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Quite a bit of live music this week from artists such as David Gilmour, Snarky Puppy, Scorpions, and Peter Gabriel, plus new music from home town heroes Slow Coast, Kate Pierson, Buddy Guy, Umphrey's Mcgee, Slow Reader's Club, Radio Free Alice, Wisp, Renee Rapp, Laura Groves, Prizm and more. Enjoy!
So David Gilmour will be releasing a new live album in the fall and of course he teases it with a 10+ minute opus. Meanwhile Scorpions are celebrating 60 years as an active band with a new live album, while Peter Garbriel will be releasing a new live album full of music he doesn't perform anymore.
Buddy Guy is 89 years old and still working as hard as he ever did. The new album is full of bluesy gems and well worth your time.
I hope to someday soon see a full album from Slow Coast. They've only released a few singles so far and I've liked all of them. Their band photo on Spotify was taken 2 blocks from my house, which always makes me smile.
You'll notice a ton of Umphry's McGee near the end of this week's playlist. That's because while it's broken into five pieces with separate titles it's actually only one song, called "Out of Focus" For those of you who listen to my radio station I've re-edited them all together. There might be micro-second pauses between songs if you play them from here. It looks like their new album, out in the fall, will be full of stuff like this. You can listen to the Radio Station through this link, and the playlist above will be on repeat all day Wednesday.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, Bryan Adams also released a live album, full of songs I'd never heard before. along with two more full of songs I do know . I don't know his full discography though, so I could have missed a few albums along the way.
Finally, Snarky Puppy re-released their fantastic album "We Like It Here" completely re-mixed and with alternate takes. I've added the song "Lingus" to the playlist because of that jaw-dropping keyboard solo. You have an internet, go look it up. There are people in the band looking on in shock.
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I think the United States has lost the right to call itself the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". We have secret police sweeping people off the streets. Religious freedom in the office space is gone, if you work for the government. The President of the United States is extorting Universities, Companies, News Organizations and more for more glorious coverage. The openness and diversity of our culture is under constant bombardment, and so far everyone to come under scrutiny has given in. Our transition to a Police State is already more than half way complete, and we haven't lifted a finger to stop it.
That isn't brave.
That isn't free.
The economy is in the toilet and is about to get much worse, and because the bipartisan office that shows how many jobs get added to the economy each week the child in charge fired the person in charge of putting the figures together. Wonder what he's going to do when he discovers that it's a whole team that puts those numbers together. I hope everyone over there has brushed off their resumes.
Tech seems to be growing - faster than power can keep up with it.
We were once the country everyone looked to as an example of what could be done. But now dozens of countries have better health care, dozens of countries have better individual freedoms of speech and assembly, and as we withdraw back into our own borders all of the assistance we have given for the decades - and I think most Americans have no fucking clue just how much that is - much of the world we used to help is falling into chaos.
But half the country isn't paying any attention to any of that. They're quite comfortable in believing and living the lies they've been spun. And the other half isn't really doing all that much to dissuade them, beyond looking on in sheer disbelief.
To my fellow American, if you've ever asked yourself what you'd do if Nazis tried to take over the U.S. what are you doing right now? Reading a fucking blog?!!?!?
G.W. Bush was gifted at the big lie - that what he said was true, that it had to be true, and if you say it often enough it actually is true. Think Weapons of Mass Destruction - which never existed, and so on. But he was careful about it and focused only on a few specific items. This administration lies about Everything.
It's not just the President, but everyone under him. They all lie, about different things, and they feel that like Bush II is they say it often enough it must be true.
Thing is, in the long haul it didn't work for Junior - just for long enough to get through the current crisis. He didn't actually live in this altered reality, and he left politics after his terms so we don't give it a lot of thought anymore. These current assholes are convinced that their lies are where we live, and no evidence to the contrary will be accepted as the truth.
Something every living ex-president, and most of the ones who came before, has in common is that they don't seem the limelight. The new/old guy can't seem to live without it. He thinks of his Presidency in terms of ratings, and as long as he's in the spotlight he doesn't give a damn.
He says the economy is great - he's wrong. He says we have deals with most countries - we don't. He claims we're respected overseas - we aren't. He says the residents of Greenland want to be US Citizens - they don't. He says that a man is a gang leader - when he isn't even a member. He says he's getting great reviews for paving over the White House Rose Garden - and that isn't true, save for all the people who also live in this fake world.
This is quite frustrating to all of us who live in the real world. Nothing will fix this. He isn't going to change. The people around him aren't going to change. They're going to keep on doing this until they are stopped, either by their world collapsing around them, by the ballot box, or the bravery of the American people.
The first option could happen, but probably not before the country is so damaged that it will take decades to recover. The second option could work, but that day is a ways off at the moment, and if they haven't rigged the game before that next election comes. So that leaves option 3.
So what are you doing? Are you free to do it? Are you brave enough to do it? Or are you, like me, living in a world where if we tried it would cause harm not only to ourselves, but to our friends and families as well. I myself support 4 people and 2 cats, and I'm always going to think about them first. I imagine that most of you are in the same boat. For most Americans, it isn't fiscally possible to be that brave. We have become slaves to the wage, because we have had no other choice. That's a whole discussion to be had at another time.
Some "Land of the Free" this turned out to be.
No one has "I had the moral high ground" written on their tombstone.
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No AI was used in the creation of this Blog post.
I am aware that the current DoJ has opened an investigation into Jack Smith. Trust me, while they're going to talk about it over and over and over again they will not bring it to court unless they are massively stupid, which we can't rule out. Taking him to court means he would get to present the evidence he collected in his own defense, and they sure as fuck don't want him to do that.
And because I love you, here's a track I left off the playlist but you should really hear:
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