Ghostface Riot Redux

Looks like the Wally Champ is still beset by chaos at his live gigs. The show, at a large bar in Miami, Ohio, was going fine (Ghost actually turned up on time, it seems) until a half-hour in, when a pale, thin man jumped up on stage and grabbed the mic. Though he hardly should have presented much of a challenge for Ghost's plentiful (and, it should be noted, imposing) posse, he was able to get several bars into a tune (though the backing music was playing only in his head apparently.) He was described by some eye-witnesses as "like a white Tay Zonday"... not really sure what that means. I think it's great that the inherent craziness of Ghost's show is getting ever more surreal. Peep the Youtube footage.

Yerevan Ajemenian

Armenian orphan, Ethio-Jazz innovator, guerilla fighter

Ethiopia is one of the most fascinating and hard to comprehend countries in Africa. Like many poor countries it combines urban life and culture with extreme poverty, but what makes it distinctive is it's blending of different cultures, resulting in a vibrant art scene that has often been the victim of social and political instability.

Yerevan Ajemenian is an important, though little known part of Ethiopia's cultural history. His parents were victims of the Armenian Genocide in Turkey following World War I. As a young boy, he was brought to Jerusalem by others fleeing the violence, and ended up in an orphanage where he first received musical training, learning the trumpet.

The entire band of forty children, the Arba Lijoch, as it would come to be known, was adopted by Ethiopia's then-crown prince Ras Tafari (later the Emperor Hallie Selassie I) and traveled with him to Addis Abeba, where they received further special instruction, and became the national orchestra and a touchstone for the development of popular, western-influenced music in Ethiopia.

Apparently Ajemenian didn't desire to remain in a position that he came to regard as artistically stifling and politically questionable, and began to pursue his interest in progressive music and Pan-African politics. As early as the 50's, Ajemenian was playing with popular musicians, particularly those associated with the slowly growing ethio-jazz scene. This was quite remarkable, especially for a man who was substantially older than most of the musicians involved, who were considered a young avant-garde at the time. He collaborated with many vocalists, but more notably with pioneering instrumentalists such as the saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya. Unfortunately, Ajemenian was not actively participating in the music scene in the early 70's, when Ethiopian music was first widely recorded, so it's hard to properly gauge his contributions, though according to his contemporaries' testimonials and the few available recordings, it seems that he was possessed of a rare feel for improvisation and had a distinctive facility for conveying the unique tone of Ethiopian vocal music on his instrument.

However by the mid-50's it was clear that Ajemenian's interests were expanding beyond music. He became involved in Pan-Africanist politics and regularly traveled across the continent to meet with others. It is believed by some that he was moving guns and other supplies across borders, though there is no documentary evidence on this point. It has been widely speculated that he was involved with Che Guevara in the war in Congo. In fact, it is quite possible that he died in this conflict, though there are persistent reports that he in fact survived and was later to surface in Nigeria, playing with Fela Kuti's large ensemble Africa 70. This seems somewhat doubtful as he would have been quite an old man, though that is perhaps faulty reasoning when considering such a singular and remarkable person.

As mentioned above there is little surviving recorded material by Ajemenian. Click here to view a rare film of him playing in Addis Abeba in the early 60's with other ethio-jazz innovators.

Nixon meets Elvis Part Two

It is widely known and a matter of the historical record that Elvis visited President Nixon in the White House in 1970 and received a badge making him an honorary agent at large for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. The story is a bit convoluted, but boiled down to Nixon's desire, as a hopelessly paranoiac who was also a perpetual square and outcast, to ingratiate himself with the nation's youth, and Elivs's guilt as an essentially good and God fearing Christian boy, at being seen as, not entirely in accordance with the facts, a representative for many of America's burgeoning drug culture.

Needless to say, the visit was not a complete success, except perhaps for Elvis, who received his honorary badge, as well as official White House souvenirs for his male buddies who, unaware of his whereabouts for approximately forty-eight hours, had finally tracked him down in Washington, D.C., and arriving to safely ferry him home just shortly before his hard-won audience with Nixon, naturally enough joined him, and even some improvised goodies for the boys' wives. On the other hand, Elvis was asked not to mention the matter of the honorary entrance into one of the nations top law enforcement agencies, as he was seen by millions, after all, as a godless, negro-loving, pedophile communist, and the White House didn't publicly reveal that the visit had ever happened until two years later.

What is less well known is that Elvis made a second visit to the White House in 1971. It is unknown how this meeting came about, but there can be no doubt that it did take place, as it was recorded, again for unclear reasons, on the so-called "Nixon," or "Watergate Tapes." On the tapes the conversers, who sound especially "loose," discuss Nixon's impending visit to China, which had yet to be publicly announced. Elvis is heard remarking that he believes "in his heart" that Chairman Mao is "truly a good little guy" and that "Jesus has enough room in his heart for the Communists and all the rest." There is a moment of tension when Nixon makes an unbecoming remark about "the Jews" and Elvis speaks positively of his Jewish friends and "that Kissinheim [fellow]" the latter likely a reference to Henry Kissinger. Elvis later offers Nixon one of the interlocking cross-and-Star-of-David medallions that he was known to distribute among friends. The tape ends with a discussion of bowling in the Presidential bowling alley, installed by Nixon in the White House's basement.

This tape has been released as part of the process of unearthing the remains of the Nixon Presidential tapes and documents. Excerpts from the tapes may be heard here.

A Week of Fun

This week: one new Rickroll every night. You've been warned.