Wildfire returns from Australian tour

Chamikara WEERASINGHE

Wildfire is back following a successful tour of Australia after performing in Melbourne and Sydney at two charity concerts.

The band had been there for two weeks. The very reason that In Tune had to do without its segment, Guitar Secrets with Derek, the leader of Wildfire.

I met Derek last week at his new home in Colombo where the outfit has started practising on the second floor. Derek was giving guitar lessons to two young students.

I asked him about his Australian experience.

“Oh, it was wonderful. We gave two charity concerts, one at Melbourne’s Moorabin Town Hall with DJ. Naz. And another concert in Sydney, sponsored by Rhamba Entertainment,” he said.

The concerts had been organised to raise funds for a cancer hospital.

The news is that Derek had played trumpet and keyboards at these concerts.

Referring to the Wildfire’s current musical bent, Derek said that they were concentrating more on dance and club music.

Wildfire plays at Keg on Fridays and at Clancy’s on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“We have a different rapporteur for dances,” he said.

The band’s drummer, percussionist and singer CJ said that their success in Australia was largely due to this fact.

“We had one hell of a time in Australia,” he said.

The line-up of Wildfire has changed since October last year. The band’s current line-up is Mano Ratnayaka on Sax and Keyboards, Channa Galappatti on bass and vocals, Bonnie Paul on vocals, Derek in guitar, trumpet, keyboards and vocals and CJ on drums and vocals.

Derek said that it would be necessary for any dance band in Sri Lanka to concentrate on wider range of music in the Sri Lankan context.

“It is wrong to cling on to any particular style when it comes to listening to music. You got to listen to all styles, jazz, rock, country , hip hop or any style,” Derek went on.

“Only if you listen you will find why you do not like that particular style of music. May as well you will start liking that style. It is a process of developing your musicianship and rapporteur,” he said.

“ Not only that you may be playing a guitar, but also do not restrict yourself listening to guitar riffs alone. Listen to the drums, bass, and all the other instruments so that you get to know what it is all about. This is very important when you play together as a unit in a band.”

“Most local players in bands have an attitude problem when it comes to playing as a unit especially when they are better players than other members in the band. They overpower one another instead of blending together,” Derek pointed out.

“If you are better than the rest you have got to share your knowledge with each other. Music is all about sharing. A band is like a chain. No matter how good a player you are, if one of the members were weak in some department it will reflect on everybody. So you have got to keep things together in order to progress,” he said.

If you are a better player, you will have to help uplift a player with lesser knowledge, so that his improvement may be felt by all the other members, he added.

So much for how you should approach making music with others. In Tune will have Derek on very important things later on, like rhythm. Till we meet again folks.

Bob Marley not just a Cultural Ambassador

If he had done nothing but record Catch a Fire, Bob Marley would still be known as the person who introduced reggae music to millions of Americans.

But more than just a cultural ambassador, Robert Nesta Marley was a fabulously talented songwriter who could mix protest music and undeniable pop as skilfully as Bob Dylan; even before Marley’s death at age 36, he was becoming a true culture hero — the first major rock artist to come out of a Third World country.

More than 20 years on, his records sound as fresh as ever, something proved every week by the astonishing continued sales of his greatest-hits package Legend.

Although Marley is best known for the string of memorable albums he recorded during the ‘70s, the original Wailers — Marley, Peter Tosh, and Neville “Bunny Wailer” Livingston — were a leading Jamaican vocal trio in the ‘60s, cutting R&B-flavored sides with distinctive island rhythms.

The development of the Wailers into a self-contained band mirrors the evolution of reggae itself; gradually, the group shook off the singles-minded approach of the early Jamaican studios and forged an expansive new groove from established local styles like ska, mento, and bluebeat.

Emerging as a fiery topical songwriter and spiritually compelling frontman, Marley led the Wailers to international acclaim with the release of two startling albums in 1973.

With stalwart bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett and drummer Carlton Barrett pumping out incendiary “riddims” behind the Wailers’ smoky harmonies, Catch a Fire is a blazing debut.

“Concrete Jungle” and “Slave Driver” crackle with streetwise immediacy, while “Kinky Reggae” and “Stir It Up” (a pop hit for Johnny Nash in ‘73) revel in the music’s vast capacity for good-time skanking.

“Stop That Train” and “400 Years,” both written by Peter Tosh, indicate the original Wailers weren’t strictly a one-man show. Burnin’ glows even hotter; “Get Up, Stand Up” backs its activist message with an itchy, motivating beat.

“I Shot the Sheriff” (covered by Eric Clapton in 1974) and “Small Axe” show Marley’s verbal and melodic skills growing by leaps and bounds; he expertly blends personal testimony with political philosophy to make enduring points about institutionalized racism.

Tosh and Livingston left for solo careers after that album and were effectively replaced by the “I-Threes” trio: Marcia Griffiths, Rita Marley (Mrs. Bob), and Judy Mowatt. Natty Dread captures the refurbished Wailers at an ambitious peak.

“No Woman, No Cry” features Marley’s most soulful vocal performance; while avoiding crippling despair, “Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)” and “Rebel Music (Three o’Clock Roadblock)” articulate the anger of the oppressed and downtrodden; the title track and “So Jah Seh” posit the tangled web of Rastafarian belief without slipping totally into the cosmos. Live! documents a thrilling, tight-as-a-drum 1975 London performance of highlights from the first three albums.

On Rastaman Vibration, Marley starts to fall back on pat formulas and ganja-stoked rhetoric. But the grimly prophetic “War” and the deceptively feel-good “Positive Vibration” stand out on an album that holds up to repeated listening (and dancing).

Britney in suprise comeback concert

Troubled pop princess Britney Spears has given her first concert for nearly three years, just over a month after coming out of rehab and reaching a divorce settlement.

The teen idol put on a 20-minute show in front of a few hundred revellers at San Diego’s House of Blues nightclub, lip-syncing her way through a handful of her most popular hits, local media reports said.

The impromptu concert came after a tumultuous several months that saw Spears give birth to her second child, file for divorce, and bizarrely shave her head before checking into a rehab clinic.

Tuesday’s show was billed as a concert by an unknown band called the MMs but word that Spears was to perform had spread like wildfire on the Internet in the days leading up to the event.

However Spears’s comeback performance received mixed reviews from those among the audience who had reportedly shelled out up to 500 dollars on the black market for 35-dollar tickets to the show.

“It wasn’t a good move for her career,” ticket-holder Mackenzie Trimble told the San Diego Tribune. “When you come out and do four songs and lip-sync ... that’s not what Britney fans came to see.” But one female fan was impressed. “I think she worked the stage, her body looked great. So it was good to see her finally come back and prove us all wrong,” she told Los Angeles television station KNBC.

Spears shot to superstardom in late 1998, with her smash-hit debut album “Baby One More Time,” which she followed with another chart-topping success the following year, “Oops! ... I Did It Again.”

According to Time magazine, Spears has sold over 76 million records worldwide and her 31 million albums sold in the US make her the eighth best-selling female artist in American music history.

Yet while Los Angeles-based Spears is idolized by many teenage fans, her personal life has become a favorite topic for debate in an insatiable entertainment media. AFP