Tom Morello Played City Winery

On Thursday I stopped by City Winery to see Tom Morello performing as The Nightwatchman. I was only familiar with a handful of songs prior to the show and I had mixed feelings about what I had heard. I didn't know what to expect.

We were given seats a couple of feet away from the stage. I scanned the room and saw an surprising amount of middle aged dudes in collar shirts. It looked like a holiday luncheon for CitiBank or something. We ordered a couple of drinks (Old Speckled Hen!) and waited for Tom to come out. Luckily we didn't have to sit through any crappy opener or anything and the show started 15 minutes after our arrival.

Tom came out with nothing but a stomp box and an acoustic guitar. The crowd went crazy! People were yelling out "revolution" and shit along those lines. Again, considering the appearance of the crowd this was not what I expected. Tom thanked the crowd and chatted a bit before launching into the first song.

His songs were clearly inspired by Dylan, Seeger and Guthrie. They were folky but had elements of what we know of his work with RATM and Audioslave. I didn't love every tune but none of it was bad either. He is a master perform and even when the tunes were lackluster he completely controlled the mood in the room. The between song banter was very entertaining. He is pushing an agenda but kept it light enough that it didn't come off as preachy.

On a few occasions he whipped out his electric guitar and played some of the craziest shit I have ever heard/seen. I've always taken issue with him getting such high marks on all-time guitar player lists but when you see what he's doing from 10 feet away it's fucking mind blowing. He is a technical master but has Hendrix-esque flare (he even played with his teeth).

My one complaint would be that the range of his voice is pretty limited. Granted he's a guitar player, not a singer, but the songs would have benefited greatly if the vocals were better. He did have another guitar player on some of the songs who would occasionally chime in on vocals. That guy could sing very well and it added so much to the music.

Some other highlights included Tom performing "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "This Land Is Your Land". At the end of the set he invited everyone on stage to sing along and close out the set. That's when I saw Michael Moore smash his head on an overhead speaker getting on stage. Did I mention Michael Moore was there? He was amongst the rich white guys yelling "revolution" while drinking a $14 glass of wine.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the show, more so than I expected. Tom knows exactly what he's doing on stage and just fucking owns the room. It was impressive, not so much on a song level but on a performance level. I would see this guy perform anytime.

We Are Scientists v. Rage Against the Machine

So I've got a a dispatch from today's NME online. I'm sort of following up with Matt's blurb about Rage Against the Machine at the DNC which you can find below...

Anyways, NME was talking to the jackasses from We Are Scientists about playing Reading or Leeds or some big, rainy festival which RATM had headlined. Rather than be gracious (hey, I'm not a huge Rage fan either) or intelligent, the favorite sons of Brooklyn went for glib and basically, ignorant.

The whole thing is here

The choicest bit:

Murray added: "This is an argument I have with myself a lot because I really hate political statements coming from bands. I feel like the last person I want to hear you know a philosophy from is someone whose one credential is that they can play the guitar."

Murray admitted Rage Against The Machine aren't all bad though, saying: "On the other hand it's good to have bands like Rage Against The Machine, who no matter whether or not you think they're a bunch of fools who are trapped in freshmen year of university, are at least speaking their minds and like trying to make a difference. Although, were they spouting fascist ideas then we'd all be condemning them." (my italics)

This is what disturbs me so much about our scene in this city sometimes...apparently, it's funny and immature to give a damn about anything. Maybe it was all of my formative years in the punk scene, but I always thought it was badass that certain groups were really committed to certain ideals. And it did me a lot of good to hear to hear what they had to say...

Look, obviously, a group like Rage Against the Machine isn't above pageantry, sure. But in the quote above, it sounds a lot more like we are disqualifying guys from speaking out just because they have guitars; as if that makes them junior citizens.

Rage Against The Machine & Flobots Playing DNC Protest Show

RATM hates the dems just as much as the GOP. So they teamed up with Flobots and will be having a free show in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. The passes with be distributed via a lottery. Apparently they'll be doing this for the GOP convention too.

Link:
RAGE Crash DNC

De La Rocha: One Day As A Lion "Wild International"

Holy shit Zach, it's about time you put out some non-Rage related music. People have been waiting for this almost as long as "Chinese Democracy". Go to MySpace and give the only available track "Wild International" a spin. Guess what- it's awesome! Not life changing awesome. But awesome nonetheless. It sounds like a stripped down RATM song, which it turns out is a good thing.

It's nice to have some music with a fucking edge. Listening to this one track makes me realize just how soft music is these days. One Day As A Lion is fucking fierce and I can't wait for the album to drop on July 22nd. Seriously I can't believe a jaded asshole like me is genuinely excited for an album release. I might actually go buy it even!

Link:
One Day As A Lion MySpace