BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.10.5//
X-WR-CALNAME:www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco
X-WR-CALDESC:www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco
X-WR-TIMEZONE:US/Pacific
BEGIN:VEVENT
UID:20130526T035320CEST-5783FOguGu@www.yoshis.com/sanfrancisco
DTSTAMP:20130526T010520Z
DESCRIPTION:TINARIWEN BIOGRAPHY\n\nHow do you compress a thirty-year epic i
 nto a few pages? Tinariwen\, whose back-story has variously been described
  as &ldquo\;the most compelling of any band&rdquo\; (Songlines)\, &ldquo\;
 the most rock&rsquo\;n&rsquo\;roll of them all&rdquo\; (The Irish Times)\,
  &ldquo\;hard-bitten&rdquo\; (Slate.com) and &ldquo\;dramatic&rdquo\; (The
  Independent)\, are both a dream and a nightmare for any aspiring music wr
 iter: a dream because the most superficial &lsquo\;headlines&rsquo\; of th
 eir tale &ndash\; rebellion\, guns and guitars\, desert nomads\, Ghadaffi\
 , the real Saharan blues &ndash\; are like easy nuggets of gold to thrill-
 seeking journalists and literary prospectors. And a nightmare\, because no
 ne of these clich&eacute\;s really do the band justice or even begin to de
 scribe who they are\, what they feel or the music they play. The following
  comprises only the chapter headings\, the main way markers of the long ro
 ad the group have travelled from the wild empty places of the southern Sah
 ara desert to the concert stages of the world.\n\nIn the early 1960s\, Mal
 i threw off the yoke of French colonial rule and became an independent cou
 ntry\, ruled by a new African elite from the capital Bamako. A thousand mi
 les away in the northern desert regions\, the nomadic Touareg or Kel Tamas
 hek (&lsquo\;The Tamashek speaking people&rsquo\;) had trouble recognising
  the legitimacy of their new rulers or accepting their socialist laws and 
 taxes\, their alien ways and demands. In 1963 there was a Touareg uprising
  in a large remote part of the desert called The Adrar des Iforas\, around
  the small outpost of Kidal with its old French Foreign Legion fort. It wa
 s brutally suppressed by the Malian army. The period still haunts the loca
 l population like a nightmare. Of the many stories of suffering and incide
 nts of callousness that survive in the collective memory\, there is one th
 at is crucial to our story. It concerns a mason and trader by the name of 
 Alhabib Ag Sidi who was arrested in front of his family in the village of 
 Tessalit\, taken to the barracks in Kidal and executed for aiding the rebe
 ls. The army then went and destroyed Alhabib&rsquo\;s herd of camels\, cat
 tle and goats. His young four-year old son Ibrahim witnessed this wanton a
 ct of destruction before travelling north into exile in Algeria with his f
 amily and their one remaining cow. By 1964 the uprising had been crushed\,
  and the Adrar des Iforas was turned into a no-go zone\, ruled by the Army
 .\n\nIbrahim Ag Alhabib grew up in refugee camps near Bordj Moktar or in t
 he deserts around the southern Algerian city of Tamanrasset. He hated scho
 ol and preferred running wild in the bush. One day he saw a film at a make
 shift desert village cinema. It was a western and it featured a cowboy pla
 ying a guitar. The instrument made Ibrahim dream. He built his own guitar 
 out of a tin can\, a stick and bicycle brake wire. He started to play old 
 Touareg melodies on it\, and modern Arabic pop tunes. After a while\, he b
 ecame pretty good. He was a solitary kid anyway\, who kept himself to hims
 elf and was known as &lsquo\;Abaraybone&rsquo\; or &lsquo\;raggamuffin chi
 ld&rsquo\; by the other kids and adults.\n\nAt the age of 9 Ibrahim ran aw
 ay from home in a cement truck\, to earn some money and see the world. He 
 grew up wandering around Algeria and Libya doing odd jobs &ndash\; carpent
 er\, builder\, tailor\, gardener. It was a precarious existence\; made bea
 rable by the companionship of many other young Touareg men who were living
  the same marginal life in exile. The northern desert regions of Mali had 
 been struck by a catastrophic drought in 1973-4\, which had almost wiped o
 ut the animal herds and the traditional nomadic way of life with it. Alger
 ia and Libya was awash with errant exiled Touareg youth\, jobless\, paperl
 ess\, surviving by any means necessary. They would gather together in grou
 ps and sleep rough on the outskirts of villages and towns\, sharing food\,
  cigarettes\, songs and stories. The police would harass them mercilessly\
 , shouting &ldquo\;Hey you! Les chomeurs! (&lsquo\;unemployed&rsquo\; in F
 rench).&rdquo\; In the age-old tradition of the underclass\, this insult w
 as turned into a badge of honour\, and these young men became known as the
  &lsquo\;ishumar&rsquo\; generation.\n\nTowards the end of the 1970s\, Ibr
 ahim began to meet other Touareg of his age who shared his passion for mus
 ic of all kinds\, from traditional Touareg poetry and song to the radical 
 chaabi protest music of Moroccan groups like Nass El Ghiwane and Jil Jilal
 a\, from Algerian pop rai to western rock and pop artists like Elvis Presl
 ey\, Led Zeppelin\, Carlos Santana\, Dire Straits\, Jimmy Hendrix\, Boney 
 M and Bob Marley. His most important early musical partners were Inteyeden
  Ag Ablil\, his brother Liya\, aka &lsquo\;Diarra&rsquo\;\, Ag Ablil\, and
  Hassan Ag Touhami aka &lsquo\;The Lion of the Desert&rsquo\;. This group 
 of friends got together in Tamanrasset\, and began to play at parties and 
 weddings. They acquired their first real acoustic guitar in 1979\, and the
 ir reputation grew. They were new and radical inasmuch as they wrote their
  own poems and songs &ndash\; not the old Touareg verse of heroic deeds an
 d fair maidens &ndash\; but new lyrics about homesickness\, longing\, exil
 e and political awakening. In order to keep out of trouble with the law\, 
 Ibrahim\, Inteyeden and their friends would often just disappear off into 
 the desert for a night or two\, to drink tea\, make music and sleep under 
 the stars. People began to call them &lsquo\;Kel Tinariwen&rsquo\;\, which
  translates literally as &lsquo\;The People of the Deserts&rsquo\; or roug
 hly and more accurately as &lsquo\;The Desert Boys&rsquo\;.\n\nIn 1980\, C
 olonel Ghadaffi put out a decree inviting all young Touareg men\, who were
  living illegally in Libya\, to come and receive a full military training 
 at a designated camp in the southern desert. It was an opportunistic move.
  The Touareg had long held a reputation as brilliant bushmen and desert fi
 ghters. Ghadaffi dreamed of forming a Saharan regiment\, made of the best 
 young Touareg fighters\, to further his territorial ambitions in Chad\, Ni
 ger and elsewhere.\n\nSeeing it as a heaven-sent chance to learn how to be
  soldiers and take back their homeland by force\, Ibrahim and most of his 
 friends answered the call immediately. Their training was very tough\, and
  lasted only nine months. Four years later\, in 1985\, they were invited b
 ack into a new camp near Tripoli. This time it was run by the leaders of t
 he Touareg rebel movement\, the MPA (Mouvement Populaire de l&rsquo\;Azawa
 d). Ibrahim\, Inteyeden\, Diarra and Hassan were joined by a whole new gro
 up of aspiring musicians\, including Keddou Ag Ossade aka &lsquo\;Hiwaj&rs
 quo\;\, Mohammed Ag Itlale aka &lsquo\;Japonais&rsquo\;\, Sweiloum\, Abouh
 adid and the young Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni. They formed a collective and b
 uilt their own make-shift rehearsal studios\, equipping it with basic gear
  bought with the money from a communal chest into which all recruits paid 
 contributions. Their job was to write songs about the rebellion\, about th
 e aspirations of the Touareg for political freedom\, for education and dev
 elopment\, and then to record these songs without payment for whoever turn
 ed up at their door with an empty cassette. It was a propaganda machine fo
 r a people without any other forms of media whatsoever. The cassettes were
  taken back to camps and villages throughout the Sahara\, copied\, and the
 n copied again and again and again. It was a cassette-to-cassette grapevin
 e and the sound quality was as atrocious as the message was powerful.\n\nI
 brahim\, Inteyeden\, Japonais\, Diarra\, Hassan and their friends never sa
 w themselves as one-dimensional propagandists however. They were musicians
  and poets. Their songs spoke of deep personal struggles and of their love
  of their desert home\, as much as they raised the flag for the rebel move
 ment. In 1989\, frustrated by the lack of progress and by broken promises\
 , the members of Tinariwen escaped from the Libyan camp and headed south i
 nto Mali. Ibrahim found himself back in Tessalit\, the village of his birt
 h\, for the first time in 26 years. And then\, in June 1990\, the rebellio
 n began.\n\nIt lasted about six months. The Malian government offered peac
 e terms to the MPA in January 1991 and the Tamanrasset Accords were signed
 . The rebel movement split into different factions comprising those who we
 re pro or contra the Accords. It was a confusing\, desperate and often dis
 piriting time. Most of Tinariwen decided to leave the military life behind
  and go back to being musicians.\n\nAnd that was it&hellip\;six months of 
 open combat in a story lasting three decades or more. No wonder the group 
 are frustrated and bored by journalists who remain obsessed with the roman
 tic myth of guns and guitars\, of rebellion and war. In 1991\, Ibrahim and
  his friends had no doubt that they were musicians first and foremost. The
 y had become soldiers only out of necessity\, for a brief and painful peri
 od. It was all over in a flicker.\n\nThe group headed home to Tessalit and
  Kidal\, or went to seek work in Gao\, Mopti and Bamako. Some\, like Keddo
 u\, accepted posts in the army\, the customs service or in education under
  a UN sponsored programme aimed at reintegrating rebels into civil society
 . In groups of two\, three\, four or more\, they also began to play gigs o
 penly. Touareg from all over the Sahara were delighted finally to encounte
 r the group who had invented the modern Touareg guitar style\, who had bee
 n the pied pipers of the rebellion and whose songs defined the story of a 
 whole generation. Their secret was unveiled.\n\nBut it was a discreet succ
 ess. In 1992 some of the members of Tinariwen went to Abidjan in Ivory Coa
 st to record a cassette at the legendary JBZ studios. They played gigs for
  Touareg communities throughout north and West Africa\, but not that often
 . They were nomads at heart\, and the collective was often spread out over
  thousands of miles. But that was the group&rsquo\;s strength. Just two me
 mbers could get together in a village with a guitar or two\, a djembe or w
 ater can for percussion\, and sing the songs of Tinariwen. It&rsquo\;s oft
 en said that every Touareg from Tamanrasset to Niamey and from Timbuktu to
  Ghat is a member of Tinariwen\, so widely are their songs known and treas
 ured. They are more of a social movement than a desert rock&rsquo\;n&rsquo
 \;roll band.\n\nThen news came that a French group called Lo&rsquo\;Jo wan
 ted to invite Tinariwen to Europe. This adventurous bunch of musical troub
 adours lived in Angers\, in the Loire valley. Angers was twinned with Bama
 ko. In 1998 Lo&rsquo\;Jo travelled to the Malian capital for a festival of
  street theatre and music\, and there they met Issa Dicko and Foy Foy\, tw
 o members of the Tinariwen collective\, who told them all about the suffer
 ings of the Touareg\, the droughts\, the rebellion\, the exile. Together t
 hey came up with the idea of creating a festival based on the traditional 
 annual gatherings of Touareg in each part of the desert\, which would hope
 fully open up the desert regions to cultural exchange\, tourism and invest
 ment. It was a crazy improbable scheme. In 1999 some of the members of Tin
 ariwen came and did a few gigs in France under the name of AZAWAD. And the
 n in January 2001\, the first Festival in the Desert took place in Tin Ess
 ako\, 60 km east of Kidal. About 1000 locals\, and 80 Europeans gathered i
 n that remote beautiful spot. Tinariwen were the stars of the show. A new 
 international phase of their long hard journey was about to begin.\n\nSucc
 ess came swiftly. By the end of 2001\, Tinariwen had performed at WOMAD\, 
 Roskilde and the South Bank in London. Their debut CD\, &lsquo\;The Radio 
 Tisdas Sessions&rsquo\;\, recorded by Justin Adams and Jean-Paul Romann in
  the studios of Kidal&rsquo\;s only Tamashek-speaking radio station\, Radi
 o Tisdas\, was released on IRL / Wayward in October. Initially lauded by t
 he world music scene and by African music aficionados\, Tinariwen&rsquo\;s
  magic quickly began to work on those with little previous interest in tho
 se areas. The guitar licks\, the grungy grimy desert sound\, the arcane ye
 t effortless rhythms\, the striking turbans and robes\, the wild rebel ico
 nography\, the scintillating exoticism of Kalashnikovs and Stratocasters\,
  the glimpsed power of their poetry\, so strange and yet somehow so thrill
 ingly familiar&hellip\;it all synched in with a general fatigue amongst ad
 venturous pop and rock fans\, exasperated with endless young drum-bass-and
 -two-guitars\, indi-rock bands.\n\nOver the past seven years\, the group h
 ave played over 700 concerts in Europe\, North America\, Japan and Austral
 ia. Their name has graced the bills of most of the world&rsquo\;s premier 
 rock and world music festivals including Glastonbury\, Coachella\, Roskild
 e\, Paleo\, Les Vieilles Charrues\, WOMAD and Printemps de Bourges. Their 
 2004 CD &lsquo\;Amassakoul&rsquo\; (&ldquo\;The Traveller&rsquo\;) and its
  follow-up in 2007 &lsquo\;Aman Iman&rsquo\; (&ldquo\;Water Is Life&rdquo\
 ;)\, have established them as one of the most popular and best selling Afr
 ican groups on the planet. Their ever expanding fan base includes a host o
 f stars and legends: Carlos Santana\, Robert Plant\, Bono and the Edge\, T
 hom Yorke\, Chris Martin\, Henry Rollins\, Brian Eno\, TV on the Radio. In
  2005 they were awarded a BBC Award for World Music\, and in 2008 they rec
 eived Germany&rsquo\;s prestigious Praetorius Music Prize.\n\nThose are th
 e outward stats of success. Deep inside\, Ibrahim\, Hassan\, Japonais and 
 Abdallah smile gently at their improbable victory against all the odds. Wh
 en they were just youths sharing a cigarette under the shade of an acacia 
 tree somewhere in the southern Sahara\, they always dreamed of travelling 
 and seeing the world. Now they&rsquo\;ve done it. But their biggest source
  of pride has been in representing their music and their culture to the wo
 rld and spreading the message that despite all the twisted words and propa
 ganda to the contrary\, the desert really is one of the most beautiful\, m
 ost peaceful and most inspirational places on earth. Ibrahim&rsquo\;s only
  real regret is that his friend Inteyeden hasn&rsquo\;t been at his side d
 uring these payback years. The charismatic co-inventor of modern Touareg g
 uitar rock died in 1994 from a mysterious illness.\n\nSince 2001\, the fou
 nders and elders of Tinariwen have been supported and energised by a new y
 ounger generation including bassist Eyadou Ag Leche\, percussionist Said A
 g Ayad\, rhythm guitarist Elaga Ag Hamid\, guitarist Abdallah Ag Lamida ak
 a &lsquo\;Intidao&rsquo\;\, vocalists Wonou Walet Sidati and the Walet Oum
 ar sisters. They were just children when the rebellion ravaged the north o
 f Mali and Niger. They grew up on Tinariwen&rsquo\;s songs. Their presence
  in the group brings Tinariwen in line with so many long-lasting music and
  theatre groups in Africa and elsewhere\, who\, by integrating successive 
 generations of artists into their ranks\, become self-perpetuating.\n\nIn 
 December of 2008 the old and the young gathered in the sleepy desert villa
 ge of Tessalit to record Tinariwen&rsquo\;s fourth album. It seemed like t
 he ideal place\; quiet\, off the beaten track\, home to Hassan and Ibrahim
 \, blessed with a plentiful water supply and a friendly familiar populace.
  The group had expressed a strong desire to return to their roots and reca
 pture the raw desert sound of their early recordings. Lo&rsquo\;Jo&rsquo\;
 s French sound engineer\, Jean-Paul Romann\, who had worked with Justin Ad
 ams on &lsquo\;The Radio Tisdas Sessions&rsquo\; eight years previously\, 
 was recruited to produce the album. He arrived with a studio in a suitcase
 \, which was set up in a rented adobe house in the middle of the village\,
  and powered by a chugging generator. The sessions proceeding slowly\, sur
 ely\, in pace with the rhythm of life in that remote corner of Africa. The
 re were free concerts for the local populace in the village square\, and r
 ecording sessions far out in the bush. There were solitary nights around t
 he fire\, under the stars\, and parties here and there in the village. It 
 was all very strange\, very familiar\, just like Tinariwen themselves.\n
 &lsquo\;Imidiwan&rsquo\; is one of those big Tamashek words\, to which no 
 single English word can ever do justice. Just like &lsquo\;Assouf&rsquo\;\
 , the name which the Touareg themselves often give Tinariwen&rsquo\;s guit
 ar style. &lsquo\;Assouf&rsquo\; means the blues\, loneliness\, heartache\
 , longing\, homesickness\, the darkness beyond the campfire. &lsquo\;Imidi
 wan&rsquo\; means friends\, companions\, soul-brothers\, fellow travellers
 . The juxtaposition of these two words is particularly striking. Maybe Tin
 ariwen are coming in from the cold and recognising all those soul-friends\
 , both living and departed\, who have made their incredible journey bearab
 le\, whilst warming their hands over the camp fire and looking up at the n
 ight sky thick with stars.\n\nAndy Morgan\, May 2009.
DTSTART:20100621T000000
DTEND:20100621T000000
DURATION:PT3H
LOCATION:San Francisco
SUMMARY:Tinariwen
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR