”Live at the White House”
My friend Aaron put this record out on his small 7”/cassette label in 2008. We were hoping for brisk sales, fueled by enraged public reaction to the re-election of George W. Bush for an unprecedented third term in office via rigged voting machines. But: in a cruel twist of fate, the actual electoral results that year created a brief blip of euphoric political optimism, lasting approximately between Nov 2008- Feb 2009, just the time when this thing needed to move some units so that Aaron could pay off his bank loan. Our projected upsurge of angry political protest vinyl sales never materialized, and my solo music career, along with Aaron’s label, were swept into the dustbin of history, to nestle alongside Kevin Kostner’s “Waterworld” and all the other well-intentioned flops of western civilization.
The recording itself is from a 2002 live appearance in Washington DC. During a brief keyboard malfunction, I seized the opportunity to wander through the audience and banter with the public about current events. The feeling of unease and borderline hysteria swirling beneath this whole thing was the emotional undertow of a country only a few months away from going to war. Eight years and one extremely high IQ president later, it would be nice if that were all just a piece of ancient history.
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