Fire of Love - the Gun Club

I remember when the Gun Club emerged in the mid 80s out of L.A., as it was a truly exciting time for independent and alternative music. And the Gun Club were a key part of them. I had the good fortune to see them live, at a small, but rather well regarded club in Hoboken, NJ and they had some majestic moments, moments in which they kicked into a great, noisy groove and elevated everyone there. Thinking back, I realize how much I miss them (and various other bands from that golden era).

Here, on their stunning debut, the Gun Club, led by hellbound lead singer Jeffrey Lee Pierce, offer 11 fine tracks of bluesy, countrified music. It makes sense to classify it as "roots punk," that is, as a mix of the underlying elements of rock (i.e., blues, country, rockabilly, African/Carribean voodoo music, etc.) filtered through the rebelliousness of punk. It sounded great back then, and it still sounds great. Highly recommended for listening while driving down a highway, particularly around sunset.

Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To

I was just listening to a bit of the brilliant group, the Spacemen 3, a group, about which, the All Music Guide states the following:

Spacemen 3 were psychedelic in the loosest sense of the word; their guitar explorations were colorfully mind-altering, but not in the sense of the acid rock of the '60s. Instead, the band developed its own minimalistic psychedelia, relying on heavily distorted guitars to clash and produce their own harmonic overtones; frequently, they would lead up to walls of distortion with overamplified acoustic guitars and synths. Often the band would jam on one chord or play a series of songs, all in the same tempo and key. Though this approach was challenging, often bordering on the avant-garde, Spacemen 3 nevertheless gained a dedicated cult following. After releasing several albums in the late '80s, the band fell apart after in 1991.

The Spacemen 3 are a band that liked to play with the textures, generally guitar driven ones, of their songs, resulting in a sort of "trance-like neo-psychedelia." And their songs, and LPs, as the above example demonstrates, simulated an altered state of consciousness associated with drug use. The band, while certainly not the first band of counterculturalists to turn to pharmacueticals for inspiration, were to rock music something like what William S. Burroughs was to literature, with the LP Sound of Confusion being their Junky and, I suppose, Perfect Perscription, the record playing on my CD spinner downstairs, being their Naked Lunch. It should be noted that this recording evokes everything from Lou Reed to gospel to Sun Ra filtered through the MC5.

My wife's top 20 rock bands

This is a list that my wife, Jolie, put together a while ago (actually in 2002) of her top 20 rock and roll bands. Pretty good list, if you ask me. She and I got to see, together, live shows by two former Beatles (Pete Best, and Paul McCartney), a Kink (Ray Davies), an Animal (Eric Burdon) a Hermit (Peter Noone) and the reconstituted New York Dolls, as well as the reconstituted Soft Boys and reconstitued Buzzcocks (where we got caught up, for a moment, in the moshpit up toward the front of the stage, and Jolie found herself bumping into the lead singer from Everclear. We also saw, in a packed theater, the T Rex concert film Born to Boogie; T Rex and David Bowie producer Tony Visconti was in the audience then. And another piece of trivia is that my wife works just blocks from where Jimi Hendrix started up a recording studio and recorded Electric Ladyland, and also a slight distance from the building which was photographed for the Led Zeppelin LP Physical Graffitti - two pieces of rock trivia we always point out to visitors when we are showing them around Manhattan.

1. The Beatles 2. The Kinks 3. Led Zeppelin 4. The Ramones 5. The Who 6. The Sex Pistols 7. The Heartbreakers (NOT Tom Petty's Heartbreakers!) 8. Fairport Convention 9. The Incredible String Band 10. Jethro Tull 11. Pink Floyd 12. The New York Dolls 13. The Stylistics 14. Sly and Family Stone 15. T. Rex 16. The Rolling Stones 17. The Jimi Hendrix Experience 18. Deep Purple 19. The Clash and 20. The Misfits

Twenty Five Greats

What makes for rock music greatness is not necessarily commercial success, longevity, or even a great deal of musical ability; rather, greatness seems to emenate from those groups that manage to be very creative and to develop a style and a sound all their own. Bo Diddley, back in the 50s, developed a style all his own, with the underlying basis of his sound being the "bo diddley beat," which Bo himself explained as deriving from a style of dance known as the "hambone," a style involving the stomping as well as slapping and patting the arms, legs, chest, and cheek, and derived from African culture via the Southern plantations and various Caribbean locales. Or, another example is the Kinks, a British Invasion band whose sound was rooted in a more aggressive version of the early 60s British rock but then was refined a few years later through more complex arrangements of their hook-filled songs.

I posted this once before elsewhere a few years ago, and am reposting an edited version of it here. These are arguably the 25 greatest bands in rock history.

1. The Velvet Underground
What made them great: hung out with Andy Warhol and were the Factory's house band, released 4 classic and influential LPs, combined noise/art/drones with well crafted songs, gave us two great talents - Lou Reed and John Cale, influenced punk, post-punk and indie rock from the 1970s on. It has been said that very few people owned the Velvet Undergound's LPs in their time, but that everyone who did was inspired to start a band of their own, or to, in some way, create. Perhaps.

2. The Kinks
What made them great: The Kinks, unlike a lot of other bands of their day, exposed their own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, not to mention their utter Britishness - with their music filled with references to village greens, royalty, afternoon tea, to music hall and to various memories of ordinary British life. They perfected the concept album and were also pioneers of the theatrical side of rock band performance. Much of their music is truly gorgeous and moving (e.g., Waterloo Sunset, Days, Starstruck, Hollywood Blvd., etc.). And their leader, Ray Davies, is undoubtedly a genius, one of rock's greatest geniuses, in fact. In short, they made both pop and art and combined the two in a way only they could.

3. The Beatles
What made them great: The Beatles caused the whole world to fall in love with them, and all with a few basic chords and a few well placed "yeah, yeah, yeahs." The Beatles' greatness, in addition to deriving from both their personalities and their music, has something as well to do with how intertwined they were with their decade - the 1960s. Much was packed into a short span of time, particularly from 1964 until around the time of the moon landing and Woodstock.

4. The Stooges
What made them great: The Stooges are a band now understood to be as seminal as the Velvet Underground for punk rock and other forms of modern music. But whereas the VU were something like a group of art school misfits, the Stooges were more a motley collection of trailer park dirtbags and lowlives, from the wilds of Ypsilanti, Michigan (thus also tied to the great Detroit garage band/biker band scenes). The Stooges seemed to thrive on tension and on stage, this consisted of confronted the audience, in the studio, one another, and when not playing music, themselves. Musically, they captured what is essential about rock, namely its noisy, rhythmic power - no surprise that one of their classic albums was called "Raw Power."

5. The Ramones
What made them great (from a personal review of their 1st LP): I first heard the Ramones debut record in early 1977, shortly after reading a review of them in a music magazine (I think it might have been Trouser Press or perhaps Hit Parader) when I was 15, and I was blown away by its stripped down sound. Hearing them made me an instant fan, as I suspect it did for many others. I remember just loving the Ramones' sound and their twisted sense of humor, not to mention their look (kudos to Roberta Bayley and Arturo Vega for the band photos), and beginning with them, embracing the punk revolution as a breath of fresh air. Here indeed was a band for kid who grew up on Mad Magazine, Famous Monsters of Filmland, comic books, Ed Sullivan, and late 60s bubblegum, and who came of age in the middle of the anomic 1970s. Here the Ramones are sounding extremely stripped down and raw. Recorded for just a few thousand bucks (cheap even by mid 70s prices) the raw sound is a perfect compliment to these songs - some of the Ramones great classics. Songs like Blitzkrieg Bop, Beat on the Brat, 53rd and 3rd, and I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You have well stood the test of time. And with a cover of the oldies song Let's Dance, the Ramones link themselves to rock's glorious past, its transistor radio era. In short what we have here is the start of a musical/cultural revolution.

6. The Who
What made them great: They were tied, at the start of their career, to an anglicized version of Motown/R&B, as well as to the "mod" subculture, and later explored these roots in the LP and (very underrated) film Quadrophenia. They embraced pop art and the swinging 60s, but brought to these things a great deal of testosterone fueled aggression, making their acts of aggression into pop art itself. However, they also balanced their aggressiveness with insightful moments of introspection and reflective insight into the human condition. They were a highlight of Woodstock and released the classic Who's Next, filled with anthems. They then stuck around for several more years, adding to their legion of devoted fans.

7. The New York Dolls What made them great: Not so much their musical skills, which were somewhat limited, as their attitude, one based on their outer boroughs New York personalities, their aggressive androgyny, and their association with drug induced decadence and anomie, all of which made rock music once again seem rebellious, after a long time of not being so. They were the perfect contrast to the corporately sponsored mellowness of mid-70s, Seals and Crofts-era, rock. This attitude and contrastiveness paved the way for the punk scene a few years later.

8. The Fall What made them great: Their droning, atonal sound and the personality of band leader, lead singer and lyricist Mark E. Smith. Even when he's doing things like reading British football scores in the voice of someone with a bad hangover, Mark E. commands the performance space. In short, the Fall, while flirting here and there with commercial success, have been a creative force in indie/underground rock
for decades, and for very good reason.

9. My Bloody Valentine What made them great: They invented/perfected an ethereal style of play, known as "shoegazer." Their music is extremely powerful and seductive and leaves the listener wanting much more.

10. Joy Division What made them great: They captured a moment, when punk seemed dead and the world of possibility was completely opened up, with their music, which is haunting, intense, powerful, and mournful about the various tragic elements of essential existence.

11. T Rex What makes them great: Moved from hippy to glam and thus helped to create the 1970s. And, they are one of a handful of performers/groups (such as Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, AC/DC, Motorhead, Ramones, and ZZ Top) with a patented sound of their own.

12. Yo La Tengo What makes them great: They encompass the history of rock's critical and indie highlights in its entirety in their recordings and performances, and embody the principle of refraining from selling out. Plus, since I like cheering on the home team, and since I have a bit more of an identification with Hoboken's later renaissance than with its 1940s Sinatra-era glory days, I cheer for YLT as my musical home team.

13. Sex Pistols What makes them great: They took anarchism and made it into a band ethos. And they inspired Greil Marcus to write his great Lipstick Traces, which found connections between punk and situationism.

14. The Raincoats
What makes them great: They managed to combine punk and feminist impulses, and gave us a homey, lovely sound.

15. The Beach Boys What makes them great: The musical genius of Brain Wilson, as demonstrated in the LP Pet Sounds and the song "Good Vibrations."

16. Sonic Youth What makes them great: Sonic Youth represents the triumph of the Lower East Side's early 1980s post-punk "no wave" scene, but whereas most of the bands associated with this scene were producing their music almost as an art project - not necessarily meant to last for very long, SY actually dedicated themselves to their band as a career, and produced an extensive body of work, merging guitar noise and conventional song structures.

17. Guided By Voices What makes them great: They've got bulldog skin and they knew how to make lo-fi rock as hard as a metal band.

18. The Television Personalities What makes them great: Someone had to be the cheekily ironic commentators on the punk revolution. Why not them?

19. Hot Tuna What makes them great: They are the anti-Starship, a Jefferson Airplane spinoff band actually better than the band from which they emerged, and thus a continuation of the ideals of the 1960s and of roots rock. And having seen them live, I can easily vouch for their musicianship.

-also, some bonus points here for the fragile, lovely music of Jefferson Airplane alumni, Skip Spence.

20. Stereolab What makes them great: Marry 50s lounge music to 90s synth-pop, and do so perfectly. Listening to their music always puts me in a better mood.

21. The Buzzcocks What makes them great: they were, as the Spin Alternative Record Guide puts it, a "pop band born in punk heaven."

22. TheClean What makes them great: Their total commitment to lo-fi musical greatness and their pioneering status as New Zealand's first great indie rock band - a further instantiation of Beat Happening's notion of an "international pop underground."

23. The Ex What makes them great: Their idealism and their experimental approach to music.

24. Pink Floyd What makes them great: starting with Syd Barrett, one of the great conceptually oriented rock bands, with a great interest in alienation and dystopia.

25. The Minutemen What makes them great: Their energy, their commitment to truth and to ideas, and the fact that they could really play, in a style like no other band of their era.

It was 40 years ago today....

...according to my copy of The Billboard Book of Number One Hits, that two really great pop tunes were in the top five.

For the week of April 15, 1967, the number 2 song in the country was the Turtles' Happy Together, a song written by Gary Bonner and Allen Gordon (these guys also wrote She'd Rather be With Me.)

And the number 5 song was the Monkees' A Little Bit Me, a Little Bit You, a song written by Neil Diamond. (I've yet to hear the Ventures' version, at least in its entirety.)

Both songs - I love them both - bring me back to more innocent days.

It was twenty years ago today....

... that Prince had a top ten hit with the song Sign `O' the Times, which is, in my opinion, one of the great all time Prince songs, from Prince's greatest LP, of the same name.

I remember the release of this, as if it were yesterday. A coworker, Jay R., taped me a copy of this record, and with appreciation, I took it home and gave it a listen. I was already a bit of a Prince fan, and enjoyed his music. But nothing I had listened to could possibly have prepared me for this epic double LP, with its serious expression of social concerns. As I listened to it for the first few times, I can remember thinking how powerful, substantive and deep it was. It represented a major artistic leap forward for an artist who had already demonstrated his originality. And the songs - Starfish and Coffee, Hot Thing, The Cross, U Got the Look, Forever in My life - these songs would just ring in one's ears for hours afterward.

So, this posting is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of this classic record hitting the charts. Chart success is not always a sign of artistic achievement, though sometimes it is. It certainly was in the case of this record. I also have long wondered about who Prince's audience is. I gather that his audiences (and I use the plural intentionally) were multiple and diverse, and transcended color. In fact, I can still recall the first time I became aware of Prince; I was in a record shop in Boston in 1979, and saw a large store poster for Prince's For You LP.

And then, along with music listeners everywhere, I took note of such hits as Controversy, Sexuality, 1999, Little Red Corvette, and of course, Purple Rain. And I remember such moments as Prince on Saturday Night Live, during the show's bad era of the early 80s, doing the song Partyup. Prince was certainly a force. But again, Sign `O' the Times was an artistic leap forward.

So, here's to an album and a song which twenty years later still holds up. And here, while it lasts on Youtube, is a video.

Pub Rock in the USA and the UK

Remember "Pub Rock"? It was sometimes marketed as "punk rock," but in actuality, it was a slightly different animal. For one thing, while it shared with punk a penchant for stripped down simplicity, it wasn't nearly as angry, confrontational, absurdist and/or political as punk. It was much more a feelgood music, though perhaps with some exceptions. Essentially, pub rock was, and always has been, crowd pleasing music played in clubs with bars. And of course, while famous, landmark NYC clubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB's and the Mudd Club could possibly have been considered drinking establishment, none, in fact, qualified as pubs. The music played in these places was not pub rock, exactly. In the U.K., pub rock seems to be associated with small clubs out of London, that is, locatable more in small provincial towns.In fact, the two times in my life I've been to London, I noticed that there were a lot more techno dance clubs than bars featuring bands playing live, at least within the London city limits.

[a side note: in NJ, there is a large slew of shore bands that play in the boardwalk bars, from Cape May all the way up to Sandy Hook. Much like their British counterparts, they used to be known for their classic rock/r&b sound. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes came out of this scene as did, of course, the E Street Band (as well as Bruce's earlier bands). Nowadays, I tend to ignore this scene, as my impression of it is that it has gotten a lot schlockier.]

I was thinking a while ago about pub rock, after acquiring a cheapo 3 CD compilation called "I Spit on your Gravy," and one of the tracks is by Eddie and the HotRods, one of the leading pub rock bands during the era of British punk, c. 1976-78. I remember buying their LP "Teenage Depression" right around the time I got into punk and thinking it was pretty decent. They had a really rocking, loud fast version of Bob Seger's "Get out of Denver." On this record, they do Van Morrison's "Gloria," but its not that great a version.

Anyway, Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds were also pub rockers, with their power pop and neo-rockabilly. So was Graham Parker and the Rumour, with their stripped down r&b, even though, like the punks, Parker was often edgy. Then there were bands like Ducks Deluxe (who spun off into The Motors, Brinsley Schwartz, and Dr. Feelgood. The Motors then gave us Bram Tchaikovsky, who was something of a hitmaker in the late 70s new wave era. I'd also include Ian Dury and the Blockheads and Wreckless Eric among the pub rock pantheon. My wife, Jolie, who lived for a time in England was telling me a while ago about the Sensational Alex Harvey Band; it sounds, too, like they might have been pub rockers; or at least rockers who spent all their free time at the pubs.

Some scholarly accounts of how we use music

Scholar Tia Denora, in the book Music in Everyday Life, draws upon a series of ethnographic studies, including in-depth interviews with a group of fifty-two British and American women aged eighteen to seventy-seven, and in doing so, examines how the subjects utilize music in a wide variety of different settings. The book is thus a social phenomenology of music, which is something that interests me very much.

Another study, Thinking inside the box: In search of music-video culture is a 2005 doctoral dissertation by Patricia L Schmidt, a scholar at the University of Surrey. Schmidt's dissertation is based upon an ethnography she conducted with teenagers in the eastern United States "to examine the development of music-video cultures and to discuss the medium's overwhelming influence on the adolescent imagination." From this, she put together a "working definition of music-video culture and cultural practice." Her work challenges ethnomusicologists to think differently about participant-observation, fieldnotes, and other traditional anthropological methods.



From Amazon.com Music, Space and Place, edited by Sheila Whiteley, Andy Bennett, and Stan Hawkins, examines the urban and rural spaces in which music is experienced, produced and consumed. The editors of this collection have brought together new and exciting perspectives by international researchers and scholars working in the field of popular music studies. Underpinning all of the contributions is the recognition that musical processes take place within a particular space and place, where these processes are shaped both by specific musical practices and by the pressures and dynamics of political and economic circumstances.

Important discourses are explored concerning national culture and identity, as well as how identity is constructed through the exchanges that occur between displaced peoples of the world's many diasporas. Music helps to articulate a shared sense of community among these dispersed people, carving out spaces of freedom which are integral to personal and group consciousness. A specific focal point is the rap and hip hop music that has contributed towards a particular sense of identity as indigenous resistance vernaculars for otherwise socially marginalized minorities in Cuba, France, Italy, New Zealand and South Africa. New research is also presented on the authorial presence in production within the domain of the commercially driven Anglo-American music industry. The issue of authorship and creativity is tackled alongside matters relating to the production of musical texts themselves, and demonstrates the gender politics in pop.

Underlying Music, Space and Place, is the question of how the disciplines informing popular music studies - sociology, musicology, cultural studies, media studies and feminism - have developed within a changing intellectual climate. The book therefore covers a wide range of subject matter in relation to space and place, including community and identity, gender, race, 'vernaculars', power, performance and production.


Sociologist and jazz musician Howard Becker offers the following analysis called jazz places. This is a starting point for those interested in looking at jazz from a sociological standpoint. Here too are Becker's notes on improvisation.

Finally, here are some links to ethnomusicology.

So bad it's good

From Bizarre Records, Nick DiFonzo's website for cataloguing weird records. Great website, worth several visits. The Friends are simply one of a number of obscure acts to be discovered there.

The Bizarre Records catalogue fits in with the sorts of outsider music that WFMU DJ and cultural explorer Irwin Chusid focuses on in his fascinating book/recording series, Songs in the Key of Z. I read his book several years ago and could not put it down.



According to Chusid, "If you're interested in Outsider Music, it's safe to assume you're a fairly unusual person, inquisitive, perhaps a bit "outside" the mainstream yourself. Because Outsider Music, by definition, offers little of interest to the vast majority of your fellow citizens. They have neither the time nor the curiosity for.it.

- - The spectrum of music to which the average person is exposed -- versus the variety of available sonic art -- is extremely limited. Yet I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories about the music industry suppressing uncommercial (or non-commercial) artists; nor do I believe that the government, the Trilateral Commission, Billboard, radio programming consultants, Warner Bros., and agents of the Nine Elder Bankers are in collusion to prevent anyone from exploring the nether reaches of musical marginalia. These lumbering Goliaths aren't concerned with Jandek or Shooby.Taylor.

Most consumers simply do not have adventurous taste in music. They're preoccupied with families, careers, and paying bills, home improvements and car repairs, and getting a good night's sleep. Insofar as music plays any role in their lives, they prefer the comfort of familiar artists and formulas. For that, no one should be faulted. It's a filtering process, necessary to avoid sensory overload. A person who can't appreciate music beyond Air Supply or Jimmy Buffett may have an appetite for exotic food, fine art, or extreme sports. But when they or their progeny get married, they prefer that the festivities resonate with the strains of Billy Joel, Sinatra, Motown oldies, and Madonna. Weddings and Bat Mitzvahs are not occasions for expanding your musical horizons, or those of your guests. And yet music provides an important ritualistic function, and I harbor little doubt that pop standards played or performed at these events have great significance to all involved. Captain Beefheart's "Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish" or Wesley Willis's "Shoot Me in the Ass" just won't.do.

- - Yet Outsider Music has its place -- an intimate, dimly lit enclave. Songs in the Key of Z attempts to air out the dusty attics and damp cellars of the greater music community, introducing some of the dizzy aunts and eccentric uncles about whom your parents rarely.spoke."

Finally, as an example of pure outsider music, there is the Shaggs. This is a group of sisters who seemingly could not play their instruments; nevertheless, the wrote and performed a bunch of songs, appearing at venues during the late 60s/early 70s. Their LP sold very few copies, but among those who did own it were Frank Zappa, who championed them, and the music collectors at Rounder Records, who signed them to a releasing deal. The Shaggs periodically get together to play, and they were also the subjects of a musical in L.A.

Here is the Shaggs' website



On a certain level, Shaggs' music may seem laughably bad and thoroughly amaterish. However, I must admit, I actually like their records a lot, and from what I have gathered, the Wiggin sisters are very likable people. These recordings are unlike anything else ever recorded. Nothing is in tune. The beats and rhythms are all over the place. The lyrics are very naive and childlike. However a certain sweetness and sincerety comes across. I also don't find it irritating the way I find a lot of commercial music. Is it any wonder that the Shaggs have been the object of cultish devotion for all these many years?

Sons (and Daughters) of the Velvets

Some reviews of some seminal bands that were influenced by the Velvet Underground, starting with The Only Ones



A mini-review of the LP Special View

A great blast of new wave energy is to be found here. Featuring the classic Another Girl, Another Planet, Britain's The Only Ones rocked many rock fans' worlds when they they came to public attention during the late 70s punk explosion. Listening to them, you hear in them a sort of a glam/pre-punk feel, not unlike Lou Reed and the New York Dolls. In fact, I suggest listening to them along with Lou and the Dolls, perhaps on a CD spinner. Their respective sounds are quite complimentary.

Back to the Only Ones; here is what Jim Walsh of Spin says about them: "Live, the band's leopard skin vests, furs, pink top hats, sharkskin smoking jackets, and shades had more in common with glam than punk." Walsh also describes lead singer Peter Perrett's songs as "suggestive, flowery, mystical, debauched," and his voice as "sheated in sorrow, decay, and bliss - nothing short of hypnotic." Ira Robbins of Trouser Press refers to Perrett's "romanticism and artfully decadent stylings."

It's no wonder Peter Perrett and Johnny Thunders hit it off.

Next up, the Talking Heads, with a focus on More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)

This is one of those records I associate with a time when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life; it was 1980, and I was just out of high school and taking a writing class at the New School, hoping to learn to observe the world around me and to write well about it. Around this time, the music world, too, was trying to figure out its own direction. Mainstream music felt so bloated and lifeless. Nevertheless, there were various forms of life bubbling underneath. The Talking Heads were one such form. On this, a record from 1978 (punk rock's sophomore year) the band combines the jittery vocals and non ironic observational lyrics of lead singer David Byrne, the minimalist funk-based(particularly on Found a Job) playing of rhythm section Chris and Tina, and a variety of inputs from newest member Jerry Harrison. More Songs then adds something very special to the mix - the production treatment of avant-garde rocker Brian Eno, who helped them to find a newer, perhaps better, sound with which to present their music. It allows them to present their very unique take on Al Green's Take Me To The River, as well as the epic in scope song The Big Country (not to be confused with the song In A Big Country by the band named, what else, Big Country). The Talking Heads song is much more subtle.

One other personal association. I also associate this record and this band, in particular,with the world of lower Manhattan, particularly the area of the East Village/St. Mark's Place, where I was spending an increasing amount of time, going to book stores and record shops and developing a deep appreciation for new ideas and for various alternative cultures/cultural underground. This would be a place I enjoyed observing things going on, a place to inspire writing, and a place with a lot of interesting music and culture, all of which helped me to think.

Turning to the Clean, a band from New Zealand and a leader of the indie rock scene there.

The LP Getaway represents one of my beloved bands playing on a really fine record. While better produced than some of their earlier work, this on again, off again trio continues, over and over again, to deliver music that is a joy to listen to. Combining folkish Velvet Underground-ish three chord rock with various indie rock sonic experiments, including some cuts that remind me of My Bloody Valentine at their most danceable, and featuring the fine accompanying playing of Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan on two tracks, some mighty infectious grooves abound on this, a wonderfully warm, enjoyable recording by a legendary group.

Next up, Scotland's Pastels.

On the recording Mobile Safari, Glasgow, Scotland's Pastels really shine, particularly on the song "Yoga," which sounds something like what the Velvet Underground might have produced had they, like the Archies, had their own Saturday morning cartoon. In fact, the Pastels move beyond the "shambolic," an adjective frequently used to describe their sound and demonstrate why they are, in fact, one of the great unsung rock bands of our day. Long may they continue to shine and to make joyous guitar pop like they do here.

Finally, the band Luna.

Luna, now no longer, were, like all of the bands above, a beloved cult band, but one uniquely influenced by one Velvet Underground LP in particular, their last recording with Lou Reed, Loaded. Their record Bewitched offers a consistent interpretation of Loaded, but not an a derivative way; rather, Luna managed to take a great sound and to bring it forward.

Some possible theme songs for a former hometown

There is a freebie magazine in NYC called The L Magazine

In an issue from a few years ago titled "the music issue," the question was asked, as one of the regular features (the "New York argument," in which two New Yorkers square off on some topic) What's the quintessential NYC song? The arguments were posited by a couple of musicians.


One writer argues for Lou Reed's "Take a Walk on the Wild Side," arguing that the song, about Warhol's Factory, reflects NYC being a collection of scenes: Hip-Hop, Hipsters, Hippies, 1960s Folkies, Antifolk, Bohemians, Beats, Bobos, the Harlem Renaissance, Glam, Broadway, and that New York breeds and imports the talented, brilliant leaders of avant-cultural movements, and stews them in neighborhood cauldrons of endless experience.


The other argues for the song Autumn in "New York," proclaiming that "while New York holds out the promise of every worldly success imaginable - fame, treasure, and young flesh for starters - you're just as likely to find abject failure and cruel heartbreak in New York as you are dizzying success and sweet romance. All of this is poignantly conveyed in `Autumn in New York'."


So, in thinking about this, I ask, what song best describes or conveys something unique about where you live or come from?



Here are three possible picks, and these pertain to Jersey City where I grew up and lived for three different stretches. I couldn't decide between these:


"One of the Boys" by Mott the Hoople
"The Real Me" by the Who
"In the neighborhood" by Tom Waits.

While the first of these tunes, written by Mick Ralphs and Ian Hunter is a classic rocker and is about being in a rock band/fitting in with a group, almost in a tribal sense, the second of these, also a classic rocker, is about not fitting in and feeling alienated. Both of these convey the feel of growing up in a blue collar town like Jersey City. And finally, the third song, the Waits tune, is a nostalgic, somewhat bittersweet ballad, observing/(celebrating?) the eccentric misfits with whom one makes a community, in spite of everything. It has a kind of shaggy dog quality to it, and impressionistically, reminds me of certain aspects of the place in which I grew up. It connects the old to the new, which is how I recall life in an aging post-industrial city which happened to be situated in the shadow of Manhattan. The video for this song is terrific and was directed by Haskell Wexler, the great documentarian.

Anyway, here are some lyrics to the Who song.

The cracks between the paving stones
Look like rivers of flowing veins
Strange people who know me
Peeping from behind every window pane

The girl I used to love
Lives in this yellow house
Yesterday she passed me by
She doesn't want to know me now

Can you see the real me, can you, can you
Can you see the real me, can you, whoa yeah

And here are the lyrics to In the Neighborhood

Well the eggs chase the bacon
round the fryin' pan
and the whinin' dog pidgeons
by the steeple bell rope
and the dogs tipped the garbage pails
over last night
and there's always construction work
bothering you
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Friday's a funeral
and Saturday's a bride
Sey's got a pistol on the register side
and the goddamn delivery trucks
they make too much noise
and we don't get our butter
delivered no more
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Well Big Mambo's kicking
his old grey hound
and the kids can't get ice cream
'cause the market burned down
and the newspaper sleeping bags
blow down the lane
and that goddamn flatbed's
got me pinned in again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

There's a couple Filipino girls
gigglin' by the church
and the windoe is busted
and the landlord ain't home
and Butch joined the army
yea that's where he's been
and the jackhammer's diggin'
up the sidewalks again
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood
In the neighborhood

Global impact of music vs. film

I was once asked the question, which medium/art form has reached more people around the world via popular culture: music or film. The questioner specified that they we're talking about 20th century music/film and were excluding literature
from this debate. The question was about which has had the most power to reach the world, that is, to make people react, be it laugh, cry, think, change society, entertain, remain in people's memories etc.

I replied that I lean slightly in the direction of music, but I think, when all is said and done, both mediums are about tied. Film themes and genres and music styles both cross cultures and bring influences from place to place. One musical example that comes to mind is that of reggae, a Jamaican musical genre based on American soul (and later hip-hop), which then, in turn, influenced everything from British punk bands like the Clash, ATV, Buzzcocks, etc., American rappers like KRS-1, various techno artists (particularly dub reggae), Afropop, and probably a whole lot more. As far as the "message" (aside from the sound of danceable "crooked beat" as the Clash once described it) of reggae, it is ambiguous, being an equal mix of feel-good spiritualism (e.g., Bob Marley's "Three Little Birds" now used to promote Jamaican tourism) and (gangsta-)rebellion, (e.g., Shabba Ranks) and either message, depending on artist consumed, is what gets delivered. I was recently listening to a tribute record to the Nigerian political popstar, Fela Kuti, and on it, artists from around the world gather to interpret music which is itself a hybrid of forms. Also, in both Jamaica and various African countries, the DJ is still king as a taste maker; something that was the case in the U.S. when Murray the K was spinning Beatles records, before radio became corporatized. In more urbanized parts of the world, the same globalization seems to be occurring, but it seems that music videos are more influential; one could argue that the medium of the music video emphasizes the visual at the expense of the music, but I'm not necessarily convinced that the global audience is now only interested in consuming visual images and not in the music itself. What I think is happening are a series of massive changes by which music is produced, distributed and consumed. It is sometimes difficult to chart these changes.

With film and globalization, one thinks of Hollywood. However, there is, within film, high, low, and middlebrow culture, and it seems that what is most globally popular are either the lower or middle brow style fare; I'm not sure what particular this impact has. In part, I think, audiences can and do read whatever meanings they project onto the screen while watching the film.

The needle and the damage done

Rock, folk, blues, and jazz are genres in which some of the greatest musicians have also been drug addicts; Bix Beiderbecke, Billie Holiday, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Art Pepper, Tim Hardin, Townes Van Zandt, Tim Buckley, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, and the Pretenders' Pete Farndon and James Honeyman-Scott were all among the casualties. These musicians were all extraordinarily gifted. Some were visionaries. And not to be overly clinical or reductionist, some may have been inherently unstable as a result of some underlying psychological conditions.While some lost their battle with smack or booze, others managed to go clean, at least for a time. While drinking or drug taking was not necessarily the essence of a Charlie Parker or a Townes Van Zandt or an explanation of the unquestionable beauty of their music, being wasted - and thus loopy and uninhibited - at least some of the time may have had something to do with how they lived their lives and in how they created a music that endures to this very day.

A couple of bands, though, spring to mind as bands that were both drug addled and thus prone to self-destruction but nevertheless perhaps somewhat inspired by the junky existence; brilliant and influentially ragged, these bands, from the world of punk - a world that reveres raggedness and nonconformity - are: The Germs, the Heartbreakers and Flipper.

Here are the Germs doing No God The Germs have recently reformed with a new lead singer and have been out on the "Warped" Tour, playing for kids a few generations younger, and young enough to be their offspring. Many outside of their L.A. base in the early 1980s became aware of the Germs through their appearance in the film The Decline of Western Civilization, myself included.

The Germs were, in my opinion, one of the great and essential American punk bands. Their sound was a particularly primitive stripped down three chord punk; listening to them it sounds as if they could barely play when they started. No matter - neither could other punk legends like Sid Vicious or the Ramones, both of whom were obvious influences here. The other obviously key part of their unique sound is singer Darby Crash. Darby was no poser; for him, punk was a total way of life, one to which he committed his (short lived) life. On songs like What We Do is Secret, Richie Dagger's Crime or Lexicon Devil, you can hear the power of his vocalizing; and you can also hear a deeply buried but inherent tunefulness, deep within the musical muck.

Here are the Heartbreakers doing Going steady and Chinese Rocks. The Heartbreakers were a band formed by guitarist Johnny Thunders, after the breakup/fracturing of his earlier band, the legendary New York Dolls (Here is a really fine Johnny Thunders blog.) I recently finished reading Nina Antonia's book about the Dolls - Too Much Too Soon, and also read, a few years ago, her book on Thunders, In Cold Blood. Both are very good, interesting, informative reads, with both chronicling the rapid rise and hard, grief strewn falls of said musicians.

[Incidentally, the New York Dolls have recently reformed and have an official band website. I've seen this version of them twice live, and while they are a lot of fun and sound decent, it's not quite the same as the 70s version; it cannot possibly be. Everyone knows that. And Nina Antonia's book's has apparently been revised, for the 3rd edition, to cover this recent reunion, as well as the most recent Dolls death, of bass player Arthur "Killer"Kane.]

With the Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders established himself as his own leader of the pack, but in the clip shown above, he shares the stage with bass player/songwriter/singer Richard Hell, who didn't last in this group for very long; (the clip being from 1975, and Johnny here still has his long NY Dolls haircut and not yet his punk hairdo). The classic Heartbreakers lineup was Johnny, ex-Doll Jerry Nolan on drums, Walter Lure on guitar, and Billy Rath on bass. While the Heartbreakers were well known as a band of heroin addicts and were thus inherently unstable (only managing to record one studio LP as a band, and, according to Antonia, sort of screwing that task up. Nevertheless, their recording are filled with hooks, chords, and a type of New York street humor. The Heartbreakers, as well as the Ramones, were also massively influential on the London punks of the 70s, and thus on punk, generally speaking. And yet in their live shows, they were essentially playing for chump change, and were sometimes so wasted that they could barely hold their instruments.

And not to overly romanticize their use of potentially deadly substances, but an argument can and should be made that the use of such substances as speed and heroin by such bands helped to fuel their creativity, by fueling their alienation from much of the world, essentially all of the straight (i.e., non partaking) world, and also by altering their perceptions in ways we may not fully understand. It made their performances ragged and messy, and this actually and authentically added a certain textural quality to their otherwise in many ways conventional music. None of this is to rationalize drugs; rather, it is to look at the use of drugs by certain artists with a sense of honesty.

Finally, here is Flipper doing Way of the world

These performances are truly sloppy and pretty great, with Flipper's showing a particular intensity. Bruce Lose is quite the charismatic front man/lead singer and looks healthy here (that would change in later years; Flipper would also suffer a band casualty - in their case, bass player Will Shatter. In the early, classic lineup, Flipper's two main songwriters were a kind of yin and yang, with Shatter known for writing the "optimistic" songs like "Life" and "Way of the World," and Lose writing the more "pessimistic" songs like "Life is Cheap" and "Living for the Depression."

This video has been removed due to terms of use violation: on intellectual copyrights, part 1

The terms "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation" appears in a number of links to posted materials such as music videos/film clips, such as on such popular websites as Youtube.

Youtube, listing its terms of use rules, states the following: The content on the YouTube Website, except all User Submissions (as defined below), including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, interactive features and the like ("Content") and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein ("Marks"), are owned by or licensed to YouTube, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under United States and foreign laws and international conventions. Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the respective owners. YouTube reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Website and the Content. You agree to not engage in the use, copying, or distribution of any of the Content other than expressly permitted herein, including any use, copying, ordistribution of User Submissions of third parties obtained through the Website for any commercial purposes. If you download or print a copy of the Content for personal use, you must retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained therein. You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security related features of the YouTube Website or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the YouTube Website or the Content therein.

And so, we see a continuation of the ongoing struggle between the rights of "intellectual property" owners and users/consumers of such content. Youtube, being an extremely popular and successful video hosting site, appears to be managing this struggle on an ad-hoc, case by case, basis. It also is the case that the entertainment industry is itself internally divided on the question.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say on this matter.

YouTube policy does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by United States copyright law to do so, and the company frequently removes uploaded infringing content. Nonetheless, a large amount of it continues to be uploaded. Generally, unless the copyright holder reports them, YouTube only discovers these videos via indications within the YouTube community through self-policing. The primary way in which YouTube identifies the content of a video is through the search terms that uploaders associate with clips. Some users have taken to creating alternative words as search terms to be entered when uploading specific type of files (similar to the deliberate misspelling of band names on MP3 filesharing networks). For a short time, members could also report one another. The service offers a flagging feature, intended as a means for reporting questionable content, including that which might constitute copyright infringement. However, the feature can be susceptible to abuse; for a time, some users were flagging other users' original content for copyright violations, purely out of spite. YouTube proceeded to remove copyright infringement from the list of offenses flaggable by members.
Hollywood remains divided on YouTube, as "'[t]he marketing guys love YouTube and the legal guys hate it.'"Further,

“While lawyers are demanding filtering technology, many Hollywood execs actually enjoy the fact that YouTube only takes down clips when they request it. "If I found part of a successful show up on YouTube today, I'd probably pull it down immediately . . . If I had a show that wasn't doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn't be in a rush to do that."
”
Content owners are not just targeting YouTube for copyright infringements on the site, but they are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on YouTube and other video sharing sites. For example QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox Daily Episodes vs. Fox and Columbia vs. Slashfilm. The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the US currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a takedown notice. However, a recent court ruling in the US found Google not to be liable for linking to infringing content (Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.).

Examples of infringement complaints

On October 5, 2006 the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) had their copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on YouTube finalized. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and various other music including Jpop) were removed.

When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content to YouTube they announced that they would use new technology that will help them find copyrighted material and remove it.

TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in Summer 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.

On November 9, 2006 Artie Lange said his lawyer were in talks with YouTube, after finding his entire DVD, It's the Whiskey Talking, available for free on their site. Artie said he will either demand money from them, or else he will sue.

Viacom and the British Broadcasting Corporation both demanded YouTube to take down more than 200,000 videos.

Viacom announced it was suing YouTube, and its owner Google, for more than $1 billion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom claims that YouTube has over 160,000 of their videos on their website without their permission.

Speaking personally, I am for as much open access as is possible, and I am for a balance between intellectual property rights and the principle of fair use. (To be continued.)

Review: The Velvet Underground's - White Light/White Heat

The Velvet Underground is, for me, rock's - or specifically indie/alternative rock's - all time greatest band because it is its most influential. The list of bands and musicians influenced and inspired by the VU is enormous and includes U2, the Cure, the Strokes, REM, Luna, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Patti Smith, to name just a few. I am the proud owner of their boxed set, Peel Slowly and See which is one of the few boxed sets I own. I also own some solo records by various Velvets, including Lou Reed, Nico, and John Cale. I brought my friends to see the film "I Shot Andy Warhol," which reconstructed the era of Warhol's Factory, when the Velvets (well played in the film by Yo La Tengo) were the house band. I now own a copy of that fine film, as well.

(Here, as a bit of proof, is a really crude, lo-fi and amazing film clip of the band playing, apparently at the Dom on 8th Street (Manhattan) April 1966. It's a crude clip, but its very Warholian and gives a good sense of what the VU sounded like during their mid 60s period. Such 60s NYC underground royalty as Barbara Rubin, Tuli Kupferberg, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Ed Sanders, Gerard Malanga, Andy Warhol all appear to be present.)

Even though I was born in 1961, and was thus a bit too young to have known about and understood the Warhol Factory era, I do remember the tail end of the 60s. And I remember Greenwich Village and lower Manhattan from back then. I had an aunt who loved the City and who used to take me over there, from our NJ home, on a regular basis and I have specific memories of witnessing 60s freaks in Washington Square Park. I must have been about six years old at the time. As I got older, I came to a realization of the significance of the 60s, of Warhol, of Greenwich Village, and of the seminal band connected to all three: Lou Reed, John Cale, Mo Tucker, Sterling Morrison - the Velvet Underground.

I bought a rather old, scratchy copy of this record, which I found in a used record bin, while in high school in the mid/late 1970s, which is also the period of time when I, influenced by 70s rock mags like Creem and Circus, began to discover the music of Lou Reed (e.g., Coney Island Baby, Transformer, Street Hassle, etc; this was also a follow-up to my love of the music of David Bowie, whom I discovered in the 8th grade, in 1975, which is also around the time I remember seeing LP covers f0r Roxy Music). However, I didn't truly get deeply into Lou and the Velvets until a bit later, when I bought a Velvet compilation, and began listening to them, as well as the various Velvets solo stuff more frequently and carefully. Nevertheless, having first listened to this record and its classic proto noise/no wave track "Sister Ray," when I did, planted a seed. I recall liking a few of the songs here - the title track, "Sister Ray," and "Here She Comes Now," and not quite knowing what to make of the rest, particularly John Cale's nihilistic little story song "The Gift" or Lou's freak out guitar solo on "I Heard Her Call My Name." I was also less than impressed with the cruddy production values of the recording, made worse by my scratchy used copy.

Listening now, and thinking about it further, I now realize what a gem even a scratchy used copy of this is. This, indeed, is a great album. This is also mainly Lou's album, and in it, you can hear him asserting himself as the band's leader. And you can also hear the band pushing him back. And listening to the whole band thrash away on "Sister Ray" - with its deviantly awkward, erotically charged lyrics -one hears what a rock drone is meant to be. In short, the lo-fi production and the inherent tensions within the band made for a proto-punk, proto-indie rock classic recording, one which truly captures the anomic and polarized mood of the late 60s, a time of drugs, violence, political confrontation, of social and artistic change. The whole world was being turned upside down, and the Velvet Underground managed to capture a small piece of the tenor of the times. This recording belongs in the music collection of everyone interested in the history of rock, punk, indie rock or Warholiana.

Finally, Olivier Landemaine maintains a very informative Velvet Underground web page .

Paris Hilton has a record deal?

Paris Hilton is the perfect embodiment of that side of American society and culture that is bubble headed and that worships at the altar of money and celebrity. It is the culture that is also expressed in the headlines of the supermarket checkout counter tabloids, the Globes, Stars, and Enquirers, with their references to scandalized celebrities referred to by first name only ("Anna Nicole," "Brittany," "Tyra," "Jacko," "Ashton") as if we, the public, were on a first name basis with these remote figures. Being bubble headed, this culture promotes trivia and minutia over more important facts; more Americans, for example, can name the Three Stooges or recite the lyrics to the Brady Bunch song than can name their own congressperson or explain the Bill of Rights.

This interpretation of the more shallow aspects of our society, then, helps to explain the phenomenon of this record, which is purely the result of recording studio technology. Like some of the disco classics of the late 70s, this is little more than generic dance pop. As such, it's actually listenable, but in a purely mindless and innocuous way. It's much better than, say, Kelly Osbourne's equally mindless musical outbursts. If anything, it reminds me of the kinds of music that I hear when I am at the mall, which is pumped out of the mall stores' speakers, at an appropriately innocuous volume, so as to give the consumer a kind of mild pumping up so as to keep on spending. I would imagine this goes over particularly well in the mall stores frequented by mall princesses. Nevertheless, it's rather generic and empty, not unlike the "soul" of the "artist" whose name gets to be put on this. We know, though, that Paris Hilton had very little to do with making this recording, as making a recording is work, and Paris Hilton doesn't know the first thing about what it is to have to work.

Incidentally, here is Paris Hilton's website which offers links to her videos and to music clips. It pretty much speaks for itself.

A burst of energy, courtesy of Joe Strummer & the Clash

For those in need of a pick-me-up, here is one that works for me. A rocking video, courtesy of YouTube, of one of my favorite bands, the Clash, playing an October 1977 show in Manchester, UK, in support of their recently released LP, The Clash.

The Clash were a great band, one of the greatest in the history of punk rock, and very political. I feel privileged to be able to say that I saw them perform twice, once in 1979 and again in 1982.

Here's some proof of how great they were; a video of them performing the songs "What's My Name" and "Garageland" live at a club in the North of England. They play with total intensity. And lead singer Joe Strummer shows what a charismatic star he was.

My favorite moment here: during the second song, "Garageland," Joe leans right up into the crowd and sings the chorus - "We're a garageband/we come from garageland" etc. and guitarist Mick Jones provides the backing vocal "who-ho-ho"s as does the crowd, a number of whom lean in to touch Joe, some patting him on the head as you might affectionately touch a beloved pet. It's a moment of punk communion.

So, let the Clash - and this recorded moment of their history - be, perhaps, a metaphor for the importance of community, the need for positive energy, and the willingness to channel our rage toward something creative. And may the great Joe Strummer rest in peace.

A list of my favorite politically oriented musicians

Here is a list of my favorite left leaning bands and individual musicians, from a variety of different musical genres.

I'm in my forties and having grown up on pop and rock and loved such musics from an early age, inevitably, my interests in music and politics (as well as sociology, which I study/teach) became somewhat intertwined. When I was a kid growing up in a lower middle class Democratic household in NJ, with aunts and uncles who were nostalgiac for the big bands of the 1940s, parents who liked pre-rock music (lots of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett) and older siblings who listened to everything from the Beatles to Donovan to Iron Butterfly, I was exposed to a wide range of music (including late 1960s "folk masses" at church, showtunes, commercial jingles from the 60s/70s, and much else in between). Then, starting late in high school and continuing in college and grad school, my taste in music began to expand, and incorporated such genres as punk/new wave, funk, hip-hop, jazz, folk, blues, bluegrass, and even a bit of classical and modern music. I now listen to lots of different music, some of which, such as the Beatles and various Motown groups, I have liked since childhood, and much else I have discovered in later years.

One of my proudest achievements, in fact, was organizing an academic conference on hip-hop last year at Lehman College

Anyway, as far as politics and music, here is a list of some of my favorite performers whom I associate with the left end of the political spectrum. I like what these musicians stand for. But I also like and deeply appreciate them as musical artists.

The Clash - These guys knew how to rock, and knew how to make their audience think. Offered such insightful lyrics, about such topics as working class oppression as

"So get back to work an' sweat some more The sun will sink an' we'll get out the door It's no good for man to work in cages Hits the town, he drinks his wages You're frettin', you're sweatin' But did you notice you ain't gettin'?"

and militarism

"All the young people down the ages They gladly marched... off to die Proud city fathers used to watch them Tears in their eyes"

And how can you not love a band that could come up with lyrics such as these

"I don't wanna hear about what the rich are doing I don't wanna go to where the rich are going They think they're so clever, they think they're so right But the truth is only known by guttersnipes."

Johnny Cash - Johnny Cash may have been a true believer from the Bible Belt and may have been a country superstar, but that didn't cause him to be a reactionary or prevent him from seeing and speaking the truth. Whether addressing the lives of those living behind bars, the plight of Native Americans, or questioning America's involvement in Vietnam, Johnny Cash was generally a humanistic voice of the workingman and a great, great talent.

Here's a fine tribute to the man in black.

Bob Dylan - He was probably thought of as more explicitly political during his earlier days, particularly on the earlier (profoundly influential) recordings like The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, which featured songs like "Blowin' in the Wind," "Masters of War," and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and The Times They Are A-Changin' which had along with the great title track, such other classics as "With God on Our Side," "Only a Pawn in Their Game," "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." However, his career in its entirety is symbolic of many things, including the very idea of America; in that, he cannot help but be thought of as a symbolic icon of who we are.

Bruce Springsteen - I'm originally from New Jersey but I got to see the Boss back in 1980 at Madison Square Garden, when he was touring in support of his LP at the time, The River. What an amazing live performer. He played for a solid 4 hours, and never seemed to run out of steam. I was truly impressed.

It turns out, too, that Springsteen is a truly progressive artist, and very much an heir to the old folkie spirit of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Not for nothing did Springsteen recently release a rollicking album We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions Here too is a link to a video performance

And after 911, Springsteen's music was healing. When I first heard the song "City in Ruins" with its pleading chorus of "Come on rise up!/Come on rise up!/Rise up," I was so moved that I wept for a long time.

Patti Smith - and in particular the song "People have the Power." This song (co-written with her late husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5) is so good that I will quote it in its entirety.

Phil Ochs - Ochs is probably best known for the song "I Ain't a Marching Anymore," an anthem of the antiwar movement in the 1960s, which was put to great use in the documentary film Berkeley in the Sixties

And as proof of Ochs' commitments to progressivism, here is a transcript of Ochs testifying at the trial of the Chicago 7. He, Abbie Hoffman and company were comrades in the struggle.

Pete Seeger/the Weavers - I feel a special bond with Pete Seeger, as he is my neighbor here in Beacon, NY, and like me, Pete was a part of John Hall's successful campaign for Congress. Last weekend, he led a little gathering of community members in some festive outdoor holiday caroling. And at a Hall fundraiser a while back, he had us all sing-along to his antiwar song "waist deep in the big muddy" and told us the story of how he was censored by CBS when attempting to sing the song on the Smothers Brothers TV show. It was neither the first nor the last time that Pete Seeger, a truly decent and wise man, would run afoul of the powers that be.

John Lennon/the Beatles - John became more radical over time, and while some of his actions - such as the "bed in" for peace - may have seemed a tad gimmicky, his heart was certainly always in the right place. I still mourn his loss to the world.

REM - Performing at the Bring 'Em Home Now! concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, an event benefiting a number of anti-war groups earlier this year was not the first political act of REM's Michael Stipe, but was merely an example of his commitment to progressive causes.

Billy Bragg - This man, who set Woody Guthrie lyrics to music on some award winning records, is a socialist electric guitar playing folkie at heart, who's written a ton of really fine odes to the working man (and working women; in fact, a good chunk of his songs are tender love songs).

Yo La Tengo - While not necessarily a political band per se, these veteran indie rockers from Hoboken, NJ have their hearts in the right place, having been catalysts for the 2004 John Kerry campaign through their "swing state" tour, along with such notable as Chris Heinz, Eric Bogosian, Ted Allen from 'Queer Eye,' John Wesley Harding, Rachel Dratch and Friends from SNL, author Jonathan Lethem, and many others. Plus, their ode to voting (with Chris Stamey - actually his song went like this): "If you don't get out and vote this year/You're really not groovin/It takes every one of us/to keep the country movin/You can make it to the polls/you can get it together/Won't you meet me there?/we'll vote/we can make things better/V-O-T-E: Vote!" (This reads a bit hokey but, trust me, actually sounds good when set to music.)

Bob Marley - So many of his songs - so well known at that - were message songs. You can pick which is your favorite. Mine happens to be "Punky Reggae Party," his tribute to the London punks of the late 70s.

Fela Kuti - This guy was so charismatic and so politically motivated that he took on the dictatorship in his country of Nigeria and came close to leading a revolution, only to get violently beaten down, and to have his mother killed, by the dictatorship. Invented a genre, "afrobeat," and wrote a classic political anthem, "Zombie." His attitude toward women was problematic, but in nearly all other respects, he was a true progressive and visionary.

Bruce Cockburn - It is hard to think of too many songs other than "If I had a Rocket Launcher" - written during Reagan's proxy wars in central America - as expressions of righteous anger toward fascistic bullies. Also wrote a not quite political but equally great song called "Lovers in a Dangerous Time."

Steve Earle - a brilliant songwriter, perhaps best known for his passionate opposition to capital punishment. Steve Earle experienced many trials and tribulations in his life; as he's put it, he's "been to hell and back again." A true progressive, he serenaded us during the GOP occupation of NYC back in the summer of 2004.

Woody Guthrie - Not much needs to be said about the man who wrote the left wing alternative patriotic song "This Land is Your Land" other than to say that he inspired millions of people over many generations.

John Hall - I'm proud to call him my representative in congress and I was moved and inspired when he sang Steve Van Zandt's "I Am A Patriot" during his victory speech on election night.

Bonnie Raitt - Not only did she help her dear friend John Hall to win his seat in Congress, but she's been a voice for political progress for many years. And on top of that, she plays a pretty mean slide guitar.

KRS-One - perhaps the most brilliant thinker/writer in the history of hip-hop, Kris Parker, aka KRS-One of the ensemble Boogie Down Productions, has been philosophizing about street life and inner city culture for several decades.

Public Enemy - helped to give hip-hop a new sound to go along with their message of self-determination in such classic tracks as "Fight the Power," "Bring the Noise," "Party for Your Right to Fight," and "Prophets of Rage."

The Ramones - I know that the Ramones also weren't really a political band per se, but I include them mainly because of Joey Ramone and the classic song "Bonzo goes to Bitburg." I loved the Ramones, and was lucky enough to see them live, twice, back in the 70s.
Here's Salon's fine posthumous tribute to Joey Ramone

The Flames of Discontent - this is a local band of politically active folky musicians here in the Hudson Valley who specialize in protest and old union songs like "Joe Hill." Here is their website.

Check them out. They're really cool people and very talented musicians.

Rage Against the Machine - for merging neo-marxian analysis with metal and hip-hop and having it all work. Or, as the All Music Guide puts it, "sloganeering leftist rants against corporate America, cultural imperialism, and government oppression into a Molotov cocktail of punk, hip-hop, and thrash"

Neil Young - Here's the video for Let's Impeach the President. I think that this appropriately angry rant of a song says it all, when it comes right down to it.

Arrested Development - best remembered for the classic song "Tennessee," which dealt with the inherent spiritual journey of Black history, as the All Music Guide suggests, this band offered a blend of "progressive rap collective fusing soul, blues, hip-hop, and Sly and the Family Stone-influenced funk with political, socially conscious lyrics."

Michael Franti/Spearhead - A Bay Area based social and political activist, Franti, a founding member of hip hop groups, the Beatnigs, the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, and Spearhead, is a very talented socially conscious artist whose writing has developed in complexity as he's gotten older. He's addressed such topics as AIDS, racism, homelessness, and the conflict in the Middle East, all with an acutely sharp sense of justice and humanity, and has thus been compared to Mavin Gaye and Gil-Scott Heron.

Gil-Scott Heron - When I think of him, I think of such great, righteous classic tracks as "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," "Washington, D.C.," "Johannesburg," and "Message to the Messengers," as well as his "tributes" to the Reagan administration - "B Movie" and "Re-Ron."

Digable Planets - a jazz influenced hip-hop group with a mellow vibe from Brookyn, this group stood for gender equality and peace, in sharp contrast to much of the prevailing norms within 90s hip-hop. And "9th Wonder (Blackitolism)" is one of the catchiest tunes ever recorded in any genre.

Tom Petty - Here's a quote from an interview with Petty in Esquire.

"The war in Iraq is shameful. Whether you're pro or con Bush, you've got to admit: The guy lied. And he continues to do so. I can't understand why he's just not run out on a rail. To send somebody's kids off and have them killed for no good reason--he's going to have his day in hell for that. I wouldn't want that karma.
When you kill somebody's little sister with a missile, he's going to hate you forever. And the next generation will hate you even more."

Also, he released an explicitly political album in 2002, called The Last DJ which featured the track "Money become king," which like his earlier song "Jamming me" is an accurate statement for our time of greed, mass production, and information overload.

Henry Rollins/Rollins Band - Rollins, on the surface, may mistakenly appear to be a right wing and stereotypical "angry white male," but looks can be deceiving. In fact, he is a much more complex figure. Highly intelligent and fiercely independent, Rollins has taken punk's DIY philosophy and made it his primary operating principle. Politically, he is smart enough to see the stupidity of those operating from positions of power, and to call them on their bullshit. Musically, he offers a rockingly hard catharsis.

Ani DiFranco - a antimaterialist, post-feminist folkie for our times.

Michelle Shocked - Michelle Shocked manages to bring a Lower East Side/countercultural sensibility to all of the music that she explores, be it folk, bluegrass, jazz, or anything else.

Beastie Boys - It's hard to believe that these guys went from the wisecracking adolescents of "Cookiepuss," and "Egg Raid on Mojo" to mature elder statesmen of hip-hop and alternative rock, organizing events to save Tibet, as well as the environment. But they have.

Fugazi - Ian McKaye is a living icon, and this DC based band of his, which came out of hardcore punk, embodies all of the ideals of a movement that emerged in opposition to the mainstream in all of its dismal forms (such as plastic corporate culture). Musically, Fugazi stand out against the countless, uninspired guitar bands whose music all kind of sounds the same.

Bad Religion - This long standing punk band takes on a wide variety of right wing targets - such as the Christian right - in a series of very tuneful musical moments.

Miriam Makeba - Perhaps best known for the 1967 Afropop hit "Pata Pata," and in the US for her friendship with Harry Belefonte, Miriam Makeba, known as Mama Africa, is a vitally important figure in African musical and cultural history. From South Africa, she was driven into exile for her outspokenness against the apartheid regime. When she returned to her native land in the wake of Nelson Mandella, she was hailed like a returning queen. In the meantime, she has a large body of recorded works, nearly all of which are full of charm, warmth, and elegance.

Moby - Moby, a vegan, feminist, radical, anticorporate techno/pop artist with energies channeled in many different directions gives Christianity, a version of which he follows, a very good name. Had his breakthrough moment with the LP Play and the hit song "South Side."

Carmaig deForest - He who plays the ukelele punk style. Here is a link to his fine song George Bush Lies

The MC5 - from Detroit, these guys were the godfathers of political punk, combining hard rock and late 60s garage punk, with a radical, countercultural sensibility permeating their songs, some of which, like "American Ruse" and "Motor City is Burning" created a picture of a polarized society coming apart at the seams.

The Gang of Four - These guys are basically punk's version of the Frankfurt School, or Adorno and Horkheimer with punk riffs and funk basslines.

God is My Co-Pilot - offer a radical gender vison wedded to some very radical postpunk grooves

The Ex - are an influential and deeply respected musical collective. I've written about them elsewhere in a review of their singles compilation that the Ex are committed philosophical idealists and political activists, who also happen to be a long existing and deeply influential punk band. The Ex - from the Netherlands - formed in the late '70s, and began recording in the early 80s, releasing singles, EPs and LPs on various indie labels, and participating in the creation and maintanence of politcal punk scenes in Europe, the U.S., and elsewhere. This recording compiles much of their early work, and sounds very raw and abrasive, as well as minimalist and lo-fi. Most of the songs are sung in English (though some, such as "Lied Der Steinklopfer," are not), and offer socially critical and political themes and topics. While a number of the songs sound a bit same-ish, some do stand out. Among these are "Human Car," which explores the analogy of man:machine, and does so over classic hardcore punk riffs, and some of the more explicitly topical or political songs, such as "Cells," "Weapons for El Salvador," "Enough is Enough" (which also features a kind of Middle Eastern sounding motif within the song), and the dirgelike "Memberhips." Highly recommended for fans of noise bands and/or leftist message oriented punk.

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Johnson, a former Black Panther in the UK is a politically conscious dub reggae artist who has dealt, really insightfully, with themes of racial and class oppression.
Here's a review from All Music Guide:

"Although he has only released one album of new material in the last ten years, and has virtually retired from the live stage after his 1985 tour, Linton Kwesi Johnson remains a towering figure in reggae music. Born in Kingston, Jamaica and raised in the Brixton section of London, Johnson invented dub poetry, a type of toasting descended from the DJ stylings of U-Roy and I-Roy. But whereas toasting tended to be hyperkinetic and given to fits of braggadocio, Johnson's poetry (which is what it was — he was a published poet and journalist before he performed with a band) was more scripted and delivered in a more languid, slangy, streetwise style. Johnson's grim realism and tales of racism in an England governed by Tories was scathingly critical. The Afro-Brits in Johnson's poems are neglected by the government and persecuted by the police. Johnson was also instrumental (with his friend Darcus Howe) in the publication of a socialist-oriented London-based newspaper, Race Today, that offered him and other like-minded Britons both black and white an outlet to discuss the racial issues that, under Margaret Thatcher's reign, seemed to be tearing the country apart. For one so outspoken in his politics, Johnson's recorded work, while politically explicit, is not simply a series of slogans or tuneful/danceable jeremiads. In fact, is was his second release, Forces of Victory, where his mix of politics and music united to stunning effect. Dennis Bovell and the Dub Band could swing (as in jazzy) more than many reggae bands, and guitarist John Kpiaye, the group's secret weapon, offered deftly played, dazzlingly melodic solos. But it was Johnson's moving poetry, galvanizing moments such as "Sonny's Lettah" and "Fite Dem Back" that made it obvious that this was a major talent."

Willie Colon - I teach in the Bronx, which is where this activist musician from the world of salsa originally hails from. Colon, in addition to maintaining an influential, nearly 40 year musical career, has also been an activist on human rights, immigration, and environmental issues, and has been an advocate for the Latin American community in the U.S. In the Bronx, he is a revered figure

Pearl Jam - a bit mainstream at times, these guys - not unlike U2 - nevertheless bring a social conscience to arena rock. And their last record, titled simply Pearl Jam, rocked like a motherf**ker, with the song "World Wide Suicide" an apt description of a world with George W Bush in power. In fact, the entire album appears to be a protest statement against the Bush administration.

Dave Van Ronk - I got to see him play live once, many years ago at a socialist scholars conference in Manhattan, where after playing the song "losers," he, being an old lefty, thanked the audience with a "goodnight comrades." Not knowing exactly who he was, i.e., that here was a guy who mentored a young Bob Dylan, I now know I was in the presence of greatness. The voice, the songs, the fingerpicking guitar style, the attitude, the irreverenace toward power, Dave Van Ronk was a complete package.

Utah Phillips - No one quite sings a protest song like Utah Phillips.

Marvin Gaye - He wasn't necessarily always political, but What's Going On is a masterpiece, and the title song on it still rings true.

the Mekons/Jon Langdon/Three Johns/Waco Brothers - Britain's neomarxist country punks who combine sociopolitical analysis with roots music have been doing their thing - in a myriad of different permuations - for over twenty years.

Frank Zappa - Probably more of a libertarian than a leftist, Frank Zappa was afraid neither to experiment with music nor to speak on freely and honestly on what he thought was true.

Incidentally, the photo above is of the great Almanac Singers, featuring a very young Pete Seeger (that's him, second from the left) and also Lee Hayes (later a member of the Weavers) as well as Woody Guthrie. The Almanacs specialized in union/working class tunes and were explicitly political; they were later blacklisted as communists.