So, just picture it. Saturday at the Electric Picnic 2006, it’s a beautiful day (in between the showers), you and your friend are feeling peckish so you get some Mexican food and look around for somewhere not damp to sit and right in front of you is a picnic table with one person at it who just happens to be a tall, be-dreaded, chocolate-skinned beauty who is quite happy to share his table and chat for a while. And, as you’re walking away with your friend, you are beginning to think, “You know…I don’t think he’s just Michael from San Francisco” and your friend is thinking the same, so when you get home after the weekend, you do a web search and lo! and behold! you had lunch with Michael Franti, world-renowned musician and human rights activist, winner at the Sundance Film Festival. Flippin’ heck! No wonder he laughed when you asked him whether he filmed weddings.
Anyway, such was my introduction to Mr Franti and Spearhead. Well, reintroduction really, as who could forget the fantastic, albeit brief, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy? Well, after another quick web search, I am now the proud owner of his film ‘I know I’m not alone’ and the associated CD ‘Yell Fire’ and bloody good they are too. I am also a veteran of his live presence, having gone to see him shortly after Stradbally (not having known who he was AT the Picnic, I hardly managed to catch his act then, now, did I?) when he played Dublin that autumn. Boy, can he hold a stage! And he is unfazed by the weird and wonderful, such as when two guys jumped on stage and started dancing around and singing along (which was actually hilarious, not least Mr Franti’s baffled but very bemused indulgence).
Right now, I’m listening to ‘Yell Fire’. This goes hand-in-hand with the film ‘I know…’, which he made during a trip to Iraq to meet the ordinary, everyday Joe Soaps, the civilians caught in the middle, and show what their lives are like now and the conditions in which they are forced to live as a result of the fighting. It’s a lovely, natural film, following him as he meets and greets though busking on the street, having music sessions in people’s homes – it’s a real eye-opener. The album expresses that same mix of joie-de-vivre and righteous fury. Remember – this is a man who has eschewed the wearing shoes since 2000 as an anti-poverty protest. (He was trying to empathise, as opposed to sympathise, with those who cannot afford shoes.)
The base of Spearhead’s sound is reggae and this filters through they whole album, especially on tracks such as ‘Time to go home’, ‘Hello Bonjour’ and the eponymous ‘Yell Fire’. There are also occasionally slightly funky and rocky elements (such as ‘Everybody ona move’) incorporated, which results musically in an album which works equally as well as background noise as it does on very close inspection, which really works for me as I am not a big reggae fan as a rule.
The abhorrence of war and human rights violations pervades all though – even gentle love songs aren’t excused:
“Tell me that the rain won’t fall today, Tell me that the taxman lost his way, Tell me that the hurting pain don’t hurt no more, Tell me that somebody stopped the war, Tell me lies, lies, lies, sweet little lies, when I cannot bear the truth, Tell me lies, lies, lies, help me make them all come true.”
from: Sweet Little Lies
He pursues a simple and ruthless logic in his lyrics, arguing points that are hard to argue due to that very simplicity. He appears to have a black and white viewpoint when it comes to the idea that people should live and be allowed to live in peace with themselves and eachother – it appears to be very much a ‘just get on with it’ attitude towards governments and other bodies that come up with excuses for the continuing existences of war and poverty.
“You say you’re a Christian ‘coz God made you? You say you’re a Muslim ‘coz God made you? You say you’re a Hindu and the next man Jew and we all kill eachother because God told us too? No!”
from: Hello Bonjour
It closes with two tracks ‘Tolerance’ and ‘Is Love Enough?’, which emerge as pleas for clemency and love for your fellow man after a storm of a CD where anger and frustration and exuberance are traded for quiet, gentle-yet-firm hope. ‘Tolerance’ in particular is quite a sea change from what has gone before, opening as it does with just voice, cello and piano, and a slow build up to full strings, percussion et al. ‘Is Love Enough?’ gets back to the reggae feel but retains the gentle urgency of the previous track.
No matter what the music or style, this is a coherent and cohesive work, with the overriding connecting thread being the gorgeous, husky, mellow power that is Mr Franti’s voice.
