By Jim Stanford on August 10, 2007
After getting my fill of paint fumes and crumpled newspaper working on the Cheney artwork, I went out to the Mangy Moose on Thursday to catch the John Popper Project with DJ Logic.
Blues Traveler will always strike a mellifluous note in my heart, as the band’s eponymous debut and subsequent Travelers and Thieves provided a soundtrack for my formative college days. Along with Shakespeare and Sartre, Popper’s idealist lyrics inspired me to reach for “the flow of all the life that’s there.”
Too bad Popper isn’t writing songs like that anymore. And the band hasn’t had the same depth of sound since bassist Bobby Sheehan died. But old allegiances die hard, the Peace Rally needed promoting, and I like to challenge Popper about his politics (BT played the 2000 GOP convention, and Popper performed at a party for the 2004 inauguration, among other less-than-savory gigs).
Last summer in Pinedale, as Israel and Hamas were at war and Iraq devolved further into savagery, I asked Popper to play “Onslaught,” from Travelers and Thieves, and send it out to his man Dick Cheney.
“Oh, my man,” he said, laughing. “Good one.”
Half the band doesn’t know that song. It goes like this:
… And if you descend from the Mayflower
Well they were running too
They were running from England
Who were warring with France
Who would conquer Spain
Given half of a chance
But it was the Muslims
Who had gotten there first
When there wasn’t the bloodshed
Then there was the thirst
And a hate for the Christians
The infiltrators of Rome
You know that once mighty empire
Who made Africa home
The poor, noble Egyptians
Oh the hardships they braved
Remembering the good times
With Judea enslaved
And the Israelite nation
The very children of God
Killing Palestine’s children
And I’m finding it odd
After the show, Popper approached me to resume our conversation. Maybe I had gotten under his skin a little.
Power corrupts, he explained, and politics attracts the very worst people. “So why not be a whore, and play to both sides?” he said.
“Maybe that’s not how it’s supposed to be,” I replied, quoting his lyrics back at him. We shrugged at each other, and he boarded the van that had been waiting to whisk the band out of there.
But anyway, back to Thursday at the Mangy Moose.
I had another barb in store for Popper when I headed out to Teton Village with a stack of cards advertising the Peace Rally.
About midway through his set, which featured BT bassist Tad Kinchla on bass, Marcus Bleecker on drums and Logic on turntables, I approached the stage and said I had a request. I handed Popper a sheet of paper, with Cheney’s snarling face and the inscription “Support Your Local Emperor” (title of a song from T&T).
Popper laughed and held it aloft to the crowd. “I usually don’t endorse political slogans,” he said, “but this is a good one.”
Amid a few cheers and jeers, he mentioned something about political parties and said, “I endorse them all.”
The show didn’t last long, but I was able to hand out the invites and keep the momentum going for the Peace Rally.
Dick Cheney, our local emperor, was soon to find his throne is cold.
Posted under dick cheney, entertainment, mangy moose, music, politics
