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A Native American Christmas

*A Native American Christmas
*by Looks for Buffalo

European Christmas for Native Americans actually started when the Europeans came over to America. They taught the Indian about Christianity, gift-giving , and St. Nicholas. There are actually two
religious types of Indian people in existence. One of these is the Traditionalist, usually full-blooded Indians that grew up on the reservations. The second type is the Contemporary Indian that grew up in
an urban area, usually of mixed blood, and brought up with Christian philosophy.

Traditionalists are raised to respect the Christian Star and the birth of the first Indian Spiritual Leader. He was a Star Person and Avatar. His name was Jesus. He was a Hebrew, a Red Man. He received his
education from the wilderness. John the Baptist, Moses, and other excellent teachers that came before Jesus provided an educational foundation with the Holistic Method.

Everyday is our Christmas. Every meal is our Christmas. At every meal we take a little portion of the food we are eating, and we offer it to the spirit world on behalf of the four legged, and the winged, and the two legged. We pray–not the way most Christians pray– but we thank the Grandfathers, the Spirit, and the Guardian Angel.

The Indian Culture is actually grounded in the traditions of a Roving Angel. The life-ways of Roving Angels are actually the way Indian People live. They hold out their hands and help the sick and the needy. They feed and clothe the poor. We have high respect for the avatar because we believe that it is in giving that we receive.

We are taught as Traditional children that we have abundance. The Creator has given us everything: the water, the air we breathe, the earth as our flesh, and our energy force: our heart. We are thankful
every day. We pray early in the morning, before sunrise, the morning star, and the evening star. We pray for our relatives who are in the universe that someday they will come. We also pray that the Great
Spirit’s son will live again.

To the Indian People Christmas is everyday and the don’t believe in taking without asking. Herbs are prayed over before being gathered by asking the plant for permission to take some cuttings. An offer of tobacco is made to the plant in gratitude. We do not pull the herb out by its roots, but cut the plant even with the surface of the earth, so that another generation will be born its place.

It is really important that these ways never be lost. And to this day we feed the elders, we feed the family on Christmas day, we honor Saint Nicholas. We explain to the little children that to receive a gift is to enjoy it, and when the enjoyment is gone, they are pass it on to the another child, so that they, too, can enjoy it. If a child gets a doll, that doll will change hands about eight times in a year, from one child to another.

Everyday is Christmas in Indian Country. Daily living is centered around the spirit of giving and walking the Red Road. Walking the Red Road means making everything you do a spiritual act. If your neighbor, John Running Deer, needs a potato masher; and you have one that you are not using, you offer him yours in the spirit of giving. It doesn’t matter if it is Christmas or not.

If neighbors or strangers stop over to visit at your house, we offer them dinner We bring out the T-Bone steak, not the cabbage. If we don’t have enough, we send someone in the family out to get some more and mention nothing of the inconvenience to our guests. The more one gives, the more spiritual we become. The Christ Consciousness, the same spirit of giving that is present at Christmas, is present everyday in Indian Country.

/Looks for Buffalo is an Oglala Sioux Spiritual Leader, the full-blood
Oglala grandson of Chief Red Cloud and White Cow Killer, and a Cheyenne
Oglala Leader.

article from native-americans.org.

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anyone got a phone no. for the love unlimited orchestra.

OK, so my voice is back, just. The only problem is, everything I say sounds like the spoken intro to a Barry White song. My voice is about an octave lower than usual. And it still hurts to talk, even if it’s now possible.

Add to that how toxic I still feel (body fighting off infection, bound to feel rough), and I’m still an unhappy Stevie. But I do think I’m no the mend. I’m pretty sure this isn’t now going to turn into some sort of huge crippling disease that renders me unable to finish my tax accounts before I go away to the States in January…

Oh shit, before that I need to call the National Insurance people and find out what the hell is happening with this huge bill I got at the beginning of December…

better go do that!

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Peep Show

It’s not often I find myself agreeing with Ricky Gervais – I mean, I found The Office funny, but have never felt any real affinity with the co-writer and star of the show. However, when he commented on stage at the British Comedy Awards this week that it was a tragedy that Peep Show hadn’t been nominated for any awards, I almost applauded the TV (I didn’t, because people who actually applaud the TV are clearly insane, like middle aged blokes who shout at referees on televised football matches).

Peep Show is without doubt the most original comedy to hit the screens in the UK for quite a few years. At least since the Office, if not before. For those who’ve missed it thus far, it’s a sit-com about two losers who share a flat. All the camera work is POV – you’re always looking at the scene from one of the character’s point of view, so there’s no third person camera work – and there’s a running commentary by the two main characters in the from of their inner monologues. Brilliantly observed, hilariously funny, occasionally surreal and a little bit twisted, it’s just come to the end of the third series, and I so hope it gets recommissioned for a fourth.

Til then, you can catch up with the repeats on E4 (oh yes, we’ve finally gone and got a Freeview box!) or buy series one and two on DVD.

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Just what I need – another place to blog!

I was recently invited to start contributing to a bass news/info/reportage blog called ‘Big Bottom’, which is at 24stgeorge.com – there a whole host of bass writers and bloggers involved.

Here’s the first bit that I’ve written for it, headed ‘You Can’t Do That On A Bass’ –

The strangest – and perhaps most surprising – factor in being a solo bassist is that your main critics are other bassists. General music listeners are more than happy to assess how your music sits with them as music, making the same stylistic and emotional responses they would to a record by Coldplay, Cradle of Filth or the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Some bassists, on the other hand, tend to do two things – firstly, there are the shredders who listen with their eyes, measuring the validity of what you do by how clever it looks and whether or not they could play the piece in question. If it’s too hard for them, it must be cool. If it looks too hard to work out, that’s great. The music becomes some kind of athletic challenge, or like some kind of break-dance move, where musicians are supposed to out-do each other in the complexity and freakery of their playing.

the other response is to say ‘you can’t do that on a bass’ – those players who take it upon themselves to be the arbiters of acceptability for this beloved instrument of ours, as though the decision to play melodies and chords on a bass, or to process the signal so it no longer resembles the tradition sound of a bass guitar, is somehow sacrilegious and insulting to ‘the greats’.

I’ve had hilarious emails and responses from people in both camps – fortunately the ones who bother to contact me are few and far between – telling me that I’m either ‘not fully exploring the potential of the bass guitar’ or that I’m ‘not a real bassist, it doesn’t sound like a bass, you might as well be playing guitar’ etc. etc.

The nonsense here is that the title ‘bass guitar’ is a projection, a label, not an absolute. It helps us to define the thinking behind the design of a particular lump of wood and metal and graphite, but ultimately it’s just a plank with some strings on it. The role of ‘bass player’ is one that is perhaps best fulfilled with a bass guitar, but the possible applications of the sound produced by an instrument made with that heritage go way, way beyond anything that could be constrained by the term ‘bass playing’.

I’ve often considered relabeling the instrument I play. Calling it Baritone Guitar or something, just to get away from the weight of expectation that’s there amongst bassists that you’re either going to be ‘laying it down’ or slapping and tapping like some kind of circus performer. But I have resisted such a shift for two reasons – firstly, I love the bass. I love the heritage, I love playing bass. I chose this instrument because I love the role it plays in a most contemporary music. I’m drawn to the visceral, emotive quality that it injects into music – one listen to the White Stripes shows what happens when you leave it out! And I’m interested in taking that forward. I’m drawn to the work of a lot of the people who are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible on instruments from the bass family – Michael Manring, Jonas Hellborg, Matthew Garrison, Trip Wamsley, Abraham Laboriel, Victor Wooten… I like being part of that process, part of the musical dialogue with players around the world looking to further the body of work produced from within the bass community.

I’m pleased to say that those two groups – the circus fans and the luddites – don’t occupy that big a place within the bass world, and I meet a lot of bassists who are just as interested as I in the music that’s playing, who remember that whatever else happens, ‘it’s all about what comes out of the speakers’.

I encourage you to experiment, to see how your bass can fill the gaps in your band, how you can exploit those other registers that the bass does so well – melodies on bass don’t sound like guitar, they sound like melodies on bass, a whole different colour and texture.

Just make it musical.

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'yeah, I listen to everything'

the daftest answer ever to the question ‘what music do you like?’ – it crops up a lot on MySpace – people who write under their music preferences ‘everything’ or ‘all kinds of music’. That’s rubbish.

I’ve got pretty extensive taste, but I dislike MOST music… There are literally millions of bands in the world. There are probably a few thousand that I quite like, and a few hundred that rock my world. A few dozen that have changed my life. That’s a pretty poor percentage. The thing that makes special music special is that we have to track it down. We look for it, we feel great not only because of what it is, but what it represents.

If I loved all music, it’d be like air. I don’t have favourite air. I might notice the sea air as being particularly bracing, but I don’t get bags of it shipped in, I don’t trawl ebay looking for Berwick on Tweed air just because it reminds me of my childhood. No, because all air is equally fantastic. Air is an amazing thing. It keeps me alive, I’d be very dead without it, and can’t say enough nice things about it. But it isn’t ‘special’.

Great music isn’t like air. There is a lot of great music out there, but you have to hunt for it. It’s rare that a major record label releases anything ‘great’. They often spoil potentially great things by sticking their lame-assed focus-group-led coked-up-executive-with-no-clue oar into the discussion, but they rarely let genuinely great records get through. That’s what makes Hejira so special. Or Songs In the Key Of Life, Plumb, Steve McQueen, Nothing But A Burning Light – they are amazing records on major labels. Extra kudos to Joni, Stevie, Jonatha, Prefab Sprout and Bruce for managing to get past the ‘hmm better make it a bit more shit just to make sure it gets on the radio’ moment…

So stop pretending that you’re into everything, or that you like ‘most music’ You don’t! You probably don’t even like the best of most styles of music – it takes a fairly broad set of ears to deal with the, um, idiosyncratic intonation of Chinese Opera, Tuvan throat singing, Tibetan Chanting, Ana music, or even Tom Waits at his most weird.

If you’re in a band, the likelihood is that it’s not going to rock my world. That’s not your fault, it’s just the law of averages. It shouldn’t stop you sending your CD out to people – I send mine out to all manner of people, safe in the knowledge that it’s not going to blow all of their minds. I hope some of them dig it, and am particularly grateful when people who aren’t already friends email me to say they really dig what I do. Last night, I got a text message from the lovely Jane who was listening to Grace And Gratitude and it was helping her out at the end of a tough day. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a soldier who said it helped him through the tough time telling his folks that he had to go to Iraq. that stuff is worth a thousand people saying ‘yeah, I quite like your CD’.

It’s OK to not be blown away by everything, and people who don’t like your music aren’t losers with no taste. But remember to cherish everyone who is touched by what you do – it’s a huge privilege to be able to help soundtrack memorable times in people’s lives, whether it’s music that helps them celebrate, or comforts them in dark times, or just fits the occasion – one of my proudest musical moments is when a friend of mine took my CD in to be played while she was giving birth!

Let people know if their music means something to you – that’s one of the great things about having a blog; being able to big up great music, to get the word out about fab stuff that’s out there, the things that move me. And more often that not, the artists will find it while vanity searching, and drop me an email, which is always fun.

Cherish great music – it’s an honour not a birth-right.

Soundtrack – Iona, ‘Beyond These Shores’.

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State sanctioned murder?

After a very high profile campaign to get him off death row, Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams was finally executed today.

It’s a sad day for the workings of the US justice system, that within a system that allows the death penalty, the idea of someone reforming whilst on death row is impossible. It’s pretty stark in its contrasts to execute a man recently nominated for the nobel peace prize…

But, the best comment on this came from Hugo Schwyzer who comments to the effect that the problem here is not that he was reformed, but that the death penalty exists at all. The problem with the death penalty is not that someone innocent might get killed, it’s in the process of killing someone full stop.

As he comments:
“One of the few things I’ve been consistent on throughout my life is my opposition to the death penalty. That opposition is not rooted in a fear that the innocent may be executed; it isn’t rooted in an ignorance as to the horror of the crimes invariably involved. It is rooted in the conviction that everyone who participates in an execution is invariably brutalized, even if they aren’t entirely aware of it at the time. The guards, the wardens, the witnesses, and the citizens of the state in whose name the execution is carried out are all a bit darker, a bit less human, as a result.”

Can’t put it any clearer than that.

A sad day, as it every day when someone is put to death in a so-called civilized country.

Soundtrack Iona, ‘Beyond These Shores’ (one of my all-time faves, but one I’d neglected of late. But not any more – it’s unbelieveable, I’m reliving the magic of the first time I heard it all over again. A truly remarkable album.)

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Radio Days

For the second (I think) time in my life, I just phoned a radio phone-in show. The story in question is the marvellous news that finally gay couples can have civil unions in registry offices, giving them most of the same rights as married straight couples.

The phone in, on Vanessa Feltz’ show on BBC Radio London was being populated by gay couples delighted at their new found freedom, and bile-ridden hate-filled so-called-christians railing against the evil abomination that they see homosexuality as being.

So, as a christian who a) sees no problem in permanent stable faithful gay relationships and b) recognises that this is fundamentally a human rights issue NOT a theological one, I felt ours was a voice not being heard. So I rang in and had a lovely chat with Vanessa, touching on the ambiguity surrounding the various interpretations of the biblical stuff about homosexuality, the dangers of applying post-enlightenment rationale to a pre-rational text (thankyou Middleton and Walsh!) and the need to uphold the right of self-determination to people with regards to their property after they die.

Anyway, the phone-call was fun, but the change in the law is a fantastic step forward for anyone looking to uphold human rights. It’s decades overdue, and has until today been a blot on British law. Thank God that we’ve now grown up, moved on, and recognised the human rights of gay couples who want to be recognised in law.

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"Intention is Audible"

It’s one of those things I tell my students all the time. ‘Intention Is Audible’ – if you’re writing music just so other people who play the same instrument as you will think you’re a badass and can play faster than them, that’s going to come across in the music, and it’s very unlikely to have any emotional impact on your listeners. If you are playing out of some sense of obligation to some outside standard of what is and isn’t acceptable, the likelihood is that it’ll be plainly obvious that it isn’t from the heart. It’s why so much modern pop is as dull as shit, why not one of the TV talent shows has, as yet, produced a genuinely creative artist. That Will Young is the best we have is a sad indictment on the whole sorry charade.

Every now and again, the ‘intention is audible’ line is hammered home to me in a positive way (the negative stuff is there in so much music every day, sadly). One such experience is listening to ‘Duw A Wyr’ by Lleuwen Steffan/Huw Warren and Mark Lockheart. It’s a collection of Welsh hymns from the time of the revival, sung in welsh and given a european jazz reworking. And it’s beautiful.

But more than that, it’s deeply moving. Remember, it’s sung in welsh – there are translations on the sleeve, but I’ve intentionally avoided them thus far, as I’m allowing the music to impact me on a purely emotional level. And it works. Boy, it works. One particular track, ‘Gwahoddiad’, is one of the most uplifting things I’ve heard in years. The intention of the song is crystal clear in the performance, in the intonation of the voice. It’s incredible. Maybe I’ll have a read of the words later on. Maybe I won’t. It’s gospel music in its purest form – ‘good news’.

And it reminds me why I do what I do. Playing solo bass that isn’t all histrionic fretboard gymnastics and slapping, tapping circus tricks is definitely a ‘road less travelled’. There are very few solo bassists around, even fewer that aren’t spending their time pushing speed and agility as their main frontiers. To keep heading down this path into music where the emotional narrative is front and centre is a juggling act, given that it requires a lot of work on all those technical control and awareness issues that the twiddly stuff requires but without the pay-off that your peers rave about your wikkid skillz. Instead you get the pay-off of people being moved by what you do, being changed in some way by hearing it. I get enough of these stories from people to make it worthwhile. It’s never going to be a mainstream choice of music career (well, I guess it might be, I’d be happy to end up looping, layering and noodling on Top Of The Pops… or at least on Jools Holland’s show…), but it’s one that ultimately is so much more fulfilling for me creatively.

For any musician, learning to practice, absorb and then dismiss virtuosic technique is a huge challenge. For extreme virtuosity and emotional impact to be resident in the same player is incredibly rare – Coltrane would be one, Michael Manring another. Keith Jarrett’s one, Pat Metheny is more than capable of it. And Eric Roche, for whose family I’m playing a benefit gig on Sunday night, was definitely one, one who inspired me hugely, who encouraged me to pursue those aims, to carry the tension forward on my own journey into deeper musical understanding, and greater control of musical vocabulary and expression.

The gig on Sunday night, at Haverhill Arts Centre will be a great chance to give credit where it’s due. The rest of the bill is pretty fine too – Boo Hewerdine, Steve Lockwood and Stuart Ryan are all fabulous musicians that I’m really looking forward to playing with and listening to.

Soundtrack – Lleuwen Steffan/Huw Warren/Mark Lockheart, ‘Duw A Wyr’

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The myth of 'customer service'

For two days running, I’ve been trying to call the phone number of a government department to get some advice. Yesterday’s was Customs and Excise (trying to find out how to send the Looperlative back to Bob for him to repair my huge mistake), and today it’s called the Inland Revenue, to find out why I’ve suddenly been sent a bill for FOUR YEARS of national insurance payments, with one month to pay and no prior warning, despite having paid my NI on my last god-knows-how-many tax bills…

Sadly, both lines are permanently engaged. I’ve been trying for ages. Yesterday, I eventually gave up and emailed HMRC and they kindly called me back this morning with the info I required (very confusing call though – apparently, they can’t really deal with the idea that you can be sent an electrical item to beta test that has a declared value – either it’s a beat unit and isn’t worth anything, or it’s worth something and therefor you bought it. The notion that there’s a declarable insurance value because of the work that’s already gone into it, despite it not having a street value due to it being a prototype is not something covered in UK customs legislation… doh!)

So today I’ll be mostly hitting redial and hopefully eventually finding out why I’ve suddenly got this bill, and what it’s for!

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Two important anniversaries

Today is an important day for two reasons – one, it’s World AIDS day, and two, it’s the 50th anniversary of Rosa Parks’ monumental decision to not move on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Don’t let either of these days go unmarked in your world.

For World AIDS day, do some research into what’s causing the spread of AIDS, the places in the world where its growing fastest, and how hard it is for them to get the medication they need. Petition your elected officials to do more to fund education initiatives in the places where it’s an epidemic. In Botswana, 30% of children born have the HIV virus. 30%!!!! that’s an inconceivable statistic. The stats on the spread of AIDS across Africa are terrifying, and it’s still rolling on, there are still squabbles over drugs companies refusing licenses to produce the drugs cheaply to keep people alive, still squabbles over Catholic leaders telling men infected with HIV/AIDS not to use condoms to protect their wives – look, I’m generally fairly old fashioned, i think abstinence is generally a good idea – very few people are messed up by not having enough sex – but the idea that limiting access to contraception is more important that protecting people from the AIDS virus is ludicrous. That there are religious and cultural stigmas attached to condom useage across huge parts of the world is a travesty, and one that needs to be campaigned against virulently.

What can we do today to help stem the spread of HIV/AIDS? Check out the DATA website for more info, and ways to help.

And on the anniversary of the bus boycott, let’s not forget that Racism still exists, that Europe is becoming an evermore xenophobic continent, that an unofficial economic colour bar still operates in the US. Today, two Liverpool teenagers are going on trial for murdering a young black guy with an ice axe. That such thinking still exists in Britain today is a tragedy. That racism was ever legal in the UK,US, South Africa, etc. is a blot on all of our consciences.

I was watching a documentary the other evening about forgotten stories from the world war. One of the people mentioned was Walter Tull, who was Britian’s second black professional footballer, and first Black army officer. The tragedy of this is that at the time it was still illegal for a Black man to be an officer in the forces. That he triumphed over the racism is testimony to Walter’s strength of character (he was also from a working class background at a time when the officer’s rank was almost exclusively upper class, with a few middle class people), but it’s a disgrace to the forces that we ever had a time when people were excluded on grounds of race…

Heavy stuff, both AIDS/HIV awareness and racism, I know, but if you’re lucky enough to live a life not directly influenced by either, give thanks and use your oh so privileged position to make a change for those not so lucky…

Soundtrack – Peter Gabriel, ‘Up’.

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