Night Life: Owiny Sigoma Band and "Lucas Malore"

I've never been much of a party and nightlife kind of person, so any songs about my nocturnal adventures would be pretty boring. It would recount my adventures in cooking dinner, sitting at my computer, watching TV, maybe reading a chapter of a book or working some on a crossword puzzle, and then going to bed. I can't remember the last time I had an "epic" night that could be put to verse on the level of a Homerian epic. Well, maybe I can. In college I had a couple of epic nights that it would be best not to recount, and some years ago I enjoyed a most-of-the-evening romp through San Francisco with my good friend and then resident-of-the-city Rich. We went to a party, and then due to lack of transportation we walked most of the way back through the city to his apartment.

One thing I've noticed is that a city at night has a distinctly different feel than a city in the daylight. Of course the light and shadows plays a part in this difference, but so does the the ambiance of the city. The people out are different, with different agendas and goals (some of which aren't always on the up and up). The night makes some people more bold, some people more timid. You see people revel in the night, and you see people absolutely shrink from it, scurrying to get to the safety of their doorways. There's a sense of danger in the night, but also a world in the shadows waiting to be explored. And that's what we did that night. We explored the shadows, whether it was walking (trespassing really) through the grounds of the Presidio or wandering through the nightlife of the Castro District trying not to be too conspicuous in our heterosexuality. It was a fantastic night, and perhaps the epic night in my life that I could write a song about.

Today's artists, the Owiny Sigoma Band, use their song Lucas Malore to celebrate their own epic night. The song tells the story of a night that lead singer Joseph Nyamungu's spent out in London. The Owiny Sigoma Band is made up of musicians from Kenya and Britain. Their first album was based on traditional Luo folk songs from Kenya put to a more modern beat. They expanded their repertoire on their second album, Power Punch (2013), on which you'll find Lucas Malore. On Power Punch they introduced electronica and techno. One interesting fact about their music is that they highlight an instrument called the nyatiti, an 8 string lyre played with a violin-like bow. Lucas Malore is actually quite a simple tune - it starts out with an uptempo percussion beat with a plucked instrument like a guitar or some kind of stringed instrument, and then adds bass and more percussion in a rhythm that repeats itself, while Nyamungo provides powerful vocals over it all.

Latest Global Music Show on KUNM Two Week Archive

If you would like to hear our latest show, please click on the KUNM Two-Week Archive! Simply enter in August 4th at 10:00 pm and let it run.

We had an exciting set list that included music from France, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Africa (including Fela Kuti, Oliver Mtukudzi, Staff Benda Bilili, Keyboard and the recently tragically deceased Castro D'Destroyer), Cambodia, an Australian band that gets inspiration from 60s and 70s Bollywood, and a whole lot more.

Get it going and get your global groove on!

I Want You to Want Me: Niuver and "Quiereme Mucho"

Today has been a very busy day, and I'm sorry to say I haven't been able to think of some good words to put together. So, I'll let the lyrics of this love song speak for themselves (with a crappy attempt at translation through Google Translate).

Spanish

Como voy a dejar que el miedo, se sienta bien conmigo.

Yo no quiero pensar, quiero vivir... sin correr.

Yo no sé lo que haré.

Si mañana es sin ti... ¿donde irás tú sin mí ?... no sé,

Correteando en el juego del volver a empezar,

cuídame y te querré cariño...

Quiéreme mucho para no olvidarte

quiéreme mucho que yo te amaré,

del otro lado se llega a otra parte, bien lo sé...

Quiéreme ahora y no digas nada

bésame toda que sonreiré,

quiéreme mucho antes que te quiera

Y así te querré...

Sólo te quiero dar, un poco más... de lo que soy!

No me voy a quedar, mirándote... Así no más...

Soy de mar soy de fé, Tú sin mí no te irás,

Y yo quiero vivir, contigo...

Soy de mar, soy de fé, Tú sin mí morirás,

Y yo quiero vivir contigo....

Quiéreme mucho para no olvidarte,

quiéreme siempre que yo te amaré,

del otro lado se llega a otra parte, bien lo sé...

Quiéreme ahora y no digas nada,

bésame toda, que sonreiré,

quiéreme mucho antes que te quiera,

Y así te querré...

Crappy Translation Effort

Shall I let fear sit well with me?

I do not want to think, I want to live ... without running.

I do not know what I'll do.

If tomorrow is without you ... Where will you go without me? ... I don't know,

Running around in the game to start over,

save me and I'll love you darling ...

Love me deeply so I do not forget you,

Love me deeply so that I will love you,

you come across elsewhere, so well this I know ...

Love me now and say nothing

Kiss me so that I'll smile,

Love me deeply before I love you

And I will love you ...

I just want to give a little more ... than that which I am!

I'm not staying, looking at you ... not anymore ...

I am sea, I am faith, you do not go without me,

And I want to live, with you ...

I am sea, I am faith, you will die without me,

And I want to live with you....

Love me deeply so I do not forget you,

Love me deeply so that I will love you,

you come across elsewhere, so well this I know ...

Love me now and say nothing

Kiss me so that I'll smile,

Love me deeply before I love you

And I will love you ...

The singer of this song, Niuver, was born in Cuba and raised in Havana where she underwent musical training. She learned guitar and, at the National School of the Arts in Havana, singing and the renaissance lute which is popular in the Cuban countryside. She joined a choral group that became nationally popular with its repertoire of folk songs, jazz and bolero but moved to Spain after a successful audition with a group doing dance music. She sang for three months in a restaurant and cabaret in Bilbao, but did not land a long-term contract and moved to France where she settled in Metz and joined the group Dalia Negra. While there she was discovered by Raúl Paz, who was in Paris and who was getting interested in the music of his peasant roots. Learning that Niuver plays the lute, he produced her first CD, Quiereme Mucho, released in 2010. Niuver's music blends elements of jazz, bossa nova, French chanson, and Cuban trova. She released her second and latest CD, Transnochando, in 2012. Quiereme Mucho is from her debut CD of the same name.

Seaside Towns: Mariza and "Maria Lisboa"

A week ago, I came back from California with the sea smell still in my nostrils. My hometown is on the coast, and I love the ocean and the blue vista stretching west to infinity, and ironically I am now living a mile high in a desert where one looks out and sees nothing to the west but the brown of a desert mesa and an ancient volcano just peaking its head above the horizon. The last thing to leave my imagination when I die, I imagine, will be the sound of the waves breaking ceaselessly against the shore, and when I listen carefully enough I can even hear it in the middle of the quiet desert.

My hometown, because it was a fishing town, was a place where Portuguese settled. The first European to see the area was a Portuguese explorer, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, and my classes in school were peppered with Portuguese names. My adoptive father was of Portuguese and German descent, and the people often were referred to (and by each other) as "Portagees." A Portuguese Hall still exists in my hometown, and a Portuguese Holy Ghost Festa occurs every year - my high school band was often called upon to march in the parade.

Today's song, Maria Lisboa, is a metaphorical allusion to another seaside town (city actually) - Lisbon. It is a fado (a melancholy song often about the sea or the life of the poor) and it is easy for me to understand the Portuguese fascination with the ocean and love for the ocean. Lisbon is presented as a poor woman whose past was great, whose present is shabby and poor, and who is always in a relationship with the ocean that sustains her. These are the lyrics translated (on the net by a Portuguese speaker):

(She) is a seller of fish, and wears old shoes.
(She) moves like a cat
In the basket, (she carries) the caravel (a small ship for exploration)

In her heart, (she carries) the frigate (a warship)

Instead of ravens (the symbol of Lisbon) on the shawl
Sea-gulls came to lay down.
When the wind takes her to the ball
(She) dances at the ball with the sea.
(Her) dress is made of shells
(She) has seaweed on her hair
And in her veins, the bark
Of the engine of a fishing boat.
(She) sells dreams and the smell of the sea
(She) announces storms with a cry.
her first name: Maria
Her surname: Lisboa

The singer of Maria Lisboa is Mariza, a Portuguese fado singer born in Mozambique before it gained independence from Portugal. She is of mixed Portuguese and African heritage. When she was three her family moved to Lisbon and while young she began learning to sing in many styles, including jazz, gospel and soul. She adopted fado at the insistence of her father, who felt it would give her more acceptance in the Portuguese community. After the fado's most famous interpreter, Amália Rodrigues (Maria Lisboa was made famous by her), died in 1999 Mariza was asked to perform a tribute in her memory, which led her to record a fado album. Fado was starting to regain popularity, and her album sold an astounding number of copies. She has since focused on fado, has released seven albums and has sold over a million records worldwide. Maria Lisboa appeared on her debut album Fado em Mim (2002) and this version is from a live concert in Lisbon.

Not Your Mama's Lounge: Charanga Cakewalk and "Volcanico"

The enduring image of the lounge singer, so immortalized in all its cheesiness by Bill Murray in Saturday Night Live sketches, or even as satirized by Richard Cheese (his lounge version of Baby Got Back has to be one of the best song parodies of all time), has been taking a beating lately. That's because lounge music is cool again.

A lot of this makeover of lounge music has to do with electronic advances in music. Ambient sounds can be utilized very effectively to create a mood, just as in the old days lounge singers tried to create a mood with their vocal stylings and downtempo versions of popular songs put to exotic rhythms, as well as utilizing themselves the sounds available to them. So whereas my mom would have gone to Vegas to see the Rat Pack, Wayne Newton and Louis Prima (who, for the record, I absolutely love), nowadays people listening to lounge can find it incorporating music from all over the world. It's not as if lounge hadn't done that before - Brazilian forms such as samba and bossa nova were part of the lounge landscape in the 50s and 60s - but the availability and knowledge of different styles of music from other areas of the world is much greater in a world so interconnected. And I find that it is within the bounds of world music that lounge has become so interesting.

In this vein, today's artist is Charanga Cakewalk. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. This song, Volcanico, is from the 2005 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.

Kid Stories: Ada Milea, Dorina Chiriac and Radu Banzaru with "In Oaza"

Last evening, I went to a party. At some point in the party, the only child there, a sweet and beautiful little girl of 8 or 9 named Lily asked me to sit with her on her blanket in the back yard. From there, she took me into her world of fantasy that involved fairies, science, clouds, and a mean and nasty character named Hookman. While the adults were waging verbal wars about important things happening in the world, Lily and I were quietly battling Hookman. She went to great lengths to get us into the house unseen by Hookman, because he was roaming around in the dark. She told me that we had to be quiet so that he didn't hear us. She also told me that we had to defeat him because the other adults outside needed our protection. So, she made me repeat a saying after her upholding good in the world, and then to finish off Hookman once and for all (who apparently couldn't stand laughter and happiness) she led me in about an hour of dancing. It was a kind of You've Been Served kind of thing, where she would make up steps for me to imitate, and then I would make them up for her.

As I grow older, sometimes it feels like it's harder and harder for me to enter worlds that I so easily inhabited as a child. Worlds of fantasy that I wandered in and out of on whatever whim I had now seem somewhat closed to me, or at least aren't as easy to access as they were 40 years ago. At least, until I am with a child, who believes so earnestly in the worlds that they create that you cannot help but go there with them. I don't have any children of my own, and therefore I treasure these types of moments when they occur because they bring me to alternate realities that I rarely get to anymore.

Besides sharing some time with a child, there are some other ways that help me approximate fantasy in my life, and one of those is music. The tune that has been randomly selected today is In Oaza, and it is a fantasy story for children sung by Romanian singer and actress Ada Milea with the help of Romanian actors Dorina Chiriac and Radu Banzaru. Ada Milea began her career in the Transylvanian city of Târgu Mureș and after starting in theater she became a singer. She has released 11 albums. Dorina Chiriac is described as one of the most beloved Romanian actresses of her generation, and received an award for her work in the film Terminus Paradis. Radu Banzaru is best known for his roles in the movies The Whistleblower, Amen, and Restul e Tacere.

In Oaza tells the story of Apollodorus who, in a desert oasis, is approached by a sad monkey who wants to marry him. Unfortunately for them, the monkey's parents will not let it happen. I guess that's the lesson kids - don't ever marry a monkey! In Oaza can be found on the Ada Milea's album Apolador, released in 2004.

With Music You're Never Alone: Sara Tavares and "Bué"

As I was reading the biography of today's artist online, some words stuck out for me. According to Wikipedia, the Portuguese singer, songwriter, guitarist and percussionist of Cape Verdean descent, was "raised by an older Portuguese woman after being left alone by her father and mother." The bio goes on by relating that her father and mother divorced, and her father headed to the United States in search of a better life and her mother took her siblings and went south in search of the same. As an orphan myself, who was put up for adoption at birth and was not adopted until I was 2½ years old, the story of a child being left alone by her parents touches a chord in me. I don't know any more particulars about Tavares' story, and tried to search for more but didn't find anything substantial. Did Tavares' parents keep contact with her or did they simply abandon her? I don't have those answers.

What I do know from my own experience is that a child, if abandoned, carries that with him or her for the remainder of life. It is a chain and a weight around the ankle. If a child is raised by loving foster or adoptive parents, that goes a long way to mitigate the effect of the abandonment, but for those adopted into difficult circumstances, or those who are not lucky enough to be claimed by a family and who are raised within some kind of system or worse yet, have to fend for themselves, a self-inflicted stigma remains. It always takes some form of "What did I do?" or "Why wasn't I good enough?" It is a source of trauma. I was given up twice, once by my birth mother and once by a foster mother, and to this day I have difficulties dealing with physical and emotional abandonment and will do anything I can to avoid it.

However, out of this type of trauma also comes the source of intense creativity. I consider myself a creative person and the experiences of my childhood continue to remain a source that feeds my creativity. Sometimes, the chain around the ankle can also be the window into a complex and beautiful soul. And if one has talent in art, writing or music, it can serve as both an individual healing process and as something that gives joy to others. I am extremely glad that Sara Tavares has been able to share her talent with us, and has been able to nourish it even if it might have come from a painful place.

Friday's random tune slides us into the weekend with Tavares' reggae- and African-influenced song Bué. Born in Lisbon and still a resident there, she composes music with African, Portuguese and North American influences. Tavares sings in both Portuguese and Portuguese-creole, and is also known to mix other languages, including English, into her songs, as Bué demonstrates. In 1994, while still in her teens, Tavares won a Portuguese TV song contest by singing Whitney Houston's One Moment in Time, and reached 8th place in the 1994 Eurovision Contest. She has released six albums. Bué is from her 2009 album Xinti and as an added treat has an official video version!