AMERICAN COUNTRY and Western music is about as red, white and blue as you can get. It’s traditionally the type and style of music which is supposed to appeal to the average Joe and Jane American and it’s usually held up as a reflection of what middle america is thinking.

When the tragedy of September 11th 2001 hit, Country music was endowed with lots of patriotic anthems and vengeful lyrics. It has often been said that an observer could take the temperature of America by simply reviewing the top 20 C&W charts at any point in time, and by examining the lyrics a fairly accurate picture of how America was thinking could be derived. Certainly in the years after 2001 the C&W music industry seemed to respond to all the political rhetoric and they did their patriotic duty as expected. That however was then, and things have changed a fair bit since those days.

Now days American Country and Western music has changed to reflect a new mood in middle America. The songs now reflect the disenchantment with the current administration, the anti-war message is much more vocal and although support for the troops is evident there is a concerted drive towards bringing them home. No longer are the charts filled with jingoism and patriotic anthems promising swift victories over the terrorists. Support for the troops is high, but not for the cause anymore. Now the songs are more meloncholic, more politically aware and to some extent more realistic – in respect of what is actually happening in the world rather than what people were told back in 2001.

Examples of this include Tim McGraw, a C&W singer with 3 Grammy awards and over 26 number one hits to his claim. One of his latest songs entited “If You’re Reading This” takes the form of a last letter home from a dead american soldier, where the lyrics reflect the desperation and isolation felt by the US troops on the ground who feel abandoned by their administration back home. The soldiers continue to do their duty, but they don’t believe in it any more either.

Country legend Merle Haggard has been doing likewise with his tracks. He released a song entitled “America First” back in 2005 with lyrics pleading for America to withdraw from Iraq. More recently he penned a track called “Hillary” where he sings “This country needs to be honest, changes need to be large, Something like a big switch of gender, let’s put a woman in charge” – an obvious reference to changes at the top in the upcoming 2008 elections.

So, broadly speaking, middle America seems to have finally started to catch up with the rest of the world and is seeing the reality at last, but the question which remains is how long will it take the rest of America to see that Iraq has been a disaster from start to finish, and that they need to get the hell out, go home and sort out the growing list of domestic issues before trying to classify the entire world into either ‘for’ or ‘against’ and embarking on yet another pointless and misguided crusade? How long indeed.

Perhaps America’s temperature is finally starting to change and the warmongering and paranoid fever is hopefully breaking with it.

Perhaps.

BELIEVE IT OR NOT, this is not an official mud wrestling match – in the sense that it’s an organised sporting event. Nope – it’s not even a sport at all.

These two women are going at it as part of the Glastonbury 2007 music festival in England, which given the tradition for crappy weather is not exactly  surprise I guess.

Still,  why exactly they are wrestling so is not obvious. Maybe the queue for the loos was just that bit too long and they couldn’t take the pressure.

It is a hell of a phot though isn’t it? I came across this in one of the weekend newspapers and decided to keep it for posterity.

Yeah I know… typically male thing to do.

Anyway – would you care to use your imagination and slap some captions on this?

G’wan – you know you want to

THE FUTURE of online retailer CDWow is now in doubt after it has been ordered to pay the British and Irish pop industry a record €61 million in damages (£41 million stg). A High Court judge today found in favour of the British music industry against CDWow for alleged illegal imports of CDs and DVDs into the UK from Asia. They would then sell these imports at a lower price than standard retail outlets.

It looks as if the lads at CDWow were using this technique to pass on savings to online consumers and make a tidy profit in the process. They would then sell these imports at a lower price than standard retail outlets. Certainly CDWow has been a hugely popular online site here in Ireland, although the parent site is actually a Hong Kong based operation. They were able to offer savings of up to 45% compared to retail outlets in some instances. Albums which had an official list price of around £13 could be found for as little as £6.99 on the company’s website.

It remains to be seen if they can survive the imposition of such a huge fine on their operation, but if you have any orders pending with them folks, I’d be checking your accounts pretty quickly if I were you.

Rather quickly I’d suggest.

LAST TIME he was caught doing something in public that he shouldn’t have been, George Michael made a song (and snappy video) out of the incident and shook the whole thing off. That was 1998. Since then he’s been a bit more careful about his liaisons, however the whole thing has just fallen apart again. This time he’s been caught doing the dirty in a London park!

After he emerged from the bushes in Hampstead Heath park and ran slap into a photographer (who naturally enough snapped away with the piccies) George ranted and raved about his plight, threatened to sue and all the usual stuff. Bottom line (no pun intended) is that he had been cruising for a few hours looking for some action and eventually hooked up with a 58 year old unemployed van driver for some fun and games in the bushes. Not exactly Hollywood style is it?

He was also caught earlier this year slumped at the wheel of his car near London’s Hyde Park. Cops found a quantity of drugs in the vehicle. A few weeks later, he crashed his car into another after reportedly falling asleep at the wheel.

Did the newspaper photographer follow him to the park in the hopes of a nifty photo or two? Was it all a setup? To be honest I don’t know, and at this point I don’t care. It’s all getting a bit old george… 58 years old to be exact! Euuuuch!

G’wan then George, make a snazzy video out of that mental image why don’t ya!

…ESPECIALLY WITH BRETT ANDERSON (lead vocals). She’s the lovely lass on the far right of that lucky red couch. Moving left we have Allison Robertson (guitar), Maya Ford (bass) and Torry Castellano (drums). I discovered them a couple of years ago, but they’ve been together since 1997. In 1998 they released their first CD, The Donnas, and have come out with five albums since then. They also released a disc using an alternate name, ‘The Electrocutes’, titled Steal Yer Lunch Money in 1999.

For those of you unfamiliar with The Donnas, they hail from the San Francisco area and have known each other since high school, when they first started performing together as a garage band. They started off having a definite punk sound, but it has evolved into more of a hard rock style with noticeable metal around the edges. Their most recent disc, Gold Medal, was released in October 2004 and has most of the stylings of which I previously described their later work as. I love too many of their songs to list them all, but a few faves of mine are (in no particular order): “Do You Wanna Hit It?”, “Fall Behind Me”, Pass It Around”, “Take It Off”, “Hot Boxin’”, “I Wanna Be a Unabomber”, “Too Fast For Love” (Mötley Crüe cover), and “Too Bad About Your Girl”.

Obviously I’m not letting you in on a new breakout band, and they don’t even have a new release, so why am I telling you about them right now? Like I said at the beginning, I am in love. These chicks rock. You can go to both TheDonnas.com and TheDonnasMedia.com to get a decent audio/visual sampling of these gals. They are all easy on the eyes, but the enchantress Brett is in heavy rotation in my dreams and fantasies. What more can I say except that she is definitely a treat for both the eyes and the ears. However, lest I don’t emphasize it enough, it’s the music that matters. The Donnas are NOT a “girl” band. They are a ROCK band. And rock they most certainly do. For those of you who might disagree with me, keep it to yourself! Don’t make me go CAPSLOCK ON YOUR ASS!