It's Getting Political In Here

Yesterday was all about promotion as The Boss did 3 radio interviews to promote the string of Montana gigs this weekend. Our first stop was a station with super nice people, and one of them informed us that the station hadn't played the Dixie Chicks since "The Incident" in 2003. Talk about a grudge. I AM NOT EVEN going to get into whether anyone thinks it was right, whether anyone thinks with hindsight it was right, whether it was geographically right or timed right yadda yadda. I have come around to the fact that most of the artists I respect have some of the same and some different opinions than I do, and that's fine. Radio, however, seems to hold a grudge for a while, maybe even to the point where the reason for the grudge is long gone and it's a simple matter of, "We don't play them." Anyway, I was wondering how the fact that the writer of one of the Chicks' biggest hits was standing in their "No Dixie Chicks Zone" was going to affect anything. But everyone was super nice and the DJs told Susan how that song affected them at various points in their life, which is always cool to hear. So it was open arms for the songwriter, for sure. I was relieved about that, but it made me wonder where the disconnect comes from for some of these long term haters. A songwriter writes it, studio musicians with families to feed play on it, publicists from Oklahoma, or Washington, or Vermont promote it...the artists tour with it, and in this case the songwriters tour with it, too. The merch girls sell CDs from it. It's a giant ecosystem and to blacklist the Chicks for exercising their free speech seven years ago affects a lot more people down the line than those 3 women. It's like boycotting Arizona Iced Tea which is made in New York because you don't like Arizona. Blah. So there's as political as I'm going to get. I don't dwell on politics too much. It wastes my mind space, and it's a better job for other people with other dispositions. I am a big fan of being aware of who and what your actions affect, though...and thinking a little bit ahead past your kneejerk biases. Real people's jobs are at stake here. We're all trying to make a living by working hard, which is about as American as I can define. Switching gears, it was over to Montana Radio Cafe for a lovely hour on Scott's front porch. Scott broadcasts with his own station from his gorgeous farm outside Bigfork, MT. You can stream his station live online right here. Scott plays great stuff! We play The Raven right along the shore of Flathead Lake tonight, and it's a full moon! Should be fun. And long live the Dixie Chicks.

Air and Simple Gifts

This piece by John Williams was the perfect musical mark for inauguration day. Awesome.

VOTE! Caffeine! Viva Democracy!

I just had a Diet Coke chased by a fabulous cup of free Starbucks brew. Just go in and tell them you voted. No, really. This is a free country and you can celebrate it by drinking free caffeine. The Poli Sci nerd in me is coming out today. Looking forward to exit poll analysis and electoral vote estimations. Hope your lines weren't too long and your chads are not hanging. Oh yeah, insert something about folk music here.

And then there was DONE.

By all accounts The Early Year is out of my hands for the next couple of weeks! The fabulous people at Oasis received the artwork from Emily, (who did just a fantastic job and you should hire her for all your graphic design needs and pay her a lot of money)...and the master is sitting somewhere in New Jersey because the post office overnighted it. Flying. Like an eagle. Into the future. Now what? Well...I suppose you could pre-order it (pre-oderitpre-orderit!!!) while I take a nap. There's a little something something in it for ya if you order early, so Czech it out. More merching this weekend...if you are in Wimberley or Marble Falls or Fredericksburg (or you want to be and really, who doesn't when there's Susan Music involved?)...come say hello! Oh, and I realized that I made an egregious error in my liner notes and neglected to thank a very important group of people that had a big role in the production of The Early Year. I'd like to write them a special note right here right now: Dear President George W. Bush and the Federal Government, Thank you very much for the tax refund check that I found in my mailbox this summer. Thanks to you and your generosity, you have allowed more singer-songwriter folk music to be released into the world, which as I recall was one of the lesser recognized tenants of your father's "Thousand Points of Light" speech in 1988. I promise to do my best to give back to the economy with The Early Year by using it to facilitate more gasoline consumption through touring, buying pretzels and Starbucks in a can from various convenience stores across the country, and by recycling all my guitar strings by making yard art and jewelry. Again, thank you very much and when you move back to Dallas/Fort Worth please come to a show. I will buy you a scone. Sincerely, Jana

A Backstage Pass to Democracy

Rock Star gets off stage after pouring heart and soul out to a collection of thousands of followers...proceeds to tour bus and sits down at the computer. Rock Star blogs about what happened that night, uploads a video clip from the evening that was just imported in, and clicks "Publish." Instantly, not only can those followers who were there re-live that night and pass it around...but the entire globe can be there, too. The entire population of the planet now has a chance to see what occurred on stage in New Hampshire...via text from the performer and video of it happening...via a link to a Flickr profile with accompanying photos...via a friend request on Myspace or Facebook. Instantly. The life of a musician? Of course. But I was actually talking about Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico who is running for President. Bill's got some hilarious campaign ads up on Youtube. And a Myspace profile. And a Flickr photo pool. And a blog. Welcome to Campaign 2008, Web 2.0 Style. This is true democracy, people. Sure, America has always been a republic. We elect our leaders. (Well, some of us do). But there's always a been a bit of a wall between us -- the voters -- and them...those who do the actual decision-making. Sure, we give input. We write our letters to our Congresspeople and we get a form letter back from an aide and we hope that our opinion was tallied in a memo that the representative maybe read before going to vote on some issue. And if they vote against our views on an issue? We write another letter, or maybe an email...and maybe our dissent gets tallied again in the next memo. But what about this internet thing? Could it be that all of these crazy tools musicians use -- and lots of other people in lots of other fields -- are finally breaking into that stodgy, long-curtained-off backroom of politics? The inner workings of our nation...up on Youtube? The guy who might be in the Oval Office...in a Flickr pool? This is your backstage pass, America. And guess what? We control our VIP status. The more feed subscriptions Bill gets? The more he'll blog! The more Facebook friend requests he has, the more interactive his campaign will be. That translates into...the more input you have on your Presidential candidate...in real, immediate time. Remember that news story last week about how Digg almost collapsed under a revolt brought on by its own users, doing the very thing Digg is designed to do? (When people like an article/think it is informative/whatever...they can Digg it...and the articles with the most Diggs rank higher. Very democratic). That's an example of the population being able to actually sway the usually behind-closed-doors-type company into changing policy...in MERE HOURS. It did not take a board meeting, a bylaws re-write, a vote, an addendum, another vote, ad nauseum to get Digg to change its policy. It knew what its constituents wanted immediately, and reacted in kind. Apply this to our politicians...put them in the light, shine the warm glow of Web 2.0 on them...and see how they operate when they can actually see all of the voter's faces looking right at them and paying attention.