My Amazon Reviews: Johnny Clegg and Savuka "Heat Dust and Dreams""

Songs of Hope and Defiance
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Made in honor of member Dudu Zulu, who had been assassinated in the last years of the apartheid, "Heat Dust and Dreams" would be Johnny Clegg's final album with Savuka. In fact, Clegg ended up not releasing another album in America until "Human" in 2010. His music remained in the spotlight, with several songs appearing in movie soundtracks. "Heat Dust and Dreams" was prime Clegg, mixing his brands of South African music with westernized pop. The album even opens with bagpipes behind an African chant (that translates to "the watchman's fire is burning") on the questioning "These Days." As a fan of Clegg would be able to tell you, Clegg's mix of music and politics made for always intriguing listening, with "Heat Dust and Dreams" being no exception.

That's why it has always been frustrating to me that Clegg and Savuka (or his earlier band, Jaluka) couldn't break into the American mainstream. Capitol Records in the States obviously felt he could do it, as "These Days" was produced by the then super-hot Don Was. Longtime contributor Hilton Rosenthal manned the boards for the rest of the disc, but the overwhelming force of Clegg and the band made the choice of producers irrelevant. He effortlessly moved between love songs ("I Can Never Be") to the political condemnation towards the "Inevitable Consequence of Progress."

"The pilot pulled the chopper around
and we got into position
we made all the right moves and
there wasn't any real opposition.
Crazy tribesmen shooting arrows at the 'ship overhead
Such a weird spectacle
the Sarge he smiled and he said
"There's a new world coming and
there ain't no place for them--
Don't feel sad son for what history has condemned."

Having been an artist who spent much of his career fighting the injustices of Apartheid, Clegg's politics are not facile protests. It makes songs like "Progress" and the prayer for peace "When The System Has Fallen" all the more potent. Yet, even with the politics, Clegg knows how to craft songs that lift and inspire, even with the often dark subject matter. U2 had been mining the same turf (as had Midnight Oil to a lesser degree of success), so again, I always has a difficult time reconciling the themes of those bands with Clegg's lack of American success. That's not to say he was lacking for an audience. In addition to his native South Africa, Savuka was wildly popular throughout Europe.

So maybe you missed "Heat Dust and Dreams" or my other favorites "Cruel Crazy Beautiful World" and "Shadow Man," but the MP3 generation can find these easily. Don't miss out.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Tom Morello/The Nightwatchman "One Man Revolution"

Tempering The Rage, Unslaving The Audio
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Tom Morello's first album under his Nightwatchman persona was out to destroy his old reputation as an electric guitar gunslinger for Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave. While he keeps the political bent of RATM in full blast, he's decided that a whisper will work better than a scream. So now he's channeling Woody Guthrie, Pete Seger and Bruce Springsteen ala "Ghost of Tom Joad." This is one wicked lefty political diatribe, and Morello is relishing the part.

I really enjoy what Morello is doing with this phase of his career. I've seen him live twice now, and he's got one charismatic stage presence. However, his songwriting here is not as good as the albums that followed. While I do not underestimate his commitment to this new-found folk music, there's only about half that really catch fire. There's too many songs that merely offer up slogans instead of songs, an issue that he'd overcome in spades by "The Fabled City" a couple of years later.

It's the songs that hit the bulls-eye that really impress. The title song blasts through any complacency the acoustic guitar based songs might lull you into. "The Gardens of Gethsemane" is a powerful narrative of a revolutionary on the prowl, haunted by "I've seen the things I should not see." Offering no viewpoint, you have to ascertain for yourself what kind of man he's singing about. With a haunting guitar whispering behind Morello's strumming, it packs a velvet wallop. "One Man Revolution" needed more of these songs. Like I also said, by "The Fabled City," his songwriting had evolved to the point where every song was an acoustic hand grenade. I'll recommend this to current fans of the likes of Steve Earle or Billy Bragg, but better was on the way.

     

My Amazon Reviews: David Baerwald "Triage"

When Boomtown goes to Bust
5 Out Of 5 Stars

David Baerwald had had enough of your s#-t and was going to make sure you knew it. "Triage" is a cynical masterwork, his best album, and one to get angry about. It may have been released in 1992, chronicling the mess that was the Reagan administration, the rise of AIDS, the fall of the middle class, sometimes all in one song. Inciteful (not a typo) and musically beautiful, "Triage" may have been too overwhelming for the times. But oddly enough, that anger still feels relevant today.

Starting of with the cinematic 8 minutes of "A Secret Silken World," in which he asks "Don't you love to hurt the weak when they refuse to fight?" then details a rich person's complaints about being out and about in Beverly Glen on a "lazy kind of night" ("all those hungry people, such a drag. Let's get something to eat"). Sound familiar? As I write this, it's 28 years after Live Aid and just a few days after House Republicans voted to eliminate Food Stamps. The view from the top hasn't changed all that much.

Then there's the vitriolic "The Got No Shotgun Hydrahead Octopus Blues," which Baerwald was opinionated enough and felt so strongly for that he issued it as a single. Or the talking blues the drug war in "Nobody" or the fearful "AIDS and Armageddon"

The day she tried to kill me
She said you know You're gonna die
I said yeah but not yet.

The line in the song that says "I don't want to talk about it" could have cut two ways, in the Reagan years of denial or of the lover who worries that he may have contracted it, but was terrified of the sex that gave it to him. A thing that was all too real a feeling in the '90's. Which corresponds to the fact that the first thing up in the next song, where a recording of the introduction of the president, then leads into "The Postman," the album's gentlest song.

It's a moment of respite on a relentless CD. It's only at the end does Baerwald find some redemption for the ugly world he's just sang 9 songs about in "Born For Love." Make no mistake, however. "Triage" is as intense a singer's album as the 90's ever produced. Like I said earlier; what Baerwald felt with such vehemence then still sounds timely now.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Midnight Oil "Diesel and Dust - Deluxe Version"

Midnight Oil Burns
5 Out Of 5 Stars

"Diesel and Dust" was Midnight Oil's perfect storm of an album. Peter Garret was still passionate (well, he always was), and the rest of the band, in particular bassist Peter Gifford and drummer Rob Hirst, kicked up their best rock and roll A-game. The Oils shucked some of the artier motifs that bogged down "10, 9, 8..." and "Red Sails in the Sunset," and switched to dance floor propulsion. The result was the politco-rock of "Beds are Burning" became an international smash both on rock radio and in the clubs. Yet it came with absolutely no condensation of the band's roots; the songs were as fiery and as socially spiked as ever.

In fact, this may have been Midnight Oil's most homeland-centric album. Everything from the single to the closing "Sometimes" addresses issues in some form or another. Some are blatant ("Beds are Burning's" pointed look at aboriginal rights, "The Dead Heart's" anti-mining rant) to oblique (the plea to not sell out on "Sometimes" and "Arctic World"). Even the weaker material ("Whoah") would be great on a lesser album. It's a shame that few bands have ever tried to follow where Midnight Oil tread...it's been a long time since a band so forcefully took a stand AND made a successful commercial run at it.

Given the timing of their breakthrough, "Diesel and Dust" may have been at a moment when being socially and politically actionable was acceptable. 1987-88 were also the years "Joshua Tree" ruled the world and artists like The Call, Peter Gabriel and Simple Minds were making anthemic rock chart-worthy. But no-one mixed it up quite like Midnight Oil, and "Diesel and Dust" was the peak of their curve.

Bonus concert DVD shows the Oils at their incendiary best, and includes the video clip for "Beds Are Burning."

     

My Amazon Reviews: Bruce Springsteen "Wrecking Ball"

Get yourself a song to sing
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Bruce Springsteen is one cross Boss. He sees the country going to hell, he feels the pain of his best friend's death, and he's got a few things he wants to get off his chest. Suits me fine. After the tepid "Working on a Dream" and "Magic," Springsteen gets a belly full of fire and breathes it out on "Wrecking Ball." Every song here is the Bruce we've missed when he sang stuff like "Queen of The Supermarket" or "Girls in Their Summer Clothes." This is Springsteen of "Born In The USA" and "The Rising," the mature, fighting fit man who isn't afraid to speak his mind.

That's obvious from the first song, "We Take Care Of Our Own." If Bruce picked up anything from "The Seger Sessions," it was that a protest song can be as unambiguous as it is forceful. Tightwired between rah-rah patriotism and WTF happened to us ferocity, Bruce tears into a nation "between the shotgun shacks and the superdome," where "the Calvary never came" before neatly tying it to the chorus of "Wherever this Flag is flown, we take care of our own." That old sap Ronnie Reagan could have mistook it for a campaign anthem like he did "Born in The USA." No-one, though, will confuse the vulture capitalists of "Death to My Hometown" with jingoism. It's all but an anthem for the occupy crowd (complete with guest shots from Tom Morello on featured songs).

As for his Big Man, "Land of Hope and Dreams" says it all. If you can't pull it from the heartfelt tribute written on the CD's inner booklet, then let the rising organ and gospel wails will. Like the acoustic tribute "Terry's Song" (the hidden track on "Magic"), it captures the essence of a lifelong friendship in the way I think a lot of Clarence Clemmons' fans would have been hoping for. "Wrecking Ball" is the Springsteen we thought may have gone missing. Yet, like the titular object for which this disc is named, he is crashing through or expectations once again.

   

Take That, Bigots!

U.S. appeals court rules Prop. 8 unconstitutional

The ban on same sex marriage remains in place while the case is appealed to the US Supreme court.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46294255/ns/us_news-life/#.TzGGFsiO0sI

My Amazon Reviews: Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman "World Wide Rebel Songs"

Tom Morello Turns up The Heat
4 Out of 5 Stars

In his guise as The Nightwatchman, Tom Morello's first two albums were low key visceral affairs, heir apparent to Joe Strummer and Pete Seger protest folkies. Sometime in the last couple of years, he realized that his powerful guitar playing was not antithetical two his new music, and he began work on a new set of songs. Events of 2010 put even more urgency into his writing; Morello was one of the first musicians to take a stand with Wisconsin's Union Members when that state's Governor tried to crush the Wisconsin Unions. It's the place he debuted, on a snowy, cold Wisconsin street, "Union Town."

If you think political rock is a passe genre, then "World Wide Rebel Songs" will probably make you mad. Yet, in a world where tightly controlled radio-playlists won't play anything that rocks the corporate boat, Morello is coming on swinging. "Politics, apocalypse, start to look the same/The price of my redemption will mean the end of living" he barks (with Ben Harper on "Save The Hammer for The Man"), as if the world of conservative politics and rightwing religion were all too happy to get to the same end result. The pun is all but unavoidable in that Morello is raging against the machine on almost every track. "Speak and Make Lightning," he calls out. This time, with his guitar and a full band attack, "World Wide Rebel Songs" lift Morello to his best solo CD and a fighting fit of an album.

   

Political Photoshop Fun. A REAL Horror Movie

My Video from today's Occupy Philly March

It's the End of R.E.M. as we know it (From By Tris McCall: The Star-Ledger)

...and if we don't exactly feel fine, we can sure be proud of everything R.E.M. accomplished.


Yes, R.E.M., the outfit that discovered a way forward for guitar-rock in the synthesized '80s, is hanging up the six-strings. After a three-decade run marked by classic albums, sold-out worldwide tours, and even the occasional hit single -- "The One I Love," "Losing My Religion," "Everybody Hurts" -- the storied Athens, Georgia group is calling it quits.

The distinctive R.E.M. sound was one fashioned from old elements. Guitarist Peter Buck drew jangling inspiration from the Byrds and the Beatles' "Rubber Soul." Bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry imparted some of the swing of '60s AM-radio pop and the backline growl of garage rock. And singer Michael Stipe approached his simple folk melodies with the melancholy of James Taylor.

Yet the group, to paraphrase their friend Robyn Hitchcock, spelled a brand new world with the same old letters. With his swirling twelve-string arpeggios, the self-effacing Buck inverted the role of the
guitar hero. Mills and Berry drove the songs into murky, kudzu-choked territory. And with his initial onstage shyness, his partially mumbled delivery and allusive lyrics, Stipe redefined what a rock and roll lead singer could do. In a sense, R.E.M. was the first truly egalitarian rock band to hit it big in America. There were no stars; no grandstanding; nobody was mixed any higher than anybody else.

                              On early records, the vocals were often buried behind Buck's deft guitar patterns and Mills' thick, swampy bass. Frequently Mills' backing vocals provided a countermelody as important to the song as the main tune. And Stipe's voice was treated as an instrument like any other -- one more thread in a tapestry of sound -- and the lead singer did not seem to object in the slightest. In so doing, Stipe became the unoffical (and somewhat reluctant) flagbearer for the entire college rock movement then providing an alternative to the endless parade of hair-metal acts on MTV. But upon further inspection, Michael Stipe had quite a lot to say.


"Murmur" (1983), the band's first full-length album, addresses difficulties in communication and being heard: which, as it turned out, accurately represented the frustrations of Generation X, forever drowned out by the voices of the Baby Boomers. "Could it be that one small voice doesn't count in the world?," asked Stipe on "Shaking Through," one of R.E.M.'s first great songs. Stipe was not a storyteller -- instead, fascinated by the sound of words, he painted with phrases, allowing repetition and alteration to carry the emotional weight of his poetry. Sometimes Stipe would change a single word in a sentence, or change a single syllable in a word, and in so doing, deepen the meaning of his verse. It was a technique copied by countless college rock lyricists.

By "Fables of the Reconstruction," (1985) the band's third album, the haze was lifting. R.E.M. became defenders and poets of the American south, incorporating elements of colloquial speech into its songs ("Good Advices," "Can't Get There From Here") . Stipe also became an ardent critic of the Reagan Administration. "Document," the band's most overtly political album, was also its commercial breakthrough. Released in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, "Welcome to the Occupation" assailed American intervention in Central America; "Exhuming McCarthy" drew a connection between the Red Scare and then-contemporary foreign policy; "Disturbance at the Heron House" poked fun at the arrogance of the establishment. "It's the End of the World As We Know It" was not an explicitly political song, but it shook the skeleton of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Once again, R.E.M. had captured the tenor of the times in broken verse. "Document" would be the band's last album for an independent label: after its success, R.E.M. inked a lucrative deal with Warner Brothers. The college rock underground had grown up.

R.E.M.'s first steps as members of the major label establishment were tentative ones: despite spawning hit singles, "Green" (1988) and "Out of Time" (1991) lacked both the focus and the fire of the band's earlier work. But with the elegaic "Automatic For the People" (1992), R.E.M. composed a modern American masterpiece. The album, a series of profound meditations on mortality and perseverance, aches from the first winding riff of opener "Drive" to the final lingering notes of closer "Find the River." But "Automatic" is not depressing: It is a hard Georgia stare at an unbeatable foe who we all must someday face. The band came away from that encounter with their most straightforward song yet -- "Everybody Hurts," principally penned by drummer Berry, with words for a potential suicide so comforting that they could have been penned by a preacher. In one stroke, Stipe the Mysterious had become a Great Communicator.



On subsequent albums for Warner Brothers, R.E.M. chased -- and occasionally captured -- the thoughtful grandeur of "Automatic." But the band never truly recovered from the 1997 departure of Berry, who put away his drumsticks two years after collapsing onstage in Switzerland from the effects of what would later be diagnosed as a brain aneurysm. Stipe, Buck, and Mills never tried to replace Berry; in fact, for many years, they barely tried to rock at all. Yet R.E.M. had one punch left
for those who'd counted them out -- "Collapse into Now," released earlier this year, recaptured some of the energy and expansiveness of the group's late-'80s work. At the time of its release, it seemed to be the sound of R.E.M. turning a corner. Now it'll be remembered as the epilogue to one of rock music's most rewarding -- and inspiring -- underdog stories.