Taking the stage at a community center in the small Northern
California town of Bolinas, a group of four musicians quickly showed
themselves to be returning as a vibrant creative force centered very
much in the present.
Not that the music of Country Joe and the Fish ever really
disappeared. Since the release of the band’s first two albums in
1967 -- “Electric Music for the Mind and Body” along with
“I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die” -- many of its songs have meandered
through the memories and semi-consciousness of millions of Americans
who came of age a third of a century ago.
Now reconstituted with four of the legendary group’s original
five members, the new Country Joe Band has just begun to tour. When I
saw them perform, midway through April, the music was as tightly
effusive as ever, with poetic lyrics mostly brought to bear on two
perennials: love and death.
Their new song “Cakewalk to Baghdad” is in sync with Country Joe
McDonald’s compositions that stretch back to the escalating years of
the Vietnam War. With the post-“victory” occupation of Iraq in its
thirteenth month bringing death to many people including children, his
old song “An Untitled Protest” remains unfailingly current. Sung the
other night, it was no more dated than today: “Red and swollen tears
tumble from her eyes / While cold silver birds who came to cruise the
skies / Send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands / And then
proceed to target ‘B’ in keeping with their plans.”
No less than its previous incarnation, the Country Joe Band
exemplifies how rock music can transcend itself as an art form. This
is no small feat for any musicians, including those who create songs
that encourage resistance to deadly routines of the status quo.
Rhetoric is destructive to art. On the other hand, ambiguous or
self-absorbed artistry is apt to be isolated from key social
realities. But the Country Joe Band is not agitprop or evasive. For an
overview, take a look at
www.countryjoe.com -- a website that reflects
how a creative process can stay grounded in humanistic projects of our
times.
Songs that Country Joe and the Fish released in 1967 are so
intricate that an attentive listener is bound to agree with McDonald’s
recent comment to an interviewer: “Those songs are very complex and
difficult to play, they’re less rock ’n’ roll and perhaps more ...
well, symphonic.” Rendered by the Country Joe Band, the psychedelic
sound can seem orchestral. Yet there’s still no reliance on high-tech
sound effects.
By now, apparently, we’d be foolish to take the integrity of
talented artists for granted. Maybe, as a late ’60s advertisement
proclaimed, “the man can’t bust our music” -- but the corporate system
can sure water it down a lot. Or turn music into outright pabulum.
Television showcases plenty of grim results when so many knees bend
toward corporatized altars.
These days, cynicism about famous musicians with protest
credentials is running high. Weeks ago, Bob Dylan began to appear in a
Victoria’s Secret commercial. It may seem that the times they are a
prostitutin’.
Media outlets are filled with ads, commercial plugs and vapid --
or corrosive -- content leaving the impression that gifted artists
sell out to the almighty dollar sooner or later. “Today’s musical
superstars seem more interested in hawking their clothing lines and
name-brand perfumes than in any meaningful form of political action,”
magazine editor Leslie Bennetts wrote in a Los Angeles Times essay. By
coincidence, the article appeared on the same day that I saw the
Country Joe Band in concert.
Unlike the profuse and dreary examples now personified by Dylan,
quite a few musicians -- renowned or scarcely known -- have
successfully struggled to retain creative control over their work.
They continue to resist the corporate juggernauts that routinely
flatten talent into the pap of pop.
A new development to celebrate is the rise of the Country Joe
Band. While standing the test of time, music from the ensemble group
resonates profoundly each day as young Americans in uniform do their
best to survive in a faraway country: “And pound their feet into the
sand of shores they've never seen / Delegates from the western land to
join the death machine / And we send cards and letters.”
It happens that Country Joe McDonald and the band’s other
musicians have returned to public space together at a time when many
American soldiers -- following the orders of the commander in chief --
are continuing to kill and be killed. An old question is also new:
What are we fighting for?
“And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death /
Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath / And we
send prayers and praises.”
_________________________________
Norman Solomon is co-author, with foreign correspondent Reese Erlich,
of “Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t Tell You.”
