Mary McCaslin, The Best of Mary McCaslin: Things We Said Today (1992)

By SoDak

Thumbing through some records in the late 1980s, I stumbled across Prairie in the Sky by Mary McCaslin. I did not know anything about the singer, but the cover was intriguing. Falling somewhere between country and folk, the music was very calming, giving me a sense of comfort. McCaslin’s voice was gentle. It was both hopeful and plaintive; it was beautiful, yet haunting. This was especially the case with her cover of “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” Upon hearing “Prairie in the Sky,” I wept. To this day, I am incredibly moved every time I hear the song. It is filled with romantic images of riding a roan across the country, through the tall grasses on the plains. The inclusion of the French horn on this folk song is mesmerizing, adding an interesting emotional hook. The strings are very subtle and tender. 

In the 1990s, I was fortunate enough to see Mary McCaslin play a concert, with Eric Andersen, in Denver. This was shortly after her record Broken Promises was released. I sat in the dark captivated by her strumming and picking the guitar, while singing songs from her recent record, as well as most of those on Things We Said Today, a best of collection. The songs about friends, love, and broken hearts fit perfectly well with the outlaw and western tunes, which sometimes addressed concerns about pollution and urban sprawl. 

Over the last thirty years, my wife and I continue to listen to Things We Said Today. It used to be a regular listen, when we were playing cards. More often, we listen to it while on a road trip. The songs on this record are now woven with memories of driving through stands of giant trees on the way to trailheads in Sequoia National Park a couple years ago. We carried the songs, as Mary’s voice was echoing in our heads, as we hiked through the tall ferns under the giant sequoias, marveling at their beauty. On that day, it felt like we were dancing with the world.

McCaslin died October 2, 2022. I wish I would have seen her perform one more time, like when she played at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I should have made the drive to make it happen. I really wanted to hear her sing “Young Westley” and “Prairie in the Sky” again. Fortunately, she recorded a wonderful series of records that continue to resonate with me.

The Feral Hog of the Sandhills

After Larry McMurtry’s Streets of Laredo

By Jack Rafferty

 

when the last of the bison were slaughtered

the hides were piled thousands high

in anticipation to be sold

but prices crashed, and the hides were left to rot

 

the ropes that held the hides frayed

and were chewed by vermin

the old flesh scattered

dispersed to become the land

 

then the crows came

thousands of them

their harsh voices filled the air

for thirty miles

 

people built a town

if it could be called that

upon the foundation of old rot

small and ragged

 

they would bury their dead

without care or ceremony

by a lone mesquite tree

in the sandhills

 

one day

a massive hog arrived 

it exhumed the graves

and devoured three bodies

 

the locals, appalled by this beast

gathered their guns

they fired into its matted fur

and to their horror it did not falter

 

it did not die

nor did it stop feasting on the bodies

at its slow, methodical pace

silent except for the gnashing

 

it ate its fill unbothered by the bullets

and trudged into the night

like some unholy spirit

bloody and fattened on dead flesh

 

a month later an ox killed a mule skinner

the hog returned

accompanied by crows

bloated herald of decay

 

the crows attended to it

like some fat monarch

plucking ticks from its rank flesh

the people called it Devil Pig

 

people soon began to believe

that when the hog departed

it walked into Hell

through a tunnel in the riverbank

 

when it left

the crows remained

the cacophony of their collective voice

drove people to madness

 

the crows stayed as envoys

a reminder to those occupying 

this land born from death

that death is the only true warden here  

Coal Mining Women (Rounder Records 1997)

 

By SoDak

The most productive hours of our days we spend working, jobs which are generally alienating, painful, and demoralizing. By the time we finish our shifts, we are exhausted, too tired to accomplish anything significant. Lacking any other means of survival, we sell our labor power to earn wages to purchase those things we need to survive, including plenty of items to entertain/distract us. The owners, seeking to maximize profits and expand production, regulate the pace of work and control the process in order to squeeze as much surplus from us as possible. Our misery generates their profits. The days and years disappear, as our minds and bodies are destroyed, while we continue to dream of retirement, simply to escape from the daily drudgery. 

The compilation record Coal Mining Women is an important historical document, detailing the exploitation that takes place under capitalism and the struggles of working people against the coal companies. It consists of twenty songs, sung by folksingers who grew up in coal country such as Hazel Dickens, Phyllis Boyens, Sarah Ogan Gunning, Florence Reece, and Reel World String Band. The songs give me chills every time I listen to them. Gunning’s “Dreadful Memories” recounts the poverty and starvation experienced by miners, as the Kentucky coal company hired “gun thugs” to threaten workers who dared to organize. It is a live recording, when she was quite old. Her voice is weathered, yet tender and defiant. I really wish Gunning’s song “I Hate the Capitalist System” was included on this compilation, as it would have fit in perfectly, describing the stark inequality that capitalist growth creates. Boyens’s “Lawrence Jones” notes that there is “one man dead on that Harlan County line” due to the violence employed by the coal company. On “Black Lung,” Dickens provides a haunting account of how this disease destroyed the lives of so many workers, digging coal underground. Companies simply turned their backs on the workers, replacing those who were sick and those who died with new workers. She sings, 

You ain’t even covered in their medical plans

And your life depends on the favors of man

Down in the poor house on starvation’s plan

Where pride is a stranger and doomed is a man

His soul full of coal dust till his body’s decayed

And everyone but black lung’s done turned him away

Black lung, black lung, oh your hand’s icy cold

As you reach for my life and you torture my soul

Cold as that water hole down in that dark cave

Where I spent my life’s blood diggin’ my own grave

Down at the graveyard the boss man came

With his little bunch of flowers, dear God what a shame

Take back those flowers, don’t you sing no sad songs

The die has been cast now, a good man is gone.

Death is ever present throughout these songs, especially those that are focused on mining accidents, such as Dickens’s “The Mannington Mine Disaster.” These songs are written so we do not forget how capitalist companies cut corners, creating unsafe conditions to reduce production costs. Here social murder is embedded throughout the existing economic system. Additionally, as Gunning explains, these mining operations are destroying the beauty of the mountains and poisoning the water. 

The songs on Coal Mining Women also speak to mobilization, resistance, protest, and revolution. It is clear what is at stake. As Gunning sings on “Come All You Coal Miners,”

l was born in old Kentucky, in a coal camp born and bred,

I know all about the pinto beans, bulldog gravy and cornbread,

And I know how the coal miners work and slave in the coal mines every day

For a dollar in the company store, for that is all they pay.

Coal mining is the most dangerous work in our land today

With plenty of dirty, slaving work, and very little pay.

Coal miner, won’t you wake up, and open your eyes and see

What the dirty capitalist system is doing to you and me.

They take your very life blood, they take our children’s lives

They take fathers away from children, and husbands away from wives.

Oh miner, won’t you organize wherever you may be

And make this a land of freedom for workers like you and me.

Dickens, on “They’ll Never Keep Us Down,” celebrates the solidarity of a radical labor movement, pointing out that all improvements in wages and quality of life have been fought for, challenging the interests of the bosses. Within this song, there is a recognition that this struggle is a constant one, given the exploitive system predicated upon capital accumulation. This point is important to keep in mind, especially as coal companies attempt to convince workers that they have the same interests. The question remains, “which side are you on”: that of the capitalist or the rest of humanity?

See You in Hell, My Friend: Steve Grimmett (1959-2022)

 

By Null

Steve Grimmett recently passed away. He was the lead singer of Grim Reaper, one of the bands that were part of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which was a particular type of metal that began in the mid-1970s. I am not a metal aficionado by any stretch of the imagination, so I do not really know all the bands Steve was associated with, nor did I follow his life’s work in music. I do, however, have a soft spot for the guy.

I first heard, and saw, Grim Reaper when I was a kid staying up late one night in the early 1980s watching music videos. The video for “See You in Hell” came on. I thought it was ridiculous, but I never forgot it.

Some people may associate Grim Reaper more with Spinal Tap. I know I did. But many metalheads perceive them to be legends. Regardless, Grim Reaper’s songs were short, hooky, and sing-a-longs. The songs seemed like cliché after cliché. In the middle of the mix was Steve’s ear-piercing high vocals, which always made me giggle.

Many years ago, just for the fun of it, I got my hands on a CD that contained the first two Grim Reaper albums. I drove around town jamming the tunes in an almost ironic way.

That is, until I noticed something.

I was smiling.

For a long time, I staked my claim that I listened to very serious music. This generally involved obsessing over smart, political punk rock bands—music that I still hold dear.

However, in a world that is ravaged by capitalist destruction that generates misery every day, it can be revolutionary to simply smile. Grim Reaper reminded me that music can also just be fun.

Music also serves that purpose. 

That is when I put my pretensions aside and realized that Grim Reaper are a fucking trip and they make me fucking happy. It is like The Muppet Show for adults, but made up of real people. When I think of Grim Reaper, I simply smile.

In 2017, Steve Grimmett got a bad infection in his leg that eventually led to an amputation. His leg was replaced with a “heavy” metal prosthetic. What did he do? He went on stage in a wheel chair, stood up, and with the aid of a cane commanded the stage. He was in it for the long haul. Grim Reaper were never pretty, but they showed up.

Steve Grimmett had family that loved him and good friends. I have often seen pictures of him having ale at the pub with fans. He seemed like a chilled out geezer. I would have loved to have shared a few hugs and beers with him, warts and all. He just seemed grounded. In other words, he was not a Kardashian. As Steve noted in an interview earlier this year, “I haven't got a penny to my name…. I’m on welfare at the moment because of COVID, and a lot of people do think that I am a millionaire, but I can tell you now, I’m not. I’ve never received a penny—not one penny—from Grim Reaper, so that says it all, doesn’t it? But still, no regrets. I still love getting up there and playing. I still love watching the smiling faces in front of me. That says it all and does it all for me.” That’s where I’m at. Fuck, at least he was real.

All of this is a reminder that our lives are short. Embrace those who bring joy into your life. We’re all just people. Steve brought many a smile to my face. It was more than most people have done.

See you in hell, my friend.

Olivia Newton-John (1948 – 2022)

 

By Null

I fell in love with Olivia Newton-John in 1978. I was six years old. I’m fifty years old now. I don't believe I ever truly fell out of love with her. I had the cover of her Greatest Hits Vol. 2 on my wall when I was in elementary school. I still love that album, no kidding.

I guess it all started with Jessica Lange. I was four years old when I saw John Guillermin’s version of King Kong in the theater in 1976. I didn’t know what these feelings meant. I only knew I wanted to pet her like a cat, or a newborn calf; I grew up on a farm. 

Then, of course, there was The Bionic Woman, Lindsey Wagner. I was very attracted to her too. The Bionic Woman was on TV from 1976 to 1978. Something about her seemed more mature and serious.

There is nothing particularly interesting about a rural farm kid with only three channels on his television having “funny feelings” about the “blonde California type” women in the 1970s that he would see on TV shows or in magazines when bras were pretty unfashionable. I always liked to keep it casual. It is a predictable and easily foreseeable tale, even cliché. 

What is particularly fascinating is how young I was when I was having these feelings and attractions. It is like what Woody Allen states in Annie Hall when speaking of Freud’s latency period: “I never had a latency period.”

But I digress; in 1978, I saw the movie Grease at the drive-in theater while lying in the back of a pick-up truck. This is when I first witnessed the implausible existence of an otherworldly actor by the name of Olivia Newton-John. Though the 1970s were filled with blonde-haired, blue eyed nymphs, Olivia Newton-John could sing like a bird, and if I have ever been the helot to any master, it has been music. In my pre-pubescent confusion, I was overwhelmed. I was not only attracted to her. I was in love with her. I was in awe.

Back in the day, we had the Grease Soundtrack on 8-track and I would listen to it endlessly. I even started a “gang” in my “one hallway” elementary school full of farm kids with manure on their boots. We were called The Eagles and I perfected John Travolta’s “Grease Lightning” routine to best of my ability. Our claim to fame was swinging sideways on the swing set during recess, strictly forbidden, and getting caught with Red Man Chewing Tobacco in fifth grade. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

At one point following my obsession with Grease and Olivia Newton-John, there appeared both a cassette and vinyl copy of Olivia Newton-John’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which came out in 1982. I don’t know where they came from. At this point, I was ten years old.  I was living in a world in which all I wanted to do was escape. There were moments when my family had very little money, but my mother was never short of giving us love and affection. The work on the farm was difficult, and often dark, in the freezing winters of Michigan. Often there was a sense of foreboding fear from my stepfather’s hot temper and hard fists, coupled with the harsh realities of the fragility of life. 

I remember when a diseased cow lay gasping for breath at the edge of the barn unable to get up. A single tear fell from its huge and beautiful eye. The cosmos seemed to be hiding in its giant, black pupil. I could do nothing to ease its pain. My stepfather put his hand on my shoulder, and I could see the shot gun appear in the periphery of my sight. He did not have to tell me to leave. By the time I reached the other end of the barn, the rifle went off.

In my room, the foldout gatefold of Olivia’s Greatest Hits Vol. 2 was hanging next to my bed on the wall, held in place by thumbtacks. I listened to the album often and escaped into the lush instrumentation and magic that seemed inherent in music. Her voice was often high and crystalline clear, covering my mind with a comforting warmth and sensuality that seemed so foreign to my immediate world. 

Only a year later, Reagonomics would decimate the farming community, and we, like so many others, would lose our farm and escape into the night. 

I left Olivia Newton-John on the farm.

I did not buy her albums or follow her career. I was on the road to growing up in a land far away from the alfalfa and corn fields, and the very small elementary school.

Over the years, I would hear an Olivia Newton-John song on the radio and I would still be mesmerized, as if she were a siren luring me back to the comfort and sleep of my childhood bed. Those songs never lost their magic and her voice seemed ageless. The music made her timeless, as do any fond and distinct childhood memories.

Upon hearing of Olivia’s death I felt a shudder. In real life, I knew almost nothing about her. Yet, I felt something very powerful. A tear fell from my eye, which was both unexpected and weird. Was it the recollection of my childhood room? Was it the culmination of loss over the years since I had been there taking shelter in songs? Was it saying goodbye to an old friend that time forgot who never really existed? It was not me that shed a tear. It was the six year old in me who just learned that she was always only human, which somehow makes the memories more prominent and sweet.

Sometimes childhood gets dark. Kids need angels. “Angels” is not a word I use often, if ever, but I can think of no other word to describe my childhood recollections of her. 

User Unauthorized, Pigs Got Ahold of Me (Rabbit Rabbit Records, 2020), Watch Them Fall (Rabbit Rabbit Records 2021), and Harsh Truth (Rabbit Rabbit Records, 2022)

By SoDak

In just a few years, User Unauthorized, a punk rock band from Austin, Texas, has already put out three records. These youngsters are focused and driven, writing songs in the spirit of punk hardcore from the mid-1980s and early 1990s. They show no signs of slowing down. I had the pleasure of seeing them play a garage show this summer, as they toured across the United States. 

Their first seven-inch record, Pigs Got Ahold of Me, consists of two versions of the title track—one sung in English, the other in Spanish. In classic punk rock fashion, it is an anti-cop song addressing police brutality and how pigs have a license to kill. Perhaps, because of the subject and the style of punk rock, I am reminded of the Authorities’s “I Hate Cops.” Nevertheless, I love how User Unauthorized sing “Piggy, piggy, piggy! Let me go! I’ve got rights! Don’t ya know!” in the chorus. A simple fuck you to the police is always welcomed in this household.

Watch Them Fall, the second seven-inch record, includes five raging, straightforward punk songs. The vocals and music include elements of Deprived and Detestation, as the songs are slightly crusty, but with a solid foundation in 1980s hardcore. The guitar parts are catchy and add more distinction to the songs than the aforementioned bands. Each line is shouted, which I suppose is reflected in all of the exclamation points in the lyric sheet. “A.P.D.” is another anti-cop song, but seems more pissed and concrete, which I appreciate here. “Stomp” is a fast-paced anti-Nazi, anti-racist song. Zach Blair, from Rise Against, contributes a nice guitar solo on this one. Other songs on the record address various hypocrisies, frustrations, inequalities, and struggles of living in U.S. society. The title track gives voice to these issues: 

Fuck the flag and fuck the state!

Up in arms take to the streets.

No more authority. 

So burn the precincts and smash their mansions. 

‘Cause they sit high, while we split our rations.

We’ll take what’s ours, and watch them fall.

This year, User Unauthorized put out a six song twelve-inch EP, Harsh Truth. This is my favorite release by them to date, as there is more musical variation, between and within the songs. The drums and bass stand out a bit more, revealing some cool contributions on the songs. The song “Predator” kicks off the record, addressing sexual violence. It has a great mid-tempo start before kicking into high speed. It also includes a slower, breakdown section, which helps change things up a bit. When I saw them play live, I really loved the energy and intensity of this one. The slower guitar part that starts “No Breakdown” adds a nice menacing touch to the song, which carries over into some of the interesting changes later in the song, where the deep drum and bass sounds come to the front in a powerful way. “Asphyxiation” has a nice slow chorus, “I hate living in the city,” as part of the description of the economic inequality and urban decay that plagues the country. On “Harsh Truth,” David Rodriguez, from the Casualties, provides additional vocals, which adds a nice dynamism to this rocker. 

It is refreshing to hear some youthful anger that is directed at the oppressing forces and structures of society. All of the songs by User Unauthorized include very direct lyrics and punchy music. They help provide a swift kick to the ass, which is definitely needed. 

Order their records at Rabbit Rabbit Records:

https://rabbitrabbitrecordspress.bigcartel.com/