SOUNDTRACK: GOLDEN DAWN ARKESTRA-Tiny Desk Concert #761 (June 29, 2018).
They came marching in from off stage in robes and masks, with instruments and face paint, in more colors than have ever been in one place.
And they began the first song with a cacophony of keyboards and percussion before playing the discofied funk of “Children of the Sun.”
There’s horns from “Malika” (Sarah Malika Boudissa–Baritone Sax, Vocals), and “Zumbi” (Chris Richards–Trombone, Vocals) who set the melody going while the percussion from “Lost In Face” (Rob Kidd–Drums–who does indeed have a mask covering his face) and “Oso the Great” (Alex Marrero-Percussion) keeps things moving.
There’s a slowdown in the middle with just bass “Shabuki” (Greg Rhoades-Bass), and keys from the leader himself “Zapot Mgawi” (Topaz McGarrigle-Vocals, Organ, Synth).
Throughout the songs you can hear some wah wah guitar from “Yeshua Villon” (Josh Perdue-Guitar) and vibes–a persistent instrument which sounds otherworldly and perfect. They come from “Isis of Devices” (Laura Scarborough-Vocals, Vibraphone). Behind her, dancing throughout the song is “Rosietoes” (Christinah Rose Barnett-Vocals, Tambourine).
So what do we know about this band?
The blurb says:
It was a late night at an unfamiliar club in Austin, Texas when the spirit, sound, lights and costumes of the Golden Dawn Arkestra put a huge, dreamy smile on my face. It took more than three years to get ten of the players and performers in this band (there are often even more) to my desk. I tried to transform the bright daylight of the NPR office with some of my handy, previously used holiday laser lights. But honestly, it wasn’t until their psychedelic jazz kicked in that the office transformation felt real. Band leader, Topaz squawked through his megaphone to join them on their journey, while singing “Children of the Sun.”
Topaz told me that the band’s inspiration for both the name and the spirit of the musicians is loosely based on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The organization, devoted to the study of the occult and paranormal activities, has been around since the 19th century.
Both of Topaz’s parents were heavily into spiritual movements and what happens here falls somewhere between high art and a circus, with music that feels connected to Sun Ra’s jazz, the extended musical adventures of The Doors and the surprise elements of Parliament-Funkadelic. You can dance and/or trance, or sit back and enjoy the spectacle.
Before “The Wolf” he apologizes for an outbreak of cold on their planet. But he wants to remind us that we are all human beings from the same planet and that we are all from stardust and vibrations. Together we can change the planet.
We would like there to be more light and love in the universe. We must all stand together. This is our fight song for that.
It moves quickly with the horns playing away and t he percussion flying.
The final song “Masakayli” opens with bongos from “Oso the Great” and clapping from everyone (including the audience). The horn melody sounds a lot the theme from S.W.A.T. (there’s nothing wrong with that). I feel like the guitar was kind of quiet through the other songs, but you can really hear “Yeshua Villon” on this one, especially the guitar solo.
This song ends with the jamming circus atmosphere that really takes off with a trippy keyboard solo from Topaz as “Rosietoes” plays with a light up hula hoop and “Zumbi” parades through the audience trying to get everyone hyped up.
It’s a tremendous spectacle and should bring a smile to your face. Next time these guys are in town, I’m there.
[READ: February 2, 2018] “Always Another Word”
These are the same remarks that were included in Five Dials Issue Number 10.
But since it has been some time since I posted them and since I am being a completist here, and since it has been nine years since Infinite Summer, I’ll cover these four in somewhat more details
Michael Pietsch
speaks about being DFW’s editor. He says that Dave loved to communicate through letters and “the phone messages left on the office answering machine hours after everyone had departed.” He says he loved Dave’s letters and tore into them hungrily. He gives examples of some communiques about cuts and edits of Infinite Jest.
I cut this and have now come back an hour later and put it back
Michael, have mercy. Pending and almost Horacianly persuasive rationale on your part, my canines are bared on this one.
He continues that David’s love affair with English was a great romance of our time. How he was so excited to be selected to the American Heritage Dictionary‘s Usage panel. But that was surpassed by his own mother’s excitement about it,
Michael thinks he may have tried to use every word in the dictionary at least once. When he, Michael, suggested a book that opened with the word “picric,” David’s instant response was “I already used that!.”
Zadie Smith
addresses the critics of BIWHM who thought the book was an ironic look at misogyny. She felt it was more like a gift. And the result of two gifts. A MacArthur Genius grant and a talent so great it confused people. His literary preoccupation was the moment the ego disappears and you’re able offer your love as a gift without expectation of reward.
She says that she taught students to read BIWHM alongside Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling.
The most impassioned recommendation he gave her was Brain Moore’s Catholics, a novella about a priest who is no longer capable of prayer. Don’t think of David as a God-botherer–think of it as ultimate value.
You get to decide what you worship, but nine time out of ten it turns out to be ourselves.
For David, Love was the ultimate value, the absurd, the impossible thing worth praying for.
George Saunders
speaks of reading BIWHM and finding that it did strange things to his mind and body. He says it was like if you were standing outdoors and all of your clothes were stripped away and you had super-sensitive skin and you were susceptible to the weather whatever it might be–on a sunny day you would feel hotter; a blizzard would sting.
The reading woke him up, made him feel more vulnerable, more alive. And yet the writer of these works was one of the sweetest, most generous dearest people he’d ever known.
He met Dave at the home of mutual friend in Syracuse. While he feared that Dave would be engaged in a conversation about Camus, and he would feel humiliated, Dave was wearing a Mighty Mouse T-shirt and talked about George and his family, asking all about them.
Saunders says that in time the grief of his passing will be replaced by a deepening awareness of what a treasure we have in the existing work. The disaster of his loss will fade and be replaced by the realization of what a miracle it was that he ever existed in the first place. But for now there is just grief.
For now, keep alive the lesson of his work:
Mostly we’re asleep but we can wake up. And waking up is not only possible, it is our birthright and our nature and, as Dave showed us, we can help one another do it.
Don DeLillo
says that Dave’s works tends to reconcile what is difficult and consequential with what is youthful, unstudied and often funny. There are sentences that shoot rays of energy in seven directions.
It’s hard to believe that in September, he will be dead ten years.
I Just Read About That... 