From: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org (jangle-poets-digest) To: jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Subject: jangle-poets-digest V7 #56 Reply-To: jangle-poets@smoe.org Sender: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-jangle-poets-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk jangle-poets-digest Friday, September 16 2005 Volume 07 : Number 056 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [JP] A washingtonpost.com article from: Gordonlew@earthlink.net [Gordonle] [JP] Re: A washingtonpost.com article from Gordonlew@earthlink.net [Nield] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 00:47:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Gordonlew@earthlink.net Subject: [JP] A washingtonpost.com article from: Gordonlew@earthlink.net You have been sent this message from Gordonlew@earthlink.net as a courtesy of washingtonpost.com Personal Message: Was this by the woman that described P&S as "candyass happy folk?" Quick Spins HALF A MILLION MILES The Kennedys Judging by the 10 years of music they've made together, it's fairly clear that pop-folkers Pete and Maura Kennedy are happy people. But amid the lively melodies and charming, American-rootsy arrangements on their latest recording, "Half a Million Miles," the Kennedys aren't just celebrating life ("Live") and enlightenment ("Listen") -- they're celebrating themselves. The liner notes reveal that "Namaste" was inspired by the greeting of a sushi-seller in New York's East Village. Fine, but in the song it's a first-person protagonist, in Maura's voice, saying, "I give the same greeting to everyone / It's really quite simple when it's said and done." She goes on to reassure us that "love's already there if your heart is pure" and "you're well on your way when you say these words." Whether or not it's true -- and the Kennedys sure seem to believe it -- it's grating. Two tracks later, we're told "Come on now, live, I can show you how." Oh, and did you know "the darkest hour is just before dawn"? Consider yourselves enlightened. When they're not setting themselves up as gurus for the Sing Out! set, the duo makes some fine music. Pete Kennedy's guitar solo in "Midnight Ghost" (yeah, it's about Kerouac's train, and yeah, it rhymes "karma" and "dharma") manages to be propulsive without falling into locomotive cliche. They treat Richard Thompson's "How Will I Ever Be Simple Again" with an American dreaminess that suggests "Tennessee Waltz," and Maura Kennedy tells its story gently in a sweet but understated voice. It's good that the Kennedys are happy; it's good that people like them. It's good that they espouse the teachings of Emerson and Dylan and Eckhart Tolle. It's not so good that they force-feed their listeners rather than letting them find their own paths. - -- Pamela Murray Winters The Kennedys will perform Sept. 23 at Jammin' Java. Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 12:59:04 EDT From: Nieldsforever@aol.com Subject: [JP] Re: A washingtonpost.com article from Gordonlew@earthlink.net I want to thank Gordon for one of the bravest posts I've ever seen here, even if he didn't write the offending passages himself! :-) I'm just going to give my own personal reply to the bit at the end. For whom can I speak if not for myself? It's only great geniuses like Dylan, Lennon, and Hendrix who could speak for an entire generation. :-) It's good that the Kennedys are happy; it's good that people like them. It's good that they espouse the teachings of Emerson and Dylan and Eckhart Tolle. It's not so good that they force-feed their listeners rather than letting them find their own paths. - -- Pamela Murray Winters TK certainly aren't preventing anyone from finding their own paths. This remark was so unfair and mean-spirited that I have to wonder why the whole review came to this at all. I can only speculate, for myself. I sometimes believe that we live in a culture of resentment. I don't sense "resentment" coming through in the messages I'm getting from TK, either in their songs or in their wonderful between-song talks and monthly email ponderings. Hence, from my POV, TK's obvious penchant for optimism and hopefulness sort of cuts against the grain of a dominant force in our society, a force I would characterize not as optimistic but as cynical, and not as hopeful but as jaded. Personally, ISTM one ought to be optimistic and hopeful WRT the right things, as opposed to being pathetically hopeful for the wrong things, or addicted to what I would term "facile optimism," the kind that is superficial and ultimately (I think) phony. It's just my opinion that the feel-good-ism of President Bush and his circus of sycophants and democracy-jihadism crusaders for the American Way represent the facile and phony kind of optimism, a far cry (I think) from the kind we see in TK. The difference as I see it is between the false idealism of the grandiose ideology of the neocons VS the more well grounded idealism of personal freedom and self-chosen self-determination as represented by TK in many of their songs. The one is frankly brutal and monstrous to me, the other is poetic and ultimately life-affirming. There are different kinds of idealism in this world -- take your pick. I don't see TK forcing anything down people's throats -- but I do see the false idealism of Bush directly leading to the needless and pointless deaths of tens of thousands of people in Iraq. So on the one hand we have an idealism (TK) that affirms life -- and on the other a truly twisted idealism (Bush) that actually has resulted in unimaginable levels of grief and human suffering. So -- to affirm life or to destroy it? Decisions, decisions. The choice is clear for me -- Make Mine the Kennedys. I enjoy the optimism and the hopefulness that I find in the songs and the whole milieu of both Cadence and the Kennedys. I see them as 2 peas in a pod if you see what I mean, and a perfect fit. But who can please all of the people all of the time? In a cynical and jaded world, optimistic and jangly songs and poems are inevitably not going to be everyone's cup of tea. But isn't it a nice alternative, a nice choice to be able to make? Why be negative if we don't have to be? Just to show that I've considered this thoroughly, to be fair there are darker songs in TK's repertoire too, like "Ashes and Sand," "Didn't It Rain," and "Down, Down, Down." TK are not hopelessly naive, but they are trying to make a difference for the better in this world, and this is reflected not just in their music, but also in their commitments to other activities which go on behind the scenes, for the great part unnoticed by us. I've seen TK give generously of themselves and of their time on so many different occasions. One of the most generous things I've ever seen, just for one lone example, was P&M's introducing Chris & Meredith Thompson, another jangly and optimistic-sounding folk duo, at the Gospel Wakeup Call on the mainstage at Falcon Ridge, to do one song, "Amazing Grace." Talk about "amazing grace"! That impressed me deeply, as one of the most generous acts of kindness I'd ever seen in the folk world. TK know how to work the system to get in on the action at FRFF, even when they're maybe not supposed to do that by some people's standards, and TK apparently know how to get some of their friends into the festival too. It all depends on one's POV -- I call it savvy, stage smarts, and just plain dogged commitment to FRFF. It's all a "plus" in my book. I missed seeing TK on the mainstage the years that they weren't invited to the big show, and I've missed seeing the Thompson twins at FR too for the past few years. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone's favorite could always get into the festival, every year? But in the real world, we all make do and get by as best as we can, and TK are no exception to that rule of life. Maybe Pamela Murray Winters just got up on the wrong side of the bed that day, or is habitually cranky, and not at all averse to taking out her frustrations on other people who seem to be happier than herself. The "culture of resentment" is an easy trap for anyone to fall into. So easy, in fact, that ISTM it's a dominant "Dark Side" force in our society. That kind of "easy" though is *SO* not what TN and TK mean by "Easy People"! :-) Bruce Check out the Kennedys' Official Home Page: http://www.KennedysMusic.com/ Fab photos, the Official tour diary, dashboard Buddha haiku, groovy merchandise...what more could you ask for? ------------------------------ End of jangle-poets-digest V7 #56 *********************************