There is a War Going On (A Different Kind of Tension)
Does the Iraq war have anything to do with what’s been happening in the newer bands and music that gets played these days? Please tell me—-it seems that alot of it has more to do with the war between “pushing it” and “floating downstreem,” which is a more ‘universal’ theme of course, but the way people (in ‘power’) have chosen to act on this ‘war,’or as eponymous song of The Buzzcocks most fully realized album put it, a different kind of tension (nice to see Jack Rabid giving that album kudo “props” in light of their recent tour). Perhaps it isn’t that there’s a definite SILENCE about the war in much of the hip bands of today, it’s that you got to look for it.
Another great song from his 2004 album; hearing it recently on local college staion (either KALX or KUSF; I forget), its “There is a war coming” coda becomes ever more ominous as the Iraq war continues
Okay, sorry to play the poet card here, but if you don’t know this book, which was very successful, back in the days when poetry could actually get attention outside of its poetry clique (1959ish), it’s worth checking out. In my opinion, far better than Allen Ginsberg or Jack Kerouac as a document about what the Beats were on about at their best
I call Mr. Scott-Heron a poet, but, alas, most poets (well most white poets) don’t; not quite. But then maybe Scott-Heron doesn’t need the term ‘poet’ if it’s come to designate a specialized largely white bourgeois (in sensibility, in not of the actual economic status of many of its practitioners), isolated art-form. Anyway, his earlier “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” has gained a cult-status, is often sampled, but “B-Movie” (written after Reagan got elected), with its prescient social analysis and stand-up humor, was the piece that got me into him back in the days. There’s a lot more to say about Gil Scott-Heron. Perhaps a suibject of a future piece.
Not to just single out this book written in the mid 1960s, but since I got talking about poetry and race, I had to mention Baraka, still for me one of the most vital poets (in part because he never contented himself with the box of poetry, and was a public intellectual, worked with musicians, wrote plays, worked in politics); also, he is one of the best aesthetic theorizers of the history of 20th century music. In particular, Black Music has an amazing piece in which he writes about the relaionship of more popular r&b music and the more avant-garde or sophisitcated jazz forms of that period—he also gets some great jabs in at The British Invasion (and even though he’s jabbing alot of my favorite bands from that period, I totally see his perspective).
I haven’t heard this 1985 single in years. Perhaps many Lydon or Rotten fans thought it was bad, or maybe it’s just nor that known. There’s some cheesy 1980s overproduction techniques, but there’s a lot of rockin, snarlin’ good angst in it, that might not be such a bad thing right now.
She wrote this song, dressed in native-American garb on the cover (maybe in today’s politically correct atmosphere people would be against it; maybe Sherman Alexie, could help enlighten me), but it’s not really about reparations for the trail of tears, or is it?
Perhaps another attempt to cash in on The Jackson Five back in 1970, but this Curtis Mayfield produced song’s message of melodic optimism may be, well, a lie about 95% of the time, but that other 5% tries to still assert itself itself.
Have to give the man himself credit (especially because the ‘keep pushin’ theme is the theme of this week’s list—and, no, I don’t want to quote REO Speedwagon’s similarly titled song)!; actually it’s a song from his Impressions years, and like others of his, got that optimistic Martin Luther King message, as he tried to counter the more divisive aspects of the 1960s, in songs like “Mighty Mighty Spade and Whitey”—-Unfortunately, after those lights fell from on him when he was performing and paralyzed him for roughly the last decade of his life, he returned with one album, with an amazingly beautiful statement of pain of despair on it (it makes me cry just to think of it), “What In The World Have I Ever Done Wrong?”
This is the other side of the ‘coin.’ I feel this way alot lately; I bet others do. It’s not a bad thing to feel this way. It may be a necessary thing to feel this way. Maybe all the pushing is why we’re at war—-like all the leftists (including me) shouting for peace——this version of the song is on the famous influential ‘gangsta folk’ Harry Smith anthology
A Minneapolis band from the late 1980s; this song definitely seems to owe something to The Replacements.
“Gotta go to someplace new/ even though there ain’t much else to do/
It stinks there like it stinks here/ I gotta reach, reach, reach, out!”
