I'll be reading Friday April 20 in D.C.

RUTHLESS GRIP POETRY presents

P. Inman, Gary Sullivan, and Meg Ronan

@ Arts1830: 1830 14th Street NW

Friday, April 20, 7:30PM

P. Inman's most recent book is Ad finitum, published in 2008 by the British press if p then q. When considered at all, he is considered by most to be a "Language poet," although some claim that his poetry isn't language at all, but pre-linguistic. He has two forthcoming books due to come out later this year & in 2013: Per se (Burning Deck) & Written (1976-2012) (if p then q).

Gary Sullivan is the author of several books of poetry, prose, plays and comics. Forthcoming titles include Everyone Has a Mouth, translations of the work of Ernst Herbeck, due out from Ugly Duckling Presse this summer, and an as-yet-untitled collected book of comics due out from Make Now Press next winter. 

Meg Ronan's poems can be found in West Wind Review, SpringGun, Shampoo Poetry, Cricket Online Review, Interim, and other lovely journals. She teaches, sells things, and gives tarot readings in & around the DC metro area.

Arts@1830 is located near St. X, Bar Pilar, Black Cat, etc. on 14th Street NW. Admission to the reading is free. Light refreshment will be provided. The evening's raffle items will include gift certificates to Bridge Street Books, Baked & Wired, St. X, & Bar Pilar, along with a variety of fashionable Ruthless Grip Poetry gear. All raffle funds go directly to the poets.

Po Ei San | Unknown

Listen to the first track on this inexplicably WTF-Fabulous CD

Get it all here.

I don't know how they do it, but the people of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar consistently be releasing the most amazing WTF pop music this bodega diver has ever poured into his aural canals. Chill, Bill & Jill Visitor, if you will, to the ill-yet-totally-legit sample above. Does it, tho its methods be swill, still not kill? 

How? How did they make it so?

Let's be honest here. The woman on the cover of this CD has purple sock puppets in her hair. Matching purple sock puppets. Beneath the "OK" finger sign near the cover's top, it says: DOLLAR MUSIC BAND. Assuming a person has not yet run away in fear, assuming a person is, in fact, the type of person who, when confronted by a woman with matching purple sock puppets in her hair and the words DOLLAR MUSIC BAND floating o'er the head of sock puppet-left, thinks: "Yes, perhaps I try" ... what can happen then? Anything? A thing worth sharing with others? On one's dorky music blog?

She was a Flower of the 24th most populous country in the world yes when she put the matching purple sock puppets in her hair like the Pyu and the Mon and I thought well as well the DOLLAR MUSIC BAND as another and then I asked her with my eyes to ask again yes and then she asked me would I yes to say yes and first I put her CD in my computer and yes and pressed play so I could hear her voice rise above the Indopop Casio Post-Lollywood Faux Tibetan Meditation Moment and drew her voice down to me ears so they could feel her song all Myanmar yes and her Burmese heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

As, I'm pretty sure, will you.

(Thanks to Peter Doolan for translating this singer's name.)

Faiza Ahmed | Faiza Ahmed

Listen to "Set El Habayeb"

Get it all here.

A longtime favorite CD, most likely found at Princess Music in Bay Ridge. 

Faiza Ahmed was born in 1934 in Lebanon. Her mother was Lebanese; her father, Syrian. She was raised in Damascus, Syria, and began singing as a child, imitating Leila Mourad and Asmahan. She sang her first song professionally when she was 13. 

She eventually moved to Cairo, where she recorded albums and acted in six films. She died in 1983 at the age of 50.

Three Master Musicians of Urfa

Şanlıurfa, which everyone just calls Urfa, is a city in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border. It boasts an 11,000 year history. Over the centuries, several cultures have called the city and surrounding area home; it's currently made up largely of Kurdish and Turkmen inhabitants. The city and the area are famous throughout Turkey for having the one of the richest musical cultures in the country. (One of Turkey's biggest superstars, Ibrahim Tatlises, was born there.)

The three singers included in this double-CD set--Hamza Senses (aka Kel Hamza, or Bald Hamza), Tahir Oturan (aka Mukim Tahir), and Bakır Yurtsever (aka Bekçi Bakır)--all hail from Urfa and each began recording in the late 20s.

Listen to Kel Hamza sing "Kışlalar Doldu Bugün"

Born in 1904, Hamza Sensis was an entirely self-taught poet and musician, never having attended school. His voice, as you can readily hear in that sample above, was astounding in its passionate expressivity. While working as a feltmaker, his coworkers overheard him singing to himself, and suggested he put out a record. After clearing the idea with his family--becoming a professional singer or musician, as opposed to just singing and playing for the joy of it, was considered shameful at the time in Urfa--he recorded his first record, which quickly turned into his first hit. He began getting offers to perform, in Urfa and beyond.

His life was difficult, marked by tragedy (including the death of his daughter), and short; he died, according to the booklet that comes with this CD, in 1939 (although this booklet also has him performing in the 40s), after getting into an argument with patrons at one of the clubs he often sang at. He had gone there on his day off and, as no one had been scheduled to perform that evening, a group of men asked him if he wouldn't mind singing. He got up on stage and performed a single song, then went back to his table and continued drinking. The other patrons began to insinuate he was acting stuck up; a scuffle ensued; Kel Hamza was pushed and fell a flight down into the bazaar below, striking his head against a woodblock in front of a carpenter's house.

Listen to Mukim Tahir sing "Yaram Sızlar"

While Mukim Tahir lived a few years longer than Kel Hamza, his life was no less tragic:  he spent 10 years in prison, having been accused of murdering his uncle; while he was in prison, his wife died of tuberculosis; after being released from prison he became an alcoholic for many years, spending everything he had saved. He died in 1946 in his mid-40s. He is still remembered today as one of the all-time great Urfali singers.

Listen to Bekçi Bakır sing "Muradı Böyle"

And, finally, we have Bekçi Bakır (Bakır the Watchman), who in stark contrast with the other two singers in this collection, and despite being illiterate, enjoyed a long and healthy life, raising 10 children, recording dozens of records and hundreds of songs on tape before passing away in 1985 at the age of 78. His voice was reputedly so strong, he broke microphones when singing in Istanbul and developed a habit, after that, of either singing without one, or turning in the opposite direction if one was put onstage for him.

So? Get the 2-disc set here.

Ethnic Balkan Music | 3 CD Box from Greece

I found this fabulous 3-CD set about 8-10 years ago on what was my first-ever trip to Astoria, Queens. I had no idea then that I'd wind up living in this neighborhood, which I had thought at the time was cold and indifferent, based solely on my trying to ask two passersby where a particular address was that I was looking for and having them completely ignore me.

Before I finally found my destination, I stumbled into a Greek music store, where I found this incredible boxed set along with another boxed set of early rebetiko music (which, yes, someday I will upload as well). My memory is very hazy but I am almost certain the store was on or near 31st Street and that it was on the corner. If that was really the case, then it must have gone out of business years ago.

The first CD includes music from Albania and the Central Balkans, 1920-40. CD number two concentrates on Bulgaria and Turkey, 1930-45. And the last focuses entirely on Greece, 1922-50.

"Girl of the Wave" (Albania, first CD)

"Mother Said to Ziatonka" (Bulgaria, second CD)

"Heavy As Iron" (Greece, third CD)

Get the whole box set here.

Fairuz | Bi Layl We Chiti

I would be very surprised if many of the regular visitors to the ol' Bodega had never heard of Fairuz. She is, after all, the single most famous Arabic singer alive. This CD, released in 1989, is one of the oldest in my collection and is relatively late in the singer's career, which began in the 1950s.

Born as Nouhad Wadi Haddad in 1935 in Jabal al Arz, Lebanon, Fairuz is nothing short of a legend. And this, for reasons that will be clear when you take a listen, is considered one of her greatest albums.

I picked this up a year ago or so on Steinway Street in Astoria (Queens) at the Nile Deli. Speaking of which: I plan on spending at least one of the three days of the upcoming holiday weekend walking over to Steinway; if you want to come along, feel free to write to me.

Listen to the first track of this 4-song CD

Get it all here.

Orhan Gencebay | Leyla Ile Mecnun

First, you sort of need to take a quick peek at this page. Yeah, now's fine. Right. [Dead air, 12 secs.] Okay. Are you back? Yes? No, no, that's fine. I'll wait. Yeah, no--I encourage you to, uh. Right. Great. Okay. [Crickets, 35-40 secs.] So. We good? Kay. Now, with the after-burn of all those mustaches smoldering in your retinas, take a sweet, long listen to this:

Listen to the title song of this CD

I'm almost positive I found this much-sought-after CD at a Turkish music store in the lower east 20s of Manhattan in, like, 2000 or thereabouts. The poet and translator Murat Nemet-Nejat took me there and I'm almost pretty sure he encouraged me to pick up this CD, because (a) he knew I liked what little Turkish arabesque I'd previously heard and (b) I remember him detailing the Layla and Majnun story that, clearly, this album is named after.

I don't listen to this album often, but when I do pull it out, I'm always amazed by the ethereal guitar work and the smooth soulfulness of Gencebay's voice. A really nice way to begin a lazy Sunday morning. 

Get kit and caboodle here.

Misora Hibari | As the Flow of the River

Listen to "悲しき口笛"

Listen to "お祭りマンボ"

Get the two-disc collection here.

Japanese Enka Super-Diva Misora Hibari was arguably the most famous Japanese singer of all time--remarkable not just because Misora may have been first gen (some believe her parents held Korean passports), but because she started off, a la Shirley Temple, as a child star. (Not that she ever sounded like one; those recordings above, at least one of which was recorded for the film illustrated by the poster to the right, sound like no child I've ever heard.)

Wikipedia--to the extent one wishes to fully trust it--has about all there is in English on the superstar, a fact that completely boggles the mind and sort of, frankly, saddens me. Misora sold 68 million records in her lifetime, was a star on the order of Oum Kalsoum or Maria Callas, legendary and huge, a defining voice for generations of Japanese. 

 Here's a few paragraphs about her from the aforementioned Wikipedia entry: "Misora was born Kazue Katō in Isogo-ku, Yokohama, Japan. Her father was Masukichi Katō, a fishmonger, and her mother Kimie Katō , a housewife. Misora displayed musical talent from an early age after singing for her father at a World War II send-off party in 1943. He invested a small fortune taken from the family's savings to begin a musical career for his daughter. In 1945 she debuted at a concert hall in Yokohama, at the age of eight. At the same time, she changed her last name, Katō, to Misora (lit. 'beautiful sky'), at the suggestion of her mother. A year later, she appeared on a NHK broadcast, and impressed the Japanese composer Masao Koga with her singing ability. He considered her to be a prodigy with the courage, understanding, and emotional maturity of an adult. In the following two years, she became an accomplished singer and was touring notable concert halls to sold-out crowds.

"Her recording career began in 1949 at the age of twelve, when she changed her stage name to Hibari Misora, which means 'lark in the beautiful sky,' and starred in the film Nodojiman-kyô jidai. The film gained her nationwide recognition. She recorded her first single Kappa Boogie-Woogie for Columbia Records later that year. It became a commercial hit, selling more than 450,000 copies. She subsequently recorded "Kanashiki kuchibue", which was featured on a radio program and was a national hit. As an actress, she starred in around 160 movies from 1949 until 1971, and won numerous awards. Her performance in Tokyo Kid (1950), in which she played a street orphan, made her symbolic of both the hardship and the national optimism of post-World War II Japan.

"On January 13, 1957, Misora was attacked with hydrochloric acid, and injured in Asakusa International Theater. The criminal was an overly enthusiastic fan of hers. Fortunately, the wound did not remain in her face. In 1962, Misora married actor Akira Kobayashi, though the marriage ended in divorce only two years later, in 1964.

"In April 1987, on the way to a performance in Fukuoka, Misora suddenly collapsed. Rushed to hospital, she was diagnosed with avascular necrosis brought on by chronic hepatitis. She was confined to a hospital in Fukuoka, and eventually showed signs of recovery in August. She commenced recording a new song in October, and in April of 1988 performed at a concert at the Tokyo Dome. Her triumph was short-lived. Misora died on June 24, 1989 from pneumonia at the age of 52, at a hospital in Tokyo. Her death was widely mourned throughout Japan.

"Beginning in 1990, television and radio stations annually play her song 'Kawa no Nagare no Yō ni' on her birthdate to show respect. In a national poll by NHK in 1997, the song was voted the greatest Japanese song of all time by more than 10 million people."

I found the 2-disc CD linked to above at the Misora Hibara Museum in Kyoto in the summer of 2004 while on what was essentially my soon-to-be ex-wife and my honeymoon. (While it wasn't my idea to visit the museum, it wasn't like I had to actually be dragged there, either.) Misora even made a guest appearance in the first issue of my comic book series, Elsewhere (she's in the panel on the bottom left of the page below):

If you've never heard of Misora Hibari before, you're really in for a treat today. Enjoy!

DAM | Dedication

While we seem to be on this rap kick, here's an album from 2006 that seems to be completely out of print now; though Amazon lists an MP3 version, it's (at least currently) "unavailable." Fitting, at least symbolically, I suppose, considering that DAM is a Palestinian rap group who rap primarily about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As Tamer Nafar explains in an interview on Democracy Now here, "dam" means "eternity" in Arabic and "blood" in Hebrew. "So it’s eternal blood," he explains, "like we will stay here forever."

Here's a comic I drew back in 2005 in response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, using text collaged from Iraeli poet Yehuda Amichai and Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish:

The imagery, as you've probably figured out, is a kind of swirling-together entanglement of Arabic and Hebrew script, an idea my soon-to-be ex-wife suggested I use. (A rather brilliant idea that, at first, I balked at, worrying it would be beyond my skills to render legibly.)

Little has changed since I drew that comic, since DAM released this, their first CD.

Listen to "Da Dam"

Get it all here.