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Gotta love Retro Thing.
"Music!
Turn it up!
Put that tape on.
I want a rising sound"
In short, it really sucks looking around at the wreckage that is my party and realizing that the only decent thing to do is to pull the plug on them (or help). I am not really having any fun attacking my old friends- but I don’t know how else to respond when people call decent men like Jim Webb a pervert for no other reason than to win an election. I don’t know how to deal with people who think savaging a man with Parkinson’s for electoral gain is appropriate election-year discourse. I don’t know how to react to people who think that calling anyone who disagrees with them on Iraq a “terrorist-enabler” than to swing back....
...And I don’t know why my friends on the right still keep fighting for these guys to stay in power. Why do they keep attacking decent people like Jim Webb- to keep this corrupt lot of fools in office? Why can’t they just admit they were sold a bill of goods and start over? Why do they want to remain in power, but without any principles? Are tax cuts that important? What is gained by keeping troops in harms way with no clear plan for victory? With no desire to change course? With our guys dying every day in what looks to be for no real good reason? Why?
In 1988, Michelle Shocked came out of nowhere with Short Sharp Shocked, her second album that, in the musical desert of the late 80's, presaged the Americana/Roots music movement by at least a decade. Equal parts edgy folk, quirky ballads, and rockers (with some killer rockabilly thrown in for good measure), Michelle made good use of Pete Anderson, Dwight Yoakam's longtime guitarist and producer. A strange pair, to be sure, but for this one album, it worked. Pete is a smokin' player, and "Hello Hopeville" just demands to be cranked up loud.
Also highly recommended, although in a completely different vein, is Shocked's Arkansas Traveller, her homage to bluegrass and minstrel music.Michelle Shocked lives in California, and continues to record and tour.