Something Good #55: Campbell River Tropicália
In the last edition of Something Good, I asked you what you had been enjoying lately. Reader Matt Law wrote back with a letter that was so thoughtful and tuned into my own personal tastes that I asked if I could print it in full. He writes:
At the crest of the first Covid wave, my wife and I moved from Vancouver, my wife's home for the previous 20 years, to a small mill town overlooking the ocean on Vancouver Island (specifically Campbell River, which island residents from south of the town refer to as “the North Island,” but is actually the island’s north-south dead center; anti-Indigenous racism, and the fact that, until 1975, the highway went basically no further than CR, play a big part in conceptual northerliness in those parts). I’d taken a mat leave coverage position at the local hospital while H worked from home, and spent many of my evenings walking (according to my phone, my daily 10km of walking in 2021 is down considerably since my return to this wretched city).
There is nowhere in particular to walk to in Campbell River, especially at night; the town ends at the ocean, the titular river, or the deep woods. Since the age of around 20, I've always had a local bar to wind up at, but considering Covid, and the stigma that comes from being a too-frequent bar patron in a small town in which one is a readily identifiable health professional, my walks steered away from the casino (!!!; the only bar open with any regularity during the height of restrictions), and were generally free-form excursions to wherever the land ends (now that I am back in Vancouver, I've come to realize that there's comfort in the hard edge, knowing you can't go any further—it forces you to stop and study what is actually there; the city just goes on and on).
I have the gear for walks in pretty heavy weather, and Discovery Passage, so called (after HMS Discovery — naming remains a fraught preoccupation up there) provides near-constant storms throughout the fall and winter, as the mainland and Vancouver Island converge into the narrows around Yucalta (this area was so dangerous to shipping that, in 1958, the largest non-nuclear detonation until that time was executed to remove “Ripple Rock,” an unnavigable formation that sat, at low tide, a few feet below the surface; this site, and the explosion, are well-documented facts that, of course, overlook any cultural significance to the Laichwiltach people, but alas). The northerly winds fly up the straight and funnel through CR, bending 200 ft tall trees and emptying out the town of any but the most foolhardy night walkers (on one of these nights, I came across a distraught woman by chance and stopped her from throwing herself into the ocean, but that's a story for another time; CR can be a lonely place).
My soundtrack for so many of these evenings was, vibe-wise, completely at odds with my surroundings: Gilberto Gil's back catalogue. I honestly cannot tell you how I started listening to this stuff; I think I must've said to myself, "Fine, I know the name; what's it about?" when, in actual fact I was probably think of Joao Gilberto. I started with Expresso 2222, and have continued my journey from there.
The one album I come back to is Refavela (of the so-called Re-trilogy, I have never heard Refazenda because it is so damned hard to find; there's a 33 1/3 about it, which I have read, if that gives you any indication of the depths of my obsession). I've come to understand Refavela, of which I'm sure you’ve heard, as a coalescence of a bunch of forces that, through my patchy research, expand the breadth and depth of this ‘70s gem that should be better known.
On the surface, Refavela is a continuation of GG's post-Tropicalia fusion of bossa nova, rock and roll, and almost Grateful Dead-like capacity for jazz-ish jams. If I had to make direct comparisons, it has the complexity of highlife and afrobeat, the communality and generosity of American funk, and the subtlety of reggae: Fela Kuti by way of Stevie Wonder; a new strain of pretty powerful weed.
But (and?) there are bigger forces at play. This album was written after Gil took a tour of central Africa, culminating with his presence at FESTAC 77 in Lagos, the high-water mark for the pan-African cultural moment of the ‘70s (the history of FESTAC 77, and the gatherings that pre-dated it, is fascinating). Also present? Stevie Wonder, Fela Kuti, Miriam Makeba, Mighty Sparrow, Sun Ra, Hugh Masakela… on and on. Of note, Fela Kuti was named an early FESTAC ambassador, but quit in disgust when the Nigerian government started to pursue their own agenda through the festival. The Shrine, Fela’s personal nightclub on his Kalakuta compound, became an unofficial gathering place during the festival, eclipsing the official venues themselves. This same government, feeling spurned, waited until FESTAC was over and all the artists left Nigeria, in late January 1977, to raid the Kalakuta compound, defenestrating and killing Fela’s mother and burning the place to the ground in early Feb. 1977. Admittedly, Fela Kuti also wrote Zombie just before FESTAC, so the government was out for blood; however, Fela wrote Shuffering and Shmiling in response to the attacks, so he wins.
But (and?) there are still bigger forces at play. Back in Brazil a few years earlier, concurrent with Gil’s temporary exile from Brazil to London in 1969 and return in 1972 (a punishment at least in part because he kissed Caetano Veloso in public and refused to demur, saying that he felt a love for Veloso that went beyond brotherhood), a resurgent wave of Black solidarity was brewing in Bahia, Gil’s home state. The first Afro-Brazilian carnival group (or “bloco”) had formed in 1974 (!), at a time in Black-majority but white-governed Brazil when expressions of ethnic solidarity could get you branded “Communist,” which was enough to get you imprisoned, if not disappeared. This bloco, Ile Aiye (Yoruba for “earth,” “home,” or “the people”) only allowed membership to Black Brazilians, and wrote songs like “Que Bloco é Esse?”, unambiguously claiming space and integrity for Black Brazilian culture (read those lyrics!). Since the end of the dictatorship in Brazil, Afro-Brazilian blocos have become central to Carnaval, from Sao Paolo to Rio, but Ile Aiye was the first. The founder, Vovo (eponyms are real in Brazil), is still going strong, both as a musician and community activist in Salvador, Bahia.
You might recognise the name “Ile Aiye:” with a slight change in spelling, it’s the name of a song on Refavela (one of the best examples of Gil’s syncretic form, in my opinion). In fact, it’s a reworking of Ile Aiye’s “Que Bloco é Esse?”, expanded and suffused with highlife guitars, contemporary Brazilian percussion, afrobeat backing vocals and polyrhythms. GG is using his position, both as a towering figure in Brazil and as an international artist, to boost a bloco’s style and politics, thereby subverting the Brazilian dictatorship internally and externally. All while arranging a propulsive, funky masterclass in high-level musicianship that rips the ruling class to shreds lyrically. If that wasn’t enough, the last song on Refavela is a shout-out, and performance with, another Afro-Brazilian bloco that Gil was later made a member of, Filhos de Gandhy.
I could go on (we’ll have to discuss forró and afoxé some other time). Alas, you can criticize Gil for musical excesses here and there (ah, the decisions we make when we smoke a good joint and indulge ourselves), but you gotta give him cred for staying very rooted to his musical and cultural communities. They guy became Minister of Culture under Lula, for crying out loud.
Here’s a link to the original bloco version, and the version from Refavela.
Worth sharing.
You'll just have to forgive the longwindedness,
— Matt Law
Mark here again. If the above appeals to you, you might enjoy the issue of Something Good where I expounded on my own personal connection to Brazilian music, and the playlist (below) I created for it.
A few years ago I came across this very short list of every pirated music file on the internet as of 1996. This was years before Napster, and only shortly after the MP3 spec was devised. In it lies the DNA of our musical present, for better or worse. We now have a near-infinite selection of music at our fingertips, but 26 year ago, these 32 songs were it.
The list is attributed to by Compress ‘da Audio, considered to be the first online music piracy group. It contains pretty representative sample of music at that moment—I love that it includes the U2 rhythm section’s version of the Mission: Impossible theme and Jim Carrey’s karaoke cover of “Someone to Love” from the Cable Guy soundtrack. Plus 311, Mariah Carey, Weird Al, Nine Inch Nails… I can definitely picture this music blaring out of shitty computer speakers.
Not a bad selection, really, and it made me think I should put it into playlist form—but of course, several people had already beat me to it.
Side note: Four years ago to the day, I was driving with my brother past an intersection a couple of blocks from where we grew up in Toronto when I saw this impossibly ancient, mouldering billboard for Mel Brooks’ 1987 comedy classic Spaceballs. It must have only been recently uncovered by construction work.
I had certainly seen that exact ad in my youth, on my way to the “Export A” convenience store to buy candy and play the store’s one lonely arcade game.
Seeing it again felt like a miracle. I jumped out of the car and took the above picture.
I’m not sure if it’s still there, but from what I could learn the billboard stood for at least another year or two. If you live near the corner of Eglinton and Glen Cedar in Toronto, could you go check?
This week’s #nojacketsrequired comes courtesy of reader Megan Johnston. As usual, please send your unjacketed finds to me at [email protected]; attachments sent as replies to this email will not find their way to me.
This week, Sheila Heti’s new book Pure Colour is finally on sale; Sheila kindly wrote Something Good #35, on “limerence,” and it is time for us to return the favour at our local independent bookstore.
Every couple of Wednesdays I’ll send you Something Good. Big thanks to Matt Law for his wonderful contribution this week.
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