Dance me to Tirana
Last October I visited Albania to check another country off my unorthodox bucket list of vacations in former socialist entities, totalitarian societies and conflict zones.
For the past fifteen years I’ve had a strange desire to acquire a better perspective of the lives of ordinary people living in places that once filled news headlines for dubious reasons. (It started in earnest after having read Fools Rush In by Bill Carter, and having my eyes opened to a world of possibility, so I suppose it’s only fair to start out with a plug for one of my favorite people.) So far I’ve explored conflict-related histories in Berlin, Belfast, Derry, Dublin, Sarajevo — and most recently, Tirana.
While most people may prefer to use vacation time to splay their flesh upon towels on warm sandy beaches, I typically prefer to explore museums, take historical walking tours with locals, connect eely historical bullet points to concrete locales, and to try to get a little worldly perspective from those who now remain in places formerly embroiled in conflict. I love learning about history, and challenging stereotypes or fears, and am always surprised by the warmth and curiosity of the people I meet (one common question: “WTF are you doing here?”). Moreover, there’s something a little spine-tinglingly exhilarating about creeping down the streets of an unfamiliar city during your first night in that country — encountering unfamiliar sounds and shadows and smells and voices — but unlike those who travel to war zones or truly impoverished nations, most of the fears I experience are fabricated in my brain.
Another goal I have when traveling is to discover local music. During my first trip to Ireland I discovered the great Rory Gallagher. In Galway I stumbled upon Portland-artist Richmond Fontaine. I encountered endless traditional music sessions that transported pub patrons to hypnotic cultural dimensions. In Bosnia I saw the iconic Vlado Kajevic of Don Guido and the Missionaries perform in a loud Sarajevo club teeming with life and vibrance and just a short distance away from what was formerly referred to as Sniper’s Alley.
One of my goals upon departing for Tirana was to find people performing live music. I’d found a Roma CD in a record store in a grungy Pacific NW town circa 2003 — about as far away as you could get from the Balkans — but my imagination had been captivated ever since. I guessed there might be some kind of indie scene of Albanian rockers, or that I might find some traditional musicians playing epics of the old world.
Upon landing in Tirana, and after logging dozens of miles on foot in search of smokey pubs or concert venues — and finding only cafes or the occasional hole-in-the-wall with a solitary TV tuned to soccer — I determined either I didn’t know how to discover what I was looking for, or perhaps indie music clubs weren’t really part of the Tirana club culture. I explored end-to-end — a neighborhood called the Blloku — where old communist elites used to hide behind a walled-off portion of the city with their smuggled western contraband of booze, cigarettes and cereal. After four days of searching and exploring I couldn’t find any music clubs, or even street musicians, save for a humble street clarinetist in Shkodër, and a ragged Argentinian trombone player in Tirana who had recently made a pilgrimage to Serbia’s brass music festival (Dragačevski Sabor) and who was struggling to inspire charity from the passerby.
Yet on my second to last morning in Tirana I found myself hunting for breakfast, and happened upon a vibrant, buzzing side street behind Tirana’s national art museum — people were streaming on to the boulevard like bees leaving a hive.
On a side note, the museum at the time had an amazing exhibit of paintings commissioned during the reign of its former dictator. The colors and themes of the paintings harkened to the inspirational posters created during the American WPA program of the Great Depression in the sense that they demonstrated the value of a hard days work — but were slightly perverted to demonstrate a kind of nationalism and collectivism and even militarism that was likely more common to paintings from the Soviet bloc (it’s worth pointing out here that Albania and the Soviet Union were not allies during that era). One fun exercise (for nerds) is to look at the WPA paintings, and then look at the Albanian paintings — and you’ll notice the WPA paintings look refreshingly naive and optimistic, whereas the Albanian paintings look sinister and, well, Totalitarian.
American WPA Paintings
Albanian “WPA” Paintings
I wandered closer to this bustling side street of the museum and observed the steady stream of well-dressed, fit people — families, pensioners, Italian tourists, managers on their way to the office, cyclists, shoppers — and caught wind of a beckoning electric guitar that pulled me further into the pedestrian-only alley using a dissonant modal scale that reflected some of the Roma traditions I had hoped to find in Albania. As I got closer it was revealed that he had a battery powered amplifier blaring pre-recorded instrumental and drum tracks to accompany his tunes. A one man band! His baritone voice reverberated off buildings, through cigarette smoke, and busted through the rumble of traffic to welcome me to a street cafe where I bought a coffee, water and sandwich stuffed with red peppers and eggplant, and plopped up to a table, gleeful to have finally found an actual Albanian performing the actual Albanian folk music of his country! I propped my iPhone on my Lajthiza-brand bottled water and recorded a couple of songs — knowing in the future I’d return to them to enjoy the authentic sounds of Shqipëria (Albania).
Fast forward to a couple weeks ago — six-months later — during a wistful moment I was scrolling through my iPhone, deleting old photos and screenshots, until I stumbled upon sentimental photos from that vacation, including the videos I took of the Albanian musician that day. Elated, I scrambled through my apartment for headphones to give a thorough listen to the traditional Albanian music I’d captured. I smugly thought of the talents of another great American ethnomusicologist, Alan Lomax, and of the good works I’d accomplished. I found the earbuds, sat back against my couch, and opened a musical portal back to Albania.
The emanating sounds returned me to that glorious morning. I remembered the unusual warmth of the October day. I remembered continually being surprised by the cosmopolitan feel of Tirana. As I listened further I remembered the bitterness of the coffee and the delicious sandwich I had that morning. I listened more intently to the chords — and suspected they’d be quite manageable if I were to choose to try to learn it. I thought if my band wanted to cover this tune, we’d definitely need a lead player on the violin. I dug deeper and deeper into the sound and associated memories, when all of a sudden I thought I heard an English word.
Curious!
I kept listening and picked out another … and other … and finally turned the volume way up and realized ALL of the words were in English.
Confused, I replayed the first part of the song and plucked out the first verse:
“Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin”
I went to my computer and did a quick Google search to learn the street musician was covering a Leonard Cohen song.
My mission to discover live Albanian folk music had failed, but my respect and admiration and memories of the country will live on forever.