SOUNDTRACK: FANFARE CIOCARLIA-Tiny Desk Concert #335 (February 8, 2014).
Fanfare Ciocarlia (pronounced “fan-FAR-eh cho-car-LEE-ah”) is a 12 piece Balkan brass band from the Romanian village of Zece Prăjini. They are frenetic and wild, who knows what they are singing, but boy are they having fun playing.
On the left side we have four men in black all with big brass instruments–sousaphones and baritone horns and the like. On the right side we have eight men in red shirts. The far right have trumpets and saxophones or and down the middle are the percussionists and the singer. And when they play, everyone is in motion, including the audience.
“Sirba De La Monastirea” is a super fast instrumental–the tempo is insane with the red shirted guys’ fingers flying up and down the horns. It’s practically like a punk klezmer song. Hard to dance to but impossible to sit still during.
“Lume, Lume” has vocals. It opens with a fast section but the song slows down to some gentle washes of bass horns–slow and mournful. After some verses, a sax solo (which sounds like a clarinet for some reason) plays over the horns. But once the solo is over, the song picks up with a clap-along that grows faster and faster until it once again hits breakneck speed.
“Asfalt Tango” opens with a lot of bass–low horns and drums. And then that sax/clarinet comes in and wails around. There are times when the song sounds somewhat mariachi (especially with the red suits). The trumpets take over which is pretty magnificent. After a few minutes (the whole song is about 9 minutes long), the band drops away and the sax plays a real solo–just him–until a trumpet and bass horn take over with the melody of “Summertime” while the rest of the band dances or claps along.
The band is having such a good time. They are lots of fun, cheering and clapping and raising their hands in praise. Whatever these songs are about, this they area lot of fun.
[READ: July 6, 2016] “Dance, Off”
The May 16, 2016 issue of the New Yorker had a series called “Univent This” in which six authors imagine something that they could make go away. Since I knew many of them, I decided to write about them all. I have to wonder how much these writers had to think about their answers, or if they’d imagined this all along.
Brooker, while serious, certainly has fun with his uninvention. He would like dance to be eradicated. “I’d sooner defecate on live TV than dance at your wedding.”
He says he is awkward at the best of times so any kind of attempt to make him coordinate his body with music is astronomically cruel.
Brooker might be a little uptight. But he has a sense of humor about it. “Having to endure any kind of physical existence whatsoever alarms and annoys me. And haircuts. You have to get haircuts. Again and again and again. It’s relentless.”
He refused to dance at his parents golden wedding anniversary and he still feels guilt about it.
But he directs most of his anger outwards: “Dance like no one’s watching? Imbecile. You fucking imbecile. I’m watching, even when I close my eyes. Watching and judging.”
Any attempt to get him to dance is cajoling and bullying. And he knows that non dancers are party poopers and cowards and that dancing is apparently the most life-affirming activity you can engage in. Just leave him a lone about it.
And don’t even get him started about the movies.
I Just Read About That... 
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