Author: Tamara Harris
Published: December 31, 1969
Tool: [ email ]
Herein this time when rock music is a spectrum of hillbilly garage thumping White Stripes to the sappy punk marrow of Good Charlotte, Living Colour melt all their drossy peers again after a ten-year recording break. When they came to commercial-musicland back in '88 The Smiths were moaning, LL Cool J was in his prime and Prince was floating on heaven's air in his melodic funk room. The four guys who recorded "Love Rears It's Ugly Head" "Cult Of Personality" and "Elvis Is Dead" omitted sugar for phat aggressive frequencies. Fluid rhythm, soulful vocals, hearty pyrotechnic guitar and observant lyrics produced conscious virtuosic rock. Their video zone snatched the lobes and imagination of MTV's see/hear nations. And whatever was not made clear on record got translated in their sizzling live shows. Two Grammies, four stellar albums, nonstop love, darker skin and a break-up generated an ambivalent relationship between the band and the music industry establishment. Because for all their years in the game average public listeners
still rivet rock to white boys. It is so hard to approach the subject because of the complexity of racism and the denial of many that it even exists.
Thinkers like Paul Gilroy have pointed out how dangerous it is to reduce people to types. However, the act of categorizing hip hop and r and b into particular slots while putting The Strokes and Coldplay in another is real. One begans to scratch their head when Eminem who is a religious hip hopper makes it onto hip hop and rock stations despite the obvious fact that hip hop is rock and r and b was once considered to be the same thing. Lenny Kravitz worked ten years before arriving at the destination of THE rock star. Sadly most African-Americans relegate Chuck Berry, Ike and Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Little Richard and Jimi Hendrix to flat history lessons that have no life today. Run DMC and Aerosmith's collaboration raised faith in quashing recording industry apartheid. But audiences and media are still divided over this issue of Black people with loud guitars. Vernon Reid and writer/musician Greg Tate formed the Black Rock Coalition in the '80s for folks who enjoyed rock and had no hang-ups about melanin rich people doing it. Kandia Crazy Horse just published an important book that documents a history of the darker skinned noise makers. Although Living Colour stomped on this conflict the propaganda still exists.
After the break-up each member went solo searching for his soul embodiment in sound. Corey Glover recorded the fly loverman LP Hymns. Vernon Reid released the quirky Mistaken Identity, Will Calhoun traveled and played with others and bassist Doug Wimbish gigged around NYC. Through the process of Cameosis (long-term band inner battles) they pledged to rock together again. Their family issues were confronted and they looked at the world particularly after 9/11 and recorded an album that functions as a many colored energy blast. Colleidoscope is an aweless dive into veins of punk, funk, reggae, soul, breakbeats and mysticism.
Gelled elements musically grill the schizophrenia of mass media and 9/11, poor Black woman struggles and white supremacy among other topics such as the sinewy cover of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows." This album is a fan's happiness and the band's unity, which is, much more than a close-knit job. It is a paradox of truth-telling and hallucinatory pleasure. I was blessed to talk to the band after their fiery Detroit show that preceded the release of a new DVD of live footage.
Q. Describe the process of you guys getting back in the studio after ten years and doing your thing?
Corey Glover: Just tired of being tired just fed up with not really dealing with each other. The whole process of making this record was about us trying to deal with one another. When we first started it was like cool we got our own issues we'll deal with it and we will move on. The whole middle class work ethic didn't allow you to really deal with the person standing next to you they were not someone you hung out with and we were more than that so we really had to deal with that constantly. We always came to odds about that but now we have to do that we have to do it on the road we have to do it in the studio we have to do it in life because we are intertwined in each other's lives. Music is actually the smallest part of it because we spend an hour doing this and the other 23 around each other. If we're not spending the 23 hours with some kind of quality the one or two hours we do this is just gonna be bullshit.
Q. So what is a "Colleideoscope?"
Corey Glover: A kaleidoscope is a collision of ideas, when you look at the children's toy it's taking all kinds of things and smashing them up. That's the world we live in that if it weren't for the Egyptians we wouldn't have a numerical system. So the world is actually a Colleideoscope. Letters, numbers and ideas and things are a collision of cultures.
Q. So how do you think that's represented in this new record?
Corey Glover: We take a lot of things that are familiar to us and to most people and try to set them on the ear and try to really make them give them a different kind of voice. Like take a song like "Flying" which takes the juxtaposition of this large event and narrowing it down to something singular going from the macro to the micro which is something you don't hear about. The whole idea of September 11th is that it's an event it's 9/11 it has its own copyrighted thing when it was much more than that. It wasn't about 2000 people it was more than that even though it's sort of a small idea. The idea of one person who lived a workaday life and this one catastrophic event that changed it but in the context of this bigger thing it becomes poignant. Americans attached this thing to it like why did they do this to us? Why do they hate us so much? A friend of mine worked across the street from it and watched the whole thing go down and my concern was Lisa. To take that idea and make some sense out of it is a tough-enough idea. We live in a society where fear permeates whatever it is we're doing it out of fear you know plastic sheeting and duct tape is about fear not about dealing with the real reality of what's really going on. We started building these fences.
Q. Can you tell me about "Choices Mash Up?"
Corey Glover: It's about consumerism. It's like this idea like let's go back to this September 11th thing. They said don't be afraid go shopping. What's that about? Don't be afraid go to KMART. What's that got to do with anything?
Q. But you kept saying "Are we not the sons of slaves?"
Corey Glover: It's the idea you were told to go shopping and that's exactly what you did. The idea that the things you have put a buffer between you and the real world and that's not what it really is you know the idea that if I have an Escalade I'm gonna be fine I'm gonna be safe. This thing is not what it's about the thing only circumvents the real ideas of who you are and what you are.
Q. I'm gonna backtrack a bit you guys did "Elvis Is Dead" and somewhere the 50th anniversary of Rock and Roll is gonna be celebrated around the recording of his first song. I wanna ask you what are the connections people are making to Elvis?
Corey Glover: The song was not in any way to slag off Elvis because he would've readily admitted the stuff he listened to the jook joints he went to and the folks that inspired him to be what he has become. The interesting thing about Elvis to me is even though there's this thing about him now he was just a poor white trash from Tupelo, Mississippi. Who of us couldn't relate to that? Who couldn't relate to a truck driver trying to get his? That's what I really loved about him plus I thought the movies were really hilarious.
Q. What's happening with the Black Rock Coalition?
Vernon Reid: We just did an all female tribute to Nina Simone and Tamar Kali was the musical director of that. It was a tribute and it was an academic symposium. We had a panel discussion it turned out well it was sold out. That was one of the things we did lately now we're trying to sort out a book that's coming out.
Q. The St. Martin's Press thing?
Vernon Reid: Yeah the Black rock book and it's really good because now there's like a whole discussion about the break-up of Fishbone. Last time I saw Norwood he had a brilliant thing he was gonna take all the concert footage from back in the day and film the current tour and put it together to do a movie. The next thing I heard was they were out the frame. Darryl McNeil is a minister of information for the BRC, a great intellect about the music and a great writer. And his thing was once Dirty Walt was out the whole thing was over. Dirty Walt really was like the glue in a way he wasn't like the star of the show but his presence was like the moral center of the thing. That him and Norwood really embodied like the Fishbone thing because there is nothing to counterbalance Angelo's like…..
Q. Extremism?
Vernon Reid: Extremism.
Q. Do you think the Black Rock Coalition is really necessary now that Lenny did his thing and you guys were really successful?
Vernon Reid: Community is always necessary and that's what it started out as and that's what really necessary. It became this whole thing about racism and rock and on a level the Black Rock Coalition was never supposed to right the wrongs of the industry. It started out as a community of friends and like-minded friends and it became this community of like-minded artists and that's what's really necessary. Whether it's the Black Rock Coalition by name or not that community. It's funny because I was asked about the anniversary of Elvis's passing and I did a thing on nightline with Chuck D. The thing about Elvis is you have to separate Elvis the singer from Elvis the poor white trash kid. He really was a vessel on one level he was like the Eminem of his time. If you were to say that Eminem is the Elvis of hip hop I don't think that's true he was like the Eminem of his time before he went to the Army like when he was touring with B.B. King and Colonel Tom Parker who's a Dutch National he was the one that engineered Elvis Inc. because Scotty Moore who was his guitarist was his first manager. It was a very interesting situation I think that Chuck D he said we have to look at this cat and separate what he did from what he meant. Black people we have for a long time had this ideological thing we've had this Black man thing first like I'm a Black man first and a human second it's like an all Black Power thing kind of an artificial creation that only America could've created. It's like only American conditions could've created Malcolm X.
Q. Do you think that since you guys have come along and Lenny Kravitz have come through the door people are more receptive to seeing Black guys do rock?
Corey Glover: You think that they would be but the door only opened that wide for either one of us and people eat through this and try to Svendust us and it's like that. It's palatable to a degree and it's not so much about race as Vernon said before but the whole ideology of culture if it has too much culture in it, it's tough for people to take.
Vernon Reid: That's the other thing too if you're doing something that is really is about where you're coming from it's a double-edged thing. On the one hand if you tell an essential truth about the human condition anyone would be able to relate to it. Like when Midnight Oil did "Beds Are Burning" most people don't know they're talking about the Aboriginal situation and don't care because the melody is dope it's a great song. Whenever I talk to people in the music industry especially Black folks that I've met you know on the R and B side or whatever there's this very patronizing attitude like "You know our people don't understand that" which is kind of like denies us our innate sophistication about things to discern the different qualities of things. It's like a self-fulfilling thing. Really to answer your question I went to see Lenny Kravitz and Lenny Kravitz is a rock star, a rock star I mean people were really feeling him in that way. And you know his thing unfortunately to me is tied to whether or not he has a hot song like a lot of people. If he comes out with a "Fly Away" every album America is gonna love him. The love is real but the love is conditional and if you don't get that it will destroy you. It almost destroyed Mariah Carey. I have more empathy than I thought I would ever have for Axl Rose because Axl is going through it. Unless he figures out how to have a rapport with Slash and really be able to squash the beef or the demons he'll never be able to move on. Whether Slash is in Guns and Roses or not.
Corey: That's what happened to us.
Q. What do you guys think of the innovations in hip hop?
Vernon Reid: There was swing and bebop came along and Louie Armstrong couldn't stand that and he called it Chinese music, then Coltrane and everybody said he lost his mind, Ornette Coleman, then Dylan went electric and they said he sold out and it's the same thing. There's gonna come a music and no one's gonna understand what it is. It's gonna happen by accident some technological thing and then hip hop is gonna be threatened. Right now hip hop seems invincible because everything you hear is hip hop. But there was a time when pop music was like Mel Torme like Sinatra in "Strangers of The Night" Rock and Roll was something not to be dealt with, it was a fad. When hip hop came out I remember "Rapper's Delight" and I thought this is gonna be huge because the form of it not interpreting the melody he was speaking directly and that was the thing I thought was gonna make this thing huge. It splintered off into all these things at the same time it's a music that's so not free. In the sense of it's so insular and so self-referential. That that's the thing that threatens to make hip hop collapse on itself.
Corey Glover: It's already started you know what people are realizing is that people aren't buying as much hip hop as they used to. As much of its commercial appeal is weighing it. Something may happen and it may turn around but the idea that it hasn't gone beyond itself. I mean it has but I mean there's the Asian Dub Foundation and all this other stuff that's out there that you can find. But what's considered commercial and all this stuff has not moved past "Rapper's Delight."
Vernon Reid: You know on a level there is some stuff on the rise that no one even wants to speak on too loudly. But point of fact the Latin world is on the rise. Latin culture and Latin music is the culture that is starting to supplant rap culture in the American minds. I mean as a political voting block on the level of economics that's the thing that's coming up.
Q. Musically who would some of those people you are referring to?
Vernon Reid: I would say bands like Molotov like a lot of the Mexican bands out of Mexico City, Control Machete, Ikuo, Illya Kuryaki. There's all these bands not to mention Cypress Hill. Like Cypress Hill is dope because they'll do a record that's all in Spanish.
Q. Who are some women who changed rock and roll?
Vernon Reid: I love what Meshell is doing.
Corey Glover: I like what Skin is doing now, she's got this Grace Jones kind of thing going on.
William Calhoun: Tina Turner and Bjork.
Vernon Reid: I would say Skin. I loved the last Skunk Anansie record. She's a terrific artist I think Ani DeFranco is dope her last record is so it's incredible. Cause she's incredible because she's an independent business woman, she's a helluva guitar player, phenomenal songwriter and arranger. She got the band with horns basically bass guitar, drums, trumpet and saxophone. Another person that's dope is Tamar Kali she does all the arrangements. You know like 99 dropped off the face of the planet. She is a trained brass player and she arranges.
Q. Tell me about "Song Without Sin?"
Vernon Reid: Corey and I have this connection. From the very beginning Corey and I would write together and the songs we wrote together have this particular thing like "Middleman" or "Never Satisfied" or "Fight The Fight." The songs that we wrote together "Song Without Sin" we wrote about 8 or 9 different things. It really came together. The break-up was hard on our relationship and my relationship with Will. Being able to write again was the biggest indication that the healing had been taken hold. In a real way and so a lot of what I feel about that song. It's about we connected as writers as we have this song cycle at the beginning of Colleideoscope all the songs up to "Back In Black" which is really all about the 9/11 thing. This whole idea that someone has the right to determine they going to attack somebody they gonna judge what another country is doing. And if you think about it people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. If you take a longer historical look almost every country has fought bloody wars for sovereignty. There are certain historians that say the Native Americans are the great victims in all this there were a people actually living here when the people who became Native Americans crossed over from Asia they displaced the people who were already living here as well. So it goes everyone is God there's that thing. But because we don't think historically Americans don't think historically they're ahistorical and that's the biggest problem.
Corey Glover: In 15 years Saddam Hussein has gone from being our best buddy to public enemy number one. Same thing with Bin Laden same with a whole bunch of people.
Vernon Reid: Convenience a politics of convenience and you overlook what is convenient. How does China not count in the axis of evil? Because of the Tiananmen Square. There's no discussion about them killing their own citizens. And those citizens had erected their own Statue Of Liberty. So they completely identified with the American thing and they got housed for it.
Corey Glover: The position we took on that song the particular character singing it was taking the idea of one of the hijackers and their whole ideology like you're more interesting when you're lying. Or the idea we can do all this and then we can go home so taking these ideological pieces of people's minds that work on both sides there are zealots on both sides and just saying you know at the end of it he who is without sin. Who is really to blame are we going to remain in our victimhood or we're the catalysts? What came first the chicken or the egg? That cyclical sort of thing goes on and on and you'll never get the right answer.
