Pokey!

Pokey La Farge is the man! His band, the South City Three, are pretty swell themselves. I thoroughly enjoyed their folksy Americana set at Club Passim last night. They are true performers, choosing not simply to play music but to put on a proper show. And they were super accessible. I asked them what, out of the old Americana cannons, I should listen to. Pokey and one of his band mates happily offered several recommendations: early Cab Calloway, Milton Brown, and Ma Rainey. I learned from Wikipedia that Rainey and her husband dubbed their duet Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. A-mazing.

You can buy the new Pokey La Farge and South City Three album Middle of Everywhere (2011 Free Dirt Records) on cd or vinyl here.

This song was particularly awesome. All my whiskey drinkin' pals will 'preciate it.

(This isn't from the show I saw but the feeling is similar)

Amartya Sen + Van Jones

I am a lucky lady. I had the pleasure of seeing two of my heroes speak within days of each other: Amartya Sen on Friday in Houston and Van Jones tonight in Cambridge. They were both great speeches, though I connected more with Jones' (which you'll find on the Harvard Institute of Politics iTunesU by the end of the week). Definitely check it out. He highlighted some little known information about the Tea Party and drew some interesting comparisons between the Tea Party movement and #Occupy. I actually got a chance to ask both speakers about #Occupy. Sen said he'd been out of the country and needed to read up on it but he was encouraged to see people rising up against the vast economic equality in America. I asked Jones about strategy specifically and he said that he thinks the protests, as a swarm, don't necessarily need to be held accountable for coming up with strategies or solutions for us but should help draw attention to the actors who have put forth solutions. I look forward to a close reading of his organization's Contract for the American Dream which, he claims, lays out some solid solutions. Honestly, we he first announced the contract, and the launch of his group Rebuild the Dream, I thought, "Really, another group?" we already have MoveOn, 350.org, Progressive Change Committee, and a million other groups who haven't put forward a silver bullet, why another? I suppose I'll give it a second look.

Van Jones is so fun to listen to. He's an amazing speaker and has a great knack for making a conversation about the dire circumstances in our country just a little hilarious. Tonight I laughed out loud more than once. He also just made some choice and quotable points:

"When you rig the game, you divide the playground... The kids start acting up."

"Markets work according to rules. The rules are whacky and as long a they're whacky, they're going to give us things we don't want." He then provided some examples, including "...chemicals in our food." I love that.

Thanks Van, for always being an inspiration.

I'm sitting in Club Passim in Cambridge, about to see Pokey LaFarge. Awesome.

Eugene McDaniels

This post is dedicated to Wyatt.

I first got into Eugene McDaniels when a really good soul put "Outlaw" on a mix for me. While not often a household name himself, McDaniels' music was sampled in a crap ton of hip hop in the 90s, most often by A Tribe Called Quest, and again in the 2000s by groups like De La Soul, Quasimoto and People Under the Stairs. (A comprehensive list is available on WhoSampled, which is fun to play with.) He started out doing gospel and jazz stuff in the 60s under the name Gene McDaniels but later went back to Eugene McDaniels before releasing Outlaw and the much sampled Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse. Also in the same time period, he began focusing on black consciousness and wrote "Compared to What," a protest song made famous by Les McCann and Eddie Harris.



McDaniels was pretty up front with his politics. A message printed on the back of Outlaw reads:

Under conditions of national emergency, like now, there are only two kinds of people -- those who work for freedom, and those who do not: the good guys vs the bad guys.

The original gangsta passed away just this summer, at his home in Maine.

This Tribe classic samples McDaniels Jagger the Dagger (featured second).

Simple Pleasures

Often my job allows me to run around and do cool things but sometimes I have to hunker down, roll up my sleeves, and bury myself in administrative and financial paperwork. It doesn't sound fun but there are things about it that I find immensely pleasing. For example, I particularly enjoy the act of stamping the word "COPY" on my own file copies of financial reports. I know how sad that sounds. I made a point of not smiling too wide while I did some stamping recently because I feared my intern would notice and think I was a real nut job. (She probably thinks that anyway.) The thing is, I grew up with some similar rubber stamps and the act of using them is as nostalgic for me as I imagine making fluffernutter sandwiches is for some folks. As a kid, I used to pull stamps out of my parents' desk drawer and use them to officialize my own "paper work" and "business" with words like "TAXES" and "FAXED." I'm sure my parents really appreciated all the rubber stamp art I left on top of their bills and other properly important business.

Paperwork, like typewriters, dot matrix printers, rotary phones, AOL, and pencils, is something we'll probably have trouble explaining to our children. Maybe we won't even bother trying. I'm all for new technology, but when paperwork and pencils truly disappear, I will miss the tactile satisfaction of actually doing things with my hands while I'm at a desk. God, I hope I'll at least still get to have desk.

Record Review in Performer: Tall Heights

“Boston duo blends cello with soaring vocal harmonies”

After a year of touring, and a residency in Fanueil Hall’s Street Performer Program, Tall Heights have stripped down their sound and released a wintry little EP entitled Rafters. For the first time, they wrote, played, and recorded all five tracks alone and it seems that shedding outside influence has worked in their favor. The new songs are slow and insightful, marking a departure from their pop-tinged folky debut Smoke Signals, and the EP as a whole is more mature in its composition and its subject matter.

While the meat of their sound comes from a mellifluous mix of guitar, cello and vocal harmonies, a low-fi recording style and unique percussion act as perfect condiments. Drums were omitted in favor of knitting needles and a steel pipe, and careful listening reveals the sounds of singing birds and a thunder storm that were picked up during the recording. The title of the EP feels appropriate, as old and lonely things are reoccurring themes in the lyrics.

Keep reading

On Occupying

Photos from this weekend's police crackdown on protesters in Boston.

It kills me that I haven't yet been down to Occupy Boston. Tomorrow night, I'll be there. Any highlights from you folks out there around the country? Updates please!

I've heard a lot of complaints about this movement not having a clear message. I'm not sure that's true, but either way, I'm just so happy that we're finally giving the Tea Party a run for its money. Were we really going to sit back and watch some frightening racist rhetoric-spouters use the tools we created* to thoroughly destroy what little dignity might be left in Washington? Unh uh!! Thank God something is happening. And who knew we'd take a page from the Arab book on revolution? How 'bout that America?

*Tea Party organizers have been known to use Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, among other traditionally liberal organizing texts.

I particularly enjoyed the words of Occupy Boston organizer and Northeastern student Jon Phoenix on today's show of On Point with Tom Ashbrook. Phoenix addressed the question I've been asking all along, what happens three months from now when it's cold outside and the media has stopped covering the protests? He believes the movement might morph into a third party, produce a candidate for the 2012 election, and give Mr. Obama a (perhaps well-deserved) run for his money. It's an interesting idea. We'd also have to consider how a third party candidate might split the vote in favor of the Republican candidate. Of course, four years of Mitt Romney could also help further mobilize the left. But for what? Can we do better than Obama in 2016? I digress.

One of the other guests on the radio show indicated that the third party proposal plays into our existing polarizing political system and would continue to leave a lot of voices unheard. Also a valid concern. I'm excited to see where this goes. I wish I was a grad student in the study of social movements right now and I could spend the next year bouncing around these protests. I just hope there are good people carefully documenting the movement as it unfolds so we can learn from present events and build on them in our quest for the America we really want to see.

Here is some info on the financial implications of Occupy Boston on Boston's municipal services, i.e. the cost of overtime pay for the police patrolling Dewey Square.