The Revolution Starts Now...

As a kid growing up in Texas, i hated just about anything even remotely related to country music. anything that was associated with those fucking rednecks i hated, i wanted nothing to do with. Bruce Springsteen was as country as it got for me.

Then, during my freshman year of college, i started reading about two great young upstarts in the country scene - Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle. While Dwight would eventually take me to the traditional side of country and the entire Bakersfield scene, it was Steve who helped me see the more rockin' side of country.

And now, 17 years after i first heard a couple of his records, I finally saw live, and it was everything i could have hoped for. It was an amazing, exciting, wonderful, and very relevant concert.

Steve Earle is one of the more vibrant, politically active artists today. His work against the death penalty over the past decade has been tireless, but, as he admitted tonight at the show, it's taken a backseat to his efforts to stop the war in Iraq.

Met with thunderous applause when he announced that he was determined to stop the war, it made my heart smile when the audience cheered long and loud.

The 17 years i waited i think was just the way it was meant to be - if i'd seen him 10 years ago, it might have been just another concert i saw and cataloged in my mind, only to come up in random conversation.

But his political activism against the war, speaking out against GW Bush, and just his general rabble-rousing in the face of our Right Wing Religi-Con Fascist government, made this the perfect time to see him, today, four days before the biggest and most important election of my lifetime.

Thank you, Steve Earle. Thank you for reminding me that good music and politics do mix, and that there are musicians who still believe they can make a difference with their words.

For you Steve, we'll help bring Woody Guthrie back, and we'll change the world in just a few short days by electing a new president.