35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

356
EMPIRE OF THE SOUL
The tune emerging from Buddy’s ten-dollar Fender clone seemed
familiar – though rarely in tune – but the drums threw me off the
scent. This mutilated collection of patched-up skins was slashed
beyond tuning and taped to what could have been converted oil
drums sprayed with disco sparkle.
‘Ahh-yo baa’duh, oh yuhhhi! Liggles-snow buh da
biggusssunderstannn! Yaah!’
Could it, I pondered, possibly be ‘I’m your back door man, oh yeah! The
little girls know but the big girls understand! Yeah!’
It could have been.
The Sex Pistols were better musicians than these fat wrecks. Why
were we here? Or was this the leading edge of Indian rock?
Nah, I decided. Girls will appear. Hidjras don’t handle rock ‘n’
roll. It’s a caste thing. Hidjras run whorehouses, inspecting dubious
labial rashes, probing orifices for worrying lumps and boils. They
make sure the inventory doesn’t smell like a fishmarket, and most
of all they make sure the inventory doesn’t cheat its owner. That’s
what they do.
Freight Train delivered the closing agony of E-flat minors and
acidly sharp F-majors. Buddy bowed, humbly acknowledging the
thunderous applause from one pair of invisible hands with a bow
that spilled several business cards from his shirt pocket, as if by
magic.
‘Wah gaa sluddunah tempo naah,’ he explained, launching into a
blues that someone who’d never even seen a guitar before could
have learned to play in five minutes. Perhaps because the drummer
had exchanged the cudgels he’d been using for brushes, this next
number, a Big Mamma Maxwell classic, was virtually intelligible.
Big Mamma’s songs were banned during the twenties and thirties,
back there in the home of the brave.
‘Muh stew pot’s onna boil, uh-huh. Said muh big stew pot
izzonna boil, baby. Muh stew pot’s onnat boil, yuh-huh. Yuh know
muh steamin’ pot izzonna boil, yuh-doh. An’ if yuh give itta stirr
wid yuh big spoon, hunnuh, Ah migh’ juss give it a lil muh oil, yowhy
migh’ juss squirt in some esstra oil.’
The inevitable tumble of twelve clumsy bars followed, inciting a
frenzy of drummer action that sounded like shoeshine time in a
barracks.