The Protest Show 3-30-07

I titled the last show Songs of Humor and Protest as a homage to the poet/artist Kenneth Patchen. Patchen was an interesting guy-- a self proclaimed anarchist, his poems were subtly political. He was also one of the first to read with jazz accompaniment. I tried hard to find a track of him reading his poetry on short notice, but the best I could come up with was a snippet of a track off Kenneth Patchen Reads With Jazz In Canada from Locust Music a label out of Chicago. I also found a recording of my favorite Patchen poem - Street Corner College- done by a Ariel Mahon off the intriguing Astronomy Club Ghost Story out of Sonoma, CA.

I started off the show with the classic "Ohio" from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. This song was written, recorded and released very quickly after the shootings at Kent State. I still think it's one of the most powerful songs in rock history, despite it being overplayed, and that's why i chose to lead off with it. It was banned by most AM radio stations and only "underground" FM stations would play it. I also did a cover version of the song from the Dayton, Ohio band Devo.

Negativland has their own interesting take on protest. They protest our culture, corporate culture specifically, by making sound collages out of random bits of recorded pop culture. They can be hard to take at times, but they have many moments of amazing brilliance. I chose the cut "You Don't Even Live Here" which is a woman screaming to be heard at a public assembly, overlayed with outrageous noise and cheering. It really captures one of those "fighting City Hall" moments.

The African American experience has produced many protest songs. We heard Public Enemy and The Last Poets and some jazz recordings form Charles Mingus with text by Langston Hughes. An interesting interview here with Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets. The Last Poets got 2 songs this show, because I think they were really important in forming some of the more political rap that was to come.

Jib Jab does some really fun animation stuff. I did their version of This Land Is Your Land, but you really need to watch it- Jib Jab

Of course we had to have a Bob Dylan song in there. I wanted to do Masters Of War, but the turntables at the station weren't working, so I had to do Chimes Of Freedom. Luckily, Bob has a pretty big portfolio to choose from. We also did a Dylan cover- Odetta doing Paths Of Victory. The CoverAll was easy to do this week, as there are plenty of great covers out there of protest songs. We did the Dylan and the aforementioned Ohio cover. We also did the cast of John Sayles' Matewan doing the Italian Union song Avanti Populo. Union songs were important protest songs and maybe the first real effective use of songs and protesting going together. I wish I had delved more into this, but ran out of time. The other cover was Cindy Mendenhall, who i don't know much about, but really enjoyed her cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs.

I think of X as the seminal anti- Reagan band. And the song I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts does a nice job of remarking on that era. Not really a proto-typical X song, a little more produced and polished, but it works-- for me anyway.

I bookended some more experimental stuff with two really traditional folk singers-- Phil Ochs and Pete Seeger. The experimental stuff was Sonic Youth, Henry Cow and Captain Beefheart all protesting the horrors of war in their own unique ways.

I really enjoyed putting this show together and wish I had had more time. I will probably revisit this subject again in the future. Look forward to any thoughts you have. If you missed the show you can download it here- Bingo Show 3-30-07 Just click on the "last show" link under the Bingo Show on the schedule. One note-- when I last checked the archive was an hour behind (because of the time change, i think ) and you get the last hour of the show before me. So you can fast forward to the one hour mark and then download the show after me and get the final hour. But hopefully, they have fixed it already.

Easy Ed is in this week with his rockabilly show - Easy Ed, and I'll be back on April 13. Hmm, Friday the 13th. Stay tuned here for more info on the next show.