—"We are ugly, but we have the music"
.SO SANG Leonard the C and so sings Red this afternoon. There is the war (always and forever, there is the war) and there is the latest candidate of the Spectacle, a Republican movie star whose campaign really is, I shit you not, “the role he was meant to play.” And there are the media enablers like Jay Leno, who should know better but has a lot of bills to pay, and there is the tumult at Pacifica radio station KPFK, the latest tumult I mean, which we read about in Marc Cooper’s excellent LA Weekly article and despair at the long knives stuck in the eyes of the Ideal, as Emma Goldman called it.
.But then, early afternoon, and the trusty US postal service carrier’s delivery of CDs which are, as it happens late pledge premiums from our household’s recent donation during wonderful, nutty, beleaguered only-game-in-town KPFK’s most recent fund drive. So that, yes, we had the music right there in our hands, which got Red to turn off the public radio and the war, lo, even turn off KPFK for a few hours and listen to and dance to and celebrate the music and poetry, to revel and be heartened and remind himself.
.I know, it’s only rock’n’roll but we like it. So, not that you asked, but the hopefulness and energy that animate us today is catching, and so here’s what’s in rotation on the Now Playing list at Emma’s House of Harmony and Transcendence in the Face of What Passes for Reality, offered in hopes that you will dig it too.
.1. Chumbawamba – “Get on With It: Chumbawamba Live.” If you are not already hip to the best musical ensemble currently on the planet, this is a swell enough introduction. English folk-punk harmonies, anarchist politics, wit and history and an audience of fans singing along, this is a live “best of” record of their twenty-five years that you can get only as import just now, but worth it, so very worth it. If you like the Clash, Billy Bragg, Mekons, the Oyster Band then you are likely already a Chumba fan. If you don’t want to spend the dough, buy their three most recent, cheaper studio CDs instead, “A Singsong and a Scrap,” “Un,” or “Readymades.” Here’s lyrics to their anti-consumption, anti-war, anti-Spectacle anthem (but danceable), “On E-bay”:
.Mr Kokoschka, it just happened again/Sad, so sad
.They struck the museum like a hurricane/Sad, so sad
.All of our culture, it's dead and its gone/Sad, so sad
.From Babylon, baby, back to Babylon/Sad, so sad
.There's stuff you find along the way and stuff you leave behind
.And it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon
.In old Bahgdad they're dusting off the antiques/Sad, so sad
.It's the fourteenth Guernica we've had this week/Sad, so sad
.I got twenty-five dollars for a Persian vase/Sad, so sad
.Hold the critque! I think I'll go large!/Sad, so sad
.That stuff inside your houses and that stuff behind your eyes
.Well it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon
.They're building a tower out of wrappers and cans/Sad, so sad
.Now we speak in a language that we all understand/Sad, so sad
.T-t-t-t-toungue-tied and starry-eyed/Sad, so sad
.It's the ancient history of old school ties/Sad, so sad
.There's stuff dressed up as truth and then there's stuff dressed up as lies
.And it all ends up as stuff that you can buy
.On eBay, from Babylon back to Babylon
.2. Mavis Staples – “We’ll Never Turn Back.” Ostensibly an homage to the American Civil Rights Movement, but with arrangements and accompaniment by Ry Cooder, this is a funky, dark, deep opera with layers and texture. Go right to “99 and a half.” Turn up the bass. Then check out the homemade music video somebody posted of the song on YouTube, with visuals from the May 1 LA police riot.
.3. Patti Smith – “Twelve.” I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that this is possibly the best covers album of all time, with literate, enduring songs you might think you know well here completely revisioned and transformed by the great singer-poet-shaman (and Ralph Nader supporter) Patti Smith. Some of the choices you might expect, like the Stones and Jimi Hendrix, but her version of Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble” and the incantatory Stevie Wonder “Pastime Paradise”? I was especially delighted to hear her do an obscure Dylan song which I thought perhaps only I really admired, “Changing of the Guards,” from the often overlooked but amazing “Street Legal” album. Patti makes it sound like “All Along the Watchtower” in a way that even Bob didn’t.
.4. Ry Cooder – “My Name is Buddy.” A history of labor and justice and anti-fascist struggles offered as fable or allegory or kid’s story. Characters include the narrator, an activist cat named Buddy Red Cat, and his pals, a mouse named Lefty and the Reverend Tom Toad. J. Edgar Hoover is a pig. Smart, funny, and you can sing along. Great guest musicians, including Mike and Pete Seeger. Play “Sundown Town” loud, very loud..5. The Klezmatics – “Wonder Wheel.” You probably figured out that Red Emma is a folkie, so this interpretation by the amazing klezmer ensemble of Woody Guthrie songs.
.They got mentioned in last weekend’s New York Times review of Woodymania, along with Billy and Wilco and Bruce but it might actually be the best of all of them.
.I also recieved the Joni Mitchell tribute album, with her songs performed by Bjork, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Casandra Wilson, Annie Lennox but haven’t opened it yet, saving it for tomorrow and the weekend. I thought I heard that Joni herself just released a revised version of “Big Yellow Taxi” but when I went online all I could locate was the guy with the funny hair from Counting Crows singing “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” which, ironically or not, caused me to pull out the original.
.I know what I’ve got.
Andrew Tonkovich
