Joel Schalit

Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt

Late last Friday afternoon, I was sitting in the living room working on my book when I heard the sound of gunfire close by. Slamming my laptop shut, I instinctively ducked down so that I was no longer level with the window. A minute and a half later, the firing stopped. Taking a deep breath, I crawled on all fours to our front porch. Slowly raising myself, I took a good look down our street where it sounded like the shots were fired. The intersection was empty.

When Jennifer got home, she took our dogs out for their evening walk. Two blocks away, she was stopped by a police car, which shined a light on her face, wondering if she might be the person that they were looking for. Once the police got a good look at her – a petite, pink-haired woman in her mid-thirties – the cops apologized and sped away. When she rounded the corner, Jen found two more police cars blocking the street. Something was up.

On Saturday night, we got online and started looking for news about Friday’s gunfire. Not surprisingly, there were a fair number of articles about a recent crime wave in our hood. A couple of weeks ago, our neighborhood association apparently met with the chief of the local police precinct to discuss the recent violence. The cops had promised to triple patrols of our neighborhood. Hence Jennifer being stopped on Friday night.

On Sunday, we found a flyer on a  telephone pole nearby, describing some thug who goes by the name of ‘Time Bandit,” who is allegedly responsible for a number of assaults here in Bernal Heights, as well as other nearby neighborhoods. The guy is described as wearing a hoodie. He supposedly asks his victims for the time before threatening them with a semi-automatic weapon.

This week’s kitchen beats: M.R.K. 1: Copyright Laws

On the Road

Reading flyer, Portland, Oregon, November 2002.

Source Material

Not the best time writing-wise this past week. I’ve been finishing the bibliographical work that I’ve needed to complete for my book, and have spent a lot of time gathering together any remaining news articles I can find in order to bring myself totally up-to-date. I feel pretty good about what I’ve pulled together so far, though, as with other book projects I’ve worked on (this is my fifth), I’ve had to set severe limits to my source material so I don’t find myself overwhelmed.

As a rule of thumb, once I’ve acquired everything I need to start writing, I focus on covering only the most representative instances of my subject matter and comment on them until there’s hopefully nothing left to discuss. If I have material left over that I might find useful later, voila, its always there. I hold on to everything. I can’t tell you how many times over the years that I’ve found myself grateful for my packrat habits. Sometimes I wish I’d become a librarian.

Despite this self-congratulatory pat on the back, there are two standout occasions in which I’ve failed to live up to my archivist’s ethos. The first was during high school, when my then-classmate John Whitson gave me a copy of a live soundboard tape of a Husker Du show in Walla Walla, Washington. Unmarked, I recorded over the cassette, thinking that it was a blank. Talk about stupid. Even then, in the spring of ’86, I knew I’d committed a horrible mistake.

The second time was equally profound. In the fall of 2005, director Julien Temple contacted me, explaining that he was making a documentary about the life and times of his old friend, Joe Strummer. He wanted to know if I could give him a copy of a recording of an interview I’d done with Joe, which had been the cover story of the January/February 2000 edition of Punk Planet, (and had just been reprinted in Let Fury Have the Hour, an anthology of writings about the late Clash frontman edited by Antonino D’Ambrosio.) Temple explained that he wanted to use the recording in his film, and was hoping I would allow him to do so.

Several hours later, as I searched through boxes of cassettes in my basement looking for the interview, I found the tape. Unfortunately, along with a number of recordings of my old radio shows at my alma mater, Reed College, the cassette had been damaged by water, and was in an advanced state of deterioration. Even though Temple’s crew kindly offered to try to restore it, the recording engineer that I am knew that the tape was beyond repair.

Clearly, I should have known better. It would have been great to have been able to give the Strummer interview its proper due. It was a terrific recording, and Joe was in absolutely marvelous form. As much as I like the written transcription of the interview, nothing comes close to how charming and witty he sounded on the phone. Even Strummer’s coughs (was there a bong nearby?) were hilarious.

Nevermind the Clichés

The last time I devoted a serious amount of mental energy to Adrian Sherwood was a typically cold summer night in San Francisco in 2004. Prior to a gig at the Elbo Room in support of his first solo album, Never Trust a Hippy, together with a couple of close friends, I managed to get myself admitted to the venue’s dressing room. There stood the surprisingly tall, fifty year old producer, sweat pouring down his bald head as he shook hands with his guests, discussing the production work he’d done on the then-forthcoming Asian Dub Foundation record, Tank.

It was one of those moments when I didn’t feel like I had anything to say. Having met dozens of my favorite artists over the years, I’d thought that I’d gotten over feeling star-struck. As it so turned out, this specific evening turned out to be an exception to the rule. Having produced some of the most influential records of the past generation – by Dub Syndicate, Creation Rebel, the New Age Steppers, and countless others – for his own legendary On-U Sound label (whose creative A&R work served as the inspiration for the label I managed, Asphodel) – I felt like I was in the presence of the Creator.

Unfortunately, this experience  proved to be all-too brief. Not long afterwards, as I sat behind the stage watching Sherwood mix his set, I started to feel queasy. In fact, nauseous. DJ’ing decidedly psychedelic, fast-paced material (according to my friend Ron, consisting of unreleased African Head Charge material, if I remember correctly), after twenty minutes, I decided that I had to leave. Could it have been what I’d had to drink that night, I wondered as I stumbled down the club’s crowded stairs, hoping to be relieved by the cool night air. What a lightweight. I’d only had three beers.

Thus, I approached listening to Sherwood’s new album, Becoming a Cliche/Dub Cliche, with a little bit of trepidation. So far only released in the UK by Real World, import copies have been slowly trickling into the US since the record’s release last November. Picking up a copy yesterday after having breakfast with the same two friends I’d gone to the Sherwood gig with, I took the disc home, and spent most of yesterday afternoon giving it a good listen.

Though I’m not prepared to do a serious critical take quite yet, I’m not exactly feeling speechless this time out either. Very much in the vein of his last solo record, Becoming a Cliche is a dense, drum and bass and ragga-influenced album every bit as rewarding as Sherwood’s last record. Boasting the vocal talents of longtime collaborators Lee Scratch Perry, Mark Stewart and the late Bim Sherman, it almost sounds like an updated Pay It All Back-era On-U Sound anthology.

In a November review  in the Guardian, critic Dave Simpson inconclusively asked whether Sherwood was still creating work as groundbreaking as his past achievements – particularly given how many producers have assimilated his style over the years. I’d say yes. However, I’d qualify that judgement by saying that Sherwood is doing so by refining his work rather than introducing new musical idioms. Artistically, though far less dramatic, that’s of equal significance.

Instant Community

Yours truly with my old friend Eric Zassenhaus, at the Bitch mag going away party on Wednesday night. Eric is an editor of the terrific local literary journal, Instant City.

Photo courtesy of Bitch publisher Debbie Rasmussen. Really sad to see them leave the Bay Area, but their new home – Portland, Oregon – is about as good as it gets outside of these here parts.

Knowing Portland’s publishing scene extremely well, Bitch is going to be an excellent addition to the community. Its been a while since PDX hosted a national magazine of Bitch’s stature.

Today’s work songs: Boxcutter, Oneiric (Planet Mu)

Turn on the News

, AlbTwo years ago, I saw a colleague of mine on the German news program, Journal.  A frequent guest on the show, he always provided the Israeli view whenever there was an important event to comment on in the Middle East. After sending Robert an email to let him know I’d seen him on TV, surprised, he asked what I was doing watching German television. “Television news stinks here in the US,” I remember writing back to him. “The offerings are nowhere near as good as what you get in Israel. We try and watch as many European news programs as we can.”

Eating dinner last night, I recalled my conversation with Robert as I watched our latest local news import, Russia Today. Hosted by local public television station Channel 32, RT provides an amusing Russian take on international news. Viewing two segments – one on the debate about the establishment of US anti-missile bases in the Czech Republic, the other, the Venezuelan government’s granting of sweeping new powers to President Hugo Chavez – I was immediately struck by how nostalgic RT was for the Cold War. Speaking to Czech opponents of the American initiative and Venezuelan supporters of Chavez, Russia Today’s reporters made no bones about their biases. Anything that irritated the US was fine by them.

As someone who spent their teens in the US during the 1980s, to have imagined watching a Russian program on American television would have been unthinkable. Let alone, a Russian news broadcaster supportively reporting on the progress an arch-enemy was making in consolidating their revolution. By no means a politically progressive show, (witness RT’s endless profiles of successful Russian entrepeneurs) it was still a hoot taking this aspect of Russia’s political temperature as I switched back and forth between RT, Larry King Live, and yet another annoying Benny Hill rerun on the BBC.

“I hear that we’re going to be getting better programming in the near future,” I remember telling Robert in Tel Aviv as we sat together in his apartment watching live footage of Saddam Hussein’s trial. ” I sure hope so,” he replied, pointing to his TV and laughing. “Imagine if you could watch events like this. Its totally unprecedented to see such things, even here, in Israel.”

Given the eclecticism of contemporary Israeli media consumption, that, I’m sure of. For example, in December, the Guardian reported that Israel’s largest sattelite TV provider, Yes, had dropped BBC World from its roster in favor of the new al-Jazeera English network. Say what? Despite all of the criticisms levelled at the BBC’s Israeli coverage in recent years,  an Arab broadcaster beat out a longstanding British news outlet for sattelite television subscribers. How’s that for counter-intuitive.

When asked to comment on this, an Israeli relative of mine told me, “All the right-wingers are saying its Arab Israelis who demanded this change. Honestly, I think it was Jews. How else would the Ashkenazim who don’t speak Arabic know what the Arab world is thinking?”

Back on the home front in San Francisco, our viewing preference remains BBC World. Every morning, Jennifer and I sit in bed and watch a full hour’s broadcast while we drink our coffee and read the newspaper. Even though its only an hour long (and only in the morning,) between this, Deutsche Welle, and even Russia Today, its still a hell of a lot better than relying solely on CNN. Nevertheless, we hear from our cable provider that they’ll be adding a dedicated BBC World news channel very soon.