Wild Weekend Vol. 14

High time for Wild Weekend #14. A special number that, as it´s the dorsal Johan Cruijff got famous with. Pele, Best, Beckenbauer, Maradona, Van Basten, Romario, Zidane and Maldini, to name but a few, were all downright amazing players and young Messi is currently in mouthwatering form, but Johan still gets my vote as the best footy player ever. Wasn´t too bad as a coach either. No wonder he just got appointed as honorary president of FC Barcelona. Anyway, on to the music now. Curious to hear what the iPod´s shuffle thingy has lined up for you this week? Then lace up your boots and read on.

"You might miss me when I´m gone..." I´ve said it before here and I´ll say it again: if you haven´t got Terry Callier´s funky ´73 masterpiece What Color Is Love, you´re really missing out on something special. Listen to the exemplary You Goin´ To Miss Your Candyman, then go buy this album asap. Thirty five years after her death, Umm Kulthum - or Oum Khalsoum, the spelling of her name always is a bit of a gamble in the west - is still revered in her native Egypt and all over the Arab world. No wonder, as her vocal abilities were nothing short of amazing. Here she is at the height of her powers, with slashing strings galore.

Terry Callier - You Goin´ To Miss Your Candyman MP3

Umm Kulthum - Qadet Hayati Hayra Alek MP3

"There's a girl living in this town, she's a fox and she knows it well..." One day when his ship comes in, Dave Edmunds is gonna make Deborah wonder where he´s been, and rightly so. From what I consider the pubrocker´s finest hour: Trax On Wax 4 (´78). Cleveland´s adventurous early punk scene has always been dear to my heart. Pere Ubu is best known of course, but let´s not forget the Electric Eels, Styrenes or Mirrors. She Smiled Wild (from a ´75 single on Ubu´s Hearthan label) is a perfect example of the latter´s Velvets-inspired sound.

Dave Edmunds - Deborah MP3

Mirrors - She Smiled Wild MP3

Os Mutantes hail Satan on this weird piece of Brazilian pychedelica, and why not? I´ve got their Everything Is Possible compilation on David Byrne´s Luaka Bop label, which is excellent musically, but for some reason doesn´t present the songs in chronological order. And that´s a bummer. And we´ve already come to the end of another Wild Weekend with a song from the one and only Crazy Horse. Featuring Danny Whitten, Jack Nitzsche and Nils Lofgren, Gone Dead Train comes from their eponymous ´71 debut. A solid album, but somehow I keep missing the presence of a certain Canadian loner every time I play it...

Os Mutantes - Ave, Lúcifer MP3

Crazy Horse - Gone Dead Train MP3

The Tarab Of Umm

The great Umm Kulthum, which is often spelled in the western world as Om Khalsoum or derivations thereof, was known as the star of the east and the diva of Arab song. Bob Dylan once remarked that "she is one of my favorite singers of all time, and I don´t understand a word she sings..." Kulthum (1904-1975) had an amazing vocal range in her prime, and is still incredibly popular almost everywhere they speak Arabic. Call her the middle-eastern female equivalent of Elvis and you wouldn´t be far off. Not just in Egypt, her country of origin, but from Morocco to Tunesia and from Afghanistan to Syria chances are that your local taxi driver will carry one of her tapes in his glove compartment. It is said more than 4 million people showed up for her funeral procession in the streets of Cairo.

To quote Virginia Danielson in her book The Voice Of Egypt: ´in Arabic culture, a good singer is a mutrib, one who creates an environment of tarab with his or her performance. Excellent rendition generates tarab, literally ´enchantment´, the sense of having been deeply moved by the music´. A bit like duende in Spanish flamenco I guess. For a truckload of tarab, check out one of her most popular songs: El Atlal (the ruins). The live performance below is nearly 40 minutes long, but don´t let that deter you: the more it progresses, the more hypnotic it becomes. Its lyric - in translation of course - begins thus:

"My heart, don't ask where love has gone...

it was a citadel of my imagination that has collapsed,

water me and let me drink of its ruins...

and tell the story on my behalf as long as the tears flow."

Umm Kulthum - El Atlal MP3