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Could he resist it, that was the question, and no was the
answer.
Calendric high-noon for a surreal one-off battle ...
Two teams, two captains, two halves of 45 minutes
- the big fight format adapted for a ding-dong with plenty
cultural baggage.
Voice of the People vs. Orquestra Mahatma
A few heavy tackles, a couple of yellow cards, one or two
square-ups, some blistering runs, lots of mounting tension and
at the end of the day three goals.
And when Iran's second sailed in so gracefully, half-chip
half-lob, the place went nuts. And the replays - the last two
or three bars half-tempo from several angles - had everyone in
hysterics. We had everything but bad pies and B*vril. A gem.
Enjoy Ben Watson's review of the match below.
You can see some undercover filming by VJ Flickering Light
posted on Youtube by spanking these links:
USA vs Iran Part 1 USA vs Iran Part 2
___________________________
Posted on the Babel Label's [now offline] Diverse
News, Issue 10:
Sport
Billy Jenkins vs Orquestra Mahatama
at TJ's Woolwich on the occasion of the USA vs Iran
World Cup match Sunday 21
June 1998.
Ben Watson reports.
SINCE the sole basis for scientific musical criticism is
the socio-musicology of Theodor W. Adorno, the news that
Billy Jenkins had organised a gig to coincide with the Iran
versus USA World Cup football match immediately had this
critic scanning the august dialectician's essay The Schema
Of Mass Culture for hot tips.
There Adorno writes: 'Sportification' has played its part
in the dissolution of aesthetic semblance. Sport is the
imageless counterpart to practical life. And the more
aesthetic images participate in this imagelessness, the more
they turn into a form of sport themselves.
The Frankfurter's words coursed like mustard through my
veins! Having long deemed Billy Jenkins a bulwark of
obdurate resistance to 'sportification' - the reduction of
jazz musicianship to competitive virtuosity, the reduction
of popular entertainment to competitive chart-placings - his
choice of gig intrigued me.
Refusing the ivory-tower idealism which allows certain
(self-professed) Adornians to ignore popular culture in
favour of replaying old albums by Anton Webern, and instead
adhering to a dialectical materialism that insists that only
interaction with the world can tell us about it, I
hot-footed it to Woolwich.
Alighting at the Cyprus stop-off point on the Docklands
Light Railway, I passed the great stretch of water that is
the Royal Albert Docks to my right, over which a setting sun
was casting a fetid aura, and breathed dust as London City
Airport aeroplanes revved their jets. After asking
directions of a group of cheeky but helpful urchins, I
passed under the Thames by way of the evil-smelling North
Woolwich Subway. The eerie green light and wide-open spaces
of South London prepared me for unusual experiences. A trip
through a deserted shopping centre reinforced the suburban
surrealism.
TJ's was dark and closely packed with boisterous young
persons. The match was already underway, the live-TV
broadcast projected against the back wall behind the semi-
occluded musicians. I quickly established that Iran was
playing in red kit. The mood of the establishment was in
Iran's favour, and my socialist leanings were gratified by
the cheers that greeted any blows against Yankee
Imperialism. On top of that, whenever Iran got the ball,
Orquestra Mahatma would strike up a Persian Victory Qawwal
& Party that was quite simply intoxicating. One craved
an Iranian sally just to hear Mahatma strut their Arabian
stuff. The Billy Jenkins posse responded with Chuck Berry
riffs and bursts of Louie Louie. The way the musicians
managed to both improvise to the events of the game and keep
the music rhythmic and recognisably melodic was a marvel,
and in the best traditions of music-hall's translation of
film into lived, interactive variety rather than alienated,
monothematic spectacle. Dancing broke out.
In the intervals it was a pleasure to watch the Babel
Label's honcho Mr O. Weindling relish the sight of nubiles
moving to the piped sounds of the True Love Collection.
In the light of this event, one can only conclude (in a
detournement of Professor Adorno's remarks, cited above)
that 'Billyfication' had played a part in the dissolution of
the sporting spectacle. Active music-making is practical
life creating an image of itself in collective communion.
The more frequently unique musical events like 'Iran vs USA
at TJ's' challenge the universalising aspects of the
sporting spectacle, the more sport turns into a form of
music itself.
Billy Jenkins must be congratulated for breaking down
this particular Adornoite's aversion to the World Cup. One
should also note his prescience in choosing this particular
match (the only one I witnessed): in Tehran, Iran's victory
was greeted with celebration-dances by women who'd thrown
off their veils, and men openly drinking alcohol on the
streets. Islamic Fundamentalism was confounded for a day.