SECTARIAN

SECTARIAN 19.11.06

What about THE RIGHT TO NOT BELONG to a group defined by ethnos, nation, religion, gender?

DON COVAY--What's In The Headlines
One of the great singer-songwriters with a lament that fluctuates between resignation and bitter irony about the stuff that doesn't make it to the news writ large. Some media studies types used to call this agenda setting or gatekeeping. Features a disturbing kazoo.

THE DIXIE NIGHTINGALES--The Assassination
I was thinking about that recent film Death of a President with that Zabruder-type fake still of GWB getting a bullet. This song is a gospel number about Lee Harvey Oswald and his buddies. But a week after I'd dubbed it Gemayal was killed in Lebanon and that former Soviet spy received the radioactive poisoned chalice. Weird. I suppose assassins are always at work, the norm rather than the extraordinary.

JACK PALANCE--The Meanest Guy That Ever Lived
Could have been written for Pinochet or Osama Bin Laden or any number of dead presidents. Reminds me of the recently deceased thespian's fantastic turn as the hired gun in Shane (see image above). I love the way he grins when he mows down Elisha Cook Jnr. The malevolent spirit of the Wild West is still alive and well beyond the western frontier. You don't have to watch Deadwood to appreciate that. I met Jack Palance once. I must have been about 10 years old. It was the early 70s and Majid this drinker friend of my Mum and Dad's--the only serious drinker friend they had I think--was walking with us around Hyde Park near Speaker's Corner one Sunday. Art vendors were peddling their wares, as they say. Majid shouted Jack Palance and rushed up to the actor with a smile on his face. Can't recall the words exchanged, just a shake of the hand and a nod our way.

SUICIDE--Ghost Rider (Live)
This is the ride of the valkyries after the apocalypse. Sounds like the buzz of a hundred helicopter gunships ready to land on your head.

JOHNNIE TAYLOR--Rome (Wasn't Built In A Day)
A crackly almost northern soul tune about the repair work needed for a relationship. Could work just as easily as a neocon fable for the reconstruction of Iraq.

THE WILD TCHOUPITOULAS--Big Chief Got A Golden Crown
It's ready to get knocked off though. Allen Touissaint with that whoozy Nawlins sound. Tribal.

EDDIE KIRK--Them Bones
There's a lotta dem bones scattered around the soil. Eddie Kirk's are still moving.

CANDI STATON--As Long As He Takes Care Of Home
Domestic policy is more important. It's the economy, stupid. That's what they said. If he fixes that, then all the stuff overseas is forgiven. Not--as Borat might say.

JAMES BROWN--Don't Tell A Lie About Me And I Won't Tell The Truth About You
Honesty in short supply. Make a deal.

DR WHO DAT?--March To Viberia
If only we could do that instead of leaping into Narnia or another tract of sand.

BEF--Groove Thang
We don't need that fascist g-thang. Heaven 17 without the vocals.

NICKODEMUS--Cleopatra in New York (Zim Zam remix)
Yes, she's a flaneur on Fifth Avenue.

NICOLETTE--No Government (In The Jungle)
What if, rather than the anarchist impulse of this anthem for the rave generation

LYRICS BORN FEAT. EVIDENCE & KRS ONE--Pack Up Remix
Haven't heard KRS One so on point for a while.

LIL' LOUIS--Blackout
Is it global warming or the failure to manage the grid around the world? Mr French Kiss gives a fundamental(ist) warning about the almighty's possible actions.

BOIKUTT--Sabe3 Nomeh
Ramallah hip hop instrumental. So stark, so brutal, the meaning's in the space between the notes.

THE BETHLEHEM GOSPEL SINGERS--My God Can See You
This isn't the Old Testament punisher of Lil' Louis's track, but power defined by a benevolent surveillance. That's the way conscience is pricked. The fear of god works many ways.

THE DEAD TEXAN--A Chronicle Of Early Failures (Part One)
Yes, that's GWB's presidency and his political fate. Music to drown the past and present.