A note for any musicians looking for a way to sell records in the download era...the deluxe edition of Ry Cooder's new album, "I, Flathead" comes with a 100 page novella.  The book gives Cooder the chance to stretch out his memory (and imagination) of 1950s California, and the album allows him to conjure feelings subtly with just a few guitar plucks and a slide.  Fans already knew Cooder could turn out an engaging album, but "I, Flathead" is his first attempt at writing a book. Judging by how much fun I had reading it, I bet Cooder had a whole lot more fun writing it, and that makes me think we haven't read the last book from our favorite Santa Monica guitarist-turned-author.

Before producing this interview, I knew Ry Cooder best from his production of the album Buena Vista Social Club, and I'm not the only one.  That record and its musicians was embraced around the world and led to a surge of interest in Cuban music. I was a fan of Buena Vista and my father had a copy of Talking Timbuktu, Cooder's collaboration with the late Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure.  Now that that I've really explored his catalog, I realize that Ry Cooder is one of the most prolific guitarists this country has produced in the last 61 years. I really liked his early solo albums, Ry Cooder, Paradise and Lunch and Chicken Skin Music and his last three releases, Chavez Ravine, My Name is Buddy, and the most recent, I, Flathead have been educational, enlightening, and enormously entertaining.

Ry Cooder has made a career out of thinking, and acting, outside the box. In the 1970s that got him in trouble with his record label, but in 2008, the industry should be taking notes from him.

-Dan Bloom

Ry Cooder site with Nonesuch Records
"I, Flathead" official site
Buena Vista Social Club site with Nonesuch Records
Buena Vista Social Club documentary website

I’m always looking for interesting stories to produce outside of the studio and in a city like Washington DC, finding good opportunities isn’t difficult. Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul is at the National Gallery of Art for another couple of months (it leaves September 7^th) and from there makes its way to San Francisco, Houston, and finally New York City (see the full schedule).

A few years ago, on a whim, I took a history of the Silk Road course in graduate school. Although I had no background in Asian history or culture, I quickly became fascinated by the way cultures, religions, and of course, goods were exchanged along these trade routes. Afghanistan was a major crossroad for these caravans; after all, it’s perfectly situated between the major traders, China and Rome. As a result of all this trade (and from its own natural resources), Afghanistan grew wealthy, making it a target for outside invasion and looting. Sadly, over the years, some things haven’t changed, although the reasons and perpetrators have. The looting of Afghanistan’s national museum started with their civil wars in the late 1970s, and in 1994 the museum was hit by rocket fire. A few years later, the Taliban ordered the destruction of all images, and subsequently thousands of the museum’s statues were smashed. The people of Afghanistan assumed most of the museum’s collection was either destroyed or stolen. Then, in 2004, it was revealed that some of their most important artifacts were hidden away in metal strong boxes in the vault of the presidential palace.

The exhibition’s curator Dr. Fred Hiebert, who was there for the opening of these boxes, has called this recovery a “good news story” in a place whose news is largely dominated by tragedy. But it’s even more than that, as he explained to Bob during this interview: this exhibition is an opportunity for viewers to see into Afghanistan’s cultural history, and get a small sense of what true Afghans are really like.

Click here for more Afghan Treasures.

- Cristy Meiners