night music and the city’s heat wave. I step up my pace now, away from the fnusic and, as the crowd going against me thins, more and more black youths running towards it, catching up to be there when it blows, as it surely will, as now 1am passing busloads, hundreds, that is, of blue-uniformed Bobbies with nightsticks in hand, looking intent and humorless in endless disembarking, telling me and each other with their silence that this is going to be something real, make no doubt about it. This night of magic is going to be a reminder for England about its very own frustration in the midst of their deadliest summer in 50 years. 1 am a bit lost now, dead center in this lava bed; dazed, stoned and. by now, appropriately scared by what surrounds me. I can’t hear the music as I continue to walk against the rest of immediate humanity in retreat from the last song I heard, which tipped even a naive American tourist like myself: “Burnin’ and Lootin’.” Oh yes, they are going to burn and plunder this hot town tonight because they are all together now, they have their music, and they have the hatred of their condition over the past 50 days of no water and no sleep because of the heat and Marley’s message parlaying off the developments' walls all night long. 1 feel very strange, having never felt myself in a potential historical moment before. Since I had felt the earliest rushes of the holocaust before it hit. I am content to sit on a sidewalk and rest. The crowd was all “ there” now, and myself and a few other retreaters have a long, understanding conversation with each other without a single word being spoken. We all sit and silently wait for the next phase, which I had assumed to be fire and broken glass. It is delayed, but it goes all night once it gets rolling. Morning light finds me cautiously searching my way home amidst the debris of smashed storefronts and pyres burning their last few hours. It is devastating to this sheltered Oregon boy to try to interpret what these people had murdered their own streets for. Not to mention 800 “blacks and blues” having clubbed each other into official reported injuries. One can only speculate how many ran through the streets, back to the projects, unreported and badly hurt. I feel at a total loss to find the "Rivers of Babylon” amidst all this rubbish that the night had coughed up in London. Wanting to understand. I fearfully head for Geoff’s record store, near the central artery of last night’s riots. Geoff sells reggae music exclusively to a primarily black clientele, but this does not lead me to assume he has been spared. I feel for his well-being as I get nearer his street and the damage is heavier. Geoff is a loving person who had taken me in as a stranger, insisting that “no one ever needs to stay in a hotel,” graciously putting me up now for over three weeks. 1 love Geoff: he is good and deserves no part of this. He sells these people their music, spends hours discussing the political mood with them, and now they have no doubt burned him out of his livelihood and life’s work. I am reaching hopelessly for justice and coming up instead with vile hatred as I turn the corner and nearly have a stroke. There, in what appears to have been the eye of the hurricane, not a single building above ground. Save one. Geoff’s. Geoff’s shop, not a pane of glass broken while entire buildings were now being towed off around it. Geoff is there, as surprised and blown out as I am. Geoff doesn’t know why he was spared: I don't even pretend to know, but somewhere in the midst of madness stood an unimpeachable good on that fiery night, and I am granted a new understanding of what went down that I would have considered impossible ten minutes before. By virtue of having my belongings spared in Geoff’s shop, I have been granted an observer’s role in an historical event with my own separate peace from the issue itself. Since that night. I have always felt a keener edge when hearing “punk” or "reggae." but I have also felt a humbling inability to interpret or claim understanding of it by virtue of my happier homefront. Therein lies the problem of Third World music making its appearance on our shores: as energetic and exciting as it seems, it will continue to be more than we can fully grasp. Our condition has not yet. thankfully, qualified us as judges. Jah, Mon! Greed! By Kevin Mulligan Them belly full, and they not so hungry. . .anymore! This summer in Boston, a cultural- political - ‘radical group named Amandla staged a benefit concert at Harvard Stadium to raise money for relief and humanitarian aid for black South Africans. The unity concert brought together 10,000 whites, blacks, and Hispanics to listen to the music of Patti Labelle. Olatunji, Eddie Palmieri. Jabula (from South Africa), and Rasta mon Bob Marley. All told, the seven-hour day was a musical success, and tickets, concessions, poster sales, etc., brought in over $120,000. Sounds good, but there was one small hitch: Not a dime will go to those in need in South Africa. In fact, the otherwise-successful concert lost an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 to greed. Well mon, it like dis you know. . . we got big expenses, and we want it up front. Marley, who fancies himself as some sort of revolutionary figure, offering Jamaicans reggae liberation, and ganja freedom, in a place called Zion (which is in, or near, or like, Ethiopia), "donated” his time. Unfortunately. he insisted on $25,000 in expenses before he would “get up, stand up.” Despite what Carter is doing to the economy, it still does not cost $25,000 to fly a six-piece band from Kingston to Boston, and back. Greed. Patti Labelle, Eddie Palmieri, and Olatunji, who are based out of New- York. charged about $27,000 in expenses for their “donation.” Greed. Of course, there were the expected costs. $25,000 to Harvard. $30,000 for the stage, equipment, fences, etc., and about $5,000 in office expenses and insurance. Another $30,000 went to publicity, almost all of which came in a three-week media blitz. (A longer, low-keyed publicity campaign had been planned, but since they were able to get a confirmation out of Marley only five weeks before the concert, the Amandla people were forced to use expensive media spots.) At the final count, concert expenses ran to $150,000, meaning that a well- intentioned, in fact, successful, benefit concert ended up losing between $30,000 and $50,000. Of these expenses, fully one-third, $53,200, went to pay the performers for their “donated” time. This would have made a nice check to buy the medical, educational. food, clothing, and other supplies which are badly needed by struggling blacks in South Africa. But it shall pass mon. . .des tings shall come around. As Marley sings: It's your own conscience that is gonna remind you that it's your heart and nobody else's that is gonna judge Live for yourself and you will live in vain live for others you will live again The Leaky Roof 1538SW JEFFERSON Tavern Ever,y Friday Metropolitan Jug Band Every Saturday Thrills Brothers Dec. 8 Jim P epper & Friends cover Great Food Bud on tap No cover hammered dulcimers ♦ appalqchian dulcimers ♦ recorders flutes ♦ guitars ♦ mandolins ♦ Banjos ♦ fiddles • whistles piccolos ♦ unusual folk instruments of man' earn ti books and records of traditional cel tic and other folk musics. ARTICHOKE MUSIC 10:30-5:30 ♦monday-saturday *722 northwest 21st ♦ 248-0356 41
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