{"id":3257,"date":"2014-02-27T14:48:27","date_gmt":"2014-02-27T19:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/?p=3257"},"modified":"2016-04-06T05:52:15","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T10:52:15","slug":"the-story-about-the-swedish-machines-in-william-onyeabors-backyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/bloggo\/the-story-about-the-swedish-machines-in-william-onyeabors-backyard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story About the Swedish Machines in William Onyeabor&#8217;s Backyard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<blockquote><p><em>Ed. Note:\u00a0Fans of African pop music stumbled on some mysterious records\u00a0years ago. They were recorded in the &#8217;70s and were by an artist named William Onyeabor and were unlike any other Afropop records out there\u2014they featured topical lyrics and\u00a0lots\u00a0of synthesizers. Onyeabor was a well-known pop star in Nigeria for a while\u2014but then he mysteriously disappeared. A few songs popped up on compilations and DJ mixes, but, as an artist, he and his music remained obscure\u2014until recently.\u00a0In attempting to license Onyeabor&#8217;s recordings some unconfirmed rumors surfaced\u2014it seemed he had studied filmmaking in Russia, had a religious conversion at some point and had erased his vocals off the recordings everyone had heard and replaced them with Christian-themed lyrics. Was any of that true? Information was sketchy, but the music was wonderful. Determined to get to to the bottom of the mystery Eric\u00a0Welles Nystr\u00f6m travelled to Nigeria to see for himself. This is a part of his journal of that trip.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>It&#8217;s also worth noting that today marks the premiere of\u00a0Fantastic Man\u2014a documentary about the mythical\u00a0and enigmatic William Onyeabor. Directed by Jake Sumner and presented by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.alldayeveryday.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Alldayeveryday<\/a>\u00a0in association with Luaka Bop,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/noisey.vice.com\/en_us\" target=\"_blank\">Noisey<\/a>\u00a0and Phillips, the film presents &#8220;Onyeabor\u2019s utter uniqueness and the lasting impact of his music&#8221; through\u00a0interviews of musicians (like Damon Albarn), scholars (like\u00a0Uchenna Ikonne), record collectors, and former collaborators (like Goddy Oku). Unfortunately, Onyeabor declined to be interviewed on camera, but, that combined with the rare look into his home\u2014a dreamy,\u00a0shrine-like scene of framed photos of\u00a0William from the &#8217;70s, family members\u00a0and Jesus lining a staircase rooted by a\u00a0Moog keyboard at the base\u2014only\u00a0adds to the mysticism surrounding him.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GiaRp0M2fxE\" height=\"394\" width=\"700\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 367px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\" title=\"Hypertension Album Cover\" href=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/hypertension_370_370_80.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox-0\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hypertension Album Cover\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/hypertension_370_370_80.jpg\" width=\"367\" height=\"367\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hypertension Album Cover<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>My name is Eric Welles Nystr\u00f6m and I work for Luaka Bop. Originally,\u00a0I come from Sweden.\u00a0William Onyeabor comes from Nigeria and you might wonder what any of those things might have to do with each other. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to tell you now.<\/p>\n<p>William Onyeabor lives in a palace hidden in the woods, outside a town called Enugu, in southeastern Nigeria. The palace was built by Onyeabor himself in the late 1970s, through what he calls \u201ca gift from God.\u201d\u00a0I believe it\u2019s not too far away from where he first grew up, although I\u2019ve never been able to figure that out. Enclosed by a white gate, a beautiful old fountain sits in what resembles a courtyard in front of the palace, which is surrounded by grand palm trees that shoot up to the sky like a postcard. A balcony stretches around the whole building,\u00a0with majestic white pillars.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\" title=\"At the Palace Gates&lt;span class='credit'&gt;Eric Welles Nystr\u00c3\u00b6m&lt;\/span&gt;\" href=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/Palace_1632_1224_80.jpg\" rel=\"gal1 lightbox-1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"   \" title=\"At the Palace Gates\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/Palace_970_728_80.jpg\" width=\"700\" height=\"525\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">At the Palace Gates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>A flat, low-lying roof makes it look like a vintage resort of some sorts. On top of the roof, there is supposedly a heliport, however I\u2019ve never been shown that. Parked in front before a magnificent entrance, is an old, silver Mercedes. The palace is called \u201cEzechukwo Palace,\u201d\u00a0which in Igbo means \u201cGod\u2019s Palace.&#8221; It is\u00a0the most fascinating place I\u2019ve ever been.<\/p>\n<p>The first time I visited the palace\u00a0was in\u00a0the late summer of 2012. Yale Evelev and I had spent the last year desperately trying to figure out anything about William Onyeabor. Having reached a dead end with the people who knew anything about him in the U.S. and Europe, I decided to try and visit him at\u00a0his home\u00a0in Nigeria.\u00a0Many would say it\u2019s a bad idea to visit Nigeria in the first place, while\u00a0the few people that\u00a0had actually met with him in person strictly advised\u00a0against it. I thought I&#8217;d just give it a try. I didn\u2019t think it would give us anything in terms of information\u2014Yale had spent the last four years trying to license Onyeabor\u2019s music for a compilation he was working on, and, though Mr. Onyeabor had finally signed the contract in the summer of 2011, he repeatedly refused to answer any questions about himself for more than a year. The last time we had spoken to him on the phone, we inadvertently asked him the wrong question and he almost hung up. I was so nervous during that call, I thought he\u2019d never speak to us again. Many, many months later of having spent all waking hours thinking about him, and obsessively dreaming about him, all of this came tumbling down to this moment. \u00a0I was nervous as fuck.<\/p>\n<p>Thinking back at it now, I guess the day that I first met Mr. Onyeabor felt like a scene out of a heist movie: at first I was taken to his office in town, which looks like a shut down business that is empty\u00a0except for\u00a0a stack of old computers behind a dusty counter, and with a clock on the wall\u00a0that had stopped. When I arrived at the office, a woman asked me if\u00a0I was\u00a0from Russia.\u00a0She then nervously took me out of town to what I understood would be his house. We drove through smaller towns and then through dense bush\u2014always within eyesight of a biblical message preaching Jesus Christ and eventually got to the front of William Onyeabor\u2019s palace, where I was lead inside and asked to wait in his living room.<\/p>\n<p>Now this room is a whole other kettle of fish and something I could go on telling you about all day (There is the most extraordinary stairway built like an altar that feels like it\u2019s shining in gold! An immense sofa that will seat at least thirty people! Twelve white pillars\u2014one for each of the twelve apostles! Organs, keyboards, synthesizers, and other instruments scattered around the room with old recording equipment! And countless photos of Mr. Onyeabor himself, shaking hands with dignitaries and receiving awards!)\u2014but\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0not going to do that.\u00a0 After waiting there for a few minutes\u2014nervously thinking that someone was watching me from the many shut doors, like in an old spy thriller\u2014I was invited upstairs to \u201cThe VIP Room,\u201d where\u00a0I finally\u00a0met him.<\/p>\n<p>William Onyeabor is a man who not only doesn&#8217;t like to speak about himself, but more than anything, he doesn&#8217;t want you to ask him anything about himself. Now, as I was finally allowed to reach this point,\u00a0I was\u00a0determined not to ever cross that line. I gave him a few gifts\u00a0I\u00a0brought with me from New York (a futuristic watch with a touch screen, and a USB key shaped as a Moog synthesizer, ha!), while we watched the rather loud and very intense\u00a0preaching\u00a0of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scoan.org\/media\/prophecy\/\" target=\"_blank\">T.B. Joshua<\/a>\u00a0on Emmanuel TV.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 480px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=VauMq8R0-UA\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Marital Problems? YOU NEED DELIVERANCE! - T.B. Joshua\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/VauMq8R0-UA\/0.jpg\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marital Problems? YOU NEED DELIVERANCE! &#8211; T.B. Joshua<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>He looked at the watch and played with the touch screen, but he wasn\u2019t\u00a0able to fit it around his large wrist.\u00a0I was immediately embarrassed and afraid that I\u2019d insulted him, but instead he chuckled and said, \u201cWhen you go back to New York, tell everyone that you gave me a watch, but that my arm is so big it will fit no watch.\u201d I explained that the watch is from Sweden and developed by some friends of mine there, and\u00a0I would be sure to tell them to make bigger watches from now on. He replied, \u201cYes, Sweden has always been a country of great manufacturing. Sweden and Italy have always been good manufacturers.\u201d I was\u00a0so surprised by this, and explained that I couldn\u2019t\u00a0agree more and that I actually happen to be from Sweden. He looked at me for a long time, and then said, &#8220;Wonderful, wonderful. Yes, Sweden and Italy, they were always great at manufacturing.\u201d I explained that my father is from Sweden and that I lived there most of my life. Again, he took some time and looked at me, before starting to tell me the story of when he visited Sweden, in the 1980s:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhen I was younger, I went to Sweden to study record manufacturing. I went to the offices of Toolex Alpha (pronouncing it Tooolex Alffa, repeating it several times as I wasn\u2019t familiar with the name), in Sundbyberg (repeating it Sundd-biee-berggh). I had a friend there whose name was Gunnar-Axel (again, repeating the name several times). He looked very much like you, although you are not as heavy as he was. I remember, once when I was there, we went to eat in a restaurant\u2014it was at the big hotel in Stockholm. You know the hotel? Yes. When we got to the restaurant it was so dark in the room, I\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0see myself. It was like I almost\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know where I was, as if I had vanished. Then, all of a sudden we are standing before this large mirror, and in the mirror I see these five men, standing next to a white shirt. I realize that the white shirt must be me, and below the cuff of my white shirt was my hand. At last, I realized where I was.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>He then looked at me for a long time, before he started chuckling. Nervous as I was,\u00a0I figured I better laugh too, and then I realized what he actually just told me.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>On the last day of that trip, he asked me to come with him to his backyard. We walked around the house, along the many pillars that gave shade from the bright\u00a0morning sun.\u00a0We continued over to a corner of the house that is surrounded by high grass, where there were five large machines under some scarcely wrapped tarpaulin. He lifted up one of the wrappings, and proudly said, \u201cHere Eric, here are my Toolex Alpha machines, that I bought in Sweden from Gunnar Axel. Look!\u201d I was\u00a0in awe\u2014the machines were beautiful and all I could think about was all the records they must have pressed, how they once were in his own factory in town, and how they came all the way from that small suburb of Stockholm, now resting in the calmness of Mr. Onyeabor\u2019s backyard. I began to wish we could get them all together again, restart his old factory and get the studio up and running again, just like it used to be. (During my most recent\u00a0visit to Mr. Onyeabor in February, I asked if I could take a photo of the machines for this piece. Unfortunately, he declined.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 345px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/TA_345_300_80.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox-2\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/TA_345_300_80.jpg\" width=\"345\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Similar Toolex Alpha record pressing machine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Although\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0Swedish and work in music, I\u2019d never heard of Toolex Alpha. When I got back to New York, I told Yale about all of this and he immediately started looking up information about the company, while I started trying to find leads to Gunnar Axel (who I just have to meet!).\u00a0Yale read that the company went bust in the early 2000s, but it was widely considered one of the best record manufacturing suppliers of its time.\u00a0There still seems to be a lot of interest in their machinery, and through the kind help from the people of\u00a0The Secret Society of Lathe Trolls\u00a0we have found someone in Brooklyn who would like to purchase Mr. Onyeabor\u2019s machines\u2014something I know he would love to do. I have yet to find Gunnar Axel, but\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0determined to make that the purpose of my next visit back home.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve\u00a0been back to see Mr. Onyeabor twice since that first trip. And still to this day, after countless hours together on the phone and many more hours together at his house, it is still that opening moment during my first trip that he told me the most about himself.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/16_3648_2736_80.JPG\" rel=\"lightbox-3\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Goodbye Enugu\" src=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/16_970_728_80.JPG\" width=\"700\" height=\"535\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Goodbye Enugu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width: 700px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/photo_1_2448_3264_80.JPG\" rel=\"lightbox-4\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Signed Bible from William to Eric\" src=\"http:\/\/davidbyrne.com\/images\/made\/images\/uploads\/articles\/photo_1_970_1293_80.JPG\" width=\"700\" height=\"933\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signed Bible from William to Eric<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My name is Eric Welles Nystr\u00f6m and I work for Luaka Bop. Originally, I come from Sweden. William Onyeabor comes from Nigeria and you might wonder what any of those things might have to do with each other. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to tell you now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3257"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3277,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3257\/revisions\/3277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/portal.luakabop.com\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}