h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In my room I have a Fons CQ 30 with an SME (model 3009 Series II improved) arm and a Shure cartridge. An Armstrong 600 Tuner/Amp provides the amplification for my IMF speakers. An AIWA AD-WX 515 casette player and a JVC XL-Z 464 CD player complete my sound system. I have, on occasion, turned the volume up as high as I can stand - mainly in response to the DROSS that my neighbours play which brings me to my main point ...... It is not the equipment that is interesting but what do you play on it?

My system recreates the sounds of all my favourite African bands perfectly - some of it sounds better in my living room than at live gigs but, sadly the visuals are somewhat lacking!

The Nitpicker

Welcome, fellow audiophile Nitpicker !

That sounds like a nice turntable you have there. And is the Armstrong valve-driven by any chance? A friend of my father's had a huge great Armstrong receiver many years ago, but I don't know what's happened to the firm since those days.

My knowledge of the African music scene is predictably limited to the Four Brothers and Ladysmith Black Mombaza, so maybe you can enlighten me further. My own musical tastes embrace practically everything (except opera!), and I recently bought a load of classic Blue Note jazz from the 50's and 60's which is getting listened to a lot.

I'll get your room posted up asap, but pressures of work might slow it down. Let's keep talking audio in the meantime...

My Armstrong is old but not that old although I have a friend who still uses Quad amps and they do sound very good. When I bought my amp it was advertised in a mag rather like LOOT and very cheap so, being suspicious, I got the aforementioned friend who worked for Armstrong at one time to phone a friend at the company and check it out. Turned out that it had been exported to the US and not sold so Armstrong brought it back and converted it to run here and it was an absolute bargain at about 30% of the list price for a new one here! At that time the company was located in Holloway Road, Islington. By the time I had moved to within a mile of there they had moved to Walthamstow which is only a 15 minute tube ride followed by a 5 minute walk. They are now more into repairs and I ALWAYS take my hi fi, TV or video recorder to them for maintenance and a very good job they do too!

As regards African music - check out my only Guide Entry to date which is a mammoth elegy to my favorite festival of all time, WOMAD, and just go through checking out the artists mentioned there (not all come from Africa but I haven't mentioned any that I do not like without saying so). My very favourite style of African music is soukous which comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Papa Wemba is the foremost exponent of this style BUT he has been forced by greedy record companies to produce albums which they think will appeal to Europeans so check out his offerings on Sonodisc rather than the ones on Real World. The Andy Kershaw Sessions CD is a good introduction. This is a very good rule to follow with all African artists - avoid CDs put out by European and US companies in favour of smaller (often French) companies. Other Zaireans of note include Mbilia Bel, Tabu Ley le Rochereau, Kanda Bongo Man, Koffi Olomide and, my personal favourite who actually lives in Tanzania, the fantastic Remmy Ongala.

If you don't want to/can't afford to buy these CDs on spec I believe that if you access the fROOTS site there should be a webcast available of all sorts of World Music (a term I hate because it seems to me to be just lazy and ignorant to lump all non-European/non-US music together) so you can get a sample of what is on offer and go from there. Bring back Andy Kershaw I say!!!

Sorry to rant on so long - hope you do get round to checking some of this out and that you enjoy it when you do. Keep in touch

the Nitpicker

Wow, thanks for all that. I'll print that off and take it with me next time I'm record-shopping. How come the strong interest in this material? Are you African yourself, or just fed up with commercially-dictated Western pop?

I got interested in African music about 17 years ago when a friend had a record by King Sunny Ade (Nigeria). At that time I was already fed up with the state of pop music and was mainly into Irish music (the Moving Hearts, Christy Moore etc) and anything differrent was welcome but the real turning point was the first time I went to WOMAD. As described in my guide entry the programme was essential reference material for all my shopping over the next year and it just went from there. This is not to say that I have absolutely no interest in anything other than 'World' music but it does tend to be based on a combination of excellent lyrics and good music e.g. They Might Be Giants and Pulp. Other reasons I love African music is that all the musicians can actually play their instruments and live gigs are usually in small venues so that you can actually SEE the show rather than watching something on a huge screen (in which case you might just as well be watching it on TV with the sound fed through your HI FI!) Hope you enjoyed the WOMAD piece - feel free to recommend it to anyone else who might be interested.

Hey, you just reminded me - I have a King Sunny Ade record buried amongst the vinyl. Must dig that out. The radio show I work for had a kora player (forgotten his name, sorry) on last week. Now THAT looks like a hard instrument to master...

Off to look at your WOMAD piece now.

Hey, Nitpicker - that's a body of work there!

You do a good job selling WOMAD, but unfortunately for me, big festivals are a thing of the past. Much though I love live music, the privations associated with seeing it at a festival just outweigh the fun these days. Anyway, I get more kicks playing with my own band (if we ever get a gig this century that is...)

Know what you mean about Kora playing - my best memory of Kora players is of a guy I drove to a festival in Cardigan. On Sunday morning as we loaded the van he was playing Beatles tunes to entertain us. He later played with the Afro-Celt crowd on their second CD. Other great Kora players include Toumani Diabate and the many members of the Jobarteh family.

Also know what you mean about big festivals. As I mentioned in the WOMAD thing I don't go any more and part of that is the size of it - just too many people, too much hassle and over commercialisation.

As for getting a gig this century - you should try getting a gig for a band of Africans who are resident in the UK! Most music promoters do not seem to think that they can possibly be authentic when actually fROOTS praised the CD made by the band I 'manage' to the skies (saying it is better than anything recorded in Paris in recent memory) but still no enquiries about booking them. Very frustrating!
Check them out - the link is on the WOMAD item.

Hope you find some music you like from the many artists mentioned.