IT’S BEEN FIVE YEARS since journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi, Pakistan. Since then, 1500 concerts in over 60 countries have been held during the month of October in conjuction with Daniel Pearl World Music Days. Hillel at Virginia Tech has brought the cause home to Blacksburg. This will be the third annual musical event they have staged to promote the Daniel Pearl Foundation’s mission to promote cross-cultural understanding through journalism, music, and dialogue “Our goal is to bridge differences among people,” said Sue Kurtz, director of Hillel at Virginia Tech. “Part of our feeling about Daniel Pearl Day this year after the tragedy is looking at how the community brought people together. [This year] seems more important than what we’ve done over the past three years.”
gogol bordello takes a scenic detour from their big city east coast tour. THE GLOBE-GALLOPING GYPSY PUNK CARNIVAL known from Kiev to California as Gogol Bordello is coming, making a special Blacksburg stop for a sold-out crowd in the heart of the 16 Blocks, the Lyric Theatre on October 18. And when Ringmaster/frontman-extraordinaire Eugene Hutz raises this kaleidoscopic musical big top fueled by wild and ancient fiddle-runs and accordionbellows, dancing-girl percussion vocalists and dub-reggae style bass, many witnesses will agree with his claim that Bordello is taking over the world. They describe themselves as supercharged music generated by gypsies and rebels from across the globe. “Reggae and gypsy music were created by poor people with nothing to lose,” Hutz explains on the band’s homepage. “They had to find a new way to look at the world… Looking at string theory, creationism, globalization, political cataclysms and the general chaos facing us makes you realize you have to find some way to survive.” If theirs is the sound of survival, then Gogol Bordello celebrates it with a wild glee and triumphant ecstasy, not just getting by, but reveling in the challenge.
With its nine members representing the Ukraine, Russia, Scotland, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Israel and the U.S., Gogol Bordello seemed like the right band to promote diversity.
16 Blocks is proud to say that our first music section is dedicated to the cause of using the power of music to heal oneself and one’s community. This one’s for you Danny.
15 16 Blocks
Photo by Lauren Dukoff ©2007
“We celebrate life with the makeup of the band. We celebrate differences,” said Ethiopian-American and Gogol bass-player Tommy Gobena in a phone interview. “And that shows with what we do with what we do with our music presence and our stage presence. Everybody in the band is really conscious about how things are in the world and how things should be in the world.”