Forty Years Later . . . .

For the good times . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"This Machine Surrounds Hate and Forces It To Surrender"

Happy 90th birthday Pete Seeger!

I've had the privilege of seeing Pete Seeger perform twice and as I've often said, I'm glad he's on our side. Give him five minutes in front of a crowd and he can make them do just about anything he wants. Thankfully, he has always used this power for good. While Woody Guthrie was a rambling, gambling, hard-travelling, hard-drinking guy who collected a handful of wives in his time and whose guitar "killed fascists", his travelling partner, Pete Seeger was a teetotalling Quaker Unitarian pacifist who married a Japanese girl during World War Two and did time briefly for refusing to name names to Joe McCarthy. The insigna on his banjo said "this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
As I reckon these things, he's probably one of the greatest living Americans. Happy Birthday Pete!

For a few videos and other material, you can stop by the Woodshed. For more interviews go here,and knowing all his history, if this latest work of his doesn't bring a tear to your eye, then the problem is with you, not Seeger.

For more music tune into Radio Woodshed, where I'll be playing Pete Seeger stuff all day long.

The Revolution Is Being Streamed

I don't want to hijack the blog to sell stuff, but if you have a look over at the Woodshed, you can find out how, for less than ten bucks, you can score some awesome music and help progressive politics. The Revolution Will Be Streamed is now available for sale.

As noted in an earlier post, this is an album of MP3 I've collected from various artists who have donated their creative energy, talent and time to help out Netroots Nation with its online activities. I'm not making a dime, it all goes to pay for things like streaming the speeches and workshops at the Netroots Nation convention online in Second Life.

There is very little in the way of overt politics on the album, just a lot of good music. There's a little bit of everything: Folk, Roots, Salsa, Blues, Comedy, funky pop, alt-country, gothic tinged rock, even some reclaimed '80s dance pop.

And if you just want to listen, you can tune into Radio Woodshed, where I'll be streaming the entire album in constant rotation over the next few days.

I should point out that I have no official affiliation with Netroots Nation and they have no official involvement with this project. I, along with some other like-minded people, took on this project because we think Netroots Nation does good work and wanted to raise some money for them. Any errors, transgressions or omissions are mine, not theirs.

When folk music and political protest clash

Via Uncorrected Proofs, this protest song was deemed to be "too political" for an Australian Folk Festival.



Really... that was too political?

It's too bad the Ed Sullivan Show is gone. I mean, after all, that was the all time favourite variety program of the conservative right. Up until this happened...



Now that's political.