Kid Baltan and Tom Disselvelt

Kid Baltan and Tom Disselvelt
11" x 8.5", ink, watercolor, pencil, 2013

My record collection houses records from all over the world and I have a fair share from that little Netherlands country I was born and raised in. I buy records predominantly at thrift stores these days and usually I scoop up all the international vinyl I find there. But records from the Netherlands you don't find much in thrift stores and those that occasionally show up I mostly leave behind. Heintje is the one that most frequently appears at a thrift store, and sometimes you'll find a draaiorgel (mechanic organ) record, or one by the few international pop stars such as Herman Brood or the Golden Earring. I'm not interested in any of those, but if I would find more sophisticated ones, like free jazz records, or modern classical, or experimental, I certainly would be a happy taker. The last Dutch musician I bought music of was Willem Breuker, when I saw a CD of his at a thrift store some years ago. I was excited about it but I didn't like the CD. I've never even seen a record by Dick Raaijmakers or by his alias Kid Baltan (I was familiar with the music of Dick Raaijmakers but never heard of Kid Baltan—Tom Disselvelt I had never heard of either—until I chanced upon their music on YouTube.) So naturally it's been a while since I had some music from my own country in the Top 100. Dick Raaijmakers as Kid Baltan produced a number of experimental electronic recordings together with Tom Disselvelt in the years between 1954 and 1960. Quite a few of these can be heard on YouTube and it is the first one I ever heard that features in the Top 100 2012: Vibration from the extended play single Electronic Movements (Phillips, 1962—originally released on the LP Electronic Music under the moniker Elektrosonics in 1957).

Greeting from Herzegovina

Greeting from Bosnia and Herzegovina
(four) stages, 12" x 12", oil on masonite, 2013

Last weekend I taught a class titled Expressive Landscape Painting. A day before it started I went to work in my back yard and took pictures as I progressed my painting. The 3rd from the four pictures above, was the "finished" painting I took with to show to the students, while also bringing in photos of the progress. When all was said and done, and the weekend gone, I took it back back to studio and painted on it the next image for the Top 100 2012. And next was the song Kaharli Sam, Večerala Nisam (poetically translated as "I am distraught, I have not supped" in the liner notes to the CD World Library of Folk and Primitive Music, Vol. V: Yugoslavia) sung by Naza Muhović, a Muslim woman from eastern Herzegovina. The song was a familiar one to me, a version that appeared on the LP Folk Music of Yugoslavia made all the way to #2 in the Top 100 2009 (on the liner notes to that record the song is translated less poetically but is perhaps more poetry as "I am sad, I have not eaten". Curiously it is the distinguished Professor Albert Lord—an authority in ethnomusicology as well as in Homeric poetry—who was involved with the translation of both. The recording for the World Library was made by Peter Kennedy in 1951, while Laura Boulton recorded the Folk Music version in 1952—the recordings actually sound identical to my untrained ear.) Muslim women from Herzegovina do not play instruments as a rule but in the confinement of their kitchen they do play with utensils, such as in this song where the singer sings into a reverberating spinning copper tray. ("The same type of instrument has been observed in the Arctic among the Hudson Bay Eskimo women" —Folk Music of Yugoslavia. I love those theories concerning disparate geographical occurrences. I also love conspiracy theories, and most of all I love scientific anthropological theories.)

Top 100 2012, #1-25

 

The Top 100 2012 list is finalized. I'll publish it in four installments over the next few weeks. Here are the first 25. Clicking on an artist's name below will lead you to the original post for the song. All images are to scale, every single one painting is 12" wide.

1. Beth Orton – Magpie
2. M.I.A. – Born Free                            
3. Beth Orton – Something More Beautiful                        
4. The Moldy Peaches – Nothing Came Out                       
5. Land Dyak Women – Rice Song                           
6. Lady LeShurr – Lego                                   
7. Pussy Riot – Putin Lights Up the Fires                       
8. Béla Bartók – Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion                   
9. Ajdin Asllan – Valle Drvollile                               
10. Sviatoslav Richter – Saint-Saëns: Concerto No.5                   
11. Kitty Gallagher – Keening Song                           
12. Cat Power – Cherokee                                   
13. Sandwidi Pierre – Je Suis un Salaud                           
14. Mukim Tahir – Yaram Sizlar                               
15. L’Harmonie Voltaïque – Killa Naa Naa Ye Killa                   
16. Kimya Dawson – Being Cool                              
17. Marika Papagika – The Dervish                           
18. Rizeli Sadik – Erkek Kadin Oyun Havasi                       
19. The Alwood Sisters – Summer Wind/Our Time                    
20. Super Djata Band de Bamako – Bimoko Magnin                   
21. Flor Sinqueña – Mi Ultima Avisa                           
22. Anon. Romania – Lament for a Dead Brother                    
23. Cat Power – Silent Machine                               
24. Kel Hamza – Kişlatar Doldu Bugün                       
25. Hallo Dawe – (track 5)                                     

Beth Orton

Beth Orton
12" x 12"
oil on masonite, 2013

The third and final entry from the Sugaring Season LP, and the third and final Beth Orton song in the Top 100 2012 as well. And it's a silly painting. Once it was a decent back yard painting, but that's nothing new in these series, then it became a Bob Marley portrait playing soccer. A very awkward Bob Marley painting it was, and I added, like in the photo I used, Jimi Hendrix to the scene. The result was only slightly less awkward and I set it aside. Today I recycled it again and superimposed Beth Orton onto the scene while blocking out all that was left of Bob Marley, and now it is finished, and part of the Top 100 2012 series. As in an earlier Beth Orton painting I used the cover of Sugaring Season for the Beth Orton portrait and it is now forever attached as illustration to the song Candles.

Putin Zassal

Nadya Tolokonnikova (Pussy Riot)
11" x 8.5", ink, watercolor, pencil, 2013

I read the Pussy Riot manifesto the other day. It is called Art and the Human Manifesto and was written by Nadya Tolokonnikova, one of the two members of the band jailed for hooliganism in Russia, and now serving a two year sentence. The manifesto was written to protect the integrity of the band and makes for a good read that I would recommend to anyone interested in punk rock, politics, current events, feminism, to anyone reading this blog really. It's on the Free Pussy Riot website. Putin Zassal (Putin wet himself) is the second Pussy Riot track in the list. (For those of you who pay close attention to these writings: I indeed made an error a few weeks ago when I stated that Hirut Bekele was the only non-English speaking musician in the Top 100 this year. I had simply forgotten about the band Pussy Riot.) Here's a link to the video for Putin Zassal.

Mountain Music of Kentucky

Roscoe Holcomb
11" x 8.5", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil

There aren't that many pictures available of Roscoe Holcomb without a hat. In the past I've painted him many times but always with a hat. Most of these paintings were done from the jacket to the CD An Untamed Sense of Control that shows a photograph of Roscoe Holcomb playing a banjo in front of a barn. A young boy also figures in the photo. I painted him too several times. John Cohen, who recorded Holcomb in the field in Daisy, Kentucky, was responsible for that image on the jacket, as well as most all of Holcomb's pictures that you'll find in a Google image search. John Cohen, a well known photographer, musician, and musicologist, "discovered" Holcomb during one of his field trips to the mountains of Kentucky, which resulted in the highly influential album Mountain Music of Kentucky (rec. 1960). Across the Rocky Mountains, in this year's list, is just one of a score of Holcomb tracks on that record that have passed the Top 100 review in the past decade. I don't know if the photograph without hat that I used to draw this image from was also taken by Cohen. I wanted to use it because of the challenge it provided. Holcomb looks like a different person without the hat. Roscoe Holcomb (1912-1981) lived his whole life in Daisy and was a coal miner for most of it.

Dry Grass and Shadows

Alela Diane
10.5" x 11", 2013
ink, watercolor, pencil

Dry Grass and Shadows is the opening track from Alela Diane's CD To Be Still that I like so much. I bought it in 2009 at a festival in Nelsonville, Ohio. She was nice enough to sign it for me. The song was listed in the Top 100 2009 and the Top 100 2010. I didn't listen to the song since but it's back in the top 100 this year (2012) due to a live concert video recorded at the Nuits des Fouvière in 2012, and posted on line. Ms. Diane herself forwarded a link to it on her facebook page. The drawing may be a bit of a caricature (or at least it is mannieristic) but I think it's sweet nevertheless. (And remember, it's not about me, the drawings and paintings are about them. I'm a fan.)

Hirut Bekele again

Hirut Bekele
12" x 12"
oil on luan, 2013

One of my favorite "world" music albums I discovered in 2012 was this cassette by Hirut Bekele that I found on the blog Awesome Tapes from Africa. The cassette (notes are all in Ge'ez, or Ethiopic script) has two tracks in the Top 100, making Bekele one of only a handful repeat musicians in the list, and the only non-English speaking musician to do so. I can't read the titles on the jacket so the songs in the top 100 are simply labelled track 1, and track 5. I commented in an earlier post about the stripped down accompaniments on the cassette (compared to the jazz bands that were common at the time in Addis Ababa), and on track 5 it is stripped down even further. With the elimination of the keyboard that is heard throughout the cassette, all that's left is the krar to accompany Bekele's voice. It is the most hypnotic track on the cassette, and one that I consider highly and will store in a special place.

M.I.A. – Paper Planes

M.I.A.
11" x 8.5"
ink on paper, 2013

M.I.A.'s biggest hit, without a doubt, is Paper Planes. The inclusion of it in the movie Slumdog Millionaire propelled M.I.A.'s status from starlet to megastar. The song too, together with Born Free (see Top 100 2013, #2), made M.I.A. now enter the list of my favorite 200 musicians counted over 30 years of Top 100 history. Besides being on the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, Paper Planes appeared on M.I.A.'s second album, Grammy winning Kala of 2007. It should not come as a surprise then, that on YouTube a score of live recordings are posted. One night I had myself a little Paper Planes marathon and watched six of these in a row. Some are fan videos recorded from within the audience, others are more official ones recorded properly on stage, and then there are still other versions that were recorded for a live TV audience, such as her appearances on Letterman and the Grammy's. And they're all different. My favorite one is labelled the "official live video". On it there are tons of people on stage dancing, another large group of kids providing the chorus, and a special guest appearance by Rye Rye. The small little ink drawing above almost didn't make it. I'm getting way to meticulous in my sketchbook. Out of frustration I almost tore out the page and threw it away (or folded it neatly to let the wind carry it away.

Sugar Man

Rodriguez
11" x 8.5", 2013
watercolor, pencil, pen, ink

It occasionally happens that my lists are in synch with those of the mainstream. Usually this is related to a current event. It could be the passing of an icon, a lifetime achievement award, or the making of a film about some musician. In the last case this musician is now Rodriguez. When I first heard about the film a half year ago ago, I was intrigued and had to find out what the musician in the film was all about. I had never heard of him and neither did anyone else it seemed. But by now it is not even necessary anymore to summarize his story in these few lines available here, because everybody would have heard all about him already as the film is nominated for an Oscar for best documentary. I haven't seen the film yet, just the same excerpts as anyone can see on YouTube, but I've listened to a lot of his music that suddenly have become available on various sharing sites. The documentary is called Searching for Sugar Man, the alter ego of Sixto, or Jesús Rodriguez, and also the title of the song in the Top 100 list.

Michael Hurley

Michael Hurley
11" x 8.5", 2013
watercolor, pencil

Michael Hurley hasn't gotten any younger since I met him in 2008, but then: neither have I. He released his first record in 1964, the year I was born. He released a whole score of consequent recordings, mostly hard to find, minor (his own often) label, small edition issues. I have a handful on CD, LP, and cassette. Top 100 2012 #54 is Knockando from the CD Ancestral Swamp. Released in 2007 on Gnomonsong Recordings, it's one of those self published discs. He has his own publishing company too: Snocko Music. I don't think anyone else publishes for Snocko, or records for Gnomonsong than Mr. Hurley himself. As with most of Hurley's record, it features his own artwork on the cover. As a bonus there's a cartoon inside. The hero of the story (I guess you call him Snocko, Hurley's alter ego) sleepwalks into a bar. I doesn't keep him from drinking though. He wakes up and then gets back into his patrol car and falls back asleep again behind the wheel.

Katajjaq (2)

Tumivut (Inuit) girls performing
12" x 12", oil on luan, 2013

Today it is exactly thirty years since I made the top 10 that lead to the Top 100 project. I've compiled 75 top tens on average every year since, and just yesterday I finalized the Top 100 2012, a list constructed from 74 top tens. Today is the official start of the Top 100 2013 but the images I post are still going to be belonging to 2012 for a while. There's an exhibition scheduled for May 11 to show the 100 paintings (details will follow soon!), and I'll be working up to that date to make paintings for it. Today's painting I made yesterday, and I struggled with it. It seems that the more I teach, and the better I become with demonstrations, critiques and such, my own paintings suffer. Pictured above are two Tumivut Inuit girls performing the song The Competion at a song tournament. The song nearly made it in the list, as did many others in the genre but the only one in the Top 100 is simply named Katajjaq (the word for this style of throat singing) and is performed by anonymous singers. It is the same track that was in last year's top 100, and if you click in this link you can read what I wrote about that style of singing in January of 2012.