On Beyond Bowles

The first album of Moroccan music I heard was a friend's copy of Paul Bowles' classic "Music of Morocco" 2LP for the Library of Congress, originally released circa 1972.  I was an instant fan.  And Bowles' efforts to capture the sounds of "traditional" Moroccan music, especially dance music, before the inevitable day when nearly every African musician would be exposed to "modern"/"Western"/"pop" music (for worse ... or better! or neither!) made inspired reading (Bowles' liner notes here).  According to the Library of Congress web page:

Bowles collected in 23 villages, towns, and cities along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts, from Goulimine in the Sahara to Segangan in the Rif country, and inland through the Middle and Grand Atlas ranges to Zagora in the Anti-Atlas. Due to the political situation at the time, Bowles was not able to record in the southeastern region. 

Ultimately Bowles deposited about 70 hours of reel to reel tape with the Library of Congress and now, evidently, there's even an effort under way to digitize the whole thing and make it available for everyone to stream.

Five six or years after first hearing the record (about 20 years ago now), I decided to go to Morocco myself and make my own recordings.  I had heard that the Sun City Girls did this sort of thing, and I knew Mark Gergis who had travelled to the Middle East and Thailand and did the same.  How hard could it be?  So I sold off a bunch of records (e.g., my Sonic-autographed copy of Recurring with the textured cover -- never replaced; Shadow Ring's City Lights LP -- eventually found another copy; Mt. Rushmore LP on Dot -- still looking, won't pay more than $10) and took off for my North African solo adventure with a camera, and a cheap walkman, and stupidly designed giant backpack.

To make a long story short:  in Tangiers, I met Bowles in his apartment and he advised me there was nothing musically interesting happening in Tangiers and he advised I head out to Berber country; the next day I was paraded around town for about a half hour at knife point by a guy whose name I can't remember but we parted hospitably ("goodbye, my friend!"); I recorded a few calls to prayer in the pre-digital era (redundant in view of Justin Bennet's quintessential documentation); in Fez, I recorded an insanely drunk man outside my window who kept me awake for an hour at 3 a.m.; in Meknes I drank the water and got sick as a dog; in Taza I was rescued by one of the local alcoholics and cured; in Saidia I hung out on the beach with the lifeguards until my camera was ripped off and my spirt of adventure destroyed.

Just prior to this last incident I spent a great evening smoking hash with these lifeguards in a lonely building that was so close to the Algerian border that we couldn't piss in Morocco if we were standing behind it.  That evening I learned that Christopher Columbus was actually born in Morocco (I believe this is still matter of debate among some scholars) and also that there is a Moroccan fable about a "pale turtle" who tried to fly but flipped over and was eaten by ants (probably a reference to my backpack).

Other than the calls to the prayer and the 3 am drunken rant, the only recording I obtained was a French woman on the supertrain alerting us that the buffet car was open.

In retrospect, I was ill-prepared and just a tad unlucky (although somehow I managed to import an 1/8 pound of mahjoun stuffed into a dried antelope head).

I also remember now that prior to the trip I sold my copy of Joan LaBarbara's "Tapesongs" and an original copy of the Eater LP.  I would love to hear the former again.  I never really missed the latter.

But this story has an extremely happy ending, at least from my perspective, because other folks (e.g., the Bishop Bros., Hisham Mayet, the aforementioned Gergis etc) had a lot more dedication to the cause than I did.  And so it was that I found myself last Friday at the Rickshaw in San Francisco (my second indoor live music show in a week and also my second indoor live music show in god knows how many years) dancing like a freak to the sounds of Group Doueh.  I'd been following Doueh's releases closely on the tireless Sublime Frequencies label, especially because the first LPs (which, if understand correctly, were more or less archival releases of cassettes dating back to the mid 80s) included several tracks which were remarkably balls out for a what was purported to be a wedding band in an alcohol-shunning culture.  There was a blasted aspect to the recordings which evoked, at least from my coign of vantage, the best elements of American psych circa 1966-68.

Group Doueh has definitely changed since the days when those cassettes were recorded.  In fact, they seemed to have changed a bit even since the last Sublime Frequencies release (Zayna Jumma)  was recorded. The track on that CD that was closest to the overall vibe of the Rickshaw was probably the last one ("Wazan Doueh"): a tight drum beat into, through, and around which Doueh and the rest of the band groove, instantly confusing the issue of who is keeping the pulse, man or machine.  And that's the essence of dance music, or at least good dance music, as far as I'm concerned.  The first number seemed like a rough take to me ... it took most of its length to click for whatever reason (possibly intentional).  But they were solidly in (or out) of one groove or another for the rest of the night.

I know I wasn't alone in my bliss because from where I was standing I could see the sold-out crowd clapping and wriggling in ecstacy for minutes at a time.  Some of the numbers had a great reggae-inflected pop flavor that seemed especially evocative of the strange eighties.  There's not a whole lot of vids out there yet; these are pretty nice:

(yes, the sound in one channel is effed up distorted; good news is that there's a good chance the entire show was recorded off the soundboard so maybe we'll see a synch up down the road)

I won't deny that it was a hoot to see Doueh stroking his axe behind his head but for it's his more rhythmic, percussive playing that gets me moving.  The bass was handled by El Waar Bamaar (Doueh's son) via keyboard and he was simply out of this world for most of the set.  If you've got a live drummer and you want to achieve lift-off, it helps if the drummer is a tad ahead of the beat.  But if you've got a drum machine (which Doueh did on this tour) then it's up to the bass and El Waar fuckin dropped the floor out of the Rickshaw.  And regardless of who or what is producing the beats on stage, the experience only gets better with audience participation.  Polyrhythmic hand-clappers are welcome.  Bonus points if you can get Halima to look you in the eye and smile.

After Group Doueh left the stage, we were treated to another Gergis DJ set and the floor cleared out to reveal the best of what SF has to offer:  second and third generation neo-hippies unafraid to make dancin' fools of themselves, frooging to pan-Arabic disco in the dim light of completely unrelated (and inaudible) cheeseball Thai music videos.  And so it went until the music was over and they turned on the lights.  My new friends Saskia and Rauf convened outside for hugs and kisses goodbye, we thanked Hisham and Mark for the good times, and dispersed into the refreshing bay fog.  My feet are still twitching ...