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With
host Melinda Pillsbury-Foster explore the roots of the issues
which
made it possible for the corporations to install their own
operating
system in our courts, in the economy, in government, and in all
other
parts of our lives.
Today
we are beginning with an update on the rise of protest around
the
Wall Street of the South, Charlotte, North Carolina, where a
group is
determined to enforce our freedom of speech as the National
Convention of the Democratic Party approaches. Matt Hickson, an
organizer, will be joining us to discuss what is happening on
the
ground there and their plans to continue the Evolution.
With
the echoes of Evolution in the airways we will then spend two
hours
with a woman who sat with Woody Guthrie during the long months
of his
final illness, playing for him his own music and her own. Leslie
Fish went on to become one of the next generation of bards who
touch
us profoundly. Come share with us as we hear the stories of
life,
death, and song which knit us together with a force more
powerful
than steel.
Standing
your ground for freedom as we continue to Fight fascism begins
where
ever you are now.
This is
our Mission and
we pursue it relentlessly.
This Week's
Guests: Tuesday, May 15th, 2012
Hour One
At the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Matt has
engaged in
fights around public worker's rights, the slashing of
education
budgets, and subsequent tuition increases. He has also
recently
been part of actions at the shareholders meetings of
Reynolds Tobacco
and Bank of America. Currently, Matt is organizing for The
Coalition to March on Wall St South, a group building
people's power
and voice at the Charlotte Democratic National Convention in
September.
Weapons are
being purchased, paid for
by the American people, to be arrayed against those of us who
protest. Knowing what lies ahead the Coalition will continue
to take
action. Bringing Left and Right together is a part of their
mission.
Hour Two
- Three
Leslie
Fish is
a legend in folk music. Her own bio is, itself, an
interesting
insight into who she is ans why her voice, and
music, must be
heard.
"I
play 12-string guitar, 6-string guitar, some
electric guitar,
recorder and penny-whistle (not terribly well),
autoharp, hand-drum,
and I can fake it on electric bass. Keyboards?
Hah! Just well enough
to pick out a tune for transcribing. Plus my
voice, of course. When I
got my first guitar at 16 I'd already been into
folk music, singing
it anyway, for years; I spent about an hour a day
playing/practicing
with it, and would have done more if my parents
hadn't yelled at me
to quit making that godawful racket and do my
homework. I think Mom
was particularly pissed off because she'd tried
for years to teach me
piano (and Classical lyric-soprano singing -- even
though my voice
was obviously alto) because she wanted me to
befome a proper
Classic-music pianist/singer and maybe wind up at
the Met -- and none
of it took. Instead I was busy "wasting time with
that awful
cowboy music". Now that I'm successful enough to
make my living
at That Wretched Stuff, she never asks me anything
about music.
*Snicker* I use [a verse-long instrumental break]
for dramatic
purposes: to prepare the audience emotionally for
the last
(summarizing or punch-line) verse, or to heighten
tension before the
resolution. Naturally, the "break" can't be
allowed to bore
the audience, so I play my damndest then.
...Which
songs am I proudest of? Well, there are a lot of them, but
I'd have
to say that "Hope Eyrie" heads the list. It's gone the
farthest and influenced the most people. Oh, the tales I
could tell
about that one -- how it came to be written, how it became
the anthem
of the fandom/pro-space movement, how it was translated
into Polish,
smuggled into Poland and became the underground anthem of
Solidarnosc
-- hell, ask me later; Other songs I'm proud of: "Freedom
Road",
"They Were Having a Sale at the Gun-Store", "The
Cripples' Shield-Wall", "White Man's Rain Chant (Lord of
Thunders)" --they're all good solid songs, and they all
have
workable magic.
Song I'm least proud of: "Banned From Argo", no contest! I wrote it to order, to fill in a four-minute shortage on the master tape when we were recording SOLAR SAILORS, and hoo- boy, do I ever regret it! The damned piece of fluff became damn-near as popular as "Hope Eyrie".
My current filk-book has over 100 songs in it (I haven't counted), and there's my Kipling collection (at least another 50), my Pagan songs (at least 25 there) all the Misty Lackey poems I put tunes to that I don't have copies of (another 25 or so), plus some purely folkie-political stuff I have in other books at home. Say at least 200, maybe 300 -- and I'm constantly adding to it, so I have no way to tell.
Favorite filksong that I didn't write: "Worms of the Earth", by a band called Clam Chowder, popular around the SCA for the past couple of years. I heard it at Pennsic 19 and it blew me away. (Well, wait until I've been to another filksing, and that may change.) WOTE is one beautifully- written song, set purely "in period", and with a moral that I can't help agreeing with. Hmm, I can't say whether it's a filksong or actually a folksong; the border between the two is exceedingly fuzzy.
Site: Leslie Fish
