Behka’s Secret Stash: Cornershop

Today on our lovely blog post, I was going to try to get back into the groove of writing about music. When I was in college, it was the late nineties.  1997 was my first year.  It was also the first year that I had an actual CD player.  I was hesitant about getting one, since I already had a lot of my favorite albums on tape and vinyl.

I heard a song on the radio that intrigued me, called "Brimful of Asha," which we play on the evening show on BOB.  The group is British, but they're descended from Indian immigrants to the UK.  So, they definitely have the inherent duality of being born in a place that doesn't treat them like they're at home.  In fact, there is a negative attitude with some in the UK toward people of Indian/Pakistani/Israeli/Middle Eastern descent that does mirror how some people view immigrants from Mexico here in the States.

I remember buying the album on CD and being very challenged by this duality.  As I listened to the album, I heard pop and alternative sounds, but one moment reached out to me, as a former English major.

The music on that is compiled and edited by Cornershop, done underneath a read by Allen Ginsberg of his own poetry.  It's another layer of Eastern and Western culture trying to make sense of one another.

It doesn't hurt that the music is intriguing and the poem is excellent.

Poetically yours,

Behka