"The ghost in the machine"

My dead Mikrasiatis father used to take a lot of nerve pills. Ignorant of even the simplest parts of his inner universe, he used to tell me, "something strange is hapenning to me. I feel as if I had a machine in my mind, playing music all the time. Do you think it´s connected to my pills?"


I´ve always had a ghost of a music machine in my mind, though I´ve never taken nerve pills...
This machine is playing, almost continuously, all kinds of music from Bach to Stockhausen, from ethnic to jazz, but mostly rebetiko songs. The other days I wrote down the following: "I´m walking in a wide street of the north hemisphere, having my forehead turned towards the sky, while I hear in my mind the clapping of Rita Abadzis´s wooden spoons she played in the song of Kostas Skarvelis, "Widow, you set fire in my heart"... ("Χήρα, μ΄έκαψες")...

http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/6/6/1947074/XIRA%2C%20M%27%20EKAPSES%201933%20RITA.mp3

"who else has a tormented heart to be my comrade,
to walk together in waste lands and not seeing people..."

Some words before I wellcome you...

from the left: G. Batis, S. Keromytis,

Stratos Payioutzis, Markos Vamvakaris

This blog follows a different path to approach the Greek "subculture" music called "rebetiko". This music is, in a way, equivalent to tango, fado, flamenco, blues. It is the most sincere music ever composed in Greece. It reached its culmination during the 30΄s and it has been faught in all ways from the "establishment".

"Rebetiko" is not only songs played by bouzouki, as most of the people believe. There is a big era, containing thousands of songs created by tremendously talented Greek composers and musicians who were forced to leave their life in Asia Minor and come to Greece as refugees, after a stupid war (1922) against Turkey. Their music is the backbone and the spinal cord of rebetiko but it was forbidden and struggled in 1937.



You, who need to see behind the tourist facade and look for the unexpected in a world tending to look the same all over, let me give you a red thread, as Ariadne did with Theseus when he got into the Labyrinth, and lead you to a fascinating and unknown world. 

Wellcome!

Rebetiko Co.

see http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_130565273677633&notif_t=group_activity

!!!

Hi,


The main part of my writings and music can be seen in 

elkibra-rebetiko.blogspot.com

but unfortunately in Greek. Try it and use the Translation Service

Dear friends,

This post is adressed to all of you who live in different countries and visit this blog. I think I am the only Greek who has started a blog in English for Rebetiko lovers. I mean a blog which tries to go deeper in this era and not only dowload songs or write once more Rebetiko's History. The problem is that I don't know how many of you are Greeks living abroad and how many do not speak Greek.

Please, be kind and comment my writings. You can thus help me to choose the right topics and you would also give me courage to go further..

It is quite difficult to express myself in proper English but I'm really interested to spread out information about this magic music.

Rebetiko has a wide and unknown era, much wider than what I can see being named here and there.

Help me to make our communication more profound. Will you?