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Concert Preview
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LA Weekly, Concert Preview >>
Sometimes multiple-musical-personality disorder offers a way out of the chaos. In Rachid Taha’s case, will the righteous pan-Arab neo-trad punk or the teetering self-parodist leather-clad rocker take the stage? He could barely stagger upright at the Knitting Factory last time in town, his growl more sodden slur than gravelly shout, his band bravely annihilating then reconstituting the raucous sonorities. Yet a pre-911 gig at Bimbo’s 365 in S.F. still ranks among the most revelatory roc del mundo mashdowns I’ve ever danced my ass off to, on par with Manu Chao and the Pogues at their most recklessly effusive. No surprise that Rachid’s latest collection, Rock El Casbah — The Best Of, bears obvious homage to the Clash, considering his peerless cover of that paradoxical signature tune. But the French-bred Algerian iconoclast also counts rai progenitor Messaoud Bellemou among his heroes, and worldly psychedelicist Steve Hillage among his collaborators: There are plenty of chefs in Taha’s madly creative soul kitchen.
-by Tom Cheyney 07/09/08 >> go there
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