The Union Electric's first recording will be available this month. The official release show is Wednesday, December 23 at Off Broadway in scenic Saint Louis, MO.
Just in time for the holiday-shopping season, this handsome 3-song, 7-inch record features a custom painted cover by local artist Dana Smith. His art is viewable at his website www.asbestossister.com or www.danarichardsmith.com
A limited number of transparent yellow copies will be available at the live shows. Standard black vinyl copies are also available at local record stores and digital downloads of the tracks are available on itunes and through bandcamp.
The record features a re-working of the song "Sentence", originally written for the May Day Orchestra as well as two others. "You Have Been Served" fills out Side A with a tale of economic woe and corruption. Side B features "Ship Out Of Luck", a folk song about pirates and economic woe. Members of Grace Basement, Ben Phillips and Kevin Buckley (who also recorded the tracks), play on this song.
A blog posting about each song will follow this one.
advance copies available
through the mail:
UNION ELECTRIC RECORDS
PO BOX 63098
SAINT LOUIS MO 63163
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Folk Opera Concerning the Congo Situation and the Life of Ota Benga
The following is the text of the program distributed at the first performance of The May Day Orchestra's new piece.
1/ Never A Fair Wind Home
Ota Benga, the narrator of most of the story, was a pygmy from the territory once claimed as the Belgian Congo. He was born around 1881 and suffered the loss of his wife and children at a young age as the colonial enterprise overtook his former home in the forest. European colonialists, along with foreign and domestic mercenaries, terrorized many villages. Ota Benga returned from an elephant hunt to find his people victims of one such massacre.
2/ Dreamed Another Circus
The territory of the Congo was explored and made known to the western world by such men as Henry Morton Stanley. He became a celebrity of his day when he found the more benign David Livingstone, presumed missing in an unknown region of Africa. In this part of the story, Ota Benga, who was captured by a neighboring tribe and later sold to a white man at a slave market, believes he has died and is on a journey to the next world. That he is. Philips Verner, a curator for the anthropology exhibition of the World’s Fair, acquires Ota and several other pygmies and puts them on a ship. Here he dreams.
3-4/ Forced March I (Death Walks Along This Road)
After Stanley’s “discovery” of the Congo, his employer, King Leopold II of Belgium, and other European monarchs had a clearer map of Africa. In Berlin, in 1885, they each stuck a claim, having never seen the land itself. Leopold demanded the Congo territory as his personal colony.
Ota Benga was one of the millions of victims of slavery. Though the Atlantic trade had fallen out of favor in the western world, Leopold devised other methods of forced labor. The rubber and ivory trades enslaved much of the population, pitting whole villages against each other in a struggle to survive. The Europeans also employed and armed ex-criminals and other undesirables, sending them to the colonies to make their living with a hope of finding their fortune.
5/ The Irish Orphan
At this point in the story, Roger Casement is introduced. Casement was an Irishman who became the British Consul in the Congo. On his last trip to the area, he found the population decimated and began to inquire where all the people had gone. He met William Shepherd, a black American missionary who had been warmly welcomed by various tribes. Shepherd, as well as Edmund Morel and Joseph Conrad, informed Casement’s report to the British which condemned the state of Leopold’s colony. Shepherd and Morel found themselves at the center of one of the first international human rights causes.
6-7/ Forced March II (The Horror)
Roger Casement’s report on the Congo begins to cause trouble for Leopold’s colonial reign. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Leopold had masqueraded as a compassionate ruler trying to help his poor subjects develop their country. This was done with the aid of one of the world’s first international, and overtly false, public relations campaigns. This method was dependent on fixing and censoring whatever news got out to the world from his colony. The death toll of this post-slave-trade era amounted to genocide and the total numbers do not include all the people who continued to live with mutilated limbs. Severed hands and other body parts were used by the mercenaries to prove how many they had killed, but just as often they took a trophy and the victims survived.
8/ The Spectacle
Ota Benga existed as a living anthropology exhibit at the Saint Louis World’s Fair for much of the year 1904. The Apache chief called Geronoimo was also at the Fair. He gave Ota an arrowhead that he had carved. The pygmy was well-liked and he entertained many visitors to the Fair. Some incidents did occur, whether attributed to anger or a sense of mischief (probably both). After 1904, Ota Benga eventually became an attraction at the Bronx Zoo. After some scandal about a man living in a cage, he was moved to an orphanage for colored children.
9/ The Execution Of Sir Roger Casement
Roger Casement joined the independence movement upon his return to Ireland and was accused of treason by the British. Even though they had previously employed him and knighted him for his service, he was condemned for his political stance. Amidst scandal and rumors of homosexuality, Casement was executed by hanging in 1916.
10/ The Suicide Of Ota Benga
Ota Benga lived out his final years in Lynchburg, Virginia where he found friends in an African American community. Many people called him “Otto Bingo”. He had little source of income and with the beginning of World War I, Ota Benga found it increasingly difficult to find a way to go back home. In 1916, he shot himself. The war over natural resources in the Congo continues to the present.
If interested in finding out more details of this story, there are several books as well as sites on the internet. For Ota Benga’s story, there is a biography called “Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo” by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume. There are a few biographies of Roger Casement from various perspectives and time periods. For the Congo history, Adam Hochschild’s book “King Leopold’s Ghost” is a good place to start. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is also recommended.
The Ota Benga Family Band:
Dave Anderson – pedal steel, keyboard, banjo, trumpet
Melissa Anderson – electric guitars, electric bass, lap steel
Kevin Buckley – fiddle
Tim Rakel – acoustic guitar, banjo, kalimba
Josh Weinstein – acoustic bass
Mary Williams - drums
The first May Day Orchestra folk opera, “May Day, Or Songs For Lucy Parsons” is available as a 12” vinyl record. The tracks may also be downloaded from several internet music sites.
For more information,
drop an old-fashioned line to:
Folk Opera Records
PO Box 63098
Saint Louis MO 63163
1/ Never A Fair Wind Home
Ota Benga, the narrator of most of the story, was a pygmy from the territory once claimed as the Belgian Congo. He was born around 1881 and suffered the loss of his wife and children at a young age as the colonial enterprise overtook his former home in the forest. European colonialists, along with foreign and domestic mercenaries, terrorized many villages. Ota Benga returned from an elephant hunt to find his people victims of one such massacre.
2/ Dreamed Another Circus
The territory of the Congo was explored and made known to the western world by such men as Henry Morton Stanley. He became a celebrity of his day when he found the more benign David Livingstone, presumed missing in an unknown region of Africa. In this part of the story, Ota Benga, who was captured by a neighboring tribe and later sold to a white man at a slave market, believes he has died and is on a journey to the next world. That he is. Philips Verner, a curator for the anthropology exhibition of the World’s Fair, acquires Ota and several other pygmies and puts them on a ship. Here he dreams.
3-4/ Forced March I (Death Walks Along This Road)
After Stanley’s “discovery” of the Congo, his employer, King Leopold II of Belgium, and other European monarchs had a clearer map of Africa. In Berlin, in 1885, they each stuck a claim, having never seen the land itself. Leopold demanded the Congo territory as his personal colony.
Ota Benga was one of the millions of victims of slavery. Though the Atlantic trade had fallen out of favor in the western world, Leopold devised other methods of forced labor. The rubber and ivory trades enslaved much of the population, pitting whole villages against each other in a struggle to survive. The Europeans also employed and armed ex-criminals and other undesirables, sending them to the colonies to make their living with a hope of finding their fortune.
5/ The Irish Orphan
At this point in the story, Roger Casement is introduced. Casement was an Irishman who became the British Consul in the Congo. On his last trip to the area, he found the population decimated and began to inquire where all the people had gone. He met William Shepherd, a black American missionary who had been warmly welcomed by various tribes. Shepherd, as well as Edmund Morel and Joseph Conrad, informed Casement’s report to the British which condemned the state of Leopold’s colony. Shepherd and Morel found themselves at the center of one of the first international human rights causes.
6-7/ Forced March II (The Horror)
Roger Casement’s report on the Congo begins to cause trouble for Leopold’s colonial reign. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Leopold had masqueraded as a compassionate ruler trying to help his poor subjects develop their country. This was done with the aid of one of the world’s first international, and overtly false, public relations campaigns. This method was dependent on fixing and censoring whatever news got out to the world from his colony. The death toll of this post-slave-trade era amounted to genocide and the total numbers do not include all the people who continued to live with mutilated limbs. Severed hands and other body parts were used by the mercenaries to prove how many they had killed, but just as often they took a trophy and the victims survived.
8/ The Spectacle
Ota Benga existed as a living anthropology exhibit at the Saint Louis World’s Fair for much of the year 1904. The Apache chief called Geronoimo was also at the Fair. He gave Ota an arrowhead that he had carved. The pygmy was well-liked and he entertained many visitors to the Fair. Some incidents did occur, whether attributed to anger or a sense of mischief (probably both). After 1904, Ota Benga eventually became an attraction at the Bronx Zoo. After some scandal about a man living in a cage, he was moved to an orphanage for colored children.
9/ The Execution Of Sir Roger Casement
Roger Casement joined the independence movement upon his return to Ireland and was accused of treason by the British. Even though they had previously employed him and knighted him for his service, he was condemned for his political stance. Amidst scandal and rumors of homosexuality, Casement was executed by hanging in 1916.
10/ The Suicide Of Ota Benga
Ota Benga lived out his final years in Lynchburg, Virginia where he found friends in an African American community. Many people called him “Otto Bingo”. He had little source of income and with the beginning of World War I, Ota Benga found it increasingly difficult to find a way to go back home. In 1916, he shot himself. The war over natural resources in the Congo continues to the present.
If interested in finding out more details of this story, there are several books as well as sites on the internet. For Ota Benga’s story, there is a biography called “Ota: The Pygmy in the Zoo” by Phillips Verner Bradford and Harvey Blume. There are a few biographies of Roger Casement from various perspectives and time periods. For the Congo history, Adam Hochschild’s book “King Leopold’s Ghost” is a good place to start. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is also recommended.
The Ota Benga Family Band:
Dave Anderson – pedal steel, keyboard, banjo, trumpet
Melissa Anderson – electric guitars, electric bass, lap steel
Kevin Buckley – fiddle
Tim Rakel – acoustic guitar, banjo, kalimba
Josh Weinstein – acoustic bass
Mary Williams - drums
The first May Day Orchestra folk opera, “May Day, Or Songs For Lucy Parsons” is available as a 12” vinyl record. The tracks may also be downloaded from several internet music sites.
For more information,
drop an old-fashioned line to:
Folk Opera Records
PO Box 63098
Saint Louis MO 63163
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Twitter My Face
-so the FBI doesn't have to work so hard...
Please connect your-my-space account to your-face-book and your-twitter (whatever a twitter is). This way our federal government will save time and therefore tax money when paying security agencies to monitor this stuff.
Remember, reporting everything you do keeps us all safe
Please connect your-my-space account to your-face-book and your-twitter (whatever a twitter is). This way our federal government will save time and therefore tax money when paying security agencies to monitor this stuff.
Remember, reporting everything you do keeps us all safe
Monday, October 12, 2009
Never A Fair Wind Home
The May Day Orchestra will perform its second "Folk Opera" on Friday, October 30 at the Black Bear Bakery in Saint Louis. This debut performance will take place at the anarchist co-operative cafe where the first May Day project began.
The band is different this time, with Tim Rakel as the only member in common with the first ensemble. The Ota Benga Family Band, as the Orchestra is calling itself this time, consists of Kevin Buckley of the band Grace Basement, Melissa Anderson, Dave Anderson and Mary Williams of the band Tenement Ruth. More musicians may be added for performances after this month's debut.
The sound of this musical piece, titled "Never A Fair Wind Home", is also different than the first folk opera. There are fiddles, trumpets, guitars and banjo as in the previous work, this time with the addition of pedal steel and lap steel guitars, as well as drums.
The subject of this folk opera is also different but comes from a similar time period as the first. The subject is Ota Benga, a pygmy who was bought at a slave market in the Congo and brought to the United States for the 1904 World's Fair in Saint Louis. The songs tell some of the Congo's colonial history and follow Ota Benga on his journey to his strange new home. A coincidental story about Roger Casement, an Irish patriot once in the employ of King Leopold, is also told.
See the previous post from May 2009 labelled "Ota Benga" for more detail.
A biography of Ota Benga by Philips Verner Bradford informs much of the historical detail. Bradford is the grandson of the man, Philips Verner, who bought and brought Ota Benga to the Fair.
The performance on October 30 begins at 8PM. The Black Bear Bakery is located at 2639 Cherokee Street in Saint Louis, MO.
The May Day Orchestra's first recording "May Day, Or Songs For Lucy Parsons" is available in vinyl format from A-Pop Records, Black Bear Bakery and Vintage Vinyl. As of this week, the tracks are also downloadable from iTunes, lala.com and other internet stores.
The band is different this time, with Tim Rakel as the only member in common with the first ensemble. The Ota Benga Family Band, as the Orchestra is calling itself this time, consists of Kevin Buckley of the band Grace Basement, Melissa Anderson, Dave Anderson and Mary Williams of the band Tenement Ruth. More musicians may be added for performances after this month's debut.
The sound of this musical piece, titled "Never A Fair Wind Home", is also different than the first folk opera. There are fiddles, trumpets, guitars and banjo as in the previous work, this time with the addition of pedal steel and lap steel guitars, as well as drums.
The subject of this folk opera is also different but comes from a similar time period as the first. The subject is Ota Benga, a pygmy who was bought at a slave market in the Congo and brought to the United States for the 1904 World's Fair in Saint Louis. The songs tell some of the Congo's colonial history and follow Ota Benga on his journey to his strange new home. A coincidental story about Roger Casement, an Irish patriot once in the employ of King Leopold, is also told.
See the previous post from May 2009 labelled "Ota Benga" for more detail.
A biography of Ota Benga by Philips Verner Bradford informs much of the historical detail. Bradford is the grandson of the man, Philips Verner, who bought and brought Ota Benga to the Fair.
The performance on October 30 begins at 8PM. The Black Bear Bakery is located at 2639 Cherokee Street in Saint Louis, MO.
The May Day Orchestra's first recording "May Day, Or Songs For Lucy Parsons" is available in vinyl format from A-Pop Records, Black Bear Bakery and Vintage Vinyl. As of this week, the tracks are also downloadable from iTunes, lala.com and other internet stores.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
The Tasmanian Tiger
I just got an email earlier this week that September 6, 1936 was the day the last surviving Thylacine died in captivity in a Tasmanian zoo. The Thylacine was a marsupial predator that lived "down under" until the entire species was hunted to extinction.
There's a band from Columbia, MO called Ptarmigan who wrote a song about the animal as well. I'll have to set up a show with them sometime.
Coincidences always seem to occur in my basement at the end of each summer, so this past weekend, on the anniversary of Thylacine's extinction, The Union Electric was practicing its newest song, an adaptation of the poem "Thylacine" by Stefene Russell, set to some chords I assigned to it and some riffs that the band contributed.
---
From Stefene Russell's series of "dead species" poems
"Thylacine"
suitcase jaw, knife stripes
they eat the bones
no bloody feathers blowing
against the salty grass
and the chimera shadow
the flip book
with jowly wolf head and hindquarters
of a tiger and a middle part
that we don't know how to name
the farmer's children slam the closet door
pull the hems of coats and dresses over their eyes
at the thought of croupy barking
but the gait
three animals put together
the book says awkward, though tireless
like the one who can't keep up
far down the path
three rhythms
that trip off a little migraine of the heart
---
Everything I write now seems to be about people (and now animals) in cages. Apparently my cover songs and adaptations are falling into the same subject catagory.
There's a band from Columbia, MO called Ptarmigan who wrote a song about the animal as well. I'll have to set up a show with them sometime.
Coincidences always seem to occur in my basement at the end of each summer, so this past weekend, on the anniversary of Thylacine's extinction, The Union Electric was practicing its newest song, an adaptation of the poem "Thylacine" by Stefene Russell, set to some chords I assigned to it and some riffs that the band contributed.
---
From Stefene Russell's series of "dead species" poems
"Thylacine"
suitcase jaw, knife stripes
they eat the bones
no bloody feathers blowing
against the salty grass
and the chimera shadow
the flip book
with jowly wolf head and hindquarters
of a tiger and a middle part
that we don't know how to name
the farmer's children slam the closet door
pull the hems of coats and dresses over their eyes
at the thought of croupy barking
but the gait
three animals put together
the book says awkward, though tireless
like the one who can't keep up
far down the path
three rhythms
that trip off a little migraine of the heart
---
Everything I write now seems to be about people (and now animals) in cages. Apparently my cover songs and adaptations are falling into the same subject catagory.
May Day 8
Some random facts:
Lucy Parsons wrote a biography of her late husband in the 1890s.
On July 7, 1905, she was present at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World.
One of her children, Albert, Jr., was a politically reactionary youth and died in an asylum at a young age.
Lucy Parsons continued her activism among the socialists, communists and anarchists of the early 1900s, continuing to be a figure of controversy wherever she went.
She died in a house fire at an old age.
The Red Flag (another last song for Lucy Parsons)
it's the widows and the orphans who will carry on
they carry on through all of this despair
with a faith as quiet as an altar in your front room
not a street corner preacher, someone so hellbent on your doom
so light a candle for each and every saint
carry on and light one for all eight
you have nothing but the dream that you hold dear
carry on and keep the red flag flying here
all you toilers, take the tools
and all you workers, take what you produce
you have nothing but the ideal which you hold dear
carry on and keep the red flag flying here
they want you passive, they want you disorganized
they want you in factions, fearing for your lives
Lucy Parsons wrote a biography of her late husband in the 1890s.
On July 7, 1905, she was present at the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World.
One of her children, Albert, Jr., was a politically reactionary youth and died in an asylum at a young age.
Lucy Parsons continued her activism among the socialists, communists and anarchists of the early 1900s, continuing to be a figure of controversy wherever she went.
She died in a house fire at an old age.
The Red Flag (another last song for Lucy Parsons)
it's the widows and the orphans who will carry on
they carry on through all of this despair
with a faith as quiet as an altar in your front room
not a street corner preacher, someone so hellbent on your doom
so light a candle for each and every saint
carry on and light one for all eight
you have nothing but the dream that you hold dear
carry on and keep the red flag flying here
all you toilers, take the tools
and all you workers, take what you produce
you have nothing but the ideal which you hold dear
carry on and keep the red flag flying here
they want you passive, they want you disorganized
they want you in factions, fearing for your lives
Thursday, September 3, 2009
May Day 7
Part Seven is somewhat out of place in the Haymarket chain of events. The focus is off Lucy Parsons for a moment after the death of her husband and the other three hanged martyrs. Chronologically this figures in as the period where others were attracted to anarchism by the events in Chicago. Among them were Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman and Voltairine de Cleyre.
The sub-title is borrowed from a Charles Kerr book, referring to he principle of syndicalism that encourages workers to rebuild society in the wreckage of capitalism.
I discovered the writings of both Jaroslav Hasek and Vachel Lindsay while working at Dunaway Books in 2003. Hasek was a Czech writer who lived 1883-1923, the same dates as Kafka, but in other parts of Prague. The two did meet but lived very different lives. He was arrested at least once for tearing down Austrian flags during the Great War.
Vachel Lindsay was a poet from Springfield, Illinois. He grew up and lived in a house once inhabited by part of the Lincoln family. He spent many of his early years walking through the country, avoiding railroads and begging for meals. He traded printed poems and performances for people's hospitality. Sort of an early spoken word artist and touring singer. One of his poems mentions sewing together a patchwork flag from the of emblems of all the nations torn apart.
Ragged Flag Blues (from the shell of the old)
I'm going to the grave for all of my crimes
I stole some bread and this tune because I needed them
I'm going to the grave for all of my crimes
with the state the world is in you'll not be far behind
I tore down the flag in the town square
I tore that flag to pieces
tear all the flags down, put them back together
so to sew them all together, piece them back together
The sub-title is borrowed from a Charles Kerr book, referring to he principle of syndicalism that encourages workers to rebuild society in the wreckage of capitalism.
I discovered the writings of both Jaroslav Hasek and Vachel Lindsay while working at Dunaway Books in 2003. Hasek was a Czech writer who lived 1883-1923, the same dates as Kafka, but in other parts of Prague. The two did meet but lived very different lives. He was arrested at least once for tearing down Austrian flags during the Great War.
Vachel Lindsay was a poet from Springfield, Illinois. He grew up and lived in a house once inhabited by part of the Lincoln family. He spent many of his early years walking through the country, avoiding railroads and begging for meals. He traded printed poems and performances for people's hospitality. Sort of an early spoken word artist and touring singer. One of his poems mentions sewing together a patchwork flag from the of emblems of all the nations torn apart.
Ragged Flag Blues (from the shell of the old)
I'm going to the grave for all of my crimes
I stole some bread and this tune because I needed them
I'm going to the grave for all of my crimes
with the state the world is in you'll not be far behind
I tore down the flag in the town square
I tore that flag to pieces
tear all the flags down, put them back together
so to sew them all together, piece them back together
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