ElSapo
07-07-2004, 12:29 PM
I saw something last night.
What I’m about to write will be a jumbled mess of words, maybe the wrong words, possibly in the wrong order, but I need to get it down. Somehow. I need to find a way to explain what I saw, and what it meant.
During my junior year of high school, browsing through a closeout box of CDs, I found one called “Heat, Dust and Dreams.” It cost one dollar. It had a picture of a desert on it. And so I bought it. That was it -- that was my entire rationale for buying this CD. It was cheap, and I always thought deserts were nice.
Already this makes no sense.
I took it home and listened to it. It was by a guy, Johnny Clegg, who I would eventually learn had been part of the first interracial band to come out of South Africa. The music was largely political, kind of a mix of traditional African rhythms, Western rock, lyrics split between Zulu and English. It was great. I mean, for whatever reason, it struck something inside me. How a white kid from the suburbs of South Carolina falls in love with music like this, I have no idea. But I did, and I fell hard. I listened to more of his music.
Fast forward a bit. After my junior year of college, I went to Europe with my friend Nic. We were ultimately spending a week in Ireland, but met up in London on the way. And since we were there, I had to go to Sherwood Forest. As a kid, my mom had read me the old Howard Pyle version of “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” We watched the old movies and tv shows together. Over. And over. It was some kind of obsession, I guess. Anyways. My mother had died about eight months before, and I had brought with me to London this necklace she had.
Sherwood Forest is a bust, for what that’s worth. It’s largely a bizarre theme park these days (part of it at least). But Nic and I wandered around the town, hiked some, and eventually did find ourselves somewhat off the path. And so in Sherwood Forest, in Nottingham, in England, I left my friend for a bit. I just asked him to sit for a minute, I’d be right back, and I wandered out, found a nice spot, and left my mom’s necklace hanging on the branch of a tree. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It was important to her, and it was important to me.
Forward again. I know, this makes no sense.
Two months ago, surfing around on the web, I see that Johnny Clegg will be at the 930 Club. This is astounding news. I mean, honestly, I cannot fully communicate just how amazing this news was to me. Trying to rationally explain it all, to set it out so it makes sense to you or anyone, well, I can’t do it. I don’t know why I felt the way I did about his music. I just did.
I needed to go. I had to go. Yes, for the music, which I’ll talk more about in a minute. But for something else – I wanted to see who else would be there. I wanted to see others who had also found this guy, who felt something in those CDs. Others who had seen that he was coming and probably felt something similar to what I felt. I wanted to see who they were, to see that I wasn’t alone.
I went in not knowing at all what to expect.
The crowd was funny. It was by far the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at the 930 Club. Granted, most of the shows I’ve been to appeal to that mid-20s middle-class kind of group. Sure. This was the oldest group I’ve ever seen. I went with The Girl, and we represented about the lowest ages there (25, 27). Ages ranged up to about 60. People came in pairs, and it was obvious that one person felt something very deeply and the other was along for the ride. The crowd was predominately white, though still diverse, which surprised me to some extent, but then again Clegg is also white. The man he began singing with, Sipho Mchunu, back in the 70s I believe, had long since quit the band.
Johnny Clegg is all heart. And the man both can, and cannot, dance. The show was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but for a host of very real reasons. The music is somehow still 80s-sounding. The rhythms are still very powerful. Watching that man dance is simply awesome. I mean, he can bust some moves in a way that could make you cringe. Stomping, flailing, hitting the beat in a pretty non-subtle way. He was Everyman In His Living Room. I mean, the way you dance, at night, with the music loud and the blinds down, that’s how he dances. Except whereas most people – me for sure – hold back from doing that in public, there he was on stage reveling in it. (I love the word ‘revel.’)
I laughed through most of the show. I laughed out of happiness, out of bliss, out of simply not believing what I was seeing. My level of incredulity was off the charts. And every time I recognized a song, or watched that man dance again, I was… I don’t know.
But none of this sums it up, not in the way I wanted it to. Which goes back to my mother. About three-quarters of the way through the show, I stand up. I tell The Girl I’ll be right back. I have to leave her in the forest for a moment.
We’d been sitting above the main stage, watching from the side. 930 Club is nice because you have that option, and you have the main floor below. I left her and wandered down through the crowd. Despite being surrounded by people, sweaty, passionate, singing, smiling people, in a way I had to do this on my own. I was simultaneously on my own while at the same time part of a huge group who had all come together for the same thing. I sang my song, I went back upstairs.
My point is this, I guess. For some reason, for whatever reason, that moment last night and that moment in Sherwood Forest were the same. They meant the same thing. It’s the only and best way I can think of to describe how much it meant to me.
I don’t know why it meant so much, and maybe never will. Perhaps because of when I found it – right at that moment in high school when I was learning to be me. Something about identity, about latching onto something. Maybe it’s the political message, though anti-apartheid and peace songs are easy enough to love. Maybe it’s just the rhythms. I don’t know why it happened, but it did and perhaps that’s enough.
I saw something last night. I don’t know what it was. I don’t have words for it.
ElSapo
What I’m about to write will be a jumbled mess of words, maybe the wrong words, possibly in the wrong order, but I need to get it down. Somehow. I need to find a way to explain what I saw, and what it meant.
During my junior year of high school, browsing through a closeout box of CDs, I found one called “Heat, Dust and Dreams.” It cost one dollar. It had a picture of a desert on it. And so I bought it. That was it -- that was my entire rationale for buying this CD. It was cheap, and I always thought deserts were nice.
Already this makes no sense.
I took it home and listened to it. It was by a guy, Johnny Clegg, who I would eventually learn had been part of the first interracial band to come out of South Africa. The music was largely political, kind of a mix of traditional African rhythms, Western rock, lyrics split between Zulu and English. It was great. I mean, for whatever reason, it struck something inside me. How a white kid from the suburbs of South Carolina falls in love with music like this, I have no idea. But I did, and I fell hard. I listened to more of his music.
Fast forward a bit. After my junior year of college, I went to Europe with my friend Nic. We were ultimately spending a week in Ireland, but met up in London on the way. And since we were there, I had to go to Sherwood Forest. As a kid, my mom had read me the old Howard Pyle version of “The Adventures of Robin Hood.” We watched the old movies and tv shows together. Over. And over. It was some kind of obsession, I guess. Anyways. My mother had died about eight months before, and I had brought with me to London this necklace she had.
Sherwood Forest is a bust, for what that’s worth. It’s largely a bizarre theme park these days (part of it at least). But Nic and I wandered around the town, hiked some, and eventually did find ourselves somewhat off the path. And so in Sherwood Forest, in Nottingham, in England, I left my friend for a bit. I just asked him to sit for a minute, I’d be right back, and I wandered out, found a nice spot, and left my mom’s necklace hanging on the branch of a tree. It just seemed like the right thing to do. It was important to her, and it was important to me.
Forward again. I know, this makes no sense.
Two months ago, surfing around on the web, I see that Johnny Clegg will be at the 930 Club. This is astounding news. I mean, honestly, I cannot fully communicate just how amazing this news was to me. Trying to rationally explain it all, to set it out so it makes sense to you or anyone, well, I can’t do it. I don’t know why I felt the way I did about his music. I just did.
I needed to go. I had to go. Yes, for the music, which I’ll talk more about in a minute. But for something else – I wanted to see who else would be there. I wanted to see others who had also found this guy, who felt something in those CDs. Others who had seen that he was coming and probably felt something similar to what I felt. I wanted to see who they were, to see that I wasn’t alone.
I went in not knowing at all what to expect.
The crowd was funny. It was by far the most diverse crowd I’ve ever seen at the 930 Club. Granted, most of the shows I’ve been to appeal to that mid-20s middle-class kind of group. Sure. This was the oldest group I’ve ever seen. I went with The Girl, and we represented about the lowest ages there (25, 27). Ages ranged up to about 60. People came in pairs, and it was obvious that one person felt something very deeply and the other was along for the ride. The crowd was predominately white, though still diverse, which surprised me to some extent, but then again Clegg is also white. The man he began singing with, Sipho Mchunu, back in the 70s I believe, had long since quit the band.
Johnny Clegg is all heart. And the man both can, and cannot, dance. The show was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen, but for a host of very real reasons. The music is somehow still 80s-sounding. The rhythms are still very powerful. Watching that man dance is simply awesome. I mean, he can bust some moves in a way that could make you cringe. Stomping, flailing, hitting the beat in a pretty non-subtle way. He was Everyman In His Living Room. I mean, the way you dance, at night, with the music loud and the blinds down, that’s how he dances. Except whereas most people – me for sure – hold back from doing that in public, there he was on stage reveling in it. (I love the word ‘revel.’)
I laughed through most of the show. I laughed out of happiness, out of bliss, out of simply not believing what I was seeing. My level of incredulity was off the charts. And every time I recognized a song, or watched that man dance again, I was… I don’t know.
But none of this sums it up, not in the way I wanted it to. Which goes back to my mother. About three-quarters of the way through the show, I stand up. I tell The Girl I’ll be right back. I have to leave her in the forest for a moment.
We’d been sitting above the main stage, watching from the side. 930 Club is nice because you have that option, and you have the main floor below. I left her and wandered down through the crowd. Despite being surrounded by people, sweaty, passionate, singing, smiling people, in a way I had to do this on my own. I was simultaneously on my own while at the same time part of a huge group who had all come together for the same thing. I sang my song, I went back upstairs.
My point is this, I guess. For some reason, for whatever reason, that moment last night and that moment in Sherwood Forest were the same. They meant the same thing. It’s the only and best way I can think of to describe how much it meant to me.
I don’t know why it meant so much, and maybe never will. Perhaps because of when I found it – right at that moment in high school when I was learning to be me. Something about identity, about latching onto something. Maybe it’s the political message, though anti-apartheid and peace songs are easy enough to love. Maybe it’s just the rhythms. I don’t know why it happened, but it did and perhaps that’s enough.
I saw something last night. I don’t know what it was. I don’t have words for it.
ElSapo