I’m always mystified when people complain that there’s nothing to do in the Capital Region. What are these people talking about, I always wonder.
One of the best movie theaters on earth, Spectrum 8, is in Albany. Every week brings a plethora of musical offerings from across the musical spectrum. Jazz, folk, rock, classical — there’s always something going on. Of course, maybe I’m just easy to entertain — we’ve already established that I grew up in a small town without a movie theater, and that going to the movies was pretty much the pinnacle of excitement until about the age of 15. But I don’t think it’s just that. In general, I get bored easily. That’s why, when it comes to music, I’m always looking for stuff that’s a little different, a little challenging. Over time, I’ve discovered that some of the best concerts in the Capital Region take place on the fringes; because they receive scant publicity, you usually have to seek them out. Which is what I did last weekend.
On Friday I dragged a friend of mine to see Mamadou Diabate, a native of the African country of Mali who plays the kora, a 21-string harp that resembles a guitar and, I’ve since learned, is at least 1,000 years old. Diabate appeared at A.M.E. Zion Church in Troy with his band — a bassist, a xylophone player and a drummer — as part of the Sanctuary for Independent Media’s African Film Festival. I’ve never really been that into world music, but I wanted to check out the film festival, and Friday was the only night I could go. I’d only listened to African music a few times, most notably in the Introduction to Musics of the World class I took in college. I actually studied for this class, if you can believe it, even listening to the music for the course in my dorm room. This was how my roommate and I discovered the song “Highlife Music” by the Nyakrom Brass Band. We couldn’t listen to this song, with its out-of-tune, squawking instrumentation, without laughing. “It’s just terrible,” my roommate said, as we wiped tears from our eyes. “It sounds like a middle school marching band.” We played it over and over again. We couldn’t get enough.
In any case, I’ve always regarded world music as educational, worthy of study, but not really anything I enjoyed. It seemed sort of like broccoli, or green beans — something you ate because it was good for you. Whereas rock is more like candy. But after seeing Mamadou Diabate, my feelings have changed. This guy — and his band — were amazing, unlike anything I’d ever heard. (Though the heavy use of the xylophone reminded me of one of my favorite songs, “Gone Daddy Gone,” by the Violent Femmes). Midway through the show, I realized that I was enjoying myself immensely. The sound was percussive, but also light, melodious, joyful. Not only did Diabate and his band positively rock, but they also dispelled most of the preconceived notions I had about world music.
My friend, who is originally from the Congo, reported that in Africa people wouldn’t just sit and watch a band like that; in Africa, he said, people would be dancing. Being from the Congo, in the central part of the continent, my friend had never seen the kora before. Mali is in the east, and different countries and regions have their own instruments. Even so, he said the music made him homesick.
Speaking of the musical fringes, on Saturday I headed up to Saratoga Springs to see the bizarre musical collective Sunburned Hand of the Man perform at the Saratoga County Arts Council. My friend Bruce and I are always on the lookout for crazy musical happenings, and this sounded like something that fit the bill, with the Arts Council describing it as “one of the most unusual, original, eye-popping, mind-expanding takes on music” to ever come to the Capital Region.
Sunburned Hand of the Man was appearing in conjunction with an intriguing and eye-popping exhibit by TODT, the oldest artist’s collective in the United States. There are more than 100 pieces of art in this exhibit, many of them made of found materials. The best pieces were oddly provocative: a battleship in the shape of the United States, chicken bones in the shape of a person sitting in a miniature rocking chair. And the music? Well, that was weird, too, of course. A mix of psychedelic, folk, metal and performance art (at one point a wooden, armless torso was uncovered on stage), and I felt the same way about it as I do most performance art. Sometimes it was compelling; sometimes it was inscrutable and offputting. I knew I’d seen something unique, but was it actually any good? I’m still thinking about that.
The TODT exhibit runs through April 19 at the Arts Center Gallery at 320 Broadway.
