Hats off to Lance Armstrong for his well deserved seventh Tour De France victory. Following this record-breaking triumph there have been the usual sports page pieces about whether this makes him the greatest ever cyclist. The consensus is that Eddy Merckx was greater because he not only won le Tour five times, he also won virtually every other major race in cycling, he won sprints, he won the 'king of the mountains' jersey, all at the same time or in the same season. Armstrong by contrast has devoted all his energies to winning the one race, the rest of the cycling season effectively being no more than an extended training session for the one true prize. This is understandable given the way that the Tour de France now totally dominates the cycling calendar in terms of international exposure. While the tours of Italy and Spain and the spring one-day classics in Belgium, northern France and the Netherlands still attract lots of local coverage, only 'le Tour' interests everyone, even those who pay no attention to cycling for 49 weeks of the year. This is similar to the way in which Premiership football in England has sucked up so much media attention that it dominates the sporting landscape at all times, becoming an event in itself. For instance, the back pages of the newspapers should be full to the brim with news of the Ashes cricket series (England vs. Australia). Instead, the cricket is regularly relegated to second place in the headlines by news of player transfers during the Premiership off-season. One positive aspect of London hosting the 2012 Olympics should be to help effect a rebalancing of the media's sporting focus, so that the whole gamut of Olympic events get more coverage over the next seven years. The irony is that it takes another all-consuming event to do this.
As part of the Belgian national day celebrations, last Thursday was 'Kinshasa day' at Brussels' Palais des Baux-Arts, with free concerts by Congolese bands such as Jean Goubald and free entry to all exhibitions, including 'Kinshasa: the imaginary city', which won the Belgian pavilion the Lion D'Or at last year's 9th Venice Biennale of Architecture. Anthropologist Filip de Boeck, photographer/filmmaker Marie-Francoise Plissart and architect/curator Koen van Synghel have certainly created an impressive, thought-provoking work based on the notion that in the Congolese capital, a city of six million people, the "main infrastructural unit is the human body". According to the exhibition's creators, "bodies moor the city's urban imaginaries." Thus, the visitor is exposed to the influence of such crucial elements of Kinshasa's urbanism as religious TV channels, soap operas from Nigeria and Ghana, 'witch children' and the concept of semence ('seed'): giving to the church to reap a reward now or in the afterlife - a concept which is replacing traditional kin-based solidarity networks. Perhaps the most interesting parts of this first-rate exhibition are the filmed interviews with four Congolese intellectuals - writers Vincent Lombume Kalimasi and Yoka Lye Mudaba, psychiatrist Adelin N'Sutu and human rights activist Thierry N'Landu Mayamba - who contemplate various keywords ('death', 'body', etc.) to tease out the nature of Kinshasa and what it means to be Kinois. Truly fascinating stuff. (The exhibition is on till September 4th: www.bozar.be).
Check out Xan Brooks's excellent interview with John Sayles on Guardian Unlimited. The section on how Hollywood writers now have to 'audition' for re-write work so the studios can use their ideas without paying them is particularly noteworthy. These being the same studios who are cracking down on file-sharers as hard as they can. The hypocrisy would be funny if it weren't so ugly.
Looking rather tattered, the colours of the defeated MSM/MMM coalition tied to a tree in Grand Baie, Mauritius. The new government must address the country's growing economic problems, in part resulting from the decline of the textile industry due to lower-cost competition from China. The textile sector is one of four pillars of the Mauritian economy, the others being sugar, fishing and tourism. There are plans afoot to create a new pillar: IT. Mauritius is aiming to become a 'cyber island': the first country in the world to have coast-to-coast wi-fi hostpot access. Another plan to boost the economy suggested by one member of the new government is to make Mauritius a 'tax free island', thereby encouraging more shopaholic tourists to visit.
Bunting from the recent Mauritian general election was still visible all over the island during my visit last week. This unusual means of campaigning made some villages look like they were celebrating a fete or a wedding. This house is decked out in the colours of the victorious Alliance Sociale, led by Dr. Navin Ramgoolam. L'AS beat the incumbent MSM/MMM coalition by 38 seats to 22, the fourth consecutive election in which the government has been defeated.
On holiday in Mauritius last week, the three records we seemed to hear everywhere were:
'Bouger bouger' by Magic System and Mokobe "Tempted to touch' by Rupee and 'C'est les vacances by Ilona Mitrecey.
The first is a great fusion of West Africa and a Western dancefloor a la 'Yeke Yeke'. The second is a catchy but rather lame Soca/Dancehall fusion for those who can't wait for the next Sean Paul album. The Ilona Mitrecey track is a horrendous piece of French bubblegum recorded by an 11-year old. It could be as big as 'Las Ketchup'. You have been warned!
Finally finished 'Rip it up and start again', Simon Reynolds' excellent history of post-punk and new pop. As someone whose first, formative experiences of pop music took place during the 78-84 period under Reynolds' microscope, it was great to find out about the recording process for The Human League's 'Dare' for instance, or the genesis of ZTT records, both personal favourites. The test of any good music critic is whether or not you want to listen to the music he or she is describing. This is a test Reynolds almost always passes. Reading 'Rip it up', I was soon searching through my CD collection for old favourites such as Heaven 17's 'Penthouse and Pavement' or A Certain Ratio's 'The Graveyard and the Ballroom'. He also made me keen to hear more by bands I was only mildly familiar with, such as Subway Sect and Psychic TV. I also particularly liked the afterchapter, detailing the aftermath of post-punk/New Pop, and eloquently explaining why 1985 was such a dismal year for alternative music. As a longtime fan of Reymolds' writing, it is interesting to note that the endpoint for 'Rip it up' is pretty much the starting point for his career as a critic. His first book, 1990's 'Blissed out: the raptures of rock', was a brilliant collection of essays about how underground music might escape its mid-80s impasse. Having come full circle, I wonder whether he might now hang up his keyboard and mouse, at least as far as music criticism is concerned? Or, as with boxers, is it the case that old rock journos always want one more tilt at the title? The Thomas Hearns of inkie-pop theorists, not a bad thing to be.
All those critics of Live8 who asked, 'Where are all the African artists? Where's Femi Kuti?'. The answer is he was here in Brussels, at Couleur Cafe, the annual World Music shindig at the Tour et Taxis warehouse complex by the canal. On one level I really enjoyed the set that Kuti and his band, The Positive Force, played on Saturday night. Top drawer Afrobeat, conscious lyrics and fantastic dancing. On another level, it left me a little cold. I mean, I loved the cover of his father's 'Water no get enemy', but I wonder if I would have been so quick to clap if it was Julian Lennon playing 'I am the Walrus' or Ziggy Marley performing 'Three little birds'? In other words, does what Kuti represents obscure the reactions of white, Western critics to him as an artist? Should Femi Kuti have been playing Live8 even if his music was shit (it's not)?
I don't know if they are ripping me off directly, or if it's a case of minds thinking alike, but, as Jim from Aerial Telly said to me: "They are jacking your stilo." The cause of this palaver: a new club night at The Sun & 13 Cantons pub in London called Hip-Hop Karaoke. That would be the same Hip-Hop Karaoke concept I was floating in the Smoke back at the tail end of 2001. To be honest, I don't really hold anything against Old Boy Entertainment and Lewis Recordings, the people behind the event. Fair play to them for putting the idea to the test. Now, pass the mic, and biters don't bite!
Ex-Veruca Salt singer Nina Gordon's version of the NWA classic 'Straight Outta Compton' has to be heard to be believed. One of those rare covers that makes you look at the original in a whole new light.
Well, I was hoping to share with you in this post the sounds of a rather fantastic 1970s toy that I found in a bag of old stuff at the back of a cupboard. It's one of those dolls with an elastic cord that you pull to separate the head from the torso and, in so doing, activate a series of recordings. In this case, they are of a girl saying things such as, "My feet are moving closer", 'That's quite a stretch," and "I lost my head for a moment." Great stuff. Unfortunately, it seems that AudioBlogger is only available to our friends in the US, so the soundtrack will have to wait, unless anyone has an alternative suggestion. I know Blogger is a US company, but it's bloody annoying that services such as AudioBlogger and Moblog are not available to 95% of the world's population. As Gilberto Gil once sang: "I'll only put bebop in my samba when Uncle Sam plays the tamborim. When he plays the tambourine and the bass drum, when he learns that the samba is not rumba, then I will mix Miami with Copacabana."
