1985 07 27 WOMAD Sounds

ROCKIN' ALL OVER...

WOMAD
Mersea Island 

SEA-SPEED-samba-Sufi-shhhhh-sensational: WO! MAD! 1985 was like being plugged in to a satellite-linked cable TV with a benzedrined conductor flicking manically through the channels. The test card never appeared, the suspense was as rife as the smiles, and the movie had a happy ending. Lord have Mersea, for the latter is the island near Colchester where this copulation of musical cultures took place.

The dividing line between scrambled synapses and sublime sounds is as broad as a greyhound. The day before I reached the World Of Music Arts And Dance, I was mugged by a dog in London park who stole my baked potato.

I didn't notice any Afgans, but maybe they'd already been turned into waistcoats. Yet while Pete's Planetary Incense reeked, there were moments when the globe was a falafel and it tasted real good. For on a weekend when the South African Government was considering implementing emergency powers in that blighted country, WOMAD was the joyful noise of musicians from 22 nations in a groove.

Since the event's Peter Gabriel-inspired inception three years ago, the organisation has become registered as an educational charity. WOMAD, however, is definitely more fun than school.

A visit to Mersea was, in the imagination, an excursion to Brazil, Ghana, India, China, Sumatra, Zaire, Jamaica and all stops East, West, North and South, including that independent state of mind: Manchester, which as you know is where The Fall hang out.

Mark Smith and his group weren't the first to make Midas turn his ears to gold, but they were the only ones to talk fire on a Friday evening, when Peter Hammill's fingers stalked the piano notes like black widow spiders in search of the key of neurosis.

Brix Smith has a toy spider, his name is Seymour. And with her husband still sharp after all these changes one does indeed see more than ever with The Fall, they demolish the ironing board which puts the creases in rock.

White transistor guitars go into meltdown and the slang king raps the codfish of pop in chips of language, all the while adding plenty of sauce. In debasing Disney's dream as the kicker conspiracy continues, Mark Smith proclaims "We are The Fall and we are from the first world." Amen and goodnight.

According to Dave Wakeling, this year's bash is different from the original. "Then you could buy Egyptian what-nots made out of tortoises." He will say this tomorrow. Right now he shouldn't even exist, so sod off Dave while I take the readers on a guided tour of the site ...

A scented cigarette or a can of Fosters, or merely sweaty palms if you prefer and ... mush! This land of rich dirt which gets under your nails if you have to crawl is owned by Essex County Council who invited WOMAD to use their permanent youth campsite.

Hey! Hold on a sec, there's someone interrupting our survey. It's a chappie called Zeke who fleshed out Orange Juice once upon a time. Now he's performing a zippy hybrid of funk and Afro on the main stage.

Not impressed? No problem. There are two other tented stages and a host of sins you can commit moving between them, but first you need the Festival Survivors Kit. There's a stall which sells the necessary articles at the far end of the field. The notice reads: skins, matches, candles and toilet paper.

There's every sort of food under the cooker here, including that disgusting toe-food stuff.

Ah, I see that in fact you have good taste: you aren't keen on The Guest Stars, the all woman jazz band from London who concentrate on dexterity but miss the point of music. That point is simple to make: As the Sufis sing, according to Stephen Pritchard in the programme, "Useless is a wonderful milk yield from a cow which kicks the pail over."

Such sentiments do not apply to honorary Celts and porter. The Pogues don't merely play like they've smashed a pint pot, they pursue their good time with the obsessiveness of a donkey with a carrot. Few people can fail to get caught in their Kilburn after-hours mania, but nothing can stir the acid-heads on the beach who are going round with mitts full of dank pebbles exclaiming "Wow! Look at these amazing jewels!"

Fools having harmless fun aside, the real gems are the series of artists who will now serenade the sunset and continue till dawn. The pied pipers of the night, I believe, were named Panchavadyam.

Everywhere one goes at WOMAD one is assaulted by rhythms, they are the international language linking generations and nationalities. It's no accident that one of the favoured audience hobbies is beating the life into plastic and metal contraptions supplied by Echo City, Islington's freeform jazz enthusiasts.

The Pans, from Kerala in South West India, displayed with breathtaking skill the art of deciding where exactly to dissect silence with a drum pattern for maximum effect. And the locomotion of their Hindu ritual heritage lingered longer than any vindaloo could. When space cadets and gwack-gurus say the meaning of life, the universe and Neil Kinnock's bald patch are to be discovered in a single beat, I reply "Burp." But for a moment I was there: a fading follicle in the politician's skull.

WOMAD 1985, to be more serious, was also the event when Factory Records' bands came out the closet by an accident of booking. As A Certain Ratio pumped sinuous vocodered funk for the disco queens, and regally too, Thomas Mapfumo put the 'im in Zimbabwe. His remodeled Blacks Unlimited outfit planted thorn trees in our shoes while the Chimurenga champion barked his scorched earth songs. Thomas is getting even more magnificent.

All the while in the distance a religious human temple wailed in ecstasy; it would still be pouring torrents of emotion four hours later after New Order finished their excellent set. The owner of this unearthly voice which somersaults Islamic arabesques is Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He is without question a damn genius.

Nusrat's touch is Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis. The range of his larynx, oiled by pellets of betel leaves and quicklime paste, is totally shattering. And when meshed with his expressive hand and head gestures, backed by his party on drums and harmonium, the affect induced is literally one of a cathartic trance. People have been known to bang their heads on the stage until they bleed (sic) when he performs. I dearly wanted to watch more but the call of New Order beckoned.

Since half the crowd had been sporting NO T-shirts all day, it wasn't surprising they received a rapturous welcome.

New Order are as much an attitude as a musical group. The textures may be dancefloor electro glides but the collective feel is one of menace and sarcasm born from sulphate-punk.

Hook, all cock-thrusting macho bass, personifies the latter. He acts like, and probably is , an arrogant swine onstage. Barney purveys the approachable and fragile side of New Order.

True to their taste for the perverse, the singer wore a pair of running shorts and a singlet despite the polar temperature. They aired everything you'd expect plus a new song titled (I believe), 'State Of The Nation', which set the synths and drum machines off on an almost tropical cruise. It might have had something to do with unemployment, on the other hand the jokers might have been taking the piss. Either way I went to bed happy, though I don't remember how I got there.

I woke up happy too, thus breaking a habit of a lifetime. That alone says much about the Womad experience, which on the final day was in many ways the best.

Relieving the stiffness of excess, Orchestre Jazira rubbed highlife balm into the joints. This band are much finer than I remember them being, the addition of Dave Bitelli on squealing sax giving the OJs an assertive energy which they sometimes lacked in the past.

And from one new recruit to a bit of a reunion. The Mr Nice's of pop, Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger, and the rest of General Public hit the main stage for an elastic band spot which also featured Saxa on, naturally, sax.

Having had an extreme fondness for The Beat, I can say with complete subjectivity that GP were pretty damn brill, not quill and parchment dry but an intelligent message in a bopple.

The stimulation had taken its toll and I only pause here to note, before I go to hospital, that The Go-Betweens wear sunglasses but are not blind while Zaire's Tabu Ley Rochereau, M'Bila Bel and Afrisa International executed the most insanely perfect dance rhythms of the whole event. See them or perish forever at the Crossroads Motel of muzak.

WO! MAD! Lord have Mersea, indeed.

JACK BARRON