VLVL2 R 'n R still relevant? return of Country Joe w/ "Cakewalk to Baghdad"

[pynchonoid]

Published on Friday, April 23, 2004 by
CommonDreams.org

Country Joe Band, 2004: "Uncle Sam Needs Your Help
Again"
by Norman Solomon

Taking the stage at a community center in the small
Northern California town of Bolinas, a group of four
musicians quickly showed themselves to be returning as
a vibrant creative force centered very much in the
present.

Not that the music of Country Joe and the Fish ever
really disappeared. Since the release of the band's
first two albums in 1967 -- "Electric Music for the
Mind and Body" along with
"I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die" -- many of its songs
have meandered through the memories and
semi-consciousness of millions of Americans who came
of age a third of a century ago.

Now reconstituted with four of the legendary group's
original five members, the new Country Joe Band has
just begun to tour. When I saw them perform, midway
through April, the music was as tightly effusive as
ever, with poetic lyrics mostly brought to bear on two
perennials: love and death.

Their new song "Cakewalk to Baghdad" is in sync with
Country Joe McDonald's compositions that stretch back
to the escalating years of the Vietnam War. With the
post-"victory" occupation of Iraq in its thirteenth
month bringing death to many people including
children, his old song "An Untitled Protest" remains
unfailingly current. Sung the other night, it was no
more dated than today: "Red and swollen tears tumble
from her eyes / While cold silver birds who came to
cruise the skies / Send death down to bend and twist
her tiny hands / And then proceed to target 'B' in
keeping with their plans."

No less than its previous incarnation, the Country Joe
Band exemplifies how rock music can transcend itself
as an art form. This is no small feat for any
musicians, including those who create songs that
encourage resistance to deadly routines of the status
quo.

Rhetoric is destructive to art. On the other hand,
ambiguous or self-absorbed artistry is apt to be
isolated from key social realities. But the Country
Joe Band is not agitprop or evasive. For an overview,
take a look at www.countryjoe.com -- a website that
reflects how a creative process can stay grounded in
humanistic projects of our times.

Songs that Country Joe and the Fish released in 1967
are so intricate that an attentive listener is bound
to agree with McDonald's recent comment to an
interviewer: "Those songs are very complex and
difficult to play, they're less rock 'n' roll and
perhaps more ... well, symphonic." Rendered by the
Country Joe Band, the psychedelic sound can seem
orchestral. Yet there's still no reliance on high-tech
sound effects.

By now, apparently, we'd be foolish to take the
integrity of talented artists for granted. Maybe, as a
late '60s advertisement proclaimed, "the man can't
bust our music" -- but the corporate system can sure
water it down a lot. Or turn music into outright
pabulum. Television showcases plenty of grim results
when so many knees bend toward corporatized altars.

These days, cynicism about famous musicians with
protest credentials is running high. Weeks ago, Bob
Dylan began to appear in a Victoria's Secret
commercial. It may seem that the times they are a
prostitutin'.

Media outlets are filled with ads, commercial plugs
and vapid -- or corrosive -- content leaving the
impression that gifted artists sell out to the
almighty dollar sooner or later. "Today's musical
superstars seem more interested in hawking their
clothing lines and name-brand perfumes than in any
meaningful form of political action," magazine editor
Leslie Bennetts wrote in a Los Angeles Times essay. By
coincidence, the article appeared on the same day that
I saw the Country Joe Band in concert.

Unlike the profuse and dreary examples now personified
by Dylan, quite a few musicians -- renowned or
scarcely known -- have successfully struggled to
retain creative control over their work. They continue
to resist the corporate juggernauts that routinely
flatten talent into the pap of pop.

A new development to celebrate is the rise of the
Country Joe Band. While standing the test of time,
music from the ensemble group resonates profoundly
each day as young Americans in uniform do their best
to survive in a faraway country: "And pound their feet
into the sand of shores they've never seen / Delegates
from the western land to join the death machine / And
we send cards and letters."

It happens that Country Joe McDonald and the band's
other musicians have returned to public space together
at a time when many American soldiers -- following the
orders of the commander in chief -- are continuing to
kill and be killed. An old question is also new: What
are we fighting for?

"And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways
of death / Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions
on their breath / And we send prayers and praises."

Norman Solomon is co-author, with foreign
correspondent Reese Erlich, of "Target Iraq: What the
News Media Didn't Tell You."

<http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0423-06.htm>


	
		
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