SOUNDTRACK: RAHIM ALHAJ-Tiny Desk Concert #487 (November 13, 2015).
Rahim AlHaj plays the oud, an ancient stringed instrument 
commonly played throughout the Middle East, North Africa and countries like Greece and Turkey. He was born in Baghdad and learned to play the oud at age 9.
AlHaj wrote protest songs opposing Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime. He was imprisoned twice–once for a year and a half–and was regularly beaten by his captors. In 1991, AlHaj was forced to leave Iraq because of his political activism, and ultimately found a home in New Mexico.
Despite all of this his songs are about hope and he seems like a generally positive guy.
The first song, “Dream” is a solo performance. It is intended to serve as a voice for millions of displaced and murdered Iraqi children whose cries will never be heard.
For the next three songs he is joined by Palestinian-American percussionist Issa Malluf.
“Warm Voice” is for his students. He says he was very mean to them, and this song is for them to have fun. It is actually for oud and string quartet. Malluf plays the daf, a large circular drum with a hardwood frame, and a stretched and shaved goat skin that produces a gently melodic tonality. It looks a like an Irish bodhran but it is played with the fingers (especially the finger tips) producing a rich melodic sound.
For the next two songs Malluf plays the dumbek a goblet-shaped drum with a tight head made of goatskin. It looks like it is lit up and that’s because it is heated by a lamp that keeps the skin taut in order to produce a consistent tone. This instrument has a much higher pitch tap and is quiet distinctive.
“Friendship” begins as fast romp but the middle slows down with some interesting, fast-picked melodies and some big two note bom bom stops.
“Flying Bird” is a faster song with some very intense riffing going on. There are some cool moments when the scales ascend and descend and the drums add little fast, tight triplet notes. And then the whole song stops and there is a kind of drum solo before the speedy notes resume again.
When the set ends, he comments, “Thank you very much and go to work now, please.”
[READ: September 1, 2016] Hippopotamister
First Second is known primarily for graphic novels, but they also do children’s picture books that are kind of in a graphic novel format.
I loved the title of this book. The premise of this story is that the City Zoo is really run down. No one comes any more, and even the monkeys are lethargic. Red Panda and Hippo live in the center of the zoo (which really does look quite gross–I assume the health inspectors would have stepped in before this happened).
Red Panda decides to take off. And he comes back everyone once in awhile wearing a new hat and telling hippo that life outside the zoo is great and his new job is awesome! Finally hippo says he wants out, too. Panda tells him that if he wants to blend, he must become a hippopotamister.
And so. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 