The Musician as Idealist

During the cold war, we lived every day in the fear of any moment being senselessly annihilated in a nuclear exchange along with potentialy every other man, woman, beast and many fish, plants and insects.
Then came the lies of the Vietnam War era, with the U.S. escalating it's involvement on the pretext that two of its ships were attacked in the Bay of Tonkin, an event now commonly believed to not even have occured.
In what is perhaps an oversimplification, my belief has always been that musicians are either extremely mercenary and comtemptible, or as true musicians who live and breath their art are idealistic to the core.
This idealism had a huge impact on mass culture in the sixties and an inherent blood brotherhood of idealism with the peace and anti-war movement.

In what I guess are now modern times, in a new century, we are still lied to, by the unelected Corporate oligarchy that now more or less rules the world through the sham of the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and World Bank, and a supposedly beneficient world policeman and benefactor in the persona of the United States.

And I feel proud that real musicians can still be sorted out from the chaff of endless inane pop product that fulfills the role of the new opiate of the masses, (although religion is making a come-back here, in fundamentalist guise) .
Some musicians express their idealism as a total commitment to their art and concentrate on playing superbly. Sunday evening I saw Nick Charles at Nighthawk Blues with new guitar strings on his axe, in superb touch, even his palm harmonics all working and sounding gloriously crystal clear.

Other musicians choose to get involved with the world at large and sharing their idealism with an attempt to promote truth and justice.
In a previous post I have mentioned Robb Johnson and Billy Bragg.
I would also like to commend and recommend Michael Franti and Spearhead, (don't let the name fool you, he is a pacifist, honest!) and a very good band with honest ideals and an uncompromising message, in Rage Against The Machine.

I stumbled across a brilliant film clip which combines a live band performance on Wall Street with a Game Show with a difference, full of irony and facts to make you think.

Sleep Now In The Fire by Rage Against The Machine