misc. #2010.z

Hipsters. Orientalism. Qaddafi. Yusuf Islam. Rififi. Taqwacore. The Japanese Red Army. Any interest? Read on...

Random stuff I've been gathering for awhile. I meant to do longer posts on some of this material, but the time has passed for that. Time to get all this off my desktop. Here goes.

1. Bashing the hipsters. According to Ben Sisario, this is the place. Hipster Runoff. Only two kufiya posts, here, and here, that don't really add much to kufiya snarkiness. But if you are in search of snide, irreverent and often witty hipster satire, it's all here.

2. Popular Orientalism. Last February the New York Times published an article, in the Antiques section, about Goldsheider ceramics, very popular among the US middle class. Especially popular were the Art Deco figures of the 20s and 30s, including those featuring "harem dancers." What caught my eye was the photo of a figurine called "Aida," which the online version did not reproduce. Now I've found an image (at left). The one I saw on ebay was selling for $4000. An earlier post on the popularity of harem and belly-dance dress among the US bohemian bourgeoisie is here.

3. Gaza and pop culture. Last January, Yusuf Islam (ex-Cat Stevens) released "The Day the World Gets Round." Proceeds from the sale of the single go to UNRWA and Save the Children, for their work with children in Gaza. It's a cover a George Harrison song, and recorded with bassist Klaus Voorman, who used to play with the Beatles. I'm not a big Islam/Stevens fan, but I like this one.



4. Qaddafi, the Opera. Almost too odd to be true. News from September 2006, but still worth recording. Put on by the English National Opera in London, and called "Gaddafi: A Living Myth," it was ostensibly meant to attract younger audiences. To that end, Asian Dub Foundation was commissioned to dub the score. If we can credit The Guardian, it didn't work too well. I'm a huge fan of Asian Dub Foundation, but I can't figure out why they were involved in this project. But you can watch a clip about it here.

5. Rififi: a footnote. I had heard of this film but never seen it until last night. The name intrigued me, however, because it seemed to be some kind of riff on the Moroccan Rif. Of course this is the film that blacklisted US director Jules Dassin famously shot in Paris, was a huge hit in 1954, and reestablished his reputation (and income).

It is based on a novel by Auguste le Breton called Du Rififi Chez les Hommes, which was given to Dassin to film. He hated the novel but took the job because he needed it. In particular, he hated it because of its racism. The bad guys were all North African, and Dassin said, when interviewed later, "The truth is the book shocked me: it was all about Arab bad behavior, including necrophilia." So Dassin made the bad guys French, and focused the film in particular on the robbery caper.

The title of the film only comes up in the theme song, "Rififi," sung in the cabaret by Viviane (played by Magali Noël), but even then, you can't really make sense of what it means other than that it seems to be gangster argot. (Watch the sequence here.)

Dassin explained the meaning in a 2000 interview: "The title comes from the North African tribe, the Rifs, who were in constant conflict...So it's all about melees and conflicts and fighting, out of which the novelist Auguste Le Breton made the word 'rififi.'"

There's a history of US citizens being sympathetic to Riffians, going back to Abdelkrim's celebrated revolt against the Spanish colonialists in Morocco (1920-1926). But that's another tale.

6. The Kominas/Taqwacore. Since they toured, they've been getting lots of media attention. The Taqwacore movie (see below) has helped garner media attention too. Here's a nice AP report. My favorite line is this: "Usami said a reporter once questioned him on how he felt about some Muslims being terrorists. He responded by asking her how she, as a white person, felt about the African slave trade."

Here's another from Sapna. "[T]he band is not supportive of 1947, the partition of Pakistan. It is always much more important to be desi than Pakistani, Bengali, Indian. Having a south Asian identity is much more important than being from a region."

The film, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, will be screening at this year's Sundance Film Festival! Check out the film website.

Other good reports have been done, I've been trying to keep track, but right now, I can't locate the archive...Later, inshallah.

7. Japanese Red Army & PFLP on film. The invaluable magazine of Middle East art and culture, Bidoun, has partnered with the avante-garde art website Ubuweb to put up some fascinating sound and film documents. I've only just begun to explore.

Check out this one: Sekigun-PFLP: Sekai Senso Sengen (The Red Army/PFLP: Declaration of World War), 1971.

In 1971, Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi, both having ties to the Japanese Red Army, stopped in Palestine on their way home from the Cannes festival. There they caught up with notorious JRA ex-pats Fusako Shigenobu and Mieko Toyama in training camps to create a newsreel-style agit-prop film based off of the "landscape theory" (fûkeiron) that Adachi and Wakamatsu had developed. The theory, most evident at work in A.K.A. Serial Killer (1969), aimed to move the emphasis of film from situations to landscapes as expression of political and economical power relations.

In 1974 Adachi left Japan and committed himself to the Palestinian Revolution and linked up with the Japan Red Army. His activities thereafter were not revealed until he was arrested and imprisoned in 1997 in Lebanon. In 2001 Adachi was extradited to Japan, and after two years of imprisonment, he was released and subsequently published Cinema/Revolution [Eiga/Kakumei], an auto-biographical account of his life.

Yes, really, "newsreel-style agit-prop." Fascinating. (The photo is from the film, of one of the four jets the PFLP hijacked in September 1970.) Of course, if you are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, like I am, the connections that groups like the PFLP made with the Japanese Red Army as well as Germany's Red Army Faction are, to say the least, the source of embarrassment. (I'll have more to say about the RAF in future.)

There is also a short Agnès Varda film here, Plaisir d'amour en Iran, which I hope to look at soon.

And speaking of popular Orientalism--or maybe, rather, avant-garde Orientalism--there are also some Jack Smith films on Ubuweb, including Flaming Creatures, Normal Love and Scotch Tape. Normal Love is quite as amazing as Flaming Creatures, and I hope to have something to say about it in future.

Even more on The Kominas + Pakistani rock

The Kominas

Something happened to The Kominas since we last tuned in. They went on a nation-wide tour (although, for some reason, skipping Arkansas). And they got sorta...famous. Or at least created a lot of media buzz. And not because they were attracting huge audiences. Someone who knows them told me, there were maybe 50-80 people at shows per night. Interesting...not sure how to explain it. Except that the notion of Islam and punk going together continues to be a novel notion.

An article about The Kominas in the Los Angeles Times (August 12) is notable both because it comments on the rather considerable media coverage the band had received by that point, critiques it, and makes a conscious attempt to go beyond previous coverage. The Kominas state that they like getting media attention, but complain (a) that it focuses on the fact that the band is (3/4) Muslim rather than the music itself and (b) that the reports are formulaic. The formula is to note that the band was inspired by the publication of Michael Muhammad Knight's novel The Taqwacores, and then to mentions notable song titles like "Sharia Law in the USA."

At least the article points in the direction of better coverage--but it doesn't really do the job of analyzing lyrics or describing the music. The best it can muster is to quote Daniel Cavicchi, guest curator of the Grammy Museum's "Songs of Conscience" exhibit, which includes a piece of Kominas memorabilia. Says Cavicchi, "I would hate to see Taqwacore stall in public discourse as a form of exotica...Their songs are actually quite catchy, with interesting dynamics and a variety of sound textures, all of which are a testament to their musicianship." True enough.

The next day CNN published its take on The Kominas, by Azadeh Ansari. This piece more or less follows the formula identified in the LA Times report--it starts with the book, refer to song titles, and so on. Ansari does at least offer a bit of sociological analysis to account for the band's significance. He writes, "For [the Kominas], punk music is a way to rebel against their conservative cultural upbringing and the frustrations of growing up a young Muslim in America." And the article includes some observations by UC-Irvine history professor Mark Levine and author of Heavy Metal Islam, who says:

"These punk, metal and rap scenes - so-called extreme music scenes -- are addressing issues that mainstream music doesn't...[Punk] allows them to rebel against society and their own culture at the same time."

Levine goes on to say,

"It makes sense why punk has been the music of choice for young, politically active Muslims who are musical...The straight edge movement in punk which was about no drugs, no alcohol, was clean yet very intense and political. It's a way for them to rebel against their families in some extreme ways yet still be ritualistically, 'good Muslims.' "

Accompanying the article is a nice slideshow, featuring photos from Kim Badawi's book, The Taqwacores, plus commentary from Mike Knight and band members, and some music.

But alas, no discussion of the music or the lyrics.

In the interest of at least starting a discussion of The Kominas' lyrics, here's my transcription of the song, "Sharia' Law in the USA." The Kominas have just begun to put out videos of some of their songs, which feature just the lyrics, on Facebook. I don't think you necessarily have to be a FB member to see this, so here's the link.

Sharia Law in the USA

I am an Islamist
I am the Antichrist
Most squares don't make the wanted list
But my my! How I stay in style
Cops chased me out of my mother's womb
My crib was in state pen before age two
The cops had bugged my red toy phone
So I devised a plan for heads to roll...
Sharia law in the -- USA (2x)
Sharia law in the – we've had to pay
...for the white man can take with two free hands
Imagine our debts cut in half
Our wives multiplied by the number four
Why the president's daughters couldn't ask for more
One can lick my Afghan's clit
Wife three's ready to help
As I keep screaming
Penetrate me with a strap on dick
While a brother from New Orleans does you anally

Then there is some sampled commentary from a well-known 50s educational film on what to so in case of an atomic attack. "Duck and cover."

Sharia law in the -- USA (2x)
Sharia law or you'll have to pay

Duck and cover

Roll over Sex Pistols, this supersedes "God Save the Queen." The Sex Pistols were waaaay too timid to broach the subject of anal penetration. As I read the lyrics, they complain about how Muslims are demonized in the USA, and imagine sharia law as a way to take revenge. And in addition, sharia law would be a benefit to (male) Muslims, as they'd get 4 wives. Then I'm somewhat at a loss: the wives would lick each other (?) and then--where does the anal sex come from? I don't know. It's nonetheless very clever, the vocals are well-done, not hoarse screaming in the style of much contemporary punk but much more melodious. Punk more in the content of the lyrics than in the musical form. Some kind of South Asian woodwind and percussion opening the song. Nice.

For a flavor of how the recent Kominas tour went, check out this blog post on the Taqwacore Webzine, from Tanzila Ahmed, who accompanied the band and the rest of the entourage, on tour from LA to Texas. "The first time I had written about the band was over three years ago, and I’d been following the band ever since. It was a blog post where I declared my crush for the boys in The Kominas and how I would fight Ashwairya Rai in a wet sari for them."

Pakistani rock

And then there is Pakistan, ancestral home to 3 of the 4 members of The Kominas--and they've even toured there. Thanks to Shahjehan, I was led to this audio report and this written one, from The Guardian, on Pakistan's lively underground rock scene. One of the bands discussed is Bumbu Sauce, from Islamabad, and their song "Jiggernaut." It's clever and catchy and goofy/serious and you can listen to it, and see the lyrics, here. Alas, I don't get all the references. "Juggernaut" (which I guess jiggernaut is a version of) is derived from the Sanskrit "Jagganatha," one of the names for the god Vishnu. It was incorporated into the English language as a result of a falsehood propagated by (some) British colonialists, who asserted that fanatical Hindus would throw themselves under the wheels of chariots carrying statues of Jagganatha/Vishnu during an annual festival, in order to gain salvation. "Juggernaut" came to mean "unstoppable force" in English--but with a whiff of religious fanaticism. Quite a witty title for a song, then, that deals with the Taliban. Bumbu Sauce is a kind of hot flavoring that goes on packaged noodles. I don't know what the CDA is. Capital Development Authority? Why does the CDA have ninjas? "Why do you act like such a rand?" Again, no idea what "rand" means in Pakistani English. [Update, Nov. 9, 2009: Thanks to an anonymous comment, I now know that "rand" means "whore," in both India and Pakistan.] I do get that the song suggests the possibility that the US struggle with the Taliban in Pakistan might extend to Iran. As The Guardian notes, the song first talks about fighting on the side of the Taliban, and later, fighting against the Taliban.

The report also discusses a song that is rather more earnest and serious in its political critique: "Ready to Die," from the Lahore band, co-Ven. It's here, on youtube, with lyrics for you to read. I can't make out all the bits in Urdu, except for "Iraqi," "Irani," and "Pakistani." The song criticizes the military collaboration between the Pakistani government and the US (i.e., the coalition) and raises the issue of the fact that this military cooperation seems to be having the effect of making the militants multiply. The song could apply equally well to Afghanistan as to Pakistan, and if it weren't for the map of Pakistan on the video, and the fact that The Guardian told you the band was Pakistani, you might think that Afghanistan was in fact the subject.

(Robert Mackey commented on The Guardian's report on the New York Times blog, and decided, for some reason, to focus almost exclusively on the fact that both bands sing in an American accent. He does give us one bit of useful information: the Urdu chorus to "Ready to Die" translates as follows: “The game of chess begins/ And one by one/ Iraqis and Iranians/ Saudis and Afghans/ and Pakistanis.” But why, when the US is involved in such a dangerous game in Pakistan and Afghanistan, you would want to focus on the US accent issue is just beyond me.)

More in the pop vein, stylistically, but much more explicitly political and radical, is the group Laal ("red"). I learned about them, somewhat amazingly, from a report on NPR's Morning Edition. Remarkable because Laal's two leaders are militants in Pakistan's Communist Workers and Peasants party. The guitarist, Taimur Rahman, is getting a PhD at SOAS in London, while the lead singer, Shahram Azhar, is doing his PhD at Oxford. They did music as a hobby, while working on their degrees and participating in Pakistani expat protests against Musharraf. They happened to meet a Pakistani film director, Taimur Khan, who heard them play their song "Main Nay Kaha (”I said”)" at a party. The song is based on a poem by well-known leftist Urdu poet Habib Jalib, and it attacks authoritarianism and political divisiveness. Khan convinced the band to do a video, which he shot in London. The video was a sensation on youtube, and got picked up by the Urdu cable channel Geo TV, and so it was seen, and became popular, in Pakistan. Soon the band was in Karachi, recording their first album.

According to an informative article by James Crabtree in Prospect magazine that focuses on Geo TV, "Main Nay Kaha" quickly became the theme song for the lawyers' movement protests of March and April 2009, that resulted in the reinstatement of Chief Justice Chaudhary. According to Shomial Ahmad's Morning Edition report, the big Laal song of the lawyer's movement was "Umeed-E-Sehr" ("hope of a new dawn"), the title track of Laal's album. Check out the video (with English subtitles) of "Umeed-E-Sehr," whose lyrics are by renowned leftist Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, here. I particularly like this song, "Main Nay Kaha (Musheer)," with lyrics, again, from Habib Jalib.



I find it quite exciting that the poetry of a previous generation of revered Urdu leftist poets, which had rather gone out of fashion, is being revived by Laal. (Their music, of course, is great too.) Check out more Laal videos here. The band's official website is here. Go there for more info and to listen to clips from all the songs on their album.

And finally here's an oldie, a clip from the golden days of Urdu cinema in Pakistan. From the 1966 film Armaan, the song is called "Ko Ko Karina" (sung by Ahmed Rushdi). The song's name refers, of course, to Coca Cola. The clip features a huge plastic Coke bottle on the bar, and waiters dance around with coke on their serving trays. This delightful song is an example of the "indigenization" of "Western" rock--it deploys rock elements, especially the electric guitar riffs, but is not straight "rock" in the ways that Bumbu Sauce or co-Ven are. This sort of incorporation of Western genres of course is very familiar from the more famous Bollywood tradition.



Iftikhar Dadi, in a forthcoming article on Urdu cinema, argues that Coke is fetishized by the elite in this clip, as signs of Western modernity. Nabeel Zuberi commented (when I posted Dadi's remarks on Facebook), that "The way the coke bottles are glued to that tray and the waiter's comic gait/dance are surely 'extracting the urine'/taking the piss. At the very least, it's postcolonial mimicry, if not outright camp." I'm inclined toward the mimicry/camp interpretation. (And hopefully Nabeel won't mind me quoting him!)

This "Socio-political History of Modern Pop Music in Pakistan" calls "Ko Ko Korina" "the first ever modern Pakistani pop song." I have no idea whether that is true, but please read this history--an outline, really--more background on Pakistani pop and rock.

The Kominas: National Tour (+kufiya bonus)

Taqwacore icons The Kominas are going on national tour! Go see them: all reports of live sightings are very positive. This is the latest, updated poster, fresh off the (virtual) press.

This is the first iteration of The Kominas tour poster. Which do you prefer? (Forgetting the fact that the second is the 'correct' version. Whichever you choose, you must admit that The Kominas really have the image thing going on.

And the kufiya thing going on. (This photo is from their Facebook page.)


Other Kominas and taqwacore-related items that I've come across of late (mostly, in fact, courtesy of The Kominas).

##A video of highlights of the 2007 Taqwatour, with The Kominas, Al-Thawra, Omar Waqar, Vote Hizballah, and The Secret Trial Five.

@@A report from The Guardian on a new book (The Taqwacores: Muslim Punk in the USA) featuring photographer Kim Badawi's images of Islamic punk bands, from 2005-07.

%% The Kominas have recorded a new track, "Blackout Beach," which was featured in a new play, "Water Board: A Play About Torture," which is being performed today at the YMCA Theater, Cambridge, MA. (Please read about it--I can hardly stomach it myself.) You can hear the song on The Kominas myspace page--or if you're a "fan," on Facebook.

^^A long trailer for the film, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam.

&& Watch The Kominas practice. With trumpet. They keep putting out these clips, so stay tuned.



I just got hold of John Lennon's The Lost Home Tapes 1965-1969. It's cool that we can have access to The Kominas home tapes almost instantaneously. Not that The Kominas are The Beatles, but Shahjehan Khan does bear a resemblance to John Lennon.

^^Nice interview with The Kominas. The word means "scum" in Urdu. They explain their humor. And their politics. "Shariah Law in the USA." Taqwa: Terrorists Are Quite Well Adjusted.



Again, be sure to go see The Kominas if they are playing anywhere near you. Hopefully their next tour will swing by NW Ark.

The Kominas, and -- DJ Rekha to play at Wakarusa (Ozark, AR)

Over the past three weekends I've traveled to NYC, DC, and Oslo. And I finished up the paper and exam grading for the semester. Now I'm deep into summer school teaching, which I started the day after I returned from Oslo. I think I'm still recovering from the jet lag. So there hasn't been much energy for blogging...

(photo: Baltimore City Paper)

I just read this quite useful and illuminating post about the, I guess we should say, so-called taqwacore band, The Kominas, on the YellowBuzz blog. Here are some good excerpts:

The song [on the album, Wild Nights in Guantanamo] that brings out the best of the Kominas’ mixed influences, I would say, is “Par Desi.” It begins with a Bhangra-inspired, chromatic surf guitar riff. Basim sings about living in a social limbo between Pakistan and the U.S. “How'd I get here, from a land with long monsoons? / In Lahore it's raining water, in Boston it rains boots.” Following the second chorus is an 8-second analog sample of a live Bhangra percussion recording. This segment features fast striking on dhols, a two-headed drum used in Punjab, a region in the northern part of South Asian subcontinent. The syncopated bass accents in the sample suspend one’s attention on the 4/4 meter in the first part of the song and enables the transition a series of triplets interspersed by noise guitar. The sample, in short, seamlessly bridges the first and second part of the song, each with a disparate rhythmic articulation. I give these guys props for their compositional sophistication...

In the interview, the Kominas criticized how media pigeonholes them. Shahjehan explained, “Taqwacore is no more than just a few kids that talk online every now and then. People think it’s like we all hang out, we all live in a house. It’s not.” Apparently six of the taqwacore-associated bands have disbanded since the 2007 tour. Shahjehan continued, “Another thing that gets lost in the media angle of taqwacore within the book is that there are different people that have different relationships to Islam. Now within this band, there are different people with different relationships to Islam, or none at all.”

Adding to the commentary, Arjun explicated how the press has blown up and distorted the story of the Kominas by presuming their liberal, diversified “Muslim punk” identity as an alternative to Islam as imagined by mainstream media in the U.S. and Europe...

I highly recommend following the Yellowbuzz, the asian-american music blog, btw. (Which links to me, I just discovered. Thanks, comrades.)

More Kominas/Taqwacore/MM Knight miscellanea: To keep up with the happenings of the taqwa, please follow the Taqwacore Webzine, which only recently started up.

And please check out this episode of Playlist, a great series on music from Al Jazeera English, which deals with taqwacore. Check out the whole series, there's much more of interest, including coverage of Palestinian rap.



Meanwhile, and still on the Asian-American music tip, DJ Rekha, the esteemed organizer of Basement Bhangra, a monthly, movable dance event in New York City, going strong since 1997, will be performing at Wakarusa. Started in 2004, this music festival was held in Kansas until this year, when it will convene in Ozark, Arkansas, June 4-7. I'm pretty excited that DJ Rekha will be performing, and I plan to go.

I highly recommend her album, Basement Bhangra. (If you want to buy it, don't get it from iTunes, which only has it available as a continuous mix. Amazon, and maybe other outlets as well, sell it as discrete songs.)

The Kominas in Brooklyn, Last Night (Taqwacore!)

Thanks to Carolina Gonzalez for sending along these photos, shot by Siddhartha Mitter, on Carolina's camera. (Carolina covers music for the New York Daily News.) The Kominas played at Goodbye Blue Monday, and according to Carolina, are as good in concert as they are on record. (I have yet to see The Kominas. I missed the SXSW gig. Apparently I could have just showed up, without the $400+ pass. But I didn't know.)

More hawgblawg Kominas posts here.

This is Shahjehan Khan. Note that he is wearing a sweatshirt with a Nation of Gods and Earths (Five Percenters) emblem. I suspect the influence of Michael Muhammad Knight.

Arjun Ray, Shahjehan Khan, Basim Usmani (l to r)

Arjun Ray, Shahjehan Khan (l to r)

Basim Usmani