Amazon.com
Depending on your political affiliation, 2004 was either as good a year for protest music as 1964--or as bad as the average karaoke night in North Korea. Recorded in three venues on the east coast in November 2003, these performances are as radical for their passion as their politics, with solo numbers and clanging band jams. Tom Morello gives an uncanny Lou Reed impersonation, and Jill Sobule turns her twee delivery into a devastating (and hilarious) death penalty critique. Mike Mills gives Neil Young's "Ohio" a savage (and electoral) relevance, while militant rapper Boots Riley (of the Coup) nearly steals the show with a machine-gun funk manifest. Lester Chambers pours out the deepest truth he knows, the blues, as if Martin Luther King Jr. himself were at his side. Republicans will likely pass on this set, though the ensemble pieces--especially the non-partisan closing medley--will move any listener, regardless of which way your vote swings. --Roy Kasten
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002WZSIU/qid=1098223849/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-0927477-2169546?v=glance&s=music&n=507846