Word: banding
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...completely dominate the field," predicts Podesta, who admits, as a veteran of the Clinton White House, that he may not be totally objective. "In terms of fund raising, charisma, ideas and positioning, she dominates." Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, agrees. "There will be John Edwards' band of friends, but in this party, the Clintons have the juice," says Brazile. More than any other potential candidate, she adds, Senator Clinton transcends the party's ideological fault lines and the battle between its insiders and outsiders. "She's acceptable to everyone," Brazile says. "The moderate wing likes...
Somewhere, Joe Strummer must be smiling. Twenty-two years after the late guitarist and his band, the Clash, released the classic single Rock the Casbah, Franco-Algerian singer Rachid Taha has taken the title literally - with a cover of the 1982 hit that blends ringing electric guitars with Arab woodwinds and strings to give it a distinctively north African flavor. In a sense, Taha's take on Rock the Casbah on his new CD answers the provocative question posed by the title track, Tékitoi? (Who Are You?). "I'm a French rock 'n' roller with deep Arab roots...
...being accepted by French society either. In 1980, after a series of drudge jobs, including a stint in a heater factory, Taha hooked up with a quartet - three of whom were fellow ethnic Arabs - in a Lyons suburb and formed Carte de Séjour (Green Card). Though the band's gritty garage sound and defiant Arabic lyrics about racism, immigration and social injustice won it a healthy club following, French radio stations shunned the group. "I knew DJs who were told by bosses to 'Lose the Arab records - now,'" Taha recalls...
...band nonetheless managed to break through in 1986 with an Arab-accented cover of Charles Trenet's nostalgic Douce France (Sweet France), a wartime ballad extolling an insouciant, bucolic nation of villages, church bells and endless horizons. The ironic reminder of the less-than-sweet treatment reserved for France's immigrants and minority populations propelled Douce France into the charts, and set the tone for Taha's subsequent releases...
...when an Arab does that, it's said to be traditional and exotic." Tékitoi? might seem like an attempt to cross over; after all, the title track is sung mostly in French, and Taha continues to use producer Steve Hillage - a former guitarist with the 1970s band Gong who has since produced groups including Simple Minds. But Tékitoi? retains a strong north African flavor and reaffirms Taha's reputation as a politically engaged singer. In H'asbu-hum (Demand Their Accounting), Taha denounces the "murderers, oppressors, traitors, envious and rotten" who work to deny individuals their...