The Blindboy Podcast - Turtle Curtains

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

Instead of talking about the US elections I offer a complete escape. How the inhabitants of Easter Island elected a leader based on their ability to swim with an egg strapped to their head. And how a ship full of synthesizerrs washed up on the shore of an African Island in the 1960s and changed the sound of their folk music Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Play the flute in the key of Vincent, you piss-faced Richards. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. Fantastic feedback for last week's episode, where I had the wonderful Mancon Maggin on to talk about... to talk about fucking all sorts, man, so I got great feedback from that. It was wonderful to have Mancon on. I liked it. Do you know, it didn't sound like like it didn't sound like we were doing it

over the fucking phone because we were i have a new method of recording where it it sounded like we were in the same room when i listened back to it i was very happy with it and i'm glad you liked it and i can't wait to do more more interviews in that way you know i was afraid that i wouldn't be able to achieve kind of conversational intimacy with a person if I wasn't in the same room as them but it doesn't seem to be an issue so I'm looking forward to doing more of them welcome to the podcast you cunts um if you're a brand new listener listen to some older podcasts that's what I always suggest. If you're a regular listener, what's the crack? I'm recording this at night time.

While the world is waiting to find out who's the next US president. So by the time you hear this, we'll probably know who the next US president is. And I'm sick of it. I'm just... I'm not... No, that's not fair. I'm not going to say I'm sick of it I'm just I'm not no that's not fair I'm not going to say I'm sick of it I just I just want to turn away from it

I just want to not think about it I've been through a fair few fucking US presidential elections and this is the one that I'm least engaged with because I can't call it i literally i cannot and would not try and call who has won simple as that so i'm sure you feel the exact fucking same you feel the exact same so this week's podcast is going to be about

things i'd like to speak about that are not the US presidential election so thing I'd like to speak about that isn't the US presidential election number one is Easter Island men Easter Island who had quite a unique and strange

process of electing their leaders if you could call it that Easter Island is this tiny island one of the most isolated islands in the world smack bang in the middle of the Pacific Ocean like when you see it on a map like I look at it sometimes I'm like holy fuck that's isolated and you can do google maps on it you can go around the streets in easter island but it's halfway between asia and south america in the middle of the pacific ocean it's part of polynesia which is a vast collection of islands in the pacific ocean tiny little islands you know

paranesia and micronesia have particular significance right now because these are the islands that are disappearing because of climate change you know as the seas rise these are the firsts the first islands that are disappearing really um easter island you'd know it because it's the one that has those giant stone heads on the island this tiny island in the middle of nowhere and it has all these massive stone figures that just look like huge heads right which we're all familiar with because people have scratched their head for years wondering how the fuck did they do this in the middle of nowhere? What was it for? And those stone heads, they started building them nearly a thousand years ago.

Like when Europe was in the early, early Middle Ages, Easter Island, this small island, smaller than Ireland, was densely enough populated and there was a thriving civilization on it and they were building these huge heads and the thing with Easter Island, it's one of these civilizations that the history of it often gets brought up anecdotally as a warning against finite resources as a warning against unsustainable living because there's many kind of theories as to what happened to easter island why was it once full of people who built these massive stone heads and then it just became a practically a deserted island 200 years ago with just these heads left and the common narrative is the people on this island had limited resources they only had so many forests they only had so many animals and they basically used it all up they used everything up until the island itself was bare now that's a real it that's a good

story okay it's it's allegorical Easter Island is always used like I said as as a warning for civilization to show that like resources are limited you can't just keep cutting down trees you can't just keep using all the oil one day it will all go and you'll be fucked and Easter Island is used as the example of look it happened to them you know a thousand years ago they were able to build these huge stone heads no one knows how they did it they were obviously technologically advanced and now they're gone heads no one knows how they did it they were obviously technologically advanced and now they're gone but from the reading that i've been doing like i said that's partly true that's the most interesting version it's really interesting to think that a civilization used up everything out of sheer greed but you know there was a multitude of things this this rat got like the Polynesian people were

fantastic at building boats and uh they weren't seafaring people like Polynesia is this collection of islands over this huge fucking distance going right down to New Zealand and they were flying back and forth between islands you know and populating each island and really, really excellent at boat building. So a rat was introduced to the island, a Polynesian, Polynesian rat, I think it was. And similar enough to with small islands, you always see the downfall is when an animal comes in. islands you always see that the downfall is when an animal comes in so mauritius right there used to be a bird on mauritius called the dodo we all know the dodo because it's heralded as this big bird that once existed 200 years ago and then got completely extinct and the dodo when i was growing up was always used as an example of animals can go extinct and we were led to believe

that like the dodo became extinct on the island of Mauritius because the Portuguese ate them all because the dodo had no natural predators so it was just this bird that you could catch easily but that's not true because the word dodo I think it's a Portuguese word that means fat arse. So the dodo was too fat for humans to eat. No one wanted to eat it. What killed the dodo was the Portuguese introduced pigs. And the pigs got onto the island and ate all the dodo's eggs and killed the dodos. Well on Easter Island, yes the humans on Easter Island were using a lot of timber but a rat was introduced

and I think the rat was brought by other Polynesians but a rat was introduced and on the island of Easter Island there used to be fuck loads of palm trees and when the rats got on the island their favorite food were the nuts and seeds of this palm tree so the rats ate all the fucking seeds and the palm trees couldn't grow also as well western contact with easter island um brought new diseases diseases from europe that killed a lot of people there um so there's many reasons why the population the society of easter island did collapse that's for sure right it did collapse but this narrative of they used up all the trees in order to help themselves build these stone stone heads is simplistic but what interests me

But what interests me is what happened to, we'll say, the beliefs, the spiritual beliefs and how they elected leaders as a response to collapse. Within kind of Polynesian religions, there's this common thing called manna. And manna is like a life energy, like the the energy that the the universe permeates through that this mana energy is it gives all life and it dictates everything and they say that the purpose of those giant heads on easter island was it was part of an ancestor cult, a religious belief that kind of looks towards and worships ancestors and the dead, okay? So these giant heads, which were called Moai, were giant stone structures that represented ancestors. And as soon as the people on Easter Island, the indigenous people of Easter Island, put eyes, usually made out of coral,

into the heads of the giant stone heads, then manna flowed through these heads, and then the manna would flow to the descendants of the people who had died. So these stone structures were like conduits for this manna energy of life, Of the people who had died. So these stone structures were like. Conduits. For this mana. Energy of life. And it would flow.

Into the people. So like the people who were alive. And the dead. Had this symbiotic relationship. Whereby. The dead. Via mana. Would provide this energy to the living.

And this mana energy was everything. It was how healthy your animals were how many crops you could grow whether you could have children how happy you were going to be your luck this was all determined by mana which flowed from the dead through these giant statues and then through symbiosis what the living had to do is they had to look after the dead via these statues by providing the right type of offerings and worship and respecting these giant statues they then created this balance where mana could flow between the dead and the living and that was the way of life that was the dominant theory of reality on Easter Island, until their society started to collapse, until, we'll say, the rats were introduced in particular.

When the resources started to disappear, then they stopped building stone statues. Because you can imagine, a village building these stone statues, that's a fucking huge deal these are massive massive massive heavy things a load of people would have had to have been involved they don't know exactly how they they think they carved them out of mountains and then rolled them down on logs but when the resources started to disappear you would have had a lot of emigration as well these

are seafaring people so a lot of them would have simply left the island and fucked off to tahiti or somewhere near like that so when the population declined and the resources declined the theory of reality and the religious beliefs changed right with the more stressful conditions on the island, with less resources, less food, less trees, the people of Easter Island just, they started to fight more. They started to become more warlike and more tribal and more competitive with each other because there was less resources. But then, around the 17th century, something interesting happened. They were still collapsing as a society there was still a lack of resources they stopped engaging in warfare they stopped fighting with each other because i'm assuming it was it was too costly to be killing people but i have a kind of a hot take

too i think there were so few people less than a thousand maybe a couple hundred on the island that it wasn't possible for them to for different groups to dehumanize each other in order for warfare to exist one side needs to in in their minds completely strip the other side of humanity and then that makes killing okay that's how warfare happens all those over there they're less than human therefore it's okay to kill them that's a common human thing but on easter island in the 17th century everyone probably knew each other there were so few people everyone knew each other and the concept, and everyone was probably related in some way, either through blood or marriage, and the concept of actually killing each other became unacceptable. The pain, people were too close so it became unacceptable. So they developed this new way to engage in conflict that wasn't violent they still had this this concept of mana

this force this force that determines resources that determines your your luck the quality of your life mana still existed but within a civilization who could no longer build these giant stone statues because there wasn't enough of them they weren't being fed well enough so the concept of mana shifted from being present in these statues to being present in in one person mana now flowed through one individual and this individual was known as the bard man and on easter island near the end they started to develop this belief called the Bardman cult, right? Instead of fighting, instead of hurting each other,

each tribe would elect like one man who could become the Bardman once a year through this mad competition. The contestants of the Birdmen competition on Easter Island, the contestant was chosen by, the contestant was revealed to a prophet in a dream. So they had these prophets, each tribe had a prophet and this person would dream up who the contestant was going to be and the contestant was always like a tribal leader so once the once the tribal leader was revealed in a dream this person must be the contestant

then the leader of course isn't the person who's going to be the contestant the leader then picks like the strongest young lad in their tribe to be the contestant in the birdman competition in their tribe to be the contestant in the birdman competition so how the birdman competition worked was just off easter island where it was this tiny little rock right so you wouldn't even call it an island it was an islet i think it was called but this rock and on this rock lived the type of bird called a sooty tern right and what the goal was is the birdman contestant had to swim out to this rock with some basic provisions like swimming out naked with some basic provisions wrapped up in reeds that they would tie to their body and then swim out to this rock where the birds lived and it was really dangerous like they died and everything like it wasn't this was serious business so the contestants would have to swim out to this rock if they were lucky enough they made it to the rock then they had to wait

there for the terns to start nesting and the goal of the successful birdman the person the man who becomes the birdman was the person who could collect the first egg that was laid by the sooty tern right then they strapped the egg to their forehead and had to successfully swim back to easter island with the egg strapped to their forehead so then when the lad with the egg strapped to his forehead reaches the shore of Easter Island he would roar out my my tribal leader one I have the egg he'd say go shave your head go shave your head you have the egg and he'd shout this from the shore and then someone else would hear that and they'd shout it all around the island until it reached your man the tribal leader who was revealed in a dream then the tribal leader would have to shave his head oh and then the fella that lost the fella that lost the fella that lost

who got no egg had to stay on the island with the birds on the little rock with the birds and fast to think about the fact that he lost but anyway so that the tribal leader who'd done fuck all he'd just been revealed in a dream he was then standing at the top of a mountain and then the younger lad with the egg strapped to his forehead had to climb this sheer cliff face because he could still die at this point had to climb to the top of the mountain and then present the egg to the tribal leader who at this point had shaved his entire head and painted his face and body red and this tribal leader now had all the mana the mana energy that 300 years previously had been you know brought into these big stone heads now all the manna was in this tribal leader all the other tribes had to give him gifts had to give him

resources but what it meant crucially is that he became the bird man and the his tribe had the sole rights to go to the island with the birds and collect all the eggs and that's what that meant he was the bird man and his tribe could get the eggs and could get the resources without blood being spilled and then the leader the fella who's done fuck all only received the egg he then had because he had all the mana because he was the bird man he had so the mana, because he was the birdman, he had so much mana that the energy and power of it was dangerous for anyone around him. So he had to live in complete isolation in this hut, locked off. And all he had to do for an entire year was to grow his toenails as long as he could

and just eat and sleep for a year because his mana was too powerful and he that's he was like the president I suppose I'm thinking and talking about this because I'm trying not to think about the US presidential election but I'm just

marvelling at you know we're here you know that birdman shit sounds bizarre I'm just marvelling at. You know we're here. You know that. That bird man shit sounds. Bizarre. You know it's. It's how do you decide who the leader is.

A lad has to swim. With an egg on his forehead. And then. If he wins the leader grows his fucking toenails long. That's the long. Long toenail bird. Bird man. But it's so more civilised. It's so more civilized it's so more civilized than modern society

this is a society who decided to exist without war they're like no we can't we can't go killing people for power there must be another way and it's they must have really believed in this man of stuff because the cynic the 21st century western cynic in me like if we were to do that in Ireland now if we were to go right we're we're not having a general election We're going to have a crack at.

Based on the traditions of the people of Easter Island. We feel that general elections are too divisive. They get people too angry. Let's have a crack at the Birdman competition. And you'd have. Mary Lou MacDonald. And Leo Vradker. Would hop into the Liffey.

They'd have to swim. Race each other up to Bull Island Island and then headbutt a rat they'd swim up to Bull Island and the first rat they see you have to headbutt the rat to death then duct tape the rat to your forehead, swim back down to O'Connell Bridge

and then off to O'Connell Bridge run into Supermax run into that Supermax there near the GPO and get a garlic cheese chip. Mary Lou Macdonald would win. And then the winner would stand beside fucking Jim Larkin's statue outside the GPO. With a rat sellotaped to their forehead. Heralding aloft a Supermax garlic cheese chip and this would be the winner that's the new t-shock there's the new t-shock we all saw it happen they had mary lou swam up

the liffy head butted the rat up in bull island we all saw it rte had a helicopter camera crew undisputed she is now holding the garlic cheese chip she is the bird man She is now holding the garlic cheese chip. She is the bird man. People would just go. No I don't like the result. I don't like the result. I don't want her as my Taoiseach.

I don't care that she headbutted the rat. I don't care that it's duct taped to her forehead. I don't care that she's holding the fucking supermax garlic cheese chip. I'm not having her. No one would respect it because we wouldn't have had the manna and i'm guessing in easter island because you're you're thinking well what if what if you didn't what if even if the barred man won and even if he had the egg and even if he had the big long toenails what if you just simply don't want him to win?

Are you going to revolt? Is there going to be violence? And I guess not because of this belief in mana. The mana belief must have been so powerful that it's like this is out of our hands. It wasn't a competition of prowess. The best swimmer didn't win it wasn't the most athletic person that won the mana chose this winner and we can't fuck with it because a lot is at stake a lot's at stake a man comes back with an egg on his head and the person he gives it to is like, will my fucking tribe get to eat the eggs?

Here we are on this tiny island, lads. All the food is gone. There's no fucking trees. Right? All that's left is fucking eggs. And they're mine. They're mine. And the manna has decided it. And the other tribes, I'm guessing,

would just have to respect that but also what I'm assuming is there was probably sharing this group the Birdman's tribe had first dibs on the eggs but they probably gave some

to the other tribes that didn't win that's probably how it worked that's probably how it worked that's probably how it worked and maybe there was wide square wide scale emigration emigration was a thing a lot of people from eastern ireland they went over to tahiti and maybe the tribes that were maybe that's what happened your tribe won your tribe had access to the eggs then the other tribe had less eggs

so for them they experienced the recession and they just fucked off to Tahiti but it seems that seems more civilised we have this temptation to look at that and think isn't that mad

why is that mad why is that mad and why can't we do it in Ireland with a a rat on Bull Island but we almost we almost have a tradition

that's similar enough to the Easter Island Birdman tradition in Ireland like there's a place down in Kerry called Killargan a little village and since

since like fucking the 17th century they have this thing called the Puck Fair right and what happens is one day a year I think it's like it's around August a group of people head up to

the mountains, and they catch a wild goat, they catch a wild goat, and then the goat is brought to the town square, now this happens every year, and then they get like a JCB or a crane, and they put a crown crown on the goat and they elevate the goat high into the air in a cage and everyone parties below for like three days while the goat is up there as a king and this happens this this I doubt it happened this year because of coronavirus but it's been happening every year in Kerry since the 17th century. Or no, the 16 fucking hundreds. Now, when I first heard it,

I'm guessing what that is, is like it's an Irish resistance, a type of... an Irish resistance to the concept or idea of a monarch. It's like mocking... You know, if you're in Ireland and you have this foreign fucking English king that you have to bow down to and you know there's British soldiers

and you're under their rule and their law the one little bit of resistance you have is to create rituals that poke fun at it so you get a wild goat and you call the goat a king and that's really funny one

mythology around it is that there's this Irish song Poc Air Buila and it's a belief that in when Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century Cromwell was conquesting Ireland and Cromwell's famous quote was said to his soldiers, get your swords drunk on the blood of Irishmen.

Cromwell was brutal. Cromwell committed genocide in Ireland. And there's a story that in Kerry, Cromwell's army was invading on the town in Kerry in Stillorgan. Cromwell's army was invading on the town in Kerry in Stillorgan and what happened was his army came across this herd of goats and the goats ran away obviously when they saw this fucking advancing army but one goat in particular broke away from the herd and came down to the town and the town's people were like the fuck is that goat doing here like almost like when when seagulls come in you know when seagulls come in

you know that there's a storm out sea so the people in town were like fuck is this goat doing here this isn't this isn't right for this goat to be in the town he should be with his herd what's he scared of

what's happening and that this goat came into the town and ended up accidentally warning everyone about Cromwell's advancing army and then the town were like I don't know what the fuck the goat's doing here but it's bad news let's get the fuck out and then when Cromwell's

army came in to commit genocide on the town he didn't find any people because they'd ran away and this is where the the puck fair the puck goat comes from how about that as a way to find our elected representatives i don't want to know your opinions on the economy i don't care what your opinions are on ireland's corporation tax fuck off up there and find me a goat, will you? And then we'll decide who gets to be king around these parts. There is a slight political element to the Pug Fair because

like one big political issue in Ireland is whether we should modernise our nightclub laws to kind of co-align with Europe like in Spain pubs just, nightclubs just stay open all night, they just stay open all night until the morning and people

come and go and people say that that's a healthier, smarter way to have nightclubs but in Ireland we don't have that, everything shuts down at 2am but in fuckingireland we don't have that everything shuts down at 2 p.m or 2 a.m but in fucking killargland during the puck fair the pubs stay open till 3 a.m and it's not official the guards just don't enforce it so the only place where the where the pubs will stay open till 3 a.m or longer a year, is in this little village in Kerry, because of the fucking Pug Fair, so,

in a sense it's political, the law gets bent, gets broken, for one night, because a goat is declared king, I think it's time now for an ocarina pause, a little pause, because there's going to be some,

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they get to listen for free. Everyone's happy. Also, follow me on Twitch. I live stream on Twitch three times a week, Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays at about half eight. I live stream on Twitch three times a week. Wednesday, Thursday, Fridays at about half eight. And I... Twitch is good crack because you get to...

If you log on when I'm logged on, you can chat to me live. I play video games. I make... I'm currently making a never-ending musical. I make music to a video game. And sometimes I just chat. But it's great crack. I fucking love doing Twitch.

Twitch is just unbelievably enjoyable and it's a real creative space and it's nice during the fucking pandemic as well it gives me a sense of i it gives me a sense of fucking speaking to people i don't get a chance to speak to people i'm quarantined for fucking more than six months now you know so that's twitch.com forward slash the blind boy podcast recommend the podcast to a friend share it all that carry on you know all the crack all right i do this shit every week because people come and go people come and go from the patreon people come and go from twitch and this is my full-time job so I gotta do this or else there's no one paying bills yart so what else do I want to talk about while not talking about the US presidential election I want to talk about the folk music of Colombia now as you know if you listen to this podcast I'm fascinated with

music of all types if I'm bored I will literally just decide I wonder what music sounds like in Colombia and I will end up on a big long Spotify hole and a YouTube hole and Wikipedia finding out about Colombian music or then I might decide what does Peruvian music sound like what does music sound like in Chile so I went through a phase of listening to the traditional music of pretty much every country in the world just for crack because I find that enjoyable and as like I like hearing how different music is influenced by the physical environment by the politics by the the people who came and, how certain music from here can sound like certain music from there. And with all of music in South America,

you can kind of, I can hear all the different folk musics and it can make sense. It's usually a mixture of indigenous music from the area, West African influence because of the transatlantic slave trade and then a little bit of european and this is present in all the different musics that you find around south america and they're all different but then with columbia columbia is is the one that stands out as going this this doesn't sound like any other folk music in south america what the fuck is going on with colombia that it sounds so radically different to everything around it

i'll play a little example so that there is Colombian traditional music that's called velenatos velenatos is the style of Colombian traditional music and it sounds completely different to any other traditional music from the surrounding countries it's completely, specifically the use of the accordion. And the accordion is all over this Colombian velonatos music. Accordion is without question the most prominent instrument. And the accordion doesn't feature anywhere else in traditional South American music and the music that most closely sounds like this velenatos music is German traditional folk music so when I heard this when I when it popped out of my ears and I'm going what what like if I'm listening to all the music in South America and then one is is wildly different to the rest I then immediately have to find out I'm

just like what the fuck is going on with Colombia and accordions and why does it remind me of German folk music or stuff you'd hear in Switzerland or even a little bit of French and then lo and behold I find out that in the 19th century German ships and traders used to go to Colombia quite often, right? And the sailors on the German ships used to trade their musical instruments with Colombian people. And it's the 19th fucking century now

with Colombian people in exchange for whatever they had. And the Colombians were getting all these their specific German Hohner Hohner brand accordions diatonic accordions the Germans were just the Colombians were like we want your fucking accordions just give them to us their class so all these German accordions ended up in Colombia in the 19th century. And then they started to mix the accordions with traditional Colombian percussion instruments like bongos. And there was a type of flute, a Colombian type of flute. And they developed their own folk music with these German accordions and that's why Colombian folk music sounds so different and so strange to the music around it and it's really beautiful

because we take for granted now like with the internet now that can't fucking happen you know musical specific musical genres being unique to certain areas is something that only really exists when you can't hear recorded music. Like, those lads in Colombia in the 19th century, they were simply handed an instrument. They might have heard German sailors playing it. I'm sure the German sailors showed them a thing or two on the accordion. But ultimately they're existing in isolation with one instrument.

And this gets the offshoot into something completely new. Some completely new thing. Almost like the influence that certain ingredients would have had on cooking. Like the tomato. The tomato came from South America and made its way over to Italy what's the tomato do to Italian cooking Italian cooking is nothing but fucking tomatoes now you know what would Italian cooking be without tomatoes so the the accordion is the Colombian music what the tomato is

to Italian cooking potatoes man potatoes come from fucking Peru we all eat potatoes tobacco chocolate

these are all South American things and we refer to this as the Colombian exchange that's what it's called because of Christopher Columbus the Colombian exchange is when a load of fruits and veg and animals and livestock went between the Americas and Europe and changed how we eat and how we live.

But I never thought of it with music going in the reverse direction, do you know? But then it got me thinking, that can't just be an isolated case. That can't just be an isolated case where an instrument would arrive somewhere and then drastically change the sound of a people's music. And then I heard this shit from the 1970s. so that there is music from a place called cape verde right and cape verde and Cape Verde it's this island off the west coast of Africa and again I would listen to traditional music from many different parts of Africa

in particular I'm interested in music from West Africa because the traditional music of West Africa and up around Morocco as well North Africa Nawa music it's called you can hear in West African music the roots of blues and jazz, and I have a particular interest in that,

but then I start listening to music from Cape Verde, and it's radically different, radically different to everything else around it, in particular I'm listening to that and I was going fuck me is that a synthesizer because I thought it was some sometimes weird stringed instruments can sound electronic but it wasn't I'm like that's definitely a synthesizer and then I went listening to more music from the 70s from Cape Verde and it was all of it had all these synthesizers but the rhythms weren't like pop music it wasn't like disco rhythms it wasn't 4-4 they were quite complicated African folk rhythms so immediately that gets my senses tingling I'm like I need to find out what the fuck is going on here what is going on that this music from this african island this west african island is using electronic instruments and i'm not hearing this in other music from that

period in any other part of west africa what strange thing has happened here in cape verde is it like columbia is it like it like Columbia with the accordions and my senses were correct so it turns out in 1968 right this ship left Baltimore now I don't know what Baltimore was it was it Baltimore in the US or Baltimore in Cork? I can't find that out. I'm going to assume it's the US because it's 1968. So this ship left from Baltimore in the US. Yeah, Baltimore is coastal in the US. It left Baltimore in the US most likely.

And it was heading for Rio de Janeiro down in Brazil. So leaving east coast of America all the way down to Brazil. So leaving east coast of America. All the way down to Brazil. And then. The ship went missing. And I mean really missing. I'm talking fucking months. No one could find this thing. Now the journey from.

Baltimore to Brazil. Is a fairly straight line down. So the ship drifted. All the way. East. Until it eventually reached West Africa and the ship ends up four months later right the crew are nowhere to be found and the ship ends up on the coast of this little island Cape Verde off West Africa and it turns out the ship was going from Baltimore to Rio de Janeiro because in Rio de Janeiro

in 1968 there was supposed to be this huge exhibition of electronic music instruments because they would have been a massive novelty in 1968 they would have been incredibly expensive ridiculously expensive prohibitively expensive like to own a synthesizer in 1968 you'd want to be fucking either a very

wealthy musician or a studio might buy one or a university might buy one and they were heading down to brazil and the ship gets fucking lost so the ship ends up wrecking just outside cape verde so then the police commandeer the ship and it's like well the crew's not around fuck it let's open up the ship and they open it up and inside it they find hundreds of like moog synthesizers rhodes pianos organs all organs, all these cutting edge, high end electronic instruments wash up on the shore of this small, tiny West African island. And the leader of the country at that time, the leader of Cape Verde, he was anti-colonial. So this anti-colonial leader was like, well, fuck it, if a ship washes up on my shore, I'm taking what's inside it. So the leader basically took all of the synthesizers, all of the organs, and decided that they were to be equally distributed to all the schools in Cape Verde. so now all of a sudden in this quite this this poor nation you have all these kids and they're playing traditional cape verde west african songs but now they've got cutting edge synthesizers in

the classroom and what you end up with is this early 70s i don't know like some people call it space echo music it's unlike anything else because these people in Cape Verde they've never heard electronic music they've never heard a synthesizer it's the late 60s early 70s they've simply been given the people there thought the ship fell from the sky

that's what they said the ship fell from the fucking sky they've been given these instruments that they've never heard played and they're just fucking around with them and they're doing what they know which is mixing it with the rhythms of their traditional folk

music and then they invent this completely bizarre type of electronic music which has no nothing else sounds like it it is its own unique fucking music which then went on to inspire more electronic music throughout africa and it doesn't there's not a huge amount of the recordings around and i'd imagine a lot of the music got lost but someone released a compilation a couple of years ago

called Space Echo the mystery behind the cosmic sound of Cabo Verde because Cape Verde is called Cabo Verde now it was a Portuguese colony and now it's independent I believe but yeah the fucking folk music of Cabo Verde

that has electronic instruments that was years ahead of its fucking time. And what's beautiful about it is its naivety. It's the music is naive because the musicians received these instruments, had never heard them before, didn't know what they were and managed to find a use for them that fit in with what they were doing with traditional acoustic instruments and there's a there's a beauty in that, the same way with the lads in Colombia with the accordions, you can't, that doesn't exist anymore, you can't get that anymore, the internet ruins that, the internet and the capacity and ability to hear recorded sounds ruins that you know what i mean so that was the second thing i wanted to talk about

while not talking about the u.s election all right um like i said i'm recording this the night before so i don't know what the fucking results are I don't know I'm going to catch you next week in the meantime be compassionate to yourself be compassionate to your neighbour I don't know what next week's podcast is going to be

hopefully it will be a hot take of some description I'm going to be on the lookout for new guests I think the world is my oyster now that I've figured out how to. Record high quality at long distance. I think I could fucking have anyone on the podcast and have crack with them. But. Yeah mind yourselves.

Do your. I know we're all in lockdown again. But if you're getting your little walk in. Smell the fucking air. Smell the autumn. Be mindful of the crunch of the leaves underneath you. Smell the cold, smoky evening, the cold, smoky evenings that we have now, you know. Don't let, don't let winter get you down, is what I'm saying.

We have this, this opinion, I say this every fucking year, lads. But we have this opinion that, like, it's cold and it's dark and therefore that has to be ugly or that has to make you upset, it doesn't, find the beauty in winter, there's beauty in winter, look for it, find it, do you know what I mean, don't be saying to yourself, ah shit outside, therefore, therefore I'm sad, find the fucking beauty. Yart. rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your

ticket to Rock City at torontorrock.com. Thank you. Thank you.