Show Review: Gil Scott-Heron Today

I tried to curb my anticipation for Gil Scott-Heron’s performance at the recently made over Regency Ballroom last Friday. But how could I? I wanted him to amaze, to enrapture with his musical poetics, and most secretly, to redeem my nebulous view of a 70s era, politicized soulfulness unrivaled by today’s musicianship. It’s an idealistic and surely ridiculous image we children of the 80s have learned of the decade before ours. But it’s one so ingrained and endlessly reminded that we can’t seem to shake it free.

While Los Angeles revival funk band Orgone grooved (peep their solid cover of “Funky Nassau”), singer Fanny Franklin expressed an equal excitement about bearing witness to the legend. And when Scott-Heron finally stepped onto stage, strutting choppily to the microphone, the audience erupted in wailing applause and shouts. He looked older and moved with certain difficulty, his body appearing thin underneath his loose fitting clothes. His face was angular and gaunt with patches of gray hair pouring from the sides of his hat and from his chin. A lady sitting in front of me asked incredulously if that old man indeed was Gil. I nodded with certainty but really had no idea. After all, he’s hardly recognizable compared to his younger self clad with the iconic afro and psychedelic garb. Today, it’s a rare occurrence to see Gil Scott-Heron. He has been in and out of prison for the past decade on drug and parole transgression charges. Some reports imply his suffering from being HIV positive, something Scott-Heron addressed perhaps indirectly when he told the Regency that a media frenzy on the internet continues to concoct all sorts of chimeras about his life.

Ebbing our immediate impressions, Scott-Heron opened with a consciously cheesy comedy routine where he got comfortable with the crowd. It reminded me of the legend’s simple humanity -- like a venerable uncle who still tells bad jokes at a family dinner. As soon as the routine verged on the unbearable, he transitioned into a monologue and solo song in tribute to Sister Fannie Lou Hamer. And when Scott-Heron’s voice boomed forth from his brittle body, everyone immediately felt his unparalleled soulfulness and brilliance. With age, Scott-Heron’s bright voice has gained a hoarse resonance, adding even more layers to his street inspired poetics and wisdom.

Gil Scott-Heron guided his soul-jazz outfit, the Amnesia Express, through some of the strongest moments of his catalogue. The band retained a decidedly solid hold on their expressionistic 70s earthliness but bent towards a lush, jazzy psychedelia. Although technically rusty and hiccuping occasionally with offbeat rhythms, it worked. Scott-Heron bellowed “We Almost Lost Detroit” to set the mood for a conflicted era shaped as much by violence as hope and love. He lamented today’s popular understanding of jazz as a sterile and passive musical style with a charging take on “Is That Jazz?” And in waxing poetic to introduce “Winter In America”, Scott-Heron pondered whether the season’s indifferent coldness might be revenge for us cherishing the other seasons more. A fifteen minute version of “The Bottle” -- sung in a dreamy, melancholic tone -- swept the climax. The performance swayed from lyrical musings to groove laden songs and improvised solos, each song extended into a prolonged and interwoven narrative.

Despite the real possibility of coming off trite, there was a remarkable sincerity to Gil Scott-Heron. His creative expression stemmed from life experience rather than a need to perform a spectacle and preach a message before a crowd. Song reflected life and life in turn was shaped and illuminated by song. For a moment I felt that magnitude of revolutionary spirit burning distant in another hazy generation. It was aged and hardened in one man’s beautiful, gravely voice, and filled the auditorium with its sweetness.

Rapper Poets: DOOM vs. Bukowski

Two weeks ago DOOM (dropping the MF) crept out of the shadows to unleash an apocalyptic maelstrom onto heads. His latest effort, Born Like This, is still resonating in the soundwaves, listeners and critics alike scrambling to make coherent DOOM's catastrophically pleasing formula. I don't plan to give any definitive answers here, but I anticipate that the album's title offers some clues to understanding DOOM's broodingly vicious cartoonery.



It is rare that a rapper makes reference to a white American poet of longstanding acclaim in the cannon. Although it would be unfair to call the haggardly magnificent Charles Bukowski a conventional member of the West's finest lyricists. DOOM chooses the title "Born Like This" to directly reference the revealing documentary on the life and work of Los Angeles' most prolific barfly, Bukowski: Born Into This (2003). A poet born into ugliness and horror and loneliness; a rapper born like a cartoon clip and masked warrior and tragic tale.

In the documentary, director John Dullaghan splices some of Bukowski's spoken poems over archived footage of the man going about his daily affairs. The montage of Bukowski's keen lyrical despair over sparse 1960's - 70's Hollywood is gripping if not completely unsettling. The brutally honest and troubled words of "Dinosauria, We" are particularly compelling.



DOOM's "Cellz" begins with revamped vocals cut from the film's clips of "Dinosauria, We", an apocalyptic meditation on the filth bred by humankind in the end of days. The minimal quality of the Bukowski's short of breath rhythm is filled out with gong-like dissonant drums warning of explosive terrors and shots. Dramatized keys straight out of a cult detective film whirl "Dinosauria" into a hyperbolic cartoonish tale. And perhaps that's all it ever was. The end of days foretold by Bukowski sets the horizon for DOOM's coming, "Born out of that / The sun hidden there / Awaiting the next chapter".

DOOM / Cellz (10) / Born Like This

Enter DOOM, a rapper with poetic ambitions. A mask striving for authenticity. A name always changing. A lyricism fighting to be heard. And some unadulterated, mad live, ridiculously talented flow from the metal faced bard.

For more tales of human caused mass destruction like "Dinosauria, We" look for Bukowski's insidious collection, Last Night of the Earth Poems.