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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Politics will be focus of CSNY tour
CAMDEN, N.J., July 6 (UPI) -- As befits its title -- Freedom of Speech '06 -- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's new tour will be a heavily political affair.
"We took advantage of the possibility of bringing so much focus, attention on things that need to be discussed," said Graham Nash. "It's a different buzz with CSNY, with all four of us."
Nash says the quartet has rehearsed all of the songs from Young's politically oriented new album "Living With War," including titles such as "Let's Impeach the President" and "Lookin' For a Leader." The 34-date trek, which starts Thursday in Camden, N.J., will also feature older favorites like "Wooden Ships," "Find the Cost of Freedom" and "Ohio."
Nash said he's also written a new song, "In Your Name," which deals with the idea of killing in God's name and may be debuted during the tour.
It's the first time CSNY has toured together since 2002.
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A capital weekend of protest
CSNY, Bonnie Raitt lead green and anti-war messages
Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Thursday, July 06, 2006
David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash were thrilled when Neil Young dumped a whole new album of politically charged material on them to learn before the start of a major summer tour, which begins tonight in New Jersey and arrives in Ottawa on Saturday.
The CSNY tour was in the planning stages when Young suddenly came out with this spring's landmark Living With War disc, a powerful anti-war statement that was recorded in a couple of weeks and may be one of his best albums.
In a recent phone interview, Crosby says he devoured Young's new music because he shares the sentiment it expresses. Added to a set list that will also include Vietnam-era hippie anthems from the CSNY repertoire, the summer excursion is dubbed the Freedom of Speech tour.
"This is an opportunity we're grateful for," Crosby says. "Neil's been very restrained about getting political for a long time but he's very unhappy with us being in this war, as are all of us. War is the worst way to solve problems and we really
didn't think there was any excuse for it in the first place.
"I certainly feel it expresses something deep inside me, our frustration. We fought really hard for Gore and we fought really hard for Kerry and, frankly, we felt that (the Republicans) stole the election.
"These guys have kind of taken our country over. They've ruined our economy, they've ruined our reputation abroad, they've taken serious chunks of our constitution. They are doing great harm to us, and we are very happy that we can go out and sing these songs.
"Can you imagine, after what we went through, how good it feels to sing, 'Let's impeach the president for lying?'
"It really feels good, believe me."
The Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young show is part of a big weekend for American protest music in Canada's capital. It's safe to say that at least 10,000 people will be at Scotiabank Place on Saturday for CSNY, but as many or more will be at Bluesfest the same night for an appearance by Bonnie Raitt, the Grammy-winning, slide guitar-playing singer who also has a strong activist streak.
And on Sunday, the next generation of American musical activists is represented by singer-songwriter Michael Franti and indie icon Ani DiFranco. More about them shortly.
For Raitt, war and the environment are at the top of her list of current concerns.
Her tour buses are powered by biodiesel fuel and she supports the Green Highway campaign; information booths are often set up at her concerts.
"We encourage people to stop by on their way out because we want people to know that there's a connection between our foreign policy and our economy shrinking and this devastating effect on the environment and global warming," Raitt says.
Crosby, by the way, is also a supporter of alternative
energy sources, and recently purchased a biodiesel SUV.
"It's a really nice feeling to give the money to a farmer in America or Canada instead of giving it to (someone) who hates me," he says.
Musically, Raitt's 18th and latest disc, Souls Alike, was recorded while the musician was dealing with the loss of her parents, although its themes of survival and hope could be applied to a political situation. In particular, Raitt's version of I Will Not Be Broken took on a new significance after the U.S. election.
With her activism, Raitt feels a responsibility to give hope to a younger generation.
During a recent appearance at Bonnaroo, the huge weekend-long music festival in Tennesee, she was pleased to see thousands of young people knew the lyrics to her latest material and weren't shy about singing along.
"I think they're rightfully very cynical and discouraged that their vote doesn't make a difference," she says. "That's why we did the Vote for Change tour -- not just for changing the administration but to get people motivated that if you want to have a democracy, you have to vote, and for all of those people who have died for our right to vote.
"You can't put your head in the sand and just vote for American Idol and forget the election. We're trying to make sure that people know they can make a difference."
Michael Franti, the charismatic, dreadlocked leader of Spearhead, has a similar mission. With the band's uplifting blend of hip-hop, reggae and soul, he gives exhilarating concerts that leave audiences feeling they can change the world. His last Canadian tour, although it was a more intimate, solo affair, had a similar effect. It revolved around the screening of Franti's pro-peace documentary, I Know I'm Not Alone, made during a trip to the Middle East, in which he shows the human cost of war.
"War affects everyone," Franti said in a Montreal Gazette interview before the spring screening. "Just having a position politic is not necessarily going to bring us closer to peace. I believe now in a politic that considers the other -- that says, 'This is my experience, but let me listen and engage your point of view.'"
DiFranco, meanwhile, has just put out a live recording of her April 6, 2002 concert at New York City's Carnegie Hall, the night that she recited her powerful, post 9-11 poem, self evident, for the first time. Her liner notes say it was one of the most intense moments she has ever experienced on stage.
"Midway through the poem, someone began to sob on the second balcony, a sound that, while it didn't make it to tape, was harrowingly audible from where I stood.
"It was then that it really hit me," she writes. "What did I think I was doing? The nerve of me standing in front of an audience of New Yorkers, not knowing who had lost what ... a friend, a neighbour, a loved one ... and dragging them from a fun night out on the town, back into the epicentre of their pain. I was terrified but resolute. I finished the set, grateful as ever for the bravery and graciousness of my audience."
DiFranco is also preparing for the release of a new disc, Reprieve, on Aug. 8.
Tickets to CSNY and Bluesfest: Capital Tickets, 599-FANS or 1-877-788-FANS. Bluesfest runs tomorrow to July 16.
Information: www.ottawa-bluesfest.ca
© The Ottawa Citizen 2006
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| pdog |
Bust! |
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| jb |
Thats were we dems lose..people hate it when we use celeb (and I use that term loosely with these guys) to push our point of view... |
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| Jumping Jack |
Maybe they should play warm up for the Dixie Chicks. |
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| pdog |
David Crosby's Liver Is Fucked Up
Golda Meir
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| jb |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Maybe they should play warm up for the Dixie Chicks.
Dixie Chicks still reached #1 album and are huge iun some parts...they seemed to have moved to a more pop sound, and the country fans are upset. |
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| pdog |
quote:
jb wrote:
Dixie Chicks still reached #1 album and are huge iun some parts...they seemed to have moved to a more pop sound, and the country fans are upset.
Tell me you don't listen to their music! |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Why Neil Young Is Wrong
by Stephen Smith-Said
June 28, 2006
The Progressive
On Sunday, May 14, the San Francisco Chronicle published my open letter to Neil Young, "Hey, Neil Young, We Young Singers Are Hog-tied, Too." I tried to explain how the corporatized music industry has censored protest music in the past several years. The letter went viral on the Internet, and I was flooded with enthusiastic responses from all kinds of people. Even Neil and his team posted it front and center on his blog for the entire week.
What prompted my letter and the outpouring was Young's comment about why he felt compelled to write his new anti-Bush album, Living with War. "I was waiting for someone to come along, some young singer eighteen-to- twenty-two years old, to write these songs and stand up," he told the Los Angeles Times. "I waited a long time. Then I decided that maybe the generation that has to do this is still the '60s generation. We're still here."
As the first protest singer to rise from the streets of anti-war and WTO protests and get a major worldwide distribution deal, I felt compelled to explain that today's Dylans, Ochses, and Neil Youngs are here, but they're being silenced by an industry that has for years derived its profits from kiddy porn and dreamy boys.
Just two days after my article came out, MTV, which has refused to play anti-war videos even by the biggest stars, published an article addressing the need for political consciousness in mainstream music. In a flourish of Bush-like hubris, one of the country's chief purveyors of military recruitment ads to youth posted the article, "Where Is the Voice of Protest in Today's Music?" The webpage boasted an Army video game in the bottom right corner. (MTV, by the way, refuses to air anti-war ads produced by organizations like Not In Our Name and Win Without War.)
Where's the voice of protest? It's in MTV's trash can.
Where are today's protest singers? They're on the "don't add" list at corporate radio stations, where they've increasingly been placed since FCC deregulation paved the way for the monopolization of the industry.
Just ask Scott Goodstein. He heads the great music/political advocacy group PunkVoter, which, with Fat Wreck Chords, released the Rock Against Bush compilation CDs. Those CDs, which included songs from Anti-Flag and Green Day, sold 650,000 copies combined. When Goodstein approached MTV about getting airtime for Rock Against Bush, they rebuffed him. "They told us, 'Your project's not relevant. Or, it's not mainstreamy enough,' " he says. "And Rolling Stone's no better." Meanwhile, Green Day's current anti-Bush album, American Idiot, has sold five million copies.
Finally waking up, MTV has the nerve to extol Green Day and include Anti-Flag in its story on political bands! PunkVoter immediately posted a retort titled, "MTV, Still Completely Worthless," stating that political bands "will be there, waiting, when MTV is ready to start covering some protest music. Not that they're gonna."
Pete Seeger told me that the floodgates to freedom of expression were opened in the 1960s when the Broadway and Hollywood monopoly over the music industry was broken by Rock and Roll, Motown, and Nashville.
Now, the subsequent monopoly that Rock and Roll, Motown, and Nashville constructed is being broken by the Internet, where artists and organizations are creating networks that transcend corporate genres.
"Most corporate industry professionals just don't understand it," says Molly Neitzel, executive director of Music for America, a nonprofit organization that engages music audiences in political issues. "We're a generation who doesn't fit into boxes," she says. "We listen to all kinds of music, and that just doesn't fit into the old corporate model of selling records to kids this age, that color, this demographic."
Considering how damaging target marketing has been for our democracy, it's great that today's protest singers span all genres: from the anti-cool subtlety of indie- rockers like Death Cab for Cutie and Bright Eyes, to in-your-face hip-hop artists like the Coup, Mr. Lif, and Immortal Technique; from punk bands like Anti-Flag and NOFX, to country and folk artists like Liza Gilkyson and Merle Haggard; from rally regulars like David Rovics, Pat Humphries, and Chris Chandler, to genre-bending artists like Thievery Corporation and Manu Chao.
Some labels are already picking up on the pulse. Andy Kaulkin, who runs a label called "Anti-" for Epitaph, tells me he's become fascinated by the civil rights movement and contemplates what we could do with music to create such a movement today. Accordingly, he has signed artists across corporate music genres that converge instead in political consciousness and spirituality. The label's roster now includes Billy Bragg, the Coup, Tom Waits, and Spearhead.
Speaking with Billy Bragg after my article came out, we agreed that the modern "broadside"-the protest song that actually has political effect because of its timely ability to affect public opinion-is the free mp3. "In the corporate model, it's all based on sales, not on social consciousness, and even the Internet releases are exploited as promo for upcoming releases, so singles are still held up in this four-month lag time the record industry requires for printing, publicity, distribution," he says. In today's sound- bite world, no one wants to write a song about a war that might be over by the time the album comes out.
My conversations with Goodstein and Neitzel inevitably veered toward the idea of a nationwide tour of a diverse selection of artists to bring together a raucous, mixed, and attentive audience. But we also spoke of how to expand the kind of touring I and a few other artists have been doing. We use our shows to support local peace and global justice groups. Kind of like what SNCC and SDS did in their day, except for the global, Internet generation.
Where's protest music today? It's here, it's on the Internet, and it may soon be coming to your town to build an international movement for peace, civil rights, and equality. _____
Stephan Smith-Said is an Iraqi American songwriter whose father's family lives under the daily threat of bombing in Baghdad and Mosul. His newest single, "Another World Is Possible," has been released for free at his website www.stephansmith.com.
www.rockrap.com
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| pdog |
I'm now ducking under my desk, I see right wing spitball attack on the horrizon! |
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| Nellcote |
Hit the beer stalls for Crosby, Stills & Nash
Come back out for Neil.
IMHO he's throwing the other three one of Regis lifelines.
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| monkey_man |
The Couchies will be here any minute. . . |
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| monkey_man |
quote:
Nellcote wrote:
Hit the beer stalls for Crosby, Stills & Nash
Come back out for Neil.
IMHO he's throwing the other three one of Regis lifelines.
Crosby is an arrogant prick! |
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| pdog |
Crosby is an arrogant prick & liver killer!
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
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| Nellcote |
I was just at Guitar Center, I heard many folks there play better than Grampa Crosby |
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| Jumping Jack |
Dems = more taxes, more waste (see New Jersey)
Cutting taxes or working more efficiently should never be an option.
Corzine for President. |
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| monkey_man |
quote:
Jumping Jack wrote:
Cutting taxes or working more efficiently should never be an option.
Cutting taxes and raising the budget deficit ceiling is always the more responsible path. . . |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| Dan |
quote:
monkey_man wrote:
Cutting taxes and raising the budget deficit ceiling is always the more responsible path. . .
I am laughing at all the idiots who are having kids who will have to pay for all this. |
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| telecaster |
quote:
Dan wrote:
I am laughing at all the idiots who are having kids who will have to pay for all this.
Why would our kids have to pay for a failed CSN&Y tour? |
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| pdog |
quote:
telecaster wrote:
Why would our kids have to pay for a failed CSN&Y tour?
That is a good question... |
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| rasputin56 |
quote:
jb wrote:
Thats were we dems lose..people hate it when we use celeb (and I use that term loosely with these guys) to push our point of view...
Yeah, great point...
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| Dan |
In California, only the celebrities are taken seriously. |
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| pdog |
quote:
Dan wrote:
I am laughing at all the idiots who are having kids who will have to pay for all this.
The bills are arriving alredy. |
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| sirmoonie |
quote:
Nellcote wrote:
Hit the beer stalls for Crosby, Stills & Nash
Come back out for Neil.
IMHO he's throwing the other three one of Regis lifelines.
Word.
What the hell is he doing with those yo-yos? |
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| nanatod |
quote:
monkey_man wrote:
Crosby is an arrogant prick!
Shame on you!
Listen to "Wooden Ships" again. Preferably the live version from the Woodstock album. |
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| Joey |
quote:
monkey_man wrote:
Cutting taxes and raising the budget deficit ceiling is always the more responsible path. . .
Amen Monkey Man .........
I absolutely LOVE Big Deficits !!!!!
The Great Ronald Reagan proved to the world that Deficits do NOT matter -- just tack it all on the national debt and make the Lil' Kiddies and Grand Kiddies pay for it all --- as it should be !!!!! 
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm
" Children / Grand Children can NOT vote Ronnie ! "
" Bring Back the DRAFT Ronnie ! "
Jazzy Joe Wolcott !
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| nankerphelge |
Joey?
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| Joey |
quote:
Dan wrote:
I am laughing at all the idiots who are having kids who will have to pay for all this.
You are a smart man dear Sir !!!!!!
In Bushie43's America , Children have no future but to fight all the Wars , pay off all the bills / debt , watch helplessly / hopelessly as the cost of living skyrockets into the Stratosphere and work scat jobs all their lives because the High Paying ones are being offshored to China / India / Costa Rica / Ceylon / ...etc ...
..ss ! "
Jacky Cakes !
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| nankerphelge |
JOEY????
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