 By Samir Shukla
Step It Up and Go - The Story of North Carolina Popular Music Author: David Menconi (University of NC Press) David Menconi is a long-time North Carolina music journalist. He began his music writing career at Raleigh News and Observer and has spent three decades covering the state's music. He has gathered years of interviews, reporting and historical research and chronicles the state's musical history in his fine new book, Step It Up and Go, the Story of North Carolina Popular Music. The book covers everything from early NC music stalwarts like Blind Boy Fuller to indie rockers Superchunk to North Carolinians achieving fame as winners and runners-up of TV's American Idol. Breaking it down into concise, cohesive chapters. The south's intricacies are woven into its music, and North Carolina is among its fertile grounds of American musical history. Many NC-based record labels, Sugar Hill, Merge, Mammoth, and others are covered with their timelines of successes, setbacks, and failures. He interlaces the history with interviews he has conducted over the years with myriad North Carolina musicians to create a narrative of NC's popular music. Menconi deftly covers the genres, musical eras, and personalities. The varied and diverse musical styles of NC musicians and artists are written about in a clean and concise prose, elucidating its many subtleties as well as traditions. He also writes of music towns and scenes, (Chapel Hill, Winston Salem, Raleigh), including musicians that have achieved widespread fame and indie bands that have influenced the state's musical directions, though may not be well known. Instigators, influencers, producers, recording studios all are covered while traversing the state's musical alleyways, including genres like Piedmont blues, jazz, and bluegrass to beach music, rock, hip-hop, and more. Mill and textile towns, mountain music, college-town clubs and radio stations are part of the story Menconi unfolds. Menconi is a journalist, but is also a music lover, and writes of music with a conversational passion, much like a friend turning you on to new music. Sidebars in each chapter, along with photographs, round out the narrative. This book is a solid addition to the documentation of NC music and musicians.  By Samir Shukla
The other day I rented a car for a day of business errands. I had booked a small car, but since the rental car company didn't have any compact cars left, they upgraded me with a Dodge Charger. Black. Sleek. Hood muscles bulging. Motoring down the road, its engine heaving and roaring at the slightest caress of the accelerator, the ride took me back to my first car I bought. A 1972 Chevy Nova. Multi-hued. Muscular. A bit rusty. I paid $200 for it back in high school, in late 1979 or sometime in 1980. Can't exactly remember the date. It was an American muscle car like the Charger, but ancient in technology compared to the beast I was driving on this day.  By Samir Shukla
Manika Kaur Ek (Six Degrees Records) Kirtans are devotional singing or sacred chants performed in South Asian religions, especially Hinduism and Sikhism. I first heard Sikh kirtans at local Gurdwaras (Sikh temples) and during a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India where they are performed continuously while the main sanctuary is open. They are generally sung and performed in Gurudwaras by men. Manika Kaur has parted this tradition and become one of the foremost proponents of Sikh kirtans. Her latest recording, Ek, melds her soothing voice and trance-inducing musicality, bringing kirtans and their spiritual aura to the greater world. Kirtans can be universal in the way they encounter with listeners, evoking a sense of connection, even when one doesn't understand the words or lyrics. This recording is among those in invoking universality with its vocals, words, and music. You don't need to follow Sikhism or understand Punjabi, traditional language of Sikhs, to feel the devotion and connection Kaur makes with her voice, which is instilled with a sense of peace and tranquility. The recording is composed and performed with traditional instruments and arrangements. Kaur sings in English and Punjabi. Every song on the album leads with one of several traditional instruments accompanying Kaur's vocals along with contemporary sounds and production values. The recording works as a cohesive whole, including the album artwork, created, and designed by the Singh Twins. Kaur is also very active in charity and social work, including raising funds to educate young girls in rural Punjab. The recording Ek (which means 'oneness') is now available on Six Degrees Records.  By Samir Shukla
We were watching a cooking show one evening. The veggies were being karate chopped, stacked and sorted, and sent flying into pans. The chefs ran around like proverbial chickens with their heads lobbed off. The cameras panning this way and that way, with quick cuts and closeups. I guess that's needed to make a cooking show more exciting, like some kind of sporting event. It only made me dizzy, and hungry. This was all being done in a “gourmet" kitchen.  By Samir Shukla
Director Khyentse Norbu's new film, Looking for a Lady with Fangs and a Moustache, focuses on the centuries-old Himalayan cultures, respect and celebration of feminine energy. This energy is personified in tantric Buddhism by Dakinis, females who may appear as mysterious living beings who give or take away life force. This Nepali production tells the tale of Tenzin, a contemporary Tibetan entrepreneur who is working to open a coffee house in Kathmandu and is quite skeptical of ancient beliefs. He is then haunted by inexplicable dreams and visions of Dakinis that are later interpreted by a monk as omens for his imminent death, within seven days. |
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