Bodega Pop: Altın Mikrofon 1965-68

Join me this Wednesday from 7-10 PM EDT for a very special episode of Bodega Pop Live on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio: We'll be spinning every track published as part of Turkey's legendary Altın Mikrofon contest -- for the first time ever on American radio.

Bookmark the page and see you Wednesday night

Organized annually by Turkey's largest newspaper, Hürriyet, the Altın Mikrofon contest could easily have been lost to history as one of thousands of similar "battle of the bands" competitions scuffling across the cultural lamescape from Houston's Catacombs of the 1960s to today's GBOB.

Instead, Altın Mikrofon (English: Golden Microphone) became a far-reaching aesthetic rallying cry that shaped Anatolian rock to come, similar to the effect closer to home of Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets. A key difference being that these bands weren't writing someone else's future; they were writing their own: Mavi Işıklar, the so-called "Turkish Beatles," took 2nd place in 1965 and 1966, Cem Karaca ve Apaşlar (Cem Karaca and Apaşlar) took 2nd in 1967, and in the contest's final year, Haramiler, Moğollar, and Erkin Koray Dörtlüsü (Erkin Koray Quartet) took 2nd place, 3rd place, and 4th runner up, respectively. Altın Mikrofon gave these and several other prominent acts of the sixties and seventies, their first (and in some cases first and second) 7" hit singles, propelling them onto the national stage to stick or slide. Many stuck.

As unlikely as it seems, Hürriyet's call to action almost ensured the acts debuted something more than admirably chuffed versions of "Pushin' Too Hard." The ad launching the contest specified that bands should deliver Turkish music, however that be interpreted, but using Western instruments, formats, and techniques. A very few simply wrote Turkish lyrics to Western melodies. Most, however, wrote original works or rearranged traditional Turkish folk songs for electric guitar, piano, jazz band. For anyone paying passing attention to the annual battle, it might have been a bit like catching a glimpse of your family in a fun house mirror.

Another reason the contest had such a defining impact on the music of the day and that which followed: 7" singles were published and distributed, widely, by all of the finalists -- there were 10 in 1965, seven in 1966, six in 1967, and five in 1968. That's 28 discs, or 56 tracks; not so many as to suffocate the market, but enough to make an impression.

These 56 remarkable tracks have never been compiled and reissued outside of the Republic. I found a three-CD set of the whole shebang published in Turkey in 2005 at Uludag Video (1922 Avenue W, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn), a few years before the shop stopped importing CDs. I had no idea what they were at the time, but my guy there implored me to pick up all three, promising me I'd only ever regret leaving them there for someone else to snatch up.

When I took them home and first punched them into my player, I knew immediately not only that he was right, but just how right he was. This is culture-shifting music, each track a nudge pushing Anatolian rock into the full glory we've come to know and love.

Here's a peek at what we'll be hearing Wednesday night:

1965