Jackson Hole Underground

Change begins from the ground up.

Yes, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has inspired millions of young people to get involved and vote, but we will never change much unless we start at the grassroots.

Locally, we can see the effect of Obama’s empowering movement in the candidacy of two 20-somethings: Claire Fuller and Tommy Wood (and, to some extent, Greg Miles and Matt Lee, two other progressive candidates young in outlook if not in years).

Fuller, 24, is running for Teton County commissioner as a Democrat, following in the footsteps of her Huidekoper forbears. Wood, 29, has mounted an aggressive campaign for Jackson Town Council after moving to town just two years ago.

Both have appealed to a demographic traditionally underrepresented in Teton County: their peers.

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We’ll be posting a few thoughts and photos from yesterday’s Jackson Hole Music Festival — and what a scorching good time it was — but first let’s put the message of the music into action.

Tuesday is a primary election that will shape the Jackson Town Council and decide several community initiatives — a completed path segment (yay!) and $53 million jail (nay!) among them.

Anyone who lives in Teton County may vote. YOU NEED TO HAVE LIVED HERE ONLY A MINUTE to cast a ballot, and can register at the polls. Bring a driver’s license or some proof of identification.

Those who may have to work long hours tomorrow can fill out an absentee ballot at the county clerk’s office, at the corner of Willow and Simpson streets, until 5 p.m. today.

A list of polling places is posted here.

We’ll be following up with some last-minute information on a couple of candidates, for those looking to get informed. Rando Steve and Rando Kitty over at TetonAT already have compiled a backcountry skiers’ voting guide.

Ben Harper and Robert Randolph came to Jackson Hole and sang of revolution and positive change. Voting in local elections is an important, and easy, first step.

We can change the world, with our own two hands.

After years of traveling to and writing about music festivals in places like New Orleans, Austin and Bonnaroo, at last a big fest has come to us — without even a drive to Grand Targhee.

We will be in full regalia for the second day of the Jackson Hole Music Festival at Teton Village. Reports from the first day said the music and sun were hot.

I wonder whether Ben Harper will sport the Stetson he purchased in Jackson back in 2001, when some of the local ladies took him shopping before his show at Snow King Center. Will Robert Randolph bust out his Fennis Dembo UW hoops jersey, as he did while opening for the Black Crowes at Snow King in 2006?

(I asked Randolph that night whether he had rolled through Laramie on his way up to Jackson, or whether the jersey was a gift. “Yeah, it was a gift,” he said, “from Dick Cheney!”)

The main question I have is whether the Teton area can sustain the tremendous amount of music we’ve been blessed with this year: two great fests at Targhee, a full slate at Center for the Arts, Music on Main, the Mangy Moose, and now this, a two-day marathon produced by one of the industry’s heavy hitters, Festival Network.

I don’t know what you come to do, but as an all-too-short and frenetic summer draws to a close, it’s time to stomp and scream.

David Sirota will sign his new book, The Uprising, this evening at Valley Books starting at 7. Sirota is a leading voice among upcoming independent American political thinkers.

Sirota has been a critical player in the recent political enlightenment of the West, helping elect Montana governor Brian Schweitzer by educating voters on how the modern pro-corporate, anti-worker GOP undermines the West’s libertarian values.

Since his Schweitzer victory, Sirota has concentrated on a story that corporate-owned media cannot be expected to cover: Normal people have had their fill of robber-baron greed, corrupt politicians and the lazy, overpaid national press that keeps them in power. The Uprising includes the hefty subtitle “An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington.”

Sirota’s weekly column appears Mondays in the Jackson Hole Daily.

Just back from cycling through the Alps, correspondent Favio Snimp went over to Driggs last week for his first taste of the Music on Main free concert series, and promptly had his mind blown. Here’s his account of a two-night bender with the best band to come out of Britain lately.

Photographs by David Swift © 2008. Click to enlarge.

I defer to Jim Stanford’s ample research for specifics about The New Mastersounds, even if he has yet to establish whether or not the band’s name is intended to be ironic.

I’m not sure why they blew me away — why, that’s the very definition of art! — but there I was, dragging myself to the Moose well after bedtime Friday to catch their second local show after NMS had rocked Driggs Thursday night. Because there is plenty of room on the Internets, allow me to dwell on what makes The New Mastersounds one of the best live bands I’ve ever heard.

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