You may not have heard of them yet, but two fledgling bands made big news last week in the category of "Holy Cow, we're opening for a major star!", and if things continue to fall into place for these bands the way they have been, then you're likely to hear a whole lot more about them this year.
Red Cortez used to perform under the moniker of The Weather Underground, but after their much-talked-about performances at High Sierra last summer, the band changed gears. They sought out a new guitar player (a Canuck by the name of Calvin J. Love) and re-christened themselves Red Cortez, a loose play on the name of frontman, Harley Prechtel-Cortez.
Since then, the band has been gaining steam, living up to their reputation as one of the West Coast's best up-and-coming bands. They have Jambase's critic Dennis Cook convinced that "urgency and hard slap they showed at last year's High Sierra Music Festival and the unabashed ambition of their vision in the studio convinces me that they won't settle for anything short of greatness in what they offer up next."
The Los Angeles-based quartet will be opening for none other than Morrissey for a selection of his East Coast dates in March, playing in theatres from Florida on up to Jersey and Pennsylvania. Red Cortez will then steer over to Austin for a run of dates at South by Southwest, all the while promoting their new EP Hands to the Wall. This 5-song EP features the song above, Fell On The Floor, very catchy in its straight-ahead Strokes-esque manner, a comparison that might also be partially attributed--in my mind, anyway--to the fact that Red Cortez recently did a string of shows up the left coast with former Strokes' drummer Fabrizio Moretti's current project, Little Joy.
The other band about whom you may hear more is Providence, RI's The Low Anthem. It was just last April that this trio was opening for their friends Surprise Me Mr. Davis at Sullivan Hall in Greenwich Village, and less than a year later, this band has sky-rocketed to become the opener for none other than Ray LaMontagne.
The trio seems to be getting bigger each time I turn around, going from playing the tiny LES venue, Rockwood Music Hall, just a few months back to recently headlining Joe's Pub in January, and further, have been added to one of the biggest musical events of the year, the epic Bonnaroo lineup that explodes in Tennessee this June.
They will also be touring on the East Coast this March, making stops in New York, DC, Boston, and Philly in support of their new album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, which you can sample here.
Lastly, we would be remiss here at Shine A Light Productions if we didn't mention that our main man Marco Benevento's new album, Me Not Me, has dropped, featuring the songs of Leonard Cohen, My Morning Jacket, George Harrison, Led Zeppelin, Beck, and of course, some originals from MVB himself. Check out the promo video we designed for him below, and scoot on over HERE to pick up your copy, fresh off the presses from RPF records.
Expectations were high for this one, as New York City abounds with options (musical and otherwise) as the days expire on a calendar year. From this vantage point, the lofty expectations for this New Years party were met--and surpassed. From the opening waterfall of tumbling horns that introduced Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up" through to the always-mindblowing "One Big Holiday", Jim James and crew delighted the nowhere-near-capacity dressed-to-the-eights crowd at MSG. The extra space made for ridiculously easy maneuvering to be with loved ones as the balloons fell: nuzzling up sidestage with a hundred of your closest friends to welcome '09 made this the year's top show for me. Steven Bernstein's horn section was used judiciously and superbly: to augment funky covers that would have been impossible without brass (Charles Wright's Express Yourself, Kool & The Gang's Celebration, James Brown's Cold Sweat), but also used on occasion to bolster some MMJ staples (Evil Urges, Dancefloors) making them the perfect accoutrement for the Jacket on this special evening. Very close to being this here dorky blogger's perfect show.
I'm going out on a limb, perhaps, by identifying this little gem as my second favorite show of the year, but for anyone who was in attendance, you can corroborate my wonder at the amazing energy and spontaneity this trio displayed on the old Lion's Den stage. Maybe it was because Brad was arrested on his way to the gig and arrived JUST in time to plug in onstage to soundcheck a note or two before diving headfirst into a first-set jam with his old friends, or maybe not. Who's to say where synergy like this is derived: these long-time collaborators have a vast amount of trust in each other's talent and each other's listening skills. The trio had played a small run of shows together in Nov 2007, where Brad was mostly providing complement to The Benevento/Russo Duo's material, but this show didn't even remotely resemble a Duo show. Without an ounce of premeditation on what the set should contain, these three poured out a symphony of rock n' roll, with Barr touching on riffs from Chuck Berry to Jimmy Page, from Django Reinhardt to Trey Anastasio, all with a good dose of Slippy guitar in there for good measure. Benevento delighted in having a new partner with whom he could tag team tangling with his regular bandmate, Sir Russo, and the interplay between Russo and Barr was (for lack of a more sophisticated word) SICK. Video footage of this little gem is currently under lock-and-key at Shine A Light Productions, but will surely see the light of day soon, and in the meantime you can enjoy this clip from Benevento's 2008 residency:
He sounded good. Really good. It was worth the second mortgage I took out on my home to procure that tough ticket. From the oddly-familiar first notes of his new tune,"Alaska" right through to the sweaty last notes of the now-epic "Bug", I was in the zone that I can only get into with a few performers, and I was happy to have him back. Clean and sober Trey has an undeniably purer tone despite still being able to unleash some of the dirtiest licks in guitar history.
Adding the amazingly-underappreciated Ray Paczkowski to his inaugural TAB team (Tony Markellis and Russ Lawton), the quartet debuted newer versions of some TAB standbys (when did "Gotta Jibboo" become sooooo irresistibly nasty? when did Driftin' lose all the schmaltz and deliver Jerry-esque elation?). The intimacy of the venue fed the frenzied energy in the room, and it's safe to say that most in attendance had their aural tubes cleaned out upon leaving the newly-appointed venue almost four hours later. Money well spent, in my books.
It was almost too good... Really. The sound was so good that I felt like I had headphones on. The lights were so good I almost cried. The music, well, there's no one else that does what Radiohead does. How sparse arrangements of songs (like the haunting Nude, which prompted a hilarious "That was impossible!" outburst from my friend) can sit side by side with meticulous cacaphony (the delicious 15 Step) is something to behold live... and yet, I almost felt like it wasn't live. Like it was a pre-recorded show, somehow, too perfect in its delivery (despite a late-concert flub, which friends tell me was executed with the exact same script in Montreal days earlier). I was left loving the show, and yet strangely unsatisfied by how perfect it was. My suspicious sentiments were seconded by a much-respected musician who shared that while he was undeniably impressed with their show, he prefers his rock with a little more danger, and I realized that despite the wild rapids of Radiohead's wizardry, I, too, would prefer musicians going into the unknown and risking a little more for their rewards. That said, any person who listens to music in this decade owes it to themselves to go see this band, and any musician playing in this decade who doesn't cite them as an influence is a total lying bastard.
I'm not going to lie to you, I don't recall the details. I spent the day geeking out in the car on the way to Boston with two fellow Slip-enthusiasts, and thus I was fully prepared to launch into outerspace with the opening notes of Airplane/Primitive. Fact: this was The Slip's third concert of the year. Fact: it fucking rocked. I've double checked this fact by re-living it through the hard work of Clinton Vadnais, and I stand by my evaluation. There is only one Slip. These guys are it. They owe it to the world and to themselves to let the Slip out of the bag more often, for they are able to incorporate genres like no other trio, and the intense rapport that comes from playing together for over a decade is something that few young bands can hope to have. It was extra-special to see the boys in their backyard of Boston, for Slip fans have proved time and time again to be my favorite live music concert-goers -- attentive, respectful, and totally into it. Let's all please say a prayer that 2009 sees this trio popping up in lineups all over the country, and do yourselves a favor and go listen to what awesome music sounds like.
While the sound in MSG was poorly suited to display the rich tapestry of Wilco's sound, I had to admit that Wilco -- a band who could headline most festivals around the world -- was serving as perhaps the most wonderful opening act in memory. It seems as though Wilco is distinguishing itself as the quintessential modern American Band, as I recall getting whiffs of ZZ Top in there amidst the usual overtones of The Band that Wilco invokes.
And Neil, well, I couldn't have more respect for the aging Canadian icon, and when I compare the energy and preparation that his show requires with the lucklustre performances of some other legends I saw this year (but who will remain nameless because it's sacreligious to say anything bad about Bobby Dylan... I mean, uh...), it is clear that Neil's passion for the music, for performing, for leaving it all out on the stage has not diminished with age. When he closed his set with The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" (featured below), he gave the lyrics a haunting immediacy (not unlike when he sang "Campaigner" at the United Palace last year), making Lennon & McCartney's words from 1967 seem like a current critique of modern media, social apathy, and war.
I had never seen anything like Jay-Z. I was floored. I want more. When Jay-Z suggested to the burly British Columbian crowd that we ought to get rid of the border between our respective nations so that we could do a whole lot more hangin' out, well, I thought that was a swell idea. His undeniable magnetism and gift for spontaneity become painfully clear seeing him live, where he can deliver several minutes of improvised valentines to the crowd (as he did in the amazing "Girls, Girls, Girls") that are shockingly well-delivered off-the-cuff. Sample the blissful energy that explodes during the "99 Problems" below:
For a gal who doesn't get much hip hop in her musical diet, I was admittedly surprised by how much I loved his set, but that is the gift of a true performing star -- the ability to connect and delight crowds supersedes the confines of any genre. Don't ever miss an opportunity to see him for yourself, please.
As difficult as it may be to believe, not all of the aural titillation that I enjoy comes at the hands of an electric guitar. This remarkable classical concert featured a handful of world premieres, as well as the seminal 1970 George Crumb piece "Black Angels", which was the inspiration for David Harrington to form the Kronos Quartet in 1973. Kronos Quartet is difficult to categorize, as you will see from their rendition of Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" below.
The highlight of the show, for me, was when Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche joined the quartet to perform the NY debut of his piece "Anomaly", which is the first piece Kotche has penned for instruments beyond percusscion, and in which the strings are meant to emulate the limbs of a percussionist. The 25-minute piece was mesmerizing, clearly demonstrating that Kotche is so much more than a mere HeavyMetal Drummer.
9. Earl Greyhound Acoustic at Calhoun School -- 09.12.08
Nothing against turning the knob to eleven, but when the strumming comes unplugged there is just something so real about it. Brooklyn's Earl Greyhound is known for making a whole lotta noise, but for those who aren't initiated with their honky tonkroots, Kamara Thomas and Matt Whyte have been performing acoustic for some time, and thus when they bring the EG material to this stripped-down format, it is truly something special. The audio from this concert is available in a limited release, and the video is (again) in the tank over here at Shine A Light Productions, so you'll have to make do with pictures of this one-of-a-kind show. You'll want to try to get your hands on a copy of "I'm On Jupiter Waving My Arms at You" because it features Thomas at her most riveting (causing chills when I witnessed "My Kentucky" from behind the lens, and thereafter in the edit room) and Whyte at his most swoon-a-licious (on tunes like "Someone" and "Out of Air"). It was particularly heart-warming to witness EG get the high school crowd to sing along with them on Whyte's children's song, "This Tree". A truly touching show from a trio that is more apt to melt your face off. Seeing them acoustic is a rare, delicious treat.
Cover bands are supposed to be kind of lame, even if the band they're imitating is cool. That has never been the case for Bustle In Your Hedgerow, who have always been so-much-more than just a cover band. Why? Because of the talent on the stage, duh. But this particular show was so-much-more than even that -- on this evening where Marco Benevento, Joe Russo, Scott Metzger, and Ween's Dave Dreiwitz would say goodbye to 14 years of memories at the fabled Knitting Factory (over and done in Manhattan, at least, as the club is heading to what we used to call The Luna Lounge in Williamsburg), the quartet truly went beyond any boundaries that were drawn in the sand by Page and Plant so many years ago. Sure, it's always awesome to hear your friends rock the living daylights out of some of the best songs ever written, but this time, they really did it as a band: they went out on a limb and re-arranged my concept of what Zep should sound like, and that's no small task. Witness the transformation on "Out on The Tiles" above, and on "The Song Remains The Same" below:
You already know that dancing is a physical release with many physiological and emotional benefits for hippies, hipsters, and the emo-crowd alike. But did you know that Darwinists postulate that human brains have been specially wired by natural selection for dancing, because dancing confers survival benefits through group bonding? The New York Times reports that this evolution argument has long been thought irrefutable based on the evidence that humans are the only species who has a history of music and dance.
Enter Snowball the Cockatoo to really show science what's up:
Aniruddh Patel, senior fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in California, was sent the link to the video, and approached the owners at Bird Lovers Only Rescue Service to ask if he could study Snowball's moves.
He concluded that,“Like a child, he synched to the music for stretches of time, then danced a little faster or a little slower, but always in a rhythmic way. Statistically those periods when he’s locked onto the beat are not by chance — they really do indicate sensitivity to the beat and an ability to synchronize with it.”
The surprising part of the article is that Patel asserts that our ability to dance is not hard-wired, but it is a communicative feature related to our vocal abilities. This makes sense when you consider that parrots, like humans, have the capacity for vocal learning (which involves hearing sounds and then coordinating the series of complex movements needed to reproduce those sounds). There are few other species that have such talents, but among them are dolphins, seals, and whales.
So you may have to keep an eye out for Flipper copping your moves out there on the waves when you sail away on Jamcruise, you little hippies.
“Today’s problems cannot be solved if we still think the way we thought when we created them.” --Albert Einstein
“Barack said to us, ‘I want this to be a grassroots campaign. I want to reinvigorate our democracy. I want to bring more people back into our government. First of all I think that’s the only way we can win and secondly I want to rekindle some idealism that together we can get things done in this country’.” --David Axelrod, 60 Minutes
Barack Obama’s entire Presidential campaign was mounted on one simple premise: change. In and of itself, that fact is not remarkable—change has been a well-worn theme where political campaigns are concerned. What is remarkable is that “change” never became a tired cliché: in spite of its being the central message, change was a concept that was not only embraced but implemented by the Obama campaign on multiple levels. While the structure, substance, and even the style of his campaign could be classified as fairly traditional, where hope and unity functioned as central values, and logos and images hearkened back to another era, then the strategy of his campaign was where the Obama campaign radically departed from the norm. For even if Obama’s lofty aim to invigorate democracy by generating a grass-roots base seems like a quaint hope from a by-gone era, the challenge for his strategic team was to make that goal a reality by using 21st-century methods, and they did so precisely by making ‘change’ more than simply a slogan: by taking the noun and making it into a verb. They harnessed the transformative power of new media and communication methods to ignite the passions of the electorate and incite political action. They adopted change in their methods when they made the unprecedented decision to forgo federal public financing. And perhaps most importantly, they never wavered from the central tenet that Barack Obama was the agent that could more readily foresee, embrace, and create ‘change’.
In a campaign loaded with “firsts”, arguably the most important element of Obama’s strategy was his savvy use of technology and new media throughout his historical campaign, for it is the mantle upon which many other “firsts” were hung. In an era where a phone is not just a phone but a multi-media communication platform, messages today more often than not take flight digitally: whether they are spread via emails or text messages, across online social networking platforms or through viral videos on YouTube. The so-called Millennial Generation swaps information at a breathtaking clip (often in multimedia format), and carries on multiple ‘conversations’ across several platforms with ease. In order to engage this generation, Barack Obama would have to communicate with them in the manner to which they are accustomed to communicating, delivering his message to them by exploiting these very channels.
Left: Chris Hughes - Obama's Online Organzing Guru- photo courtesy NY Times
The Obama campaign made a wise decision in February 2007 to woo Chris Hughes, one of the four founders of Facebook, to head up their online strategy department. Hughes’ official title became “online organizing guru” and his central brainchild was the creation of www.myBarackObama.com, a pseudo-social networking website where a user would surrender their personal information to the campaign in exchange for a personalized online niche from within which they could document their own election experience. At MyBO.com (as it is affectionately known in campaign vernacular) a user can tabulate their contributions to the campaign in man facets, whether that means tracking their monetary donations, number of calls they have made on behalf of the campaign, or the amount of doors knocked on in the name of getting Obama’s message out. In short, they are given a small online portal within which they can explore and engage, giving them a sense of empowerment and offering a stake in the historical political battle at hand.
Certainly, implementing such a social networking strategy in and of itself amounts to a brilliant tactical move, and yet, it mirrors Obama’s very traditional desire to build a political base from the bottom up. The focus was never specifically to focus on inflating the numbers of participants, but to emphasize their engagement through the online platform. It was not enough to have someone register on the site: they wanted users to feel more ownership in the campaign by encouraging them to connect locally, talk to their neighbors, and make calls from their own homes, thus offering them a greater stake in the campaign and making them feel like they were an important component. As Joe Rospars, the campaign’s new-media director explained, “The point is not to have a million people [signed up],” although he fully expected to have over a million users on MyBo by Election Day. “The point is to be able to chop up that million-person list into manageable chunks and organize them.” Indeed, it is one thing to feel as though you are part of a large movement nationwide, happily anonymous in a sea of millions, but it is quite another to feel as though you and your neighbors are actually part of a crucial push to get the vote out in your own community, and to lending your physical presence to “putting a face” on the nationwide movement for change.
MyBo.com was the basis for the new media strategy: harnessing the power of online social networking to engage a modern version of a very traditional grass-roots movement. By sparking the imaginations of the idealistic youth and by encouraging tech-savvy young mavens to mobilize their own micro-networks, Obama was able to tap into the unbridled enthusiasm of the youth vote, exploiting their preferred channels of communication, all the while hammering home the “Yes, We Can” message.
Yet, the media strategy went much further than just MyBO.com. Obama rallied tech-savvy supporters to spread his message across media platforms of every available format. The campaign offered the opportunity to receive text messages that would allow one, for example, “to be the first to know who Barack selected as his Vice-Presidential running mate”; Facebookers were encouraged to use their status to get out the vote; an iPhone application called ‘Obama for America’ was even developed that was able to discern which contacts in the phone lived in swing states and thus, which contacts might benefit from a call from a long-lost friend, all in the name of ‘change’. In a bold move toward transparency, campaign manager David Plouffe gave regular strategy updates on YouTube, allowing field organizers to get direction straight from campaign HQ. The Obama campaign even pushed the envelope where old media was concerned, taking over-larger chunks of advertising space in order to more clearly state his stance on the issues, and wisely never injecting negative campaigning into said slots. Taking an unprecedented 30-minute portion of airtime, Obama’s “infomercial” was a new strategy aimed at spelling out his plan for America, never mentioning his opponent by name and instead allowing his undeniable charisma and intelligence to dispell the unsavory falsehoods put forth by the McCain camp about Obama’s character. Indeed, a whole section of Obama's website was devoted to "fighting the smears", and encouraged people to take action by reporting negative campaigning to the Obama camp, thereby"standing up for a new kind of politics".
This is not to suggest that John McCain’s camp overlooked such tech-forward strategies where using media was concerned, but it clear that McCain’s team fell remarkably short of what the Obama campaign was able to anticipate and activate. As of the days following the election, Obama had over 3 million “friends” on Facebook, McCain had just 600,000. Obama’s YouTube channel had been viewed an astonishing 20 million times, while McCain’s YouTube channel only logged 2 million visits. McCain's deputy campaign advisor, Mark Soohoo, claimed in June that "We don't need Facebook, they're not our voters". And while that statement is probably accurate, it proved that the Republican party was not making the effort to communicate with new voters, and to try to give rise to a new Republican voting base.
Of course, Soohoo is correct insofar as the logic that the quantity of ‘friends’, hits, or page views does not necessarily translate into votes. Here begins another key step in Obama's new media campaign, for equally important in Presidential campaigns as ‘getting the message out’ is getting the money to come in.
Here again, new media made possible another revolutionary aspect of Obama’s campaign strategy: small-donor fund-raising. It had been heretofore taken for granted that a candidate would accept public financing, taking the federal payment in exchange for agreeing to abide by a set of regulations, among them refusing private donations and adhering to what is considered a modest spending limit by campaign standards. Obama’s decision to forgo public financing meant that he was not bound to a limit on fund-raising, and he framed that decision in such a way as to suggest that he was avoiding being bound to lobbyists and their lucrative donations, relying instead on the small donations of the common voter, whose interests he had at heart. The decision was touted as risky by the critics, for no one knew what kind of totals could be amassed by favoring grass-roots financing to lump sum donations. But by making repeated personalized appeals to his online database, and emphasizing that no donation was too small, Obama obliterated most expectations and raised over $640 million over the primary and general election period. What is perhaps just as significant as the total raised is the breadth of the donating base: according to reports in late October, over 90% of the donations that came in were less than $100, and there were over 3 million unique benefactors to the campaign.
This echoes the mobilization effect discussed previously, whereby ownership and sense of entitlement are spread broadly, in this case inviting people who have perhaps never contributed to a political campaign the chance to feel ownership in a movement to which they might have made the smallest contribution. The Obama campaign employed clever tactics made possible by this online database, such as recurring-payment programs where donors could donate something small like $25 each month to spread out their gift; or “Operation Give Again” where donors who had donated relatively large sums were called upon again and encouraged to reach their personal limit of $2,300. The success of such tactics resulted in the 2008 election being heralded as the first election where small individual donations trumped big money and corporate interests, and it is largely because of new media technology that Obama’s campaign was able to make that happen.
(Note: recent reports attempting to debunk the "small donor myth" do so on the basis that if a donor donates $50 five separate times, they exceed $200, which is the standard "small donor" limit. What these myth-busters may be overlooking is the fact that if the Obama small-donor machine hadn't been so well-oiled, those donors likely would have given money once or perhaps twice. It is Obama's return-again strategies that fueled more small donations. It is preposterous to propose that a donor who gave $250 can be equated to the big business lobby money that Obama's campaign tried to avoid.) But as election day approached, with fund-raising records shattered, armies of volunteers weary from door-knocking, and inboxes flooded with appeals for more money, many still wondered whether these forward-thinking strategies would actually translate into trips to the voting booth. The voting results bear witness to the remarkable mobilizing power of new media’s micro-networks: the youth vote targeted by such strategies showed up in numbers that topped turnout in any previous Presidential contest in history. Of the 5.4 million increase in voter turnout this year, two-thirds were young voters, and they preferred Obama over John McCain by a greater than 2:1 margin (66% vs. 32%). In contrast to previous recent presidential elections, a majority of young people voted in 2008 (53%), and in the competitive battleground states, youth turnout was even higher (59%). Such numbers prompted The Huffington Post to declare, “Their unified support for Barack Obama combined with their high turnout made the Millennial Generation the decisive force in his victory.”
In the end, what these strategies allowed Obama to do was to demonstrate that he was a leader capable of ‘changing with the times’: that he was able to see the potential in novel channels and exploit them with cunning. Young voters saw him as a man they could speak to on their own terms: indeed, it would be difficult to imagine a septuagenarian like McCain sending a text message or conversing on iChat, and, by extension, it would be easier to conclude that Obama would be better able to adapt to forces of change, not only in terms of technology or communication, but in any capacity. By proving himself more nimble in this area, he suggested to a legion of young followers that he will perform as adeptly when it comes to confronting change elsewhere on the horizon of the 21st century. Technology is at the heart of developments in both good and evil: it is as instrumental to developments in life-saving medicine as the development of a weapon of mass-destruction. By demonstrating that he has a team that can foresee and channel forces of change to their advantage, he is offering a reassuring vision to a generation that is keenly aware of the power of technology and the astonishing pace of change.
There is an implicit advantage in using online technology: the fact that the web is an inherently engaging medium. Where other presidents have forged ahead with communication technology in the past, it has largely up until now been one-way media. Ranjit Mathoda, a lawyer who blogs at Mathoda.com, points out that “Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money". However, Obama has engaged a whole generation of thinkers and voters by utilizing media that operates flow of information in two-ways. Mathoda continues, “[W]hile John F. Kennedy may have been the first television president, Ronald Reagan may have perfected speaking to the camera, and George W. Bush has utilized the power of a sympathetic television channel and talk radio hosts, each of these prior technologies have been largely one way mediums of communication channeled through media companies that distort the relationship a politician seeks to have with their constituency.”
Right: Facebook Graph courtesy techpresident.com
Enabling two-way communication increases the engagement and the ownership on the part of the voter: users were able to share their election experiences on MyBO.com; they left comments on his MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube pages; they were able to text message campaign headquarters with feedback. Creating room for dialogue allowed for an unprecedented wave of participation in the political landscape, and further, it helps to ensure that those who logged on during the campaign will remain engaged down the road. As David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School at Harvard, explained to Rolling Stone magazine, “The emergence of this millennial generation as a force in American politics is going to be one of the biggest stories in the country over the next 20 years or so. We know from past history that when young people vote for one party a couple of times, they tend to vote for that party during their adult lifetimes in disproportionate numbers… So this is an enormous potential asset for Democrats.”
What this means is that Obama has taken a very powerful step in circumventing traditional information flow in our society: where the Bush Administration was able to exert their power on mass media by doggedly remaining ‘on message’ and saturating the media outlets with pithy soundbites to echo to the masses, Obama now has a coalition of citizens who are connected directly to his agenda, and who will digest his messages without benefit of spin from a major network. During the campaign, for example, he was able to counter the negative personal attacks from the McCain camp by dispelling them directly in an email to his supporters.
Obama’s ability to communicate directly with his electorate not only allows for targeted delivery of a message without commentary from critics, but it does so instantaneously and in a cost-effective manner. Karl Rove’s targeted mail strategies in 2000 and 2004 were expensive and time-consuming. By contrast, the network that Obama currently has in place could prove to be a very effective tool for governing now that he has been elected: not only can he keep his electorate informed with the push of a button, but he can mobilize them in targeted ways, encouraging local networks to put pressure on their congressmen to support or oppose certain legislation. Indeed, the emergence of this technologically-connected base may prove to be an unprecedented tool for governing insofar as being able to co-ordinate citizens politically on a mass scale in expensively and instantaneously. Obama shows no signs of halting his exploration of using new media to keep the electorate engaged, already creating a web presence for his transition team at www.change.gov and inviting people to share their thoughts on what is important for his administration to address when they take office in January 2009.
By anticipating the massive impact that new media devices and networks could have in this historical campaign, the Obama team was able to come out on top, proving themselves the more adept party at harnessing the power of change. One might go so far as to say the role that Obama played in inner-city Chicago – a position for which he was mocked by his opponents-- was a harbinger of things to come, for by harnessing the power of new media, he proved that the internet and new media are the ultimate tools for community organizing, and he now has a community of millions that he can dispatch at will. It is not overstating the case to say that the strategic methods adopted by Obama team throughout his campaign are nothing short of revolutionary—indeed, revolutionary in the true sense of the word, for Obama was able to subvert traditional hierarchies of power and paths of information to create his own unified, engaged, and electrified electorate; a political base that is unprecedented in its diversity and fervor, and an electorate that has embraced politics in a manner that will change the face of democracy forever.
The penultimate (look that one up here, folks) spotlight for Shine A Light Productions falls to Earl Greyhound, a hard-rocking trio from Brooklyn who have been touring madly over the past couple of years to rock faces across the nation. They have packed houses in L.A., they have toured the whole continent opening for Chris Cornell, they have been featured in the NY Times Magazine as Fusionista style mavens to watch... in short, they have been kicking ass and it's time you knew why.
The videos featured at Shine A Light's Live Music page come from their appearance at 2008 Langerado Festival in Florida, and a recent concert they played at (le) Poisson Rouge (a newly-refurbished classy joint that used to be the hallowed Village Gate). Earl Greyhound was invited to play this Obama Fundraiser by none other than Living Colour, and the sights and sounds of these videos deliver the pure EG experience.
Earl Greyhound is currently criss-crossing the country, rocking faces on both coasts right through the end of November. They are touring with an arsenal of mighty new material which will get laid down in the studio in LA come December. They are sending word from the road in the form of video updates, like this one from Cleveland...
New Yorkers will get a very special trick or treat next FRIDAY the 31st when Earl Greyhound will be scaring you with their monster riffs and rhythms! Get your tickets to the Halloween Bowery Ballroom extravaganza before they disappear...
The second installment of ROCKTOBER from Shine A Light Productions presents The Slip frontman Brad Barr's solo work. The selections for this week come from Barr's performances at Pete's Candy Store last autumn (which served as the capper for a magnificent wedding weekend, which partially explains why Barr is in a suit and tie for this performance); at Sullivan Hall this past January where he opened on the final night of Marco Benevento's residency; and his recent appearance at the Bowery Ballroom where he graced the stage twice, first as a solo performer and later with his Slip bandmates backing Sonya Kitchell. You can view the videos HERE.
Barr's songwriting has become increasingly prolific and poignant, and the rare chance to catch him play solo is something not to be missed. His guitar chops are widely heralded, and here at Shine A Light Productions we don't think it's an understatement to call him the best guitar player of his generation, for he can deftly channel Chuck Berry or Jimmy Page, Django Reinhardt or Jimi Hendrix. Most importantly, he also can sound like Brad Barr, and that's something no other player out there can claim.
Barr is currently on tour with his Slip bandmates backing Sonya Kitchell, and Barr is oftentimes performing a solo set to open the show, so be sure to go early to catch these rare solo sets. Full tour dates and more information about Barr available on his MySpace page.
i hold every person i meet like a treasurei defend the ones i love to whatever the end isthat's why i take it to you through the musiccause when the music's connectedit's like everyone's protected -the slip
Red Cortez used to perform under the moniker of The Weather Underground, but after their much-talked-about performances at High Sierra last summer, the band changed gears. They sought out a new guitar player (a Canuck by the name of Calvin J. Love) and re-christened themselves Red Cortez, a loose play on the name of frontman, Harley Prechtel-Cortez.
The other band about whom you may hear more is Providence, RI's The Low Anthem. It was just last April that this trio was opening for their friends Surprise Me Mr. Davis at Sullivan Hall in Greenwich Village, and less than a year later, this band has sky-rocketed to become the opener for none other than Ray LaMontagne.
