The art of shape shifting

Taking care of bid-ness: Spafford headlines the New Year’s Eve show at the Orpheum, which also includes the Haymarket Squares, Diamond Down String Band, Chuck Cheesman. Courtesy photo

Since originating three and a half years ago, Spafford has jammed their way to success and now find themselves at a pivotal moment for many up-and-coming musicians. Their humble origins are still an arms length behind them, but they are being irrevocably hurled forward into the exciting lights and flashes of fame.

When they began they were no more than open mic night participants at a bar, but seemingly have grown into their name and let their electrified jam funk-rock music speak for itself.

It has been a journey for this Prescott-based group, and thanks to a gig last year where they played for hundreds of people at the Hard Rock Café in Las Vegas, the days of open mic nights for the four-man band are a thing of the past.

“Last November marked our first really big show,” says Chuck Johnson, Spafford’s lighting director. “We had never played in front of more than 75 people and all of a sudden we were opening for Particle at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. At that point we all kind of realized we could do this.”

Johnson recounts the hard work that guitarist-vocalist Brian Moss dedicated to getting the group into that show and how much it paid off for Spafford in their early stages. From huge venues in Las Vegas to later feature performances in festivals like McDowell Mountain Music Festival, Spafford tasted their first bit of fame and set their sights on the future.

As a relatively young band, Spafford’s members are humbled by the origins and history they share together. Johnson met Moss and bassist Jordan Fairless while they were all living in Prescott. It was this early-on friendship that officially marked the start of Spafford. The three bonded over their love for music and the drive to see what they could do with it.

“My middle name is actually Spafford,” Johnson says. “Originally, during the days of open mic nights, it was only Brian and Jordan. And when they got up on stage, the announcer couldn’t pronounce their name. I remember Brian looking at me in the audience and saying, ‘We’re Spafford’ and it just stuck.”

With a name under their belt, Spafford was inducted into the professional world of jam rock and took off from there.

At the time, Fairless was on drums and after sorting through other bassists the group met drummer Nick Tkachyk. The fit seemed destined, so Fairless made the switch to bass as Tkachyk stepped into the drummer’s seat. Soon after, they found Andrew “Red” Johnson who filled the role of keyboardist and Spafford was officially formed.

With members in place, the band began their whirlwind of music making and jam spreading.

“It started as smaller bar gigs,” Johnson says. “But people loved it and soon started following them around Arizona trying to get to every show.”

The stepping stones were laid and Spafford was ready to walk the road. With a growing fan base, the group found themselves learning more and more about each other and how to communicate with their audiences on a different plane. This is what they refer to as the art of the “jam.”

They place an emphasis on knowing each other and knowing music. They approach each show with a single goal: to jam and get people to feel it. Their priority is live music and the originality that comes from their interactions with each other as well as the audience.

“The art of the jam is being able to have free expression,” Moss says. “We don’t communicate through headsets, we just go. Somebody takes the lead and we follow, and that’s why you can listen to one of our songs and find 15 different versions of it. It’s like a snowflake: never the same. So maybe we’re a snowflake band, not a jam band.”

Moss chuckles as he tries to explain the bliss of jamming and creating spontaneously. No song of Spafford is ever exactly the same and they pride themselves on that.

“You let the music go where it goes,” Moss says. “When you get a chance to look at the people, their eyes are closed. And then you close your eyes, and it doesn’t feel like you’re playing in front of an audience. It feels like you are all in the same spot and that energy between us is the most important thing.”

An audience member at a Spafford show is not going to hear the same song they might have fallen in love with when they heard it online or even at a show a few months prior.

Tkachyk notes that a lot of other jam bands get settled in a formula, which he says is exactly what jam music is not about. Audiences at jam-rock concerts are there to feel the music as it is being made.

“When we’re playing we’re breaking the mold of anything we’ve done before,” Tkachyk says. “It really is a jam. There’s no planning for how we’re going to get there. It just really is the art of improvisation. Our best stuff is when we have no idea what we’re going to do, it just happens—true jam.”

There are no cookie-cutter songs, no predetermined sets. Spafford experiences the music alongside their audience and is constantly seeking new ways to feel their art and give that fresh jam to their fans.

“If you’re going to jam well together then you need to feel like one big unit, not four different pieces, and that’s what works for the guys,” Johnson says. “We’re all really close and we all just kind of get each other, so it’s the five of us driving around from show to show in this van talking about who knows what and coming up with new ideas for what we can do.”

This is an exciting time for Spafford. The transition from backyard shows to packed major venues is not made easily, and the group is starting to experience the rewards of the dedication they put into their music.

“It’s like we’re starting to see the dreams we’ve all had as musicians coming to life and being fulfilled,” Tkachyk says. “We’ve all dreamed of becoming a successful band and making a name for ourselves and now it’s actually happening.”

Now Spafford is headlining the New Year’s Eve show at the Orpheum Theater and they encourage anyone looking for a night of originality and a love for jamming to join them. The future is unpredictable, but for this local band, there is undoubtedly promise and possibility on the horizon.

“It’s crazy to think that they were playing in a coffee shop just three and a half years ago,” Johnson says. “Back then it was all just a dream. But it’s grown from a free show in a coffee shop in front of five people to playing a few-thousand-person venue in Las Vegas, and we’re all figuring it out as we go.”

For USC’s Marqise Lee, there’s quite a story behind the smile

The smile has come to symbolize the jaw-dropping football feats of this USC sophomore, who was voted the nation’s best wide receiver while becoming a favorite for next year’s Heisman Trophy. Yet to those who know him best, the smile is less about stardom than self-defense.

“He smiles so much, you never know what is wrong with him,” said his younger sister Stacy Lee. “I guess he doesn’t want to show anybody his pain.”

You see the smile. What you don’t see are the seven tattoos, high on his arm and shoulders so they’ll be hidden by a shirt, the ink of his grief. There is a tattoo for the deaf mother who was ordered to relinquish custody when he was a child. There is a tombstone tattoo for the brother who was murdered by a rival gang who shot him five times in the back. There is a praying hands tattoo for, among other things, the brother who is serving time in a Mississippi jail for attempted murder.

“People say things happen for a reason; well, I’m not trying to hear all that,” Lee said. “I don’t care about any reasons, some things just shouldn’t happen.”

You see the smile. What you don’t see is Lee dropping to his knees in a crowded end zone before every game and making the sign of the cross seven times, once for each member of his family and support system. He prays long and hard for the group that inspired his unusually selfless Twitter handle, @TeamLee1.

“If you notice, I’m always one of the last guys to leave the end zone,” he said. “I’m praying for the safety of a lot of people.”

You see the smile. What you don’t see is Lee sleeping on the couch at his Inglewood home, or sleeping on the floor next to Robert Woods’ bed in his campus house, or sleeping almost anywhere but on his own bed in his own room. After being tossed between foster homes and cheap hotels while growing up in South Los Angeles, Lee can best rest when he’s literally surrounded by family and friends.

“He’s got a bed, but he doesn’t use the bed,” said Steve Hester, whose family informally adopted Lee during high school. “After all he’s been through, he likes to spend his time in the middle of people who love him.”

You see the smile, but you didn’t see him in the visitors’ locker room after this fall’s 39-36 loss in Arizona. Lee had just completed one of the greatest games for a wide receiver in NCAA history, with a Pac-12 Conference-record 345 yards receiving, 469 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns. But he couldn’t haul down a potential Hail Mary touchdown pass on the game’s final play. Even though the ball was batted away in the end zone, he considered it a personal failure.

He crumpled to the ground and wept. He continued weeping as he walked off the field. He staggered into the locker room and punched a mirror, cutting his arm. He disappeared into a back room where he continued to loudly weep and moan while Coach Lane Kiffin was attempting to give his postgame speech.

He will climb into his 1996 Impala on Christmas morning, leave his rented home near USC and drive through South Los Angeles streets whose cluttered and cracked narrative matches his own.

Lee will first pass the Inglewood home where the police removed him and his four siblings from his mother’s care when he was 6 years old. Toy Williams, like Lee’s absentee father Elton, is deaf. Relatives feared she couldn’t care for the large family, and she eventually agreed.

“My mom felt like there was too much working against her, and so she just gave up,” said Lee’s older sister Latoya Reid, 25.

He will pass King’s Motel on Imperial Highway, a worn building with barred windows on the first floors, a place where he and Stacy lived for two years with their grandparents.

He will pass the home on 111th Place where he lived with his grandmother and great-grandfather. This is where he nearly joined the Bloods gang that eventually claimed the life of older brother Terreal Reid and led brother Donte Reid into jail.

“I really wanted to join the gang, those dudes were always real cool and doing everything for me,” Lee said. “But out of respect for my brothers, they wouldn’t let me.”

Lee will then stop and make a Christmas Day visit at the modest stucco home of Maria and Armando Flores, the young couple who became his foster parents for five years. He and Stacy came to their house to play with their two youngest children and never wanted to go home.

“He would be at my house and nobody would call about him, nobody would come for them,” Maria said. “He was just a little kid starved for affection.”

Lee will end his Christmas drive by pulling into the place he considers his permanent home, the Inglewood house of Steve Hester and Sheila Nero, who informally adopted him during his sophomore year at Gardena Serra High. Lee began hanging out with their son Steve, then Hester began giving him rides to school, then eventually Lee just wanted to stay at their house full time. Without ever signing a paper or asking for a dime, they took him in.

At the time, they had no idea he was capable of being a star athlete, or even finishing high school. At the time, they knew him only as a child who just kept showing up.

“He was such a good kid, he latched himself on to our house, he started bonding with us, and we couldn’t say no,” Hester said.

On a recent Sunday evening in this small, warm place, the couple known as “Big Steve” and “Miss Sheila” pointed to a large lump under a blanket on the family room floor. Marqise Lee was snoozing peacefully while several other young adults were laughing and joking and watching TV around him.

Lee used to rarely show it because of anger issues. He would get so mad at himself or others while playing youth basketball, he would leave the court in the middle of the game and storm outside to cool off. After one particularly galling loss in AAU basketball, he challenged his entire team to a postgame fight, vowing to pound them one by one in a nearby hotel lobby. Lee would get so mad at his lack of control over his unsettled life that coaches and parents would have to physically calm him down.

“I was hot, I was really upset at life, I wanted to get revenge, I wanted to so bad,” Lee said. “You always have the dream of getting out and doing something with your life, but I would look at my situation and be like, it’s just not gonna happen.”

It has become a cliche to say that it takes a village to raise a child, but in the case of Marqise Lee, it is the truth. In the middle of all this anger and turbulence — he changed elementary schools five times — the village took over. The village gave him that smile.

“I am honestly surprised that he was not smoking weed and hanging out and following his brothers into those gangs,” Latoya said. “A lot of people have stepped in and help him live.”

People like Armando Flores, the first long-term foster father, a former gang member who taught Lee humility by once pulling up alongside him in the street and pointing a cellphone at his head.

Allies committed to making Pakistan tolerant

President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government and its coalition partners are committed to making Pakistan a tolerant and progressive society as envisioned by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah.

Addressing members of the Christian community of Karachi at a reception hosted in their honour, the president said that the ongoing war against a prejudiced and intolerant mindset would be continued till the Quaid’s vision is realised in its truest spirit. “This is a war of thought created by different influences in the region,” said the president. He said the country has borne serious losses, including that of Benazir Bhutto, Shahbaz Bhatti, Bashir Ahmed Bilour, besides hundreds of others in its war against extremists.

“Yet we have not given up and would continue with our endeavour to make our country peaceful, tolerant and modern in its actual sense,” said President Zardari. “We would not surrender before the extremists,” reiterated the president. The Pakistan People’s Party and its coalition partners’ absolute belief in democratic principles would salvage our nation, our country, our forces and take on the extremist elements fighting against the country under varied garbs, he said.

President Asif Ali Zardari said Muslims also believe in Jesus Christ as a messenger of God like hundreds of other prophets sent by Him in various periods of time. We can find this as mentioned in the holy Quran and hence Muslims too believe in Jesus as Messiah and messenger of love, said Zardari. Earlier, Adviser to Prime Minister for Minority Affairs, Dr Paul Jacob Bhatti appreciated the PPP government for raising the issue of representation of minority communities in parliament. “It is also for the first time that we have our representation in the Senate too,” he said.

President Zardari reiterated commitment of the democratic government towards the welfare of the non-Muslims living in Pakistan. He said that the PPP will continue to fight along with the Christian brothers and sisters for the rights of all non-Muslim and deprived citizens. Together they will continue their struggle for establishing a just, liberal and pluralistic society in Pakistan.

Speaking at the launching ceremony of the book “Tale of the Tile: The Ceramic Traditions of Pakistan” at Mohatta Palace, Zardari emphasised the need for concerted efforts to preserve country’s cultural heritage. He called for greater research on the cultural heritage of the country. The president particularly emphasised that the youth needed to be educated about the richness of country’s culture, leading towards their better understanding of culture and heritage. “This is extremely essential so as to arrest degradation of our heritage,” he added.

He congratulated Abdul Hamid Akhund and Nasreen Askari, authors of the book, for their effort in tracing the origin and history of ceramic tiles used in the monuments in Pakistan. The president complemented the management of Mohatta Palace Museum and Hameed Haroon for publishing the book. Zardari said that research on tiles was a rare subject to write on. He said that the authors by tracing the origin and history of ceramic tiles have traced the history of the art and craft of ceramic tiles.

They have informed us about how the art and craft of ceramic tiles travelled from Central Asia, China and Prussia to Sindh, Multan and Lahore, he said. Lauding the research work, the president said researchers, historians and academic institutions will find it very useful in understanding the cultural heritage of Pakistan. The president said that our writers, artisans, musicians and men and women of arts and crafts deserve to be respected, recognised and helped.

My clothes were hand-me-downs from my big sisters, and the only new thing I was allowed to have was one toy a year at Christmas. Only one. As an adult, I now realize what sacrifices my parents had to have made to provide for that one toy for each of their four girls, but at the time, I was much too young and too self-centered to be aware of their hardships.

Christmas 1935, just before my eighth birthday, stands out in my mind as the time I became a con artist. When poverty stares you in the face on a daily basis, you learn young to work your way around it.

On Christmas Eve, as tradition warrants, I polished my shoes to a mirror finish and placed them before the fireplace for Papa Noel to admire. Papa Noel is very partial to polished shoes, I was told, and might find it in his heart to have a special toy for you, if you’re good. Well, lately I had been very good, so my chances were great. It’s uncanny how children’s behavior improves with the approach of Christmas.

Sleep eluded me that night. I was too excited at the prospect of that toy I had waited for all year. One year for a child is of course double eternity, and that eternity was about to end in just a few hours. This was too overwhelming for the little person I was.

At last daybreak came. I ran barefoot on the cold tiles to the fireplace, my heart beating like a drum. A tiny table and a tea set were waiting for my eager arms. How could anything so exquisite be mine? “Louisette, Mireille, wake up! Papa Noel has come. Come and see what he gave me.”

I was so thrilled with my new gift that I did not want to take time to remove my night clothes or even stop to eat lunch. All day long I played and imagined fancy ladies having tea with me. I smiled and bowed gracefully and was the perfect hostess to my imaginary guests.

And then night came, alas too soon. Why couldn’t we have Christmas more often like, let’s say, everyday? If I placed my shoes in front of the fireplace tonight, could I fool Papa Noel into thinking that it was Christmas Eve all over again?

After all, the man was getting awfully old and bent and, like many old people, had probably become forgetful. It was worth the try, and I certainly had nothing to lose.

Once more I placed the spit-polished shoes on the tiled floor and went to bed with visions of toys and treasures piled high in front of the fireplace. Not too surprisingly, sleep fled from me. I laid in bed staring at the darkness in the room and listening for every creaking noise. A long, long endless night.

Libya’s abundant amount for abandon

Majdi Suleiman Omar was lying on a hospital bed if the rebels stormed into Tripoli bent to abort what was larboard of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s administration and yield avengement on its supporters. He had already been a victim of what has become the a lot of antagonistic adventure of the civilian war: his duke had to be amputated afterwards it was disconnected by Kalashnikov blaze and he was affected to abscond his home with his abashed family. Now the fighters from Misrata were gluttonous out their hated enemies, from Tawergha, who had taken ambush in the Libyan basic afterwards accepting apprenticed out of their city.

The adolescent apache who came into the breadth at Zawiya Street Clinic said simply: “Get ready, we are traveling to yield you to Funduq al-Jannah.”

Mr Omar knew what accessible there. “Paradise Hotel” was the abominable banana name accustomed to a graveyard on a limited allotment of Misrata’s albino beach, breadth captives were active afterwards accepting bent and dead – sometimes through beheadings.

“Then a assistant came in to change my bandage,” he said. “She was abashed to see the man there, but he just told her to go ahead. He was continuing abaft me if she formed on my hand. Again she got up and moved, he attempt me in the back.” A doctor begin Mr Omar lying benumbed in a basin of blood. The medics confused him to a aback allowance on the arena attic where, abroad from the eyes of outsiders, he accustomed emergency treatment. Mr Omar, 30, is now at an old adhesive branch in the outskirts of Benghazi. The alfresco of it has been angry into camps that serve as a sprawling “home” for humans from his city-limits – about 17,000 of them in all, who apartment in shacks fabricated out of PVC pipes.

A above footfall appear the approaching of “Free Libya” was taken this ages with the aboriginal elections for added than bisected a century. But not abounding Tawerghans angry up at the polling stations set up at the camp. “Would voting accompany aback my son? He is a prisoner, or maybe they accept dead him. I do not know. We are not chargeless to acquisition out,” said Raga Ahdwafi, a 50 year-old citizen of the camp.

Freedom in Libya has appear at a abundant amount for Tawergha; its men are accused of committing boundless abuses, in the pay of the regime, during the barbarous annoy of Misrata. As the course of war turned, the city-limits fell to the Misrata brigade. Abounding of the citizenry of 35,000 were killed, others apprenticed out with their homes looted and burned.

The concrete accurateness of Tawergha and Misrata fuelled the vendetta, as did the damaging issues of chase and rape. The citizenry of Tawergha was predominantly atramentous and the antipathy acquainted appear them by so abounding in Misrata was bidding by Yusuf Bin Yusuf, the baton of the city’s newly-elected council. “There is a lot of agnosticism about their appropriate to be in this accurate place,” he said. “As far as we apperceive they are able disciplinarian or freed disciplinarian who just came and took over this area.”

Little affirmation has been put advanced to abutment claims of accumulation abduction by Tawerghans, but Mr Bin Yusuf said: “What do they want, lists? We cannot betrayal the women who accept suffered and add to their shame.”

Salem Ali – who alternate to Benghazi from his job in New York afterwards the anarchy – is determined that the allegations adjoin the Tawerghans are false. “There had been three abstracted investigations by all-embracing bodies which accept begin no affirmation of this accumulation rape,” he said. “But this account keeps on accepting again and again and it is acclimated to absolve the murders and actionable apprehension of our people.”

Raga Ahdwafi is atrocious to acquisition out what happened to her son Muftar, 25. “We got chock-full at a checkpoint and they took my son,” she said. “They said that because of his age he accept to accept been fighting. But that is not true. We are poor humans – we just capital to be larboard alone. At the end we just capital to escape.”

Abu Bakr al-Shaibani did administer to escape from Tawergha, but again he fabricated a aberration and about absent his life. “I was in the army,” he recalled. “I fabricated my adventure to Benghazi afterwards the assemblage I was with bankrupt up. Then,at the end of December, I saw on TV that the new government was traveling to anatomy a new army and we all had to address aback for duty. I went to billet in Sirte.

“The aboriginal few canicule were all appropriate and we were told we accept to overlook about the accomplished and serve our country. Again they came from Misrata and arrested me.”

Sirte, Colonel Gaddafi’s abode of bearing and death, was the loyalist bastion breadth associates of the action were generally taken to be bent by his regime. Mr Shaibani, 22, begin himself in the capital bastille breadth he accustomed agnate analysis at the easily of the Misratans. The scars on his back, he said, were the aftereffect of booze accepting caked and again set on fire. “Another day they put benzene [petrol] over my arch and said they were traveling to bake me alive. I said ‘shoot me, let this be over with’.”