Countdown....5 days to go

So, yeah, I'm a little behind schedule here. It was a crazy weekend, and the reasons for it will be explained in the coming weeks. Anyway, I am playing a little catch-up from the weekend and posting my "countdown" from Saturday and Sunday today. Not that you would care, I figured I would just clarify in case you did. Screw you for judging me.

The "Day 5" post comes from an old stand-by of mine. State Radio is a local Boston band borne out of the break-up of my all-time favorite band, Dispatch (I have spoken about them before here). Chad, the lead singer, is as political of a rocker as they come. Take Eddie Vedder, add a splash of CSNY and a pinch of the lesser annoying parts of Sean Penn, and you get Chad Urmston. He has no problem expressing his views on the state of our country, his hatred for GW and the strife in Darfur, and rather than pontificating to the crowd in between sets, he prefers to express his views through his songs and lyrics. While I agree with most of what he believes, I don;t necessarily enjoy artists using their stage time as a forum for pounding their ideologies in our heads.

Every once in a while, Chad will do this, but it's tolerable and while he does it I usually use that time to grab a beer. If you've ever been to a Pearl Jam show, you know full well that Eddie uses his time to express his ideas, but he does it in a way that doesn't make you roll your eyes (at least to me, anyway) and I think tries to emulate that. I think doing this tends to alienate those in the crowd that enjoy the music but may not necessarily agree with you. Point in case: Pearl Jam filmed a show for VH1's "Storytellers" not that long ago, in which the crowd can submit questions to the band and they answer these questions in between sets. One of the questions asked was "How do you feel about the fans that don't agree with your political views". Vedder's response? "Fuck 'em". While it was funny, I think so few artists out there can get away with this. Lesser known bands, like State Radio for instance, I feel would lose some supporters if they tried to pull this. But hey, that's just my opinion, and I guess I am using MOG as my own pulpit. Mea Maxima Culpa.

Anyway, here is a good example of what I mean by using the song/lyrics to express political views rather than the stage. It's one of SR's "harder" songs, and they absolutely kill it when they play it live. Enjoy.