Dead Alive
We chat with Phil Lesh, listen to a new kind of protest song and take a trip into the shadows of the Old School
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What I really like about this tune is that unlike something by, say, Country Joe & the Fish, something didactic and humorless, "Abu Ghraib" does nothing more than put the music in a particular context, namely the war. "Abu Ghraib" doesn't hit us over the head, but merely asks us to ponder its thumps and beeps within the framework of these atrocities; it's not trying to fix our attention on politics, but it's not allowing us to dismiss them either.
Monteith's song is off his latest full-length, New World Observer, another apt title. He's been quoted as saying, "I don't know how any artist in any discipline who has been reading the paper or watching the news over the last year could not have countless atrocities penetrate their work." Me neither, and "Abu Ghraib" does a commendable job of letting the sadder parts of the world seep in without letting them weigh the song down entirely. -- Garrett Kamps
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