Crazy Talk!

Home of the Brave, Let's Misbehave

Speech, the Hungarian rapper featured in Howie's post of a few weeks ago, has the right ideas about war and peace, not to mention a firm grasp of American idiom.

But I find his message relatively unpersuasive.

Relative to what, you ask?

Relative to this.

Music News: The Harder They Go

Desmond Dekker, the pre-Bob Marley reggae/ska pioneer who wrote and performed "Israelites" and "Shanty Town" died today. I've been looking around for his songs online, but I haven't found anything good. Anyway, he was great and I remember bopping my head to his stuff when I was small. So RIP Desmond. Say hi to Bob for us.

New Albums: Living With War

I tell you, I would not want to be President Bush right now. Poll numbers in the toilet, can't campaign for congressional Republicans because of his cooties, and guys who have dodged bullets their whole lives calling his Sec. of Defense an incompetent hack. 2006 has not been kind to Sir George of Greenwich, TX.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for him, the Godfather of Grunge decides to pile on. Neil Young's new album Living With War is now streaming here in its entirety, and it's a blistering condemnation of Bush and the world he's created. It's also completely addictive, as most Young albums are, even in its lyrical and melodic simplicity. As protest music goes, this is top-notch: anthemic, angry, and cutting.

Some songs work better than others, of course. The third track, "Restless Consumer," is like a preachy essay set to wall-of-sound guitar. Yawn. But the two tracks that precede it - "After the Garden" and the title track - are powerful and yet melancholy anthems for a country on the verge of losing its soul (not to mention its moral center). In "Living With War," Young's refrain of "try to remember peace" followed by the lines of the Star-Spangled Banner teeters on the edge of campy, but ultimately sinks in as a plea for help.

When Neil Young writes an album devoted to slamming your choices again and again, you are officially in trouble. Unfortunately the need for such an album shows that the ones in really deep shit are the rest of us.

Music News: Whitley

Just got word that singer-songwriter Chris Whitley died on Sunday evening of lung cancer. I was never a huge listener of Whitley's, but there's no doubt that he could turn a dark phrase with the best of them.

RIP, Chris Whitley.

Listen to "Narcotic Prayer"
More mp3s at Messenger Records