates as "Like A Gravestone" and is sung from the perspective of a refugee remembering his homeland. Many of these traditional songs fell foul of officialdom during several waves of Sovietization of Chechnya. It is only in the last two decades that musicians have had the freedom to sing songs such as "Tchourt Sanna". Aznach is the Chechen word for voice and it is with song that Chechen identity has begun rebuild it's collective voice in a post-soviet world.
"Baghdad" - Kadim El Sahir is an Iraqi legend and across the arab world he has sold millions of records but his very first hit "Ladghat El Hayya" in 1987, which was a commentary on the Iraq-Iran war using allegory, was banned and eventually Kadim had to move to the more liberal Lebanon where he is now based. This song is an obvious lament for his country and the city where he began his musical career. Here is a live version of the song he performed at the Opera House in Egypt.
"Iraqi Businessman" - This is a track by the composer and pianist Vijay Iyer in collaboration with the composer/producer and poet Mike Ladd. The song is from a collaborative project titled 'In What Language' from 2003. The song and album tell the story of the pre-9/11 experience of an Iranian filmmaker, Jafar Panahi. In 2001 while traveling from a festival in Hong Kong to one in Buenos Aires. Transiting through JFK, he was detained by INS officials, shackled to a bench in a crowded cell for several hours, and ultimately sent back to Hong Kong in handcuffs. Panahi's description of this ordeal was widely circulated online. He wanted to explain his story to fellow passengers: "I'm not a thief! I’m not a murderer! ... I am just an Iranian, a filmmaker. But how could I tell this, in what language?". The piece includes a monologue where an Iraqi Businessman ruminates on common thuggery and how power can turn to casual violence and in turn to torture.
"Television The Drug of The Nation" - The Disposable Heroes of Hipopracy is just one of the musical vehicles for the singer/songwriter/mc Michael Franti. Franti has brought a political elequence to Hip-Hop and this track is an acid comment on the connection between mainstream media and right wing politics in the U.S. It is a very contemporary protest song looking indebted more to the writings of Noam Chomsky and social theory then anything found in folklore. The track was not censored as the authorities have found out when it comes to rap and hip-hop the surest way to create a plantinum selling record is to ban or try and suppress it, as was the case with N.W.A.' "Cop Killer".
"Fuck or Kill" - This is short and to the point, which is what the Canadian artist Peaches has built a reputation on. It goes without saying that neither this track nor many of the songs from 'Impeach My Bush' made it onto the mainstream radio and television. Instead other artists have tended to sanitise her lyrics but 'reference' her musical style. I was at Peaches gig at the ICA in 2001 and people walked out. For some reason people find her adrogyney and directness offensive. The song chants the line "I'd rather fuck who I want then kill who I am told to", it's a long way from Pete Seeger and Victor Jara but as a protest song it is song of it's time.
"Zombie" - Fela Anikulapo Kuti alongside inventing Afrobeat and merging jazz with his West African musical roots was of course a thorn in the side of the Nigerian government during the 1970's and 80's. This track is the title track from his album 'Zombie' which was his direct musical attack against the Nigerian millitary. His punishment was a serious of brutal attacks on his studio/commune, but this only hardened Kuti's resolve to use his music as a powerful tool against the authorities. His motivations and role in Nigerian history and the history of music is complex. Here is a great documentary about Fela Anikulapo Kuti.
That's all for the moment, do come and join us at the Insulting Cabaret at the National Theatre this Saturday and please leave comments and suggestions.
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