March of Death - Zack de la Rocha and DJ Shadow
Seems like Zack was born pissed off. Good thing he's working for the good guys.

The Price of Oil - Billy Bragg
(props to Goddess for the tip!) Everyone's favorite British socialist speaks truth to power.

Self Evident - Ani Difranco
This one actually came out soon after 9/11, underscoring Ani's status as a fearless and uncompromising righteous babe.

Ready for more? The Peace Not War Compilation website should keep you busy for a good while.

Maybe you've heard Slaid Cleaves sing Broke Down. Lots of folks did, considering the song made #1 on the americana charts. (Note: there are americana radio charts.)

Rod Picott cowrote the song, and his voice adds a gravelly touch that suits the lyrics, if anything, even better than Slaid's version. (Additional note: americana ain't just for americans.)

And by all appearances, Rod's one of the hardest working men in show business. I know the person hosting the house party on April 5. It's an honest-to-god house party. House as in backyard, barbecue, and deep suburbs. Probably be the best party that subdivision ever saw.

Boy George surprised lots of folks a while back by not being particularly offended by Eminem. Indeed, BG seems as obsessed with Slim Shady as he claims Emimem is with gays in general. You always hurt the one you love.

Crooklyn in tha house, y'all: For your pleasure, Memphis Slim's review of Cat Power's latest, You Are Free

You Are Free
Cat Power (aka Chan Marshall)
(Matador Records)

As a latecomer to the Chan Marshall wake (it's like a party, ya'll, but everybody's drunk and sad), I am kicking myself for not knowing better than to have picked up this native Southerner's last four longplayers sooner. Hailing from Atlanta, via Memphis (it has been reported but not confirmed) and other points Southern, Marshall (as her nom de plume Cat Power) can make you smile wryly and cry on her new CD "You Are Free", a collection of fourteen songs for acoustic & electric guitar, acoustic piano and drums (on a few). Her songwriting on this new LP is sure to lift the spirits of fans of Joni Mitchell, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave and Delta blues masters like John Lee Hooker (whose "Crawlin' Black Spider" she adapts here as "Keep On Runnin'"). It's a bleak and harrowing--yet strangely redemptive path--Chan has apparently walked in the past five year's since she last released a platter of original songs, judging by the stories told.

The album opens with "I Don't Blame You" a lilting, solo acoustic piano number that details a lover's (and fellow musician's) struggles with his craft, the creative process and, presumably, a host of other demons. Here Marshall sounds her most Mitchell-like (think "The Last Time I Saw Richard" from Blue) in her tired, Southern drawl. On this and most of the CDs slower numbers, her pain gives angelic wings to the sometimes morbid topics, like a Flannery O'Connor heroine. "Free" adds perfectly augmented organ to a staccato guitar rhythm, pushing the refrain "don't fall in love with the autograph/just be in love when you sing that song/all night long" into Patti Smith territory. Marshall covers artist Michael Hurley's "Werewolf", crouching in the moonlit shadows, watching her werewolf cry and letting her lupine voice roll out almost like a howl. Australian David Campbell (of the sadcore, violin-driven band Dirty Three) adds a subdued cello to complement in a setting reminiscent of Sting's "Moon Over Bourbon Street" (sans saxophone). Chilling stuff.

Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl also both add atmosphere to this album on several tracks, though they know better than to overshadow the playing and singing of a young woman with this much talent. Marshall is a musicians' musician and, like many in that category, doesn't play to the tastes of critics or the whims of the audience (her erratic stage behavior -- like that of, say, the Jesus and Mary Chain -- is well-documented) but rather, turns inward to deal with the silenced voices of her childhood on songs like "Names": "Her name was Cheryl/black hair like electric space/ she would pretty paint my face/she was a very good friend/ her father would come to her in the night/ she was a very good friend/she was twelve years old." The piano's notes stumble forward in lost memory, sounding like it was recorded inside a highway waterpipe and on other songs--like "Babydoll"--the dissonant, plaintive pluck of her six-string puts the listener in exactly the uncomfortable place that Marshall wants you to be when hearing these grim tales of drug and child abuse.

However, the lost love(s) Marshall has been chasing in the past five years occupy most of the album's fourteen songs, and she is at her most Southern on songs like "Fool" where the title is used more as a term of endearment than an insult. Drums kick in on the current single (available on selected websites as an mp3) He War with Marshall's amped-up power chords and our favorite Foo Fighter slapping the skins in a martial beat that wouldn't have sounded out of place on an Othar Turner fife-and-drum song (see the opening scene of "Gangs of New York"). Marshall declares, "I never meant to be the needle that broke your back," and immediately has us wrapped up in her angst, shuffling to the story she lays down of love gone bad. "You Are Free" is a powerful record that has a sisterly acquaintance with past masters like Harvey's "Rid of Me" (and even more so, its accompanying EP "Four Track Demos") and will likely end up on the "best of 2003..." lists of many critics (it's on mine). But more importantly, as great blues artists do, "You Are Free" cathartically explores the pain of romantic and familial relationships while revealing the beauty in this pain.

It's not that often you find a musician who made their website themeselves. It's even less often when you find one who drew it.

Kid Koala's got his hand in a few other pies too. He's got a graphic novel, (including CD soundtrack) coming out April 1. (Check the book trailer.) There's going to be a book tour in support of that, then... well, look at the website. He's got himself scheduled out til about 2009.

Folks like Kid Koala make you realize something. The reason art sucks so much lately is that anyone who was the least bit creative switched over to turntables in about 1990.

Ulmer has been playing jazz guitar in NYC for years. Recently, Vernon Reid convinced him to record a record of blues standards. Only one place to go for that. The record they made there is Memphis Blood.

He played at the excellent Jazz Standard last June. The setting was perfect; the Standard is one of the few clubs in the city where they seem to care if the food is any good, and the food they serve is of the ribshack-gone-uptown variety. Ulmer played, of course, scorching guitar, and as Vernon Reid apparently insisted, had a voice well suited to the music.

The set ended on a cranky note as Ulmer stopped in mid-bar due to sound engineering problems. There's a hellhound on my mixboard.

If you like old skool Elvis Costello, you probably already dig Nick Lowe, whether you know it or not. He produced Costello's first six records and wrote What's so Funny (Bout Peace Love and Understanding) (cover by lucy Kaplansky). In fact, his reach extends further than that; the pub rock scene he was a member of was one of the precursors to punk.

And best of all, he's still at it. The Convincer will break your heart, make you laugh, and turn you on. "Indian Queens" is a shaggy dog story of adventure that sould like it was plucked out of the realm of ideal pop. "She's Got Soul" captures the disbelief you can't help but feel when you find the real thing. And "Let's Stay In and Make Love"... well, probably no description needed there. One more for the road: "Poor Side of Town"