Mat Callahan
Encyclopedia
Mat Callahan is an American
musician, author, songwriter, activist, music producer and engineer.
in 1954. Mathew's mother remarried in 1956 becoming the wife of longshoreman Jerome Callahan. Mat henceforth used the name Callahan.
He spent his childhood at Peters Wright Creative Dance, founded by his grandaunt, Anita Peters and her husband Dexter Wright in 1912. His grandmother (Anita's youngest sister), Lenore Job, also a choreographer, dancer and teacher, was the director of the school when Callahan was born. His mother, Judy Job, followed her mother's lead also pursuing choreography, dancing and teaching. Peters Wright Creative Dance was a direct descendant of the movement inspired by Isadora Duncan
. New attitudes towards, women, education and society were embodied in this approach whose influence continued to spread during the 20th century as Modern Dance. From childhood to adolescence, Callahan studied and performed at Peters Wright. His last dance performance was in Charles Weidman's Christmas Oratorio presented on the alter of newly completed Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1965.
In 1964, exposure to the sounds of rock 'n' roll culminated in Callahan taking up guitar and starting the first of many bands. He began working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe
and co-founded the Mime Troupe-sponsored band, Red Rock. This was followed by Prairie Fire, a militant duet that performed all over the U.S., in conjunction with innumerable campaigns and organizations fighting suffering and injustice. During this time, he became involved with the Black Panthers and other revolutionaries, and refused induction into the U.S. Army. After Prairie Fire, Callahan started a band called the Looters.
The Looters began their odyssey as a thrown-together, sweaty, funky, political rock band playing in the legendary underground bohemian hang-out The Offensive, in the Mission District of San Francisco (where most of the original band members lived). The band grew to become a popular, critically renowned, musical trailblazer and led the Bay Area’s “worldbeat
” musical movement in the 1980s.
In 1983, the Looters were invited to play several dates in Nicaragua by the Association of Sandinista Cultural Workers and the Managua television station, being the first U.S. rock band to play there after the revolution. They headlined a stadium show in front of over 28,000 people in Managua, and returned home to further embrace a style of rock music influenced by “world” rhythms and beats.
In 1986, the Looters toured Europe, supporting their first EP on Alternative Tentacles
records, a label founded by iconic punk rocker Jello Biafra
of the Dead Kennedys
. The EP won a Bay Area Music Award “Bammie” for “Best Independent Album”. Callahan became established as the group’s lead singer and songwriter, and remained in that capacity throughout the bands’ run. By happenstance, Island Records
’ head Chris Blackwell
heard the Looters' EP playing in a New York record store and tracked the band down and signed them. The result was the release of Flashpoint on Island Records in 1987, nudging the band into mainstream awareness.
Elements of reggae, rock, funk and afro-caribbean rhythms combined to shape the Looters sound and anchored their attraction as a top live act. The Looters put on passionate, sweaty, exciting stage shows, still playing at illegal venues but also at major concerts, such as opening for the Grateful Dead
in their legendary New Year's Eve shows at the Oakland (CA) Coliseum with the Neville Brothers. They added Canada and Europe to their regular tour schedule and became a consistent touring act.
with Les Claypool
, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy with Michael Franti
and Charlie Hunter
, and Consolidated
. Artists from many continents utilized Komotion’s recording studio and support membership to create lasting works. For more than a decade, Komotion was a center for opposition and creativity centered in the political hotbed of San Francisco. Early on Callahan composed the Komotion Kredo:
Because
In 1989 the Looters released Sides, an EP on Raizer X Records, then hit their arguably creative peak with releases Jericho Down and Imago Mundi on Monster Music records. Jericho Down was perhaps their most critically acclaimed album, as the band received their second nomination for a “Best Independent Album” Bay Area Music Award, and won “Best Pop Indie Label Release of 1991 by WARD Music Monthly. Larry Canale of CD Review stated they were “a band that’s quietly creating some of the most riveting, relevant world/pop music today” and that in concert “the group is absolutely riveting.” Industry bible Billboard
magazine raved about the bands’ “superb musicianship that transcends any single genre.” San Francisco Examiner critic Philip Elwood called the album “a major achievement” and that the band was “a treasure in the music business.”
Imago Mundi, named after Columbus
’s book of maps on the 500th anniversary of his “discovery”, turned out to be the band’s swan song. Featuring the Tower of Power
horn section, the album was a final swing through the musical styles of rock, afrobeat, Cuban, soca and funk. Callahan’s songwriting increasingly included multi-part harmonies that created song melodies and “hooks” distinctive to rock music of the day, while focusing lyrically on social and economic justice. Callahan led the band through a final tour with some new band members, but decided to end the band’s run soon thereafter.
Summing up the band, Stephen Ostick of the Winnipeg (Canada) Free Press stated, “a set with the Looters remains a one-of-a-kind experience. One can still say with certainty you’ve never seen or heard anything like the Looters.”
).
In 1999, Callahan wrote and produced Yvonne Moore’s second album Between You and I and went on to produce and write songs for her subsequent releases Nomad and Put Out the Trash. This grew into a performing collaboration between the two and ultimately the recording and release of Welcome in 2007. On Welcome, Callahan’s acoustic guitar was the only instrumentalal accompanyment to the duo’s vocals. Labeled “new folk” music, its “back porch” feel was far from the global arrangements and big productions of The Looters. Also in 2007, Callahan produced the album Nectar by his daughter, singer Shannon Callahan, in Berlin, Germany. Callahan and Moore released Burn the Boogeyman, their follow up to Welcome in 2009.
stated that Callahan “writes lyrics as rich in allegory and purpose as anything you’ll run into this side of the Old Testament” and that “he just can’t help but write beautiful songs”. So it was an obvious extension to see his lyrics comprise the book Testimony (Freedom Voices), a collaboration with Swiss artist and illustrator Mariann Muller. Published in 2000, the book featured 40 full color reproductions of Muller’s paintings combined with the text of Callahan’s songs from the Looters’ and Wild Bouquet albums. Other published works of Callahan are Sex, Death and the Angry Young Man (Times Change Press, 1991) and The Trouble with Music (AK Press
, 2005).
The Trouble with Music, a study of (pop) music history, technology, music making and music ownership and copyrights, placed Callahan as a guest lecturer on college campuses throughout the U.S., in 2005. He spoke at institutions such as New York University, Berklee School of Music, Oberlin, Albright, and Stanford Law School. He appeared in forums such as the Brecht Forum
and Left Forum in New York City, and in countless bookstores and activist collectives. The book also led him to a friendship and collaboration with folk music pioneer Pete Seeger
. Callahan presented Seeger’s program for Public Domain
reform to the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO) conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2007.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
musician, author, songwriter, activist, music producer and engineer.
Early life
His father, William Kerner, was a leader of the international peace movement following WWII, joining with Paul Robeson and other notable figures in supporting a non-belligerent US foreign policy particularly in regards to the Soviet Union and China. William Kerner died of myasthenia gravisMyasthenia gravis
Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatiguability...
in 1954. Mathew's mother remarried in 1956 becoming the wife of longshoreman Jerome Callahan. Mat henceforth used the name Callahan.
He spent his childhood at Peters Wright Creative Dance, founded by his grandaunt, Anita Peters and her husband Dexter Wright in 1912. His grandmother (Anita's youngest sister), Lenore Job, also a choreographer, dancer and teacher, was the director of the school when Callahan was born. His mother, Judy Job, followed her mother's lead also pursuing choreography, dancing and teaching. Peters Wright Creative Dance was a direct descendant of the movement inspired by Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
. New attitudes towards, women, education and society were embodied in this approach whose influence continued to spread during the 20th century as Modern Dance. From childhood to adolescence, Callahan studied and performed at Peters Wright. His last dance performance was in Charles Weidman's Christmas Oratorio presented on the alter of newly completed Grace Cathedral in San Francisco in 1965.
In 1964, exposure to the sounds of rock 'n' roll culminated in Callahan taking up guitar and starting the first of many bands. He began working with the San Francisco Mime Troupe
San Francisco Mime Troupe
The San Francisco Mime Troupe is a theatre of political satire which performs free shows in various parks in the San Francisco Bay Area and around California. The Troupe does not, however, perform silent mime, but each year creates an original musical comedy that combines aspects of Commedia...
and co-founded the Mime Troupe-sponsored band, Red Rock. This was followed by Prairie Fire, a militant duet that performed all over the U.S., in conjunction with innumerable campaigns and organizations fighting suffering and injustice. During this time, he became involved with the Black Panthers and other revolutionaries, and refused induction into the U.S. Army. After Prairie Fire, Callahan started a band called the Looters.
The Looters
The Looters began their odyssey as a thrown-together, sweaty, funky, political rock band playing in the legendary underground bohemian hang-out The Offensive, in the Mission District of San Francisco (where most of the original band members lived). The band grew to become a popular, critically renowned, musical trailblazer and led the Bay Area’s “worldbeat
Worldbeat
Worldbeat is a music genre that primarily refers to a blending of Western pop music with traditional/folk or world music influences...
” musical movement in the 1980s.
In 1983, the Looters were invited to play several dates in Nicaragua by the Association of Sandinista Cultural Workers and the Managua television station, being the first U.S. rock band to play there after the revolution. They headlined a stadium show in front of over 28,000 people in Managua, and returned home to further embrace a style of rock music influenced by “world” rhythms and beats.
In 1986, the Looters toured Europe, supporting their first EP on Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles
Alternative Tentacles is an independent record label originally based in San Francisco, California and was established in 1979. It was originally used as the label name by the Dead Kennedys for the self-produced single "California Über Alles", and after realizing the potential for an independent...
records, a label founded by iconic punk rocker Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra
Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...
of the Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys
Dead Kennedys are an American punk rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1978. The band became part of the American hardcore punk movement of the early 1980s. They gained a large underground fanbase in the international punk music scene....
. The EP won a Bay Area Music Award “Bammie” for “Best Independent Album”. Callahan became established as the group’s lead singer and songwriter, and remained in that capacity throughout the bands’ run. By happenstance, Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
’ head Chris Blackwell
Chris Blackwell
Christopher Percy Gordon "Chris" Blackwell is a British record producer and businessman, who was the founder of Island Records, acknowledged as the most successful and groundbreaking independent record company in history. Blackwell has been a music industry mogul for over fifty years...
heard the Looters' EP playing in a New York record store and tracked the band down and signed them. The result was the release of Flashpoint on Island Records in 1987, nudging the band into mainstream awareness.
Elements of reggae, rock, funk and afro-caribbean rhythms combined to shape the Looters sound and anchored their attraction as a top live act. The Looters put on passionate, sweaty, exciting stage shows, still playing at illegal venues but also at major concerts, such as opening for the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
in their legendary New Year's Eve shows at the Oakland (CA) Coliseum with the Neville Brothers. They added Canada and Europe to their regular tour schedule and became a consistent touring act.
Komotion International
Also in 1986, Callahan co-founded the artists’ collective Komotion International, an innovative member – run nightclub, gallery, studio, and widely read magazine, which Callahan wrote for and edited. Komotion became an important and fertile social and political focus for the Mission District community and for San Francisco in general. In musical history, it became an incubator and spawning ground for such artists as PrimusPrimus (band)
Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...
with Les Claypool
Les Claypool
Leslie Edward "Les" Claypool is an American musician and writer, best known as the lead vocalist and bassist in the band Primus. Claypool's playing style on the electric bass mixes tapping, flamenco-like strumming, whammy bar bends and slapping.Claypool has also self produced and engineered his...
, Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy with Michael Franti
Michael Franti
Michael Franti is an American poet, musician, and composer. He is the creator and lead vocalist of Michael Franti & Spearhead, a band that blends hip hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk, and rock...
and Charlie Hunter
Charlie Hunter
for the New Zealand racehorse trainer and driver see: Charlie HunterCharlie Hunter is an American guitarist, composer and bandleader....
, and Consolidated
Consolidated
Consolidated may refer to:*Consolidated *Consolidated Aircraft , an aircraft manufacturer*Consolidated city-county*Consolidation...
. Artists from many continents utilized Komotion’s recording studio and support membership to create lasting works. For more than a decade, Komotion was a center for opposition and creativity centered in the political hotbed of San Francisco. Early on Callahan composed the Komotion Kredo:
Because
- Because we celebrate life and battle
- Because we are not satisfied
- Because it is up to us
- Because we love to sing and dance
- Because the pressure is upon us
- Because there are governments and borders and cops and courts
- Because the boundaries must be broken
- Because we are out of control
- Because they said we couldn't do it
- Because we feel like it
In 1989 the Looters released Sides, an EP on Raizer X Records, then hit their arguably creative peak with releases Jericho Down and Imago Mundi on Monster Music records. Jericho Down was perhaps their most critically acclaimed album, as the band received their second nomination for a “Best Independent Album” Bay Area Music Award, and won “Best Pop Indie Label Release of 1991 by WARD Music Monthly. Larry Canale of CD Review stated they were “a band that’s quietly creating some of the most riveting, relevant world/pop music today” and that in concert “the group is absolutely riveting.” Industry bible Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
magazine raved about the bands’ “superb musicianship that transcends any single genre.” San Francisco Examiner critic Philip Elwood called the album “a major achievement” and that the band was “a treasure in the music business.”
Imago Mundi, named after Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
’s book of maps on the 500th anniversary of his “discovery”, turned out to be the band’s swan song. Featuring the Tower of Power
Tower of Power
Tower of Power is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 43 years. They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section...
horn section, the album was a final swing through the musical styles of rock, afrobeat, Cuban, soca and funk. Callahan’s songwriting increasingly included multi-part harmonies that created song melodies and “hooks” distinctive to rock music of the day, while focusing lyrically on social and economic justice. Callahan led the band through a final tour with some new band members, but decided to end the band’s run soon thereafter.
Summing up the band, Stephen Ostick of the Winnipeg (Canada) Free Press stated, “a set with the Looters remains a one-of-a-kind experience. One can still say with certainty you’ve never seen or heard anything like the Looters.”
Solo career
Callahan returned to San Francisco to produce projects by artists such as Stephen Yerkey and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (Island Records). He was awarded the “Goldie” Award in 1992, which honored “Local Heroes and their contribution to the community” by the San Francisco weekly news magazine the Bay Guardian. He also served as President of the Board of Directors for the Bay Area Center for Arts and Technology, a non-profit arts organization. He formed the band The Wild Bouquet which released two albums and toured in Europe, which led to Callahan’s relocation to Switzerland where he lives to this day. After two solo European releases (Testimony, a “greatest hits” compilation and San Francisco), Callahan released his first U.S. solo album A Wild Bouquet (Broken Arrow Records) which featured remastered songs from the out-of-print Wild Bouquet albums along with a new tract introducing popular Swiss vocalist Yvonne Moore to U.S. audiences. The album also featured musicians Les Claypool (Primus (band)|Primus), Joe Gore (P.J. Harvey) and Brain (Tom WaitsTom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
).
In 1999, Callahan wrote and produced Yvonne Moore’s second album Between You and I and went on to produce and write songs for her subsequent releases Nomad and Put Out the Trash. This grew into a performing collaboration between the two and ultimately the recording and release of Welcome in 2007. On Welcome, Callahan’s acoustic guitar was the only instrumentalal accompanyment to the duo’s vocals. Labeled “new folk” music, its “back porch” feel was far from the global arrangements and big productions of The Looters. Also in 2007, Callahan produced the album Nectar by his daughter, singer Shannon Callahan, in Berlin, Germany. Callahan and Moore released Burn the Boogeyman, their follow up to Welcome in 2009.
Books
Callahan’s lyrics have always been a significant focus of his music and acclaim. J.H. Tompkins, music editor of the San Francisco Bay GuardianSan Francisco Bay Guardian
The San Francisco Bay Guardian is a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. The paper is owned mostly by its publisher, Bruce B...
stated that Callahan “writes lyrics as rich in allegory and purpose as anything you’ll run into this side of the Old Testament” and that “he just can’t help but write beautiful songs”. So it was an obvious extension to see his lyrics comprise the book Testimony (Freedom Voices), a collaboration with Swiss artist and illustrator Mariann Muller. Published in 2000, the book featured 40 full color reproductions of Muller’s paintings combined with the text of Callahan’s songs from the Looters’ and Wild Bouquet albums. Other published works of Callahan are Sex, Death and the Angry Young Man (Times Change Press, 1991) and The Trouble with Music (AK Press
AK Press
AK Press is a worker-managed independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical left and anarchist literature. It is collectively owned and operated.-History:...
, 2005).
The Trouble with Music, a study of (pop) music history, technology, music making and music ownership and copyrights, placed Callahan as a guest lecturer on college campuses throughout the U.S., in 2005. He spoke at institutions such as New York University, Berklee School of Music, Oberlin, Albright, and Stanford Law School. He appeared in forums such as the Brecht Forum
Brecht Forum
The Brecht Forum is an independent Marxist educational and cultural center in New York City, named after German writer Bertold Brecht. Throughout the year, the Forum offers a wide-ranging program of classes, public lectures and seminars, art exhibitions, performances, popular education workshops,...
and Left Forum in New York City, and in countless bookstores and activist collectives. The book also led him to a friendship and collaboration with folk music pioneer Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
. Callahan presented Seeger’s program for Public Domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
reform to the World Intellectual Property Organization
World Intellectual Property Organization
The World Intellectual Property Organization is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 "to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world"....
(WIPO) conference in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2007.
Discography
- 1986 – The Looters (Alternative Tentacles)
- 1988 – Flashpoint (Island)
- 1989 – Sides EP (Raizer X)
- 1991 – Jericho Down (Monster Music)
- 1992 – Imago Mundi (Monster Music)
- 1995 – The Wild Bouquet (Komotion)
- 1997 – The Wild Bouquet Feast of Fools (Tomcat)
- 2000 – Testimony (Fun Key/COD Music) Europe only
- 2001 – San Francisco (Fun Key/COD Music) Europe only; 2009 - Worldwide (Broken Arrow Records)
- 2005 – A Wild Bouquet (Broken Arrow Records)
- 2006 – Welcome (with Yvonne Moore)
- 2009 - Burn the Boogeyman (with Yvonne Moore)
Published work
- 1991 - Sex, Death and the Angry Young Man (Times Change Press)
- 1997 - "Creators on Creating" Essay (Putnam)
- 1997 - "Fela Kuti Memorial" Essay (The Bay Guardian)
- 1998 - "Creativity and the Production of Music" Essay (Harper Collins)
- 2000 - Testimony (Freedom Voices)
- 2001 - "Technology and Liberation in a Messianic Age" Essay (Bad Subjects)
- 2005 - The Trouble with Music (AK PressAK PressAK Press is a worker-managed independent publisher and book distributor that specialises in radical left and anarchist literature. It is collectively owned and operated.-History:...
) - 2006 - The Ownerless Society Essay (Intelligence: top secret)
- 2007 - A Tale of Two Conferences (Intelligence: top secret)
- 2008 - Immigration in Switzerland: Facts and Phobias Essay (Socialism and Democracy)
- 2009 - The Nature of the Beast Essay (Socialism and Democracy)