AS WE TRAVEL
Folk funk flavours & ambient soul
Compiled by John Stapleton
(Harmless)
History has many faces. There is history as entertainment, history as morality tale, history as nostalgia and history as contemporary commentary – four of its most common forms, in Western culture at least. There is another kind of history, however, that can be less readily intelligible and as a result more challenging. I refer to antiquarian history, or what is sometimes called history for history’s sake.
This kind of history has no agenda except for the study of the past. Rather than seeking explicitly for what the past has to teach us, this kind of history tends simply to enjoy the sheer otherness of former ages for its own sake, without needing to interpret it overmuch.
Although ‘As We Travel’, like its counterpart compilation ‘Make Music’, is clearly intended to tap into the current vogue for what it calls ‘folk funk flavours and ambient soul’, it can readily be enjoyed in the antiquarian manner described above. While listening to it, I have been struck time and again not so much by what our current age shares with the musicians showcased here, but what separates us. It really does sound like a missive from another age (1968 –1975 if you are interested), and is so much the more enjoyable for that.
The principal quality that accounts for this is the degree of abandon to be found in these songs. They have a raw energy and passion that sounds not so much innocent – that wouldn’t be quite right – as unmediated. Which is to say these sound like songs written by musicians utterly unconcerned with considerations of genre or commercial potential. They just strut their stuff in an uncompromising manner that often sounds very personal to the point of being private. While I like the mood their music conjures, I’m not convinced I really understand where they are coming from, either personally, socially or musically – a form of musical experience which can be oddly satisfying.
One such track that stands out in this respect is ‘Right On Brother’ by Sinto, which is a minor rocking masterpiece, all squawling guitar and syncopated drums. No doubt it’s the kind of thing John Stapleton hunts car-boot sales for. Certainly I’ve not heard its like before. Ditto Sandie Shaw’s version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come’, which is utterly unlike her more poppy material. It sounds like nothing so much as Shaw throwing off the shackles of her pop career and expressing something more personal. It’s a great tune.
Other fine tracks on here are Lyn Christopher’s ‘Take Me With You’, Terry Callier’s ‘You Goin’ Miss Your Candyman’ (a pleasingly vengeful song from the apostle of peace), Funkadelic’s ‘Can You Get To That’ and The Meters’ ‘Birds’, but there genuinely isn’t a duff track amongst the twelve included here. It’s clear from Stapleton’s meticulous liner notes that a lot of care went into the curation of this little chunk of history, and I can only conclude by saying that on the basis of this and ‘Make Music’, I am prepared to follow his esoteric taste wherever it is going.
Freddie B.
John Stapleton email interview
‘Make Music’
Amtrak to Run at Least Another Week
AP Online June 26, 2002 | LAURENCE ARNOLD, Associated Press Writer 00-00-0000 [image omitted] WASHINGTON (AP) _ Amtrak told jittery commuter rail agencies Tuesday that it would keep operating at least through the start of the busy July 4 holiday weekend, and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said a solution for its fiscal crisis was “very, very close.” Mineta said the problem could be solved by Wednesday, but he offered no details on how a $200 million Amtrak budget gap would be closed. Amtrak says it will have to shut down without the money.
“No one wants to see Amtrak die,” Mineta said. “We’re coming along very well. We’re very, very close to coming to a solution to help Amtrak.” Amtrak President David Gunn, who had warned a shutdown could begin as early as this week, said the railroad can keep running into next week, but “our cash situation becomes critical” next Thursday or Friday. Thursday is July 4, traditionally a busy holiday for Amtrak. this web site amtrak promotion code
Without a resolution by then, Amtrak could begin shutting down the system by recalling its long-distance trains, which travel farthest from its rail yards. A systemwide shutdown would take four days, Gunn said.
Gunn held a conference call to update state transportation leaders worried about reverberations from a shutdown of the passenger line. Amtrak owns tracks and tunnels used by some commuter rail lines and operates other systems for state or regional authorities.
Pete Sklannik, chief operating officer of Virginia Railway Express, said Gunn advised the commuter agencies to make contingency plans that could take effect July 12.
“If I had $200 million, I’d loan it to Amtrak right now,” Sklannik said. “The riding public is going to be caught in the middle of all this, and it’s just not right.” Gunn said Amtrak officials are in regular contact with Mineta’s office and continue to hope for a loan guarantee to help Amtrak get the money it needs.
An alternative would be an appropriation by Congress. Senate Democrats urged President Bush on Tuesday to include $205 million for Amtrak in an emergency anti-terror financial package. in our site amtrak promotion code
In a letter to Mineta on Tuesday, House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, wrote, “I’m willing to consider a direct appropriation under certain conditions.” Amtrak Vice Chairman Michael Dukakis, the former Massachusetts governor, said an easier solution would be for the Federal Railroad Administration, part of the Transportation Department, to sign off on Amtrak’s request for a loan guarantee.
“A stroke of a pen will do this,” Dukakis said.
Mineta, who sits on Amtrak’s seven-member board, was host for a closed- door board meeting Monday and emerged briefly to declare himself ” confident that we will be able to avoid a shutdown of services.” The meeting ended with no firm agreement on how Amtrak would get the money it insists it needs to survive through September.
Gunn said Mineta proposed a loan guarantee to help Amtrak get about $100 million _ half the amount it says it needs _ along with a series of “self-help-type actions” Amtrak could take to make up the remainder.
One of many options broached by Mineta, Gunn said, was to mortgage Chicago’s Union Station, which Amtrak owns. Gunn said Amtrak officials reviewed that suggestion and others but quickly ruled them out as impractical or not helpful.
“I won’t say it was a dry hole, but there wasn’t a lot of water in it,” he said.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the administration wanted Amtrak to ask its debtors, including states, to speed up their payments while Amtrak slows payment of its debts.
But Gunn said transportation officials merely urged Amtrak to be aggressive in seeking outstanding payments.
Transportation Department spokesman Chet Lunner said Mineta offered Amtrak “a number of options,” but he would not elaborate. The Bush administration has insisted that Amtrak receive no more government money until it reforms its operations and finances.
Mineta last week proposed ending federal operating subsidies, allowing competition for passenger rail, making states more responsible for paying for train service, and replacing Amtrak as owner of the Boston- to-Washington Northeast Corridor.
Labor unions oppose many of the proposed changes. Labor leaders met Tuesday with Mineta and said the discussion focused on resolving Amtrak’ s immediate cash crisis, not on Mineta’s wide-ranging proposals.
“This is not the time for massive reforms of Amtrak, because there is no time to accomplish reform,” said Edward Wytkind, executive director of the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department. He said the labor leaders and Mineta “agreed we would have a pretty robust debate down the road” regarding reforms.
___ On the Net:
Image Caption: Amtrak President David Gunn waits to meet with Sen. Joe Biden, on Capitol Hill to discuss ways to save the money-losing railway, Tuesday, June 25, 2002, in Washington. Amtrak told jittery commuter rail agencies Tuesday that it would keep operating at least through this week, and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said a solution for its fiscal crisis was “very, very close.” (AP Photo/Kenneth Lambert) LAURENCE ARNOLD, Associated Press Writer
Tags: folk, history, music, songs, sounds, stapleton
Posted in Reviews | 24 views | Share:
| No Comments Yet »
