Music – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Farewell Country Joe McDonald

Gone, not forgotten. Perhaps rekindled.

Country Joe McDonald, née Joseph Allen McDonald, passed away last week at the age of 84, taking another page out of the songbook of my early life with him. The good thing about music is that the songs and the impressions they make never die.

My father used to hate that I played his music over and over. Which of course led me to play his music over and over even more during those years of America’s war in Vietnam.

And as we all know, or one day find out, what was will always be again.

In the wake of Country Joe’s passing another generation is discovering songs of his especially The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m Fixing- To-Die-Rag, which McDonald wrote in 20 minutes or so for an anti-Vietnam War play. About the song, he’s quoted as saying he “was inspired to write a song about how soldiers have no choice in the matter, but to follow orders, but with the irreverence of rock n’ roll. It was essentially punk rock before punk existed.”

It’s a damn shame we actually have to go through terrible times again to re-discover the music that helped us through them once before. But here we are.

You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

U2 Joins Parade of Musicians Meeting the Moment

American Obituary, a tribute to Renee Good

Slowly the jukebox is beginning to fill up. U2 has joined the list of musicians releasing songs of protest agains the Trump regime’s horrors with a new song, American Obituary, now available on a six-cut EP titled Days of Ash.

American Obituary features lyrics paying tribute to Renee Good, who was horribly murdered in Minneapolis. According to U2 frontman Bono the album, released on Ash Wednesday, contains “reactions to present day anxieties.”

Let’s hope this catalog of protest songs keeps growing, because what we’re protesting about sure shows no sign of slowing down.

Minnesota by The Marsh Family

Haunting and defining with resonances of our past

As one who has been saying for quite some time that we need more of our musicians to stand up and sing about the moments we’re all living through, I’m glad to see that happening as other musicians are singing about the occupation and murders in Minneapolis.

I linked to Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Minneapolis earlier this week and today I’m linking to the Marsh Family’s new effort, Minnesota. It’s an adaptation of San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair,) that kinda became the counterculture anthem of an earlier moment in American history. This new adaptation is just as simple, straightforward, and haunting. It’s also just as defining.

Share it.

Bruce Springsteen Meets The Moment With New Song: Streets Of Minneapolis

We need more of this from musicians

Meeting the moment in music is what it’s all about. Or should be. Bruce Springsteen has done so with a new song, Streets of Minneapolis. CleanShot 2026-01-28 at 11.13.36@2x.

There’s no metaphors. There’s no guessing. He cuts right to the point and the heart. The way musicians always do when they have a mind to. We need more of this and I’d love to hear this song live at the upcoming Grammy Awards.

Give it a listen and spread it around.

The Subtle Difference Between Making Noise and Making Music

Strike up the band

Young kids are great at making noise. If you pay attention, you discover that even while doing so with toy musical instruments (or anything else they can lay their hands on) they might actually have a predisposition to eventually making music. Or at least that they have a sense of rhythm.

Or maybe not.

Living in the Past with Apple Music Replay

Musical time warps

I listen to music but I’m not a voracious listener like some are. Fact is, I spend most of my listening time with podcasts and audio books. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see what music I did spend my time listening to. Apple Music, like other music services, offers a feature to summarize what tunes you’ve tuned into over the year called Apple Music Replay.

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Given all that’s going on in the U.S currently I shouldn’t find it surprising that I spent most of my time reliving parts of my youth that were just as tumultuous as our present, revisiting a lot of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and The Grateful Dead as well as the musical Girl From the North Country that features the music of Bob Dylan. (I spent considerably more time with that selection last year.)

It’s also interesting to me that when I do listen to music I do so through a couple of very eclectic playlists that range over quite a few genres. I never see that reflected in these generated mixes, only artists or albums I’ve selected specifically, which tells me these lists are mostly made up from selections you’re searching for. Perhaps that explains why when I ask Siri to cue up a playlist it fails as much as it succeeds. But then again, most of those playlists contain mostly music from my past, more than contemporary selections.

Seems to me, we could all do with a little more music these days that is speaking directly to these days.

Little Feat Wraps It Up

Feats never let me down

News this week that one of my favorite bands of all time, Little Feat, is retiring after a final tour brought back quite a few memories. The Last Farewell Tour will kick off next spring and run through two years, promoting the band and their latest album, Strike Up The Band.

Little Feat - Feats Don't Fail Me Now.

As for those memories, in what seems like a lifetime ago when I was in college I had an assistantship in the theatre department’s scene shop. When touring acts came to campus we’d sometimes be assigned to help with load in and load out, and occasionally help run the show.

Little Feat was promoting what would become one of my favorite of their albums, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, while opening for Joe Cocker, another of my favorites. I got the assignment to run follow spot for the gig. Up until that point I wasn’t familiar with Little Feat’s music, but that concert turned me on and I’ve been a fan ever since. They rocked the house as the warm up act and the crowd wasn’t ready for their set to end.

They certainly weren’t ready for what came next.

During the changeover a roadie came out and set two cases of Budweiser beer on the stage by the central microphone. Cocker’s band came on, tuned up a bit, the lights went down, the band kicked off the intro, at the conclusion of which Cocker was supposed to enter, which was my first cue of the set. The band was still using the intro from Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen days and all of the stage mechanics happened as planned, the crowd was pumped, but there was no Joe Cocker.

After a few moments delay we got the message to reset and we did it all again. This time Joe Cocker appeared on cue with a fifth of whiskey in his hands. He stumbled to the mic, and promptly threw up all over the stage. Yep, I had my follow spot lighting up the entire thing.

That was the end of the concert. Cocker was escorted offstage as the band played the Mad Dogs and Englishmen intro once again, then said good night and left the stage. The crowd was understandably upset with the headliner, but in the days that followed the talk was all about Little Feat’s music.

That was a moment to remember and a memory to laugh at certainly. But as well as I remember that I’ll never forget my introduction to Little Feat and their music. The band’s roster has changed throughout the years (most of the current members are in their 70’s) and the band’s songbook has journeyed its way through different American music genres. Their final album, Strike Up The Band, lands with a return to their original sound, albeit matured and nurtured from steps along the journey. It brings back memories.

There’s a brief, but good write up about the band’s retirement decision and final tour in Rolling Stone here.

Zach Bryan’s Bad News Gets Under MAGA’s Thin Skin

Country singer Zach Bryan is teasing the MAGAts as he teases his new song, Bad News.

The teaser of the song swipes at ICE and ends with a powerful lyric that I imagine is the full song’s hook:

Got some bad news

The fading of the red, white, and blue

If he included that in the teaser, his target is no secret. You can check out the teaser of the song below.

Bryan is no slouch of a Country singer, filling stadiums, selling lots of his music to a large following. Here’s hoping his instincts reach some in that large audience with this song of protest, beyond the MAGAt reactionary force that’s already all over this effort.

Sunday Morning Reading

The lazy days of Summer

We’re technically out of the Dog Days of Summer, but it doesn’t feel much like it. It’s the kind of hot Summer I remember as a kid when the dogs would spend the hot part of the day lazing under the porch. I’m spending mine traveling (too much traveling) and sharing what I can here and there. Find some shade and check out this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

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Peter Wehner thinks the only way out of the wreckage we’re in is to rewrite the cultural script. Tall task. He spells it out in The Virtue of Integrity.

Knowing is half the battle. What you do with knowledge is an altogether different story as knowing and knowledge are two different things. Check out Jim Stewartson’s piece The War on Knowing.

Somehow in all of the wreckage we’re sorting through, empathy became a bad thing for those doing the wrecking. NatashaMH thinks this crazy Artificial Intelligence race we’re in is taking the human out of being human. If you ask me it’s all a bit too human as we look to foist off responsibility for the choices we make. The Risks of Synthetic Empathy is a great piece. Give it a read.

Then take a look at Mathew Ingram’s piece, People Fall In Love With All Kinds of Things Including AI Chatbots. When chatbots start filing for divorce I think we might have created Artificial Generative Intelligence.

Kyle Chayka is exploring The Revenge of Millennial Cringe. Home may be where the heart is, but it was a terrible song.

Stephen Marche is talking about Profound and Abiding Rage: Canada’s Answer to America’s Abandonment. Abandonment is a good way to describe what we’re all feeling these days.

Apple’s about to unleash new operating systems for its devices in a few weeks and the one that has my interest is for iPads. From what I’ve seen (I don’t run the betas) the changes to the multi-tasking capabilities will be a positive step forward. Craig Grannell takes a look at how long it took for Apple to finally make these changes in Apple Finally Destroyed Steve Jobs’ Vision of the iPad. Good.

Chicago’s Uptown Theatre celebrated 100 years this week. Robert Loerzel takes a look in Uptown Theatre: 100 Years of Glory and Decay.

When you think you’re the center of the universe it can rock your world when you find out you’re not. Kids learn this. Republicans in the current administration have not. Eric Berger writes about NASA’s Acting Chief Calls For the End of Earth Science at the Space Agency.

(Image from Machekhin Evgenii on Shutterstock.)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

A Trip Worth Taking: Billy Joel Documentary ‘And So It Goes’

Terrific trip down my lanes of memories.

Talk about bringing back the memories and the feels. The excellent Billy Joel documentary, And So It Goes, is a must watch if you’re a fan. Or even if you’re not. I am a fan and have been since I worked a load-in, load-out shift for a Billy Joel concert back in my college days and partied with his road crew.

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The excellent two-part documentary chronicles the ups, downs, and of course there’s plenty of Joel’s music, because it’s always about the music and where it took Joel and those of us who grew up with him. It’s more than a trip down memory lane, the four hours is a well spent vacation back in time. I highly recommend this.

It’s interesting, and I dare say rewarding, that two of the music artists I grew up with, Joel and Bruce Springsteen, have had excellent recent documentaries about their careers. As they and I both hit later decades of life it’s a good way to look back and dredge up memories often buried in the hurly burly of the current day to day. I consider these documentaries on HBO (or whatever it calls itself this week) gifts well received.

For those interested further, there’s a playlist of the music from And So It Goes available on all the usual music streaming services. If your library, like mine, is filled with the entire catalog of Joel’s music, it’s worth adding just to track and hear how some of his songs have matured, yet not lost any of relevance, and even gained both relevance and resonance with time.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.