Some musicians have a hard enough time balancing the demands that come from being a member of a band that it’s incredibly impressive that Vermont native Craig Myers has juggled three different projects over the last few years. The percussionist/Kamel N’Goni player is a member of Mike Gordon’s five-piece band, tours with Brooklyn indie-dance band Rubblebucket and fronts his own group called Barika.
All three acts had banner years in 2011, with Mike Gordon winning raves at every stop, Rubblebucket blowing up beyond the Northeast and Barika putting out their first album, Remember. Barika features a song so incredibly different from anything else making the rounds these days thanks in part of the blending of Myers’ Kamel N’Goni work with Western influences. We recently spoke with Myers about how Barika came together, what went into the making of Remember and how he balances all three groups.
Scott Bernstein: Barika’s first album, Remember, has been years in the making. Can you give a little background on history of group and how the album came together?
Craig Myers: The album was slow-going because all of us have different projects. I’m involved with Mike Gordon’s band and also in a band called Rubblebucket, both of those take up a lot of time. Unfortunately, as it goes right now, it’s everyone’s second or third project. The whole recording process we weren’t able to lock down a nice full week session or two-week session to go into the studio to record and then take another week so we could master it all at once. So our drummer Caleb has a home studio and we were just gonna piece it together as people’s schedules allowed.
All of the material was there, I’m doing all of the writing for Barika now. It was just kind of a long process of trying to make everyone’s schedules work and then locking it down. We sat on it for a little bit and then I went to More Sound Studios out in Syracuse with a buddy of mine, Jocko, who owns the studio and we ended up mixing it out there.
Leading up to the project in 2007 I went to Mail, specifically Mali, I’ve been to West Africa three times, this was my third trip, I went specifically just to study N’Goni. From there, Iearning all this traditional music, I was so inspired that I wanted to do something different musically. I’ve always been a percussionist and this was a great opportunity for me to try my hand at writing and enter the more melodic world. At that point I started Barika.
Barika has had a few different manifestations. The first one was more of a traditional style, where instead of a drum set we had a calabash, which is like a big half-board and you put a microphone underneath it. We also had a flute, so it was more of a traditional vibe. It was cool but there was something that wasn’t quite working for me and I got wrapped up at that same time with Rubblebucket and Mike Gordon really taking off, so I put it down for a while. When I came back I realized I needed to change it up a little bit.
I added some local artists from Burlington, Caleb Bronze on drum set who’s really an amazing talented percussionist and drummer and Andric Severence on keys. I added him into the mix because he’s really good at ethereal concepts as well as his jazz background, he can pick things up really quick. He’s a really talented guy. I just switched it up. This manifestation of the group has only been around for a couple of years and this is our first studio album.
SB: The horns were really something that captured my attention when listening to Remember. Many of the songs start out with a N’Goni riff and then when the horn comes in, it really takes off. Did the horns come late in the formation of the band?
CM: Yeah, the horns definitely came later. The beginning of the group, like I said the traditional one, had a couple of horns, we kind of danced around with that idea but they were just come and go. They weren’t an official part of the group. Then we took a break. When I came back into it, part of the reworking of the group was trying to streamline it to be just a core four, just a quartet. We did that for a little while and then it’s inevitable with anything I do that it turns into a bigger thing incorporating more people. With Rubblebucket we have nine people on the road, eight in the band, and It almost seemed inevitable that Barika would turn into a seven-piece band. It started out as just asking the horns to play on some shows. It was just working. It just seemed to really be a good fit. It enhanced some of the improvisation that happens at shows so I asked the guys to stick around and to be a part of the band and they were down, so here we are with a three-piece horn section.
[Photo by Jeremy Gordon]
PAGE TWO = Craig’s History with the N’Goni
SB: What’s your history with the N’Goni? How did you come across the instrument and how long have you been playing?
CM: I’ve been playing for about four years now. Like I said, I’ve been studying West African music since 1997. I got really into West African drumming music, and I went to California. I lived in Santa Cruz for a little while, I was studying with teachers there. Just going up the coast and studying with teachers in Portland, Oregon and in the Bay Area. And then I ended up going back to Vermont, which is where I’m from, and studying with teachers there and joining a group called Jeh Kulu drum and dance theatre. And then through them I went to Africa for the first time, which I guess was 2000. I was there for about three months studying percussion. I came back the next year once again and this time I went to Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea and Mali. Mali is where the N’Goni music comes from. So I started hearing this music around and was totally captivated by it. I said “oh my god, what is this music?”
Some of the first N’Goni music I heard was Donso N’Goni music which is hunter’s music as donso means hunter. That’s the original N’Goni. The N’Goni I play is the Kamel N’Goni and that’s for the youth, the young people’s harp. The young people, they really like the traditional hunter’s music but they couldn’t change it because it’s very much a tradition that’s passed down father to son. It’s very specific, you can’t put crazy techno beats in it and manipulate it to your liking.
They made the Kamel N’Goni which is similar, but it’s smaller in construction and it has more strings. The tuning is very similar. Now they use it in pop music and they use in all which ways. It was made in the 1950’s/1960’s so people could just kind of embellish and improvise and add to something they already enjoy.
I found it on that second trip. It was a cab driver who I asked to bring me to the market to buy some N’Goni music. He told me, “I’ll bring you to the market and I’ll show you my favorite player.” He gave me some recordings, one specifically of this guy named Samou Diakite. Samou Diakite is this awesome N’Goni player from this village called Kolflore and I was totally obsessed with this tape. When I came home all I did for the first few months I was home was listen to this tape over and over again. The weird thing is in all this obsession I didn’t get a N’Goni when I was there.
A few months later I got this email from a friend who told me he was coming back from Mali and was bringing back all these N’Gonis and wanted to know if anyone wanted to buy one. And boom, of course I was on it right away, I replied and ended up getting my first N’Goni.
From there, I was playing along with tapes and learning how to tune it and just getting into it. It just became a spiraling obsession. I just really was taken by it. I learned how to make them in 2006 or 2007. On the third trip to Africa I went specifically to Mali just to study N’Goni with my teacher Adama Coulibally. I also went to the village of Kolflore, where this tape was from, in hopes of studying with Samou Diakite. Unfortunately he was out of the village for a wedding or some ceremony but he son was there, Jiggy Diakite, and I ended up studying traditional hunter’s music in the village where he was from with his son. This whole experience just kind of blew me away. Ever since I’ve stuck with it.
I love it so much and I started doing my own thing with it. And remember it’s a lot about the idea of tradition and moving forward. It’s about always remembering where we came from and always giving respect to my elders and tradition but not being afraid to embellish upon that and do something new, innovative. That’s kind of what Barika is all about.
SB: I was going to say, that seems to be what you’ve accomplished with Barika. Have you played any of your music for your N’Goni teachers in Mali?
CM: I haven’t played it for my teachers in Mali, no, but I’ve played it in for a lot my African friends from the African community in Burlington, for sure. The word Barika is Arabic but in West Africa they use Barika as a word for praise giving and thanksgiving. It’s paying a higher respect to the community and the grace of people.
They have people over there called griots which are the history keepers through oral songs and tradition. They’ll be singing these songs about people saying “Barika Mohammed, because of all the great things you’ve done and your family is amazing and you’ve always been generous to the people” and proceed to go through all the great things that these people have done. That’s what Barika means, it praise giving, it’s thanksgiving, it’s giving respect. That’s also part of Barika’s vision as a band is to incorporate and acknowledge all the great musicians and artists and people that we have in our lives into our music, so we’re always happy to have guest artists come and sit in with us. A lot of them are my friends from the African community.
SB: Do you expect to branch out beyond Vermont in 2012?
CM: Yes, within the next year definitely. As I said it’s really hard because all the projects try to stay really busy, and I’m dedicated to all three. Rubblebucket has been making big strides nationally in the past year, we’ve done a number of national tours. I definitely plan on branching out and getting out of Vermont in the next year. We probably won’t go too far beyond the Greater New England area, but that’s the goal for 2012, branching out, a slow solid build.
PAGE THREE = Lessons From Rubblebucket & Mike Gordon
SB: What have you learned as a front man with Barika from your experiences with Rubblebucket and Mike Gordon?
CM: I think that all three projects feed each other as far as gathering different things that work and things that don’t work in any given project. You spend that much time on the road with different musicians, even if you put it outside of the context of music, any group of people sharing a greater vision. There’s a lot of sacrifice that comes along with that, being on the road. I learned a lot about how to maintain a balance on the road, that’s the main one. From Rubblebucket I’ve learned a lot about diligence. The music is very specific and it’s very parts oriented. The leader of the band, Alex Toth, is very driven. I learned a lot of discipline and diligence through that project.
From the Mike experience, I’ve learned how to fearlessly jump off the cliff. [laughs] He’s very much about the possibilities of exploration and that’s such an amazing thing and it’s something that’s very different in a lot ways from Rubblebucket. It’s almost like a night and day experience, but they’re both very beneficial. Learning how to be very solid and focused but also learning how to be open to new possibilities at every moment and that’s something I get from a lot from the Mike Gordon band.
There’s also the power of enrollment. People want to have a good time, they want to feel good. People come to a show definitely to participate, but also to be enrolled in something good, some greatness. How to fearlessly just be open in that moment and to give to the people and to get beyond my own insecurities on stage. That’s something you learn through just simply playing all the time, time and time again. Getting out on the stage and putting yourself out there. It’s a practice. All the project feed each other for sure in really good ways.
[Photo by Jeremy Gordon]
SB: How is 2012 setting up for each of the bands?
CM: Mike’s got a couple of things in the works but his project is also most people’s second project, he has Phish in front of everything else. There’s a couple of things in the works with that. Rubblebucket is definitely planning on doing a full summer festival circuit and another national tour. Barika, we’re just going to continue with the expansion, definitely grow out to the Boston area, New York, Connecticut, Greater New England Area and just keep pushing forward doing good work. Doing all we can to keep on our vision and get people informed and involved.
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