Fun Myths and Inauthentic Fun: Robert Johnson and Gogol Bordello

The man that rock and roll fans most associate with acoustic blues, Robert Johnson, is not one of the more accessible blues singers. His music does speak for itself, provided you can get past the thin 1930s recording quality and the sometimes difficult-to-decipher singing style, but what’s really won Mr. Johnson more acclaim than other (I would say equally) worthy blues singers of his time like Blind Willie McTell, Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James, is the particularly alluring body of legend that surrounds him. The stories vary in credibility – that he was fatally poisoned at 27 for sleeping with another man’s wife (probably more or less true); that only two photographs of him were ever taken (true as far as anyone knows); that a few weeks before his death he had gone electric and started a rock band-like trio, fifteen years before Elvis (it’s at least conceivable); that he had sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads in exchange for his phenomenal guitar skills (most likely he just practiced a lot) – but as a whole they tend to build him up into a sort of metaphysical being sent to earth to plant the seed of rock and roll. Much has been written about the cult of authenticity, and how it’s really a sham, and I don’t have anything to add on that topic, but with Robert Johnson it’s not authenticity that matters, but myth, and even though it’s a sham the mythology really does work – it really makes listening to his music more fun. The question is, does it work better before you find out it’s all just myth – that he was probably just a regular entertainer trying to make a living and get laid?

At the other end of the myth spectrum is the Brooklyn-based “Gypsy punk” band Gogol Bordello. Roma music has very little place for the illusion of authenticity – like the culture, it’s heterogeneous and malleable to the point that the “real thing” is impossible to pin down – and it has no scruples about wearing its appropriation on its sleeve, which makes it pretty much immune to origin myths. (Their Web site has an “Origins” section, but it’s jokey and it seems designed to instantly shoot down any sense of mystique that might develop: “But let’s not get too nostalgic here…” ends one page. “That was basicly [sic] two weeks ago.”) Robert Christgau writes that the guitarist of the Serbian Roma band Kal, who toured with Gogol Bordello, uses Chicago blues-style licks “not as a reference but as a common resource, just like the Nusrat Fatah Ali Khan speed syllabics.” Gogol Bordello relates to its source material in much the same way. There’s certainly some artifice to it – I suspect that the singer, Eugene Hütz, who grow up in the Ukraine, exaggerates his thick accent on purpose, and I’m pretty sure some of the grammatical errors in his English lyrics are intentional. But when I listen to the music I don’t care – if Hütz is exaggerating the signs of his eastern-European origins, he’s not doing it to distance or even distinguish himself from the listener. It’s not self-conscious multiculturalism, but more like aculturalism, and the result is that the band actively resists being mythologized as exotic. They never sound like anything more mysterious than a bunch of people playing whatever they want to play, not worrying about what cultures they’re borrowing from.

~therighthandofnixon

Epic of sorts

In recent days I have been engaged in discussions regarding the culture of founding myths. The idea behind such a myth has for the most part inspired great nationalism. The most dominant example we’ve discussed is that of the Aeneid by Virgil. Shortly after Rome becomes an Empire, one which has decimated Carthage and enslaved Greece, the Aeneid is produced as proof of the godly heritage from which the Empire has formed. When looking at it through this national lens we can start to make sense of the treatment of Dido, the founder of Carthage, who from the Roman vantage point must be defeated by Aeneas, after all Rome defeats Carthage thrice.

We except these myths as art today and yes many do look at the nationalistic aspects of such epics, but what interests me more is to find the examples today of such writing. One obvious example is that of Fawzi Mellah’s Elissa (Dido) which romanticizes the founding of Carthage for a post-colonial Tunisia.

In both cases Elissa and the Aeneid the intent is to create a national epic. But one approaches the story from an imperialistic point of view (that is Rome who has defeated/conquered/ and ultimately destroyed Carthage) and the other is from a truly national, post imperialism point of view (that is Tunisia redefining its founding myth). Said had it right when he described how nationalism follows imperialism and perhaps Elissa is the best example of that relationship.

But enough of the other side of the Atlantic.  Sure we have our revolution but where are our founding myth. Why try and stay close to the facts? why not expand the Revolution into some large blown up lie that can unite us around what America once meant? Well I don’t mean to get political but the divisions today are just absurd and I’m starting to believe that our salvation is not in debate or politics or journalism but in art, in literature and in the founding of a national epic that can bring America behind what we were founded for.

-Huysmans