By Lauren Burke

At a moment when the nation is looking to take the political temperature of a country rocked by rapid-fire decisions on the federal level, Louisiana residents overwhelmingly rejected four ballot initiatives put in front of voters on March 29. The moment was a defeat for Republican Governor Jeff Landry. Grassroots organizers in Louisiana running the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, led by Gary Chambers and Ashley Shelton, led a series of town hall meetings from February 20 to March 11 to educate voters on the four initiatives and encourage them to “just say no” to all of them. Voters appeared to have listened. Close to two-thirds of voters in Louisiana rejected all the amendments. The moment takes place against the backdrop of raucous and packed town halls across the nation featuring citizens asking pointed questions about what they can do to protect democracy.

Amendment 1 in Louisiana would have allowed the Louisiana legislature to create trial courts with specialized jurisdiction and allowed the state Supreme Court to discipline out-of-state lawyers. The voters rejected the idea.

Amendment 2 would have changed Louisiana’s tax policy and cut funding for early childhood education, according to a flyer prepared by the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice. The voters rejected the idea.

Amendment 3, which was rejected by 66% of voters, would have made it easier to place children in adult jails and prisons and for longer sentences. National justice reform organizations including the Southern Poverty Law Center, spent over half a million dollars in opposition to Amendment 3.

Amendment 4, also rejected, would have allowed election dates for court vacancies to occur at the earliest date allowed by state law — which could be a date likely to result in a very low turnout.

The March 29 defeat of all four constitutional amendments in Louisiana is followed by other signs that voters may be registering discontent regarding GOP policy decisions more broadly. On March 25, Democrat James Andrew Malone won a special election in a Pennsylvania state Senate district President Trump won +15. On March 27, Trump pulled Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations because polls were showing the GOP was going to lose her NY seat to a Democrat. Another political test will emerge from Wisconsin on April 1. The results of a vote for a State Supreme Court race are widely being viewed as a referendum on President Trump.

Etran de L’Aïr perform April 8 at Neumos. by Dave Segal

Not to get all chamber of commerce-y about it, but Seattle has played a crucial role in laying the foundation for Saharan rock’s current popularity. In the ’00s while based in the Emerald City, the esteemed global music label Sublime Frequencies issued transformative releases by Group Bombino, Group Doueh, and Koudede. Thus began the groundswell of Western interest in heat-hazed, mantric rock that’s imbued with the blues’ ability to transmute oppression into transcendent art.

But the real boom in guitar-centric African music occurred in the 2010s, when artists such as Bombino, Mdou Moctar, Tinariwen, Les Filles de Illighadad, and Tamikrest broke out into America’s live circuit. Etran de L’Aïr have joined these compelling musicians in the 21st century’s great Desert Rock Invasion.

Striking out from Agadez, Niger, Etran de L’Aïr (henceforth, EDL) consist of three brothers and a cousin: bassist Abdoulaye “Illa” Ibrahim, drummer Alghabid Ghabdouan, guitarist/vocalist Moussa “Abindi” Ibra, and guitarist/vocalist Abdourahamane “Allamine” Ibrahim.

They formed in 1995 as young lads (group leader Abindi was 9), playing Niger’s demanding wedding circuit and singing in Tamasheq, a language spoken mainly by nomadic tribes in North and West Africa. Very few Americans know Tamasheq, which could be considered an impediment to enjoyment, but the grain and intensity of EDL’s vocals make it easy to understand the players’ profound joy and sadness.

According to EDL’s Portland-based label, Sahel Sounds, the members belonged to nomadic families that settled in Agadez after escaping the droughts of the 1970s. When they started the group, EDL only had one acoustic guitar and they’d thwack a calabash with a sandal for percussion. Before they attained American patronage, EDL would haul their own gear while on foot, sometimes traversing 25 kilometers (about 15 miles), to play free gigs.

Now three albums deep into their official music-biz career, EDL have adapted to this hemisphere’s protocols. That being said, their songs feel as if they are theoretically infinite and that they only truncate them into manageable durations to placate the demands and attention spans of the Western music industry. On their home turf, though, EDL have been known to play sets that would make Springsteen’s band look like slackers.

Saharan rock is a distant cousin of America’s desert rock, which arose in 1997 out of jam sessions manifested by stoner-rock behemoths Kyuss. While both strains of desert rock rely on repetition to drive home their incisive riffs, and both have their psychedelic moments, the American brand doesn’t tap into spirituality and strife like its African counterparts do—unless you count running out of marijuana and getting sunburned to be serious hardships.

With the 2018 debut album, No. 1, EDL established their galvanizing approach and have continued on that path with few deviations through 2022’s Agadez and 2024’s 100% Sahara Guitar. The opening track from No. 1, “Etran Hymne,” bears rough fidelity, but the guitars’ liquid gold tone is buoyed by beats that have a lopsided propulsion. What sounds like an agitated women’s choir ululates wildly, while the men sing in unison with poised defiance. That combo never gets old. On “Agrim Agadez,” the awkward beats clash with the coruscating guitar riffs. This is peak Saharan rock: roiling, trance-inducing juggernauts with intricately interlocking guitar motifs and massed vocals conveying indomitable joy among hardships that comfortable Westerners cannot fathom. “Hadija” conjures slow-rolling hypnosis with those mad lady trills in the background. Yes, there’s very little variation in the rhythms, but the guitar/bass/vocal interaction is often riotous.

Sophomore LP Agadez boasts fuller production, boosting the songs’ impact while avoiding slickness. “Imouwizla” instantly pleases with easy-rolling blues rock, albeit with that patented rhythm which feels as if you’re on a merry-go-round with a sputtering motor. The galloping and undulating rock of “Toubouk Ine Chihoussay” accrues an irrepressible momentum, with the main cyclical guitar riff positively spangling with euphoria. If EDL have a “hit” single, this is it. “Karade Marhane” is an outlier with its darker mode and coiled rhythm, but it’s still a trance-inducer. The album closes with “Tarha Warghey Ichile,” a celebratory banger that begins at a phenomenal velocity and then accelerates near the end. You can imagine this went down a storm at the many Nigerien weddings EDL played.

EDL’s latest album, 100% Sahara Guitar, begins auspiciously with “Ighre Massina,” in which ebullient vocals, tight, cyclical guitar riffs (Moussa and Allamine are the Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd of Africa), and ratatat drums that make you feel as if you’re running with one leg much shorter than the other. “Igrawahi” is EDL’s most laid-back song, and it’s nice to hear some variation in tempo and intensity. The singing is as gorgeous and yearning as the sparkling, mesmerizing guitars. In a better world, “Igrawahi” would be a smash hit. “Amidinine” rolls like a diamond-encrusted tank over dunes, unstoppable and glinting in the unforgiving sun.

As exhilarating as their recordings are, EDL are, by all reports, even more exciting live. They’re traveling over 7,000 miles to hit Seattle, so you’d best believe Etran de L’Aïr will bring the desert heat to zap your blues.

Etran de L’Aïr perform April 8 at Neumos, 7 pm, 21+. 

presidentpoppy:

ALT

Happy Transgender Day of Visibility.

This might seem silly but knowing that J. Jonah Jameson is a civil rights activist and thus would be upset with me about rampant transphobia and anti-trans legislature keeps me going. He saw me transition many times and never left.

In Vivian Blaxell’s Worthy Of The Event, out Tuesday, a trans essayist with a checkered past takes on the big questions of human existence. The book includes philosophical investigations of the nature of transcendence and beauty, historical disquisitions on violence and domination, and searching appraisals of the events of her own life. This excerpt considers an episode from the early days of Blaxell's own transition in 1970s Australia.

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After bringing in $8 million from donors across New York City at a pace never before seen in the city’s elections, mayoral candidate and state Rep. Zohran Kwame Mamdani called on his supporters to shift their focus away from donating money and toward creating “the single largest volunteer operation in New York City history.” “I’m about to say something to you you’ve never heard a politician…

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“This is the very first winter that I haven’t been incredibly strapped for money or overworking myself”

Brianna Martinez has worked in hospitality for years. “I’ve been a barista, a smoothie maker, a yogurt shop person, a barback, a hostess,” she says. But it wasn’t until last year, when she was working as a bartender on Capitol Hill, that she realized that under the rules for tipped minimum wage, tips aren’t on top of your wages, they make up a part of your paycheck every month.

“I was really surprised and also angry,” when she found that out. She asked around and discovered her coworkers didn’t understand how the system worked either. “I’d say, ‘Did you know that a certain amount of our tips goes back towards our hourly [wage]?’ and I could see the look of confusion on their faces,” she says.

That changed this year, when Seattle’s tipped minimum wage system, in place for a decade, came to an end. Now things are simpler to understand: The minimum wage for all workers, everywhere, is $20.76 an hour — one of the highest rates in the country. Some restaurant owners have publicly groused about this and blamed the new minimum wage for forcing them to close. And right-wing media outlets have been enthusiastically highlighting instances where this high wage has hurt businesses. But advocates for the end of tipped minimum wage — like Working Washington, the labor advocacy group that put Eater Seattle in touch with Martinez — say that the policy is working as intended.

In a Working Washington survey of 44 restaurant workers, 23 (more than half) made less than $20 before the wage increase. Eighteen made between $20 and $25 an hour, and only three said they made above $30. That means the vast majority of workers likely saw a real increase in pay as soon as the new minimum wage came into effect on January 1.

Martinez says the bump in pay has been a godsend.

“I’m really happy about the extra pay,” she says, adding that it comes to a couple hundred bucks per paycheck. “It feels a lot more stable and predictable on a weekly basis.”

That stability has been vital for the past couple of months, says Martinez’s coworker, Lara Tkachenko. “This is the very first winter that I haven’t been incredibly strapped for money or overworking myself,” she says. The winter is a traditionally slow time at restaurants and bars, and tip-dependent workers’ pay suffers when the flow of customers dries up. “Pretty much every year, I see people leave the industry around this time of year because it’s not sustainable unless you really plan ahead, like you work extra hard in the summer to make up for the winter months,” she says. (Tkachenko and Martinez asked Eater Seattle not to disclose the name of the bar where they work.)

Some restaurant workers end up taking on extra shifts or even get additional jobs in the winter to make ends meet, and this can be dangerous, Tkachenko says. “A lot of people forget that when you’re working with hot stoves, mass volumes of people, intoxicated people, you can get hurt. It’s skilled work. People get hurt, and the more you have to be available without rest, the more likely that is to happen.”

So far, Martinez hasn’t noticed people tipping less, though she says says she wouldn’t blame them for not tipping anymore because bartenders are making over $20 an hour. “That’s entirely up to every individual,” she says. (Either way, she tries to not pay attention to the tips.) Maybe tipping culture is so deeply ingrained, especially at bars, that it feels rude not to add that dollar per drink.

Or maybe guests recognize that in Seattle, $20.76 an hour doesn’t amount to all that much. If you work 40 hours a week for 50 weeks a year, at that rate, your annual income is $41,520, in a city where the median household income is $121,000 and the median rent is above $2,000.

The minimum wage increase from what it was to what it is now was long overdue,” says Tkachenko, “but it’s still not really even that livable of a wage.” As she points out, many hospitality workers don’t get benefits through work and have to pay for things like health insurance out of pocket.

“For it to only be increased to what I would ideally have been making, like, eight years ago when I first graduated college?” she says. “Yeah, we’re excited, but it’s not really like that much to celebrate.”