You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 14

PLAYS: 57

(photo credit: Alex Tekeshi)
(Crooked Cowboy and The Freshwater Indians - quickly becoming one of L.A.'s favorite bands)

A few weeks ago I ran a new track from Crooked Cowboy & The Freshwater Indians on my Nights At The Roundtable post. I got a lot of positive response from readers and requests for more. A few days later I got a note from Bron Tieman (Crooked Cowboy himself) alerting me to the fact that there was a live recording of a recent gig around and maybe I should check it out. The thing about Crooked Cowboy is they are constantly evolving and heading into new areas. Bron indicated to me that one of the big things he's working on is a live presentation with over 70 musicians - taking the Crooked Cowboy concept to new places. It's been a slow process, but it's one that has built up a loyal and growing following in Los Angeles (and the West Coast for that matter) over the past few years.

So for those of you not familiar, or not on the West Coast and were wanting a taste more, here is Crooked Cowboy and The Freshwater Indians live from (I think) The Echoplex here in L.A. in March this past year.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1363)

PLAYS: (4644)

Gosh. Looks like we won't have Lou Dobbs to kick around anymore. Except, of course, for when he lands that fat Fox Business Channel gig.

In the meantime, some congratulations are in order -- and, as Greg Sargent suggests, the left blogosphere in general deserves a great deal of credit in finally forcing one of the nation's leading hatemongers -- and disinformation specialists -- out the door.

That's especially the case with Media Matters, which really led the way. (MM has great retrospective of their own.) And the campaigns that organized to compel his ouster at CNN -- including Basta Dobbs, Drop Dobbs, and America's Voice -- should take a bow as well.

While we wait for the right-wing violins to cue their usual "Mean Liberals Went On a Witch Hunt" number, we should also take special note of what this means: It means that liberal activism to force our media to act responsibly works.

I know that a lot of time it feels like we're just shouting into the wind. It's that feeling of utter helplessness that ordinary citizens always get when they pit themselves against the power of big money and big corporations. Sure, we can document all the media misbehavior we like, but it's becoming so voluminous and steady now that it's hard to keep up, and it's even harder to spark outrage over it.

But eventually, if we keep pounding and pounding and working, it works.

The biggest job of all lies ahead, of course: Confronting Fox News, whose daily deluge of disinformation and fearmongering is so immense now that it makes Dobbs' contributions shrink to insignificance.

But it's true: Yes, we can do this. And we must.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 35

PLAYS: 45

(Poster for The Alan Price Set gig, 1967 - can't picture a lot of dancing going on)

Staying with 1967 tonight. This one from The Alan Price Set and a single that didn't go anywhere in the States, Shame (literally and figurativly). Alan Price was a former member of The Animals, who set off to blaze new trails as a solo artist in 1965. He's still around and still gigging.

Lucky for us.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1158)

PLAYS: (2995)

Jimi is our chief hometown hero here in Seattle (Kurt Cobain being a very close second). This is from probably his most famous performance after Woodstock, live at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. (At the end of his gig, he climaxed "Wild Thing" by lighting his guitar on fire.) Anyway, I used to have an LP from Monterey with Jimi on Side One and Otis Redding on Side Two. (What a great album. Somewhere I lent it to someone and it vanished.) However, it didn't have the whole performance, and this was one of the songs left off -- which was dumb, since this is one of the finest versions of it. "Hey Joe" has been a rock standard for years, but Jimi's version is the standard by which all others are judged. Anyway, it's in the film version, and the newly remastered copy of the film is well worth owning.

PS Our sister site Newstalgia proudly features The Jags -- Live at the Paris Theatre, London, 1979 for your Saturday night listening pleasure.

I'm in Stockholm, Sweden for a couple of days on a guitar gig, and am having a blast. I had no idea of the fact that Sweden exports the third-most amount of music (behind the U.S. and the U.K.) until today, but it's not surprising when you consider the amount of talent that has come from this country of merely nine million: ABBA, Refused, Ace of Base, Fireside, Entombed, The Cardigans, pop guru Max Martin, the list goes on and on.

My personal favorite: the recently defunct Hellacopters. The band started as an Entombed/Backyard Babies side project and turned into one of the best and most-loved garage revival acts, though that pigeonholing does a disservice to their complex Blue Cheer meets Cheap Trick romp. The Hellacopters weren't doing anything new, but I can't think of anyone in the past decade-and-a-half that did frill-free hard rock as consistently well as these guys.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 30

PLAYS: 18

(The Transpersonals - would you buy a used mind from these lads?)

Another MySpace discovery. The Transpersonals. This time a bit of psych from Bristol England, a place where a lot (aside from Skins) seems to be happening. I think this track, Look At The Sun is off an ep they issued last year, but I'm not 100% certain of that.

You know the drill - check out their MySpace page, check out their gig list, check out what's new. They can use your support as I don't see them getting any mainstream radio airplay any lifetime soon.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 52

PLAYS: 24

(The Charlatans (UK) - still very much alive and kicking)

Since I mentioned them last night during my Catherine Wheel entry, I thought I should include the headliners from that 1995 gig, The Charlatans (UK) - or just The Charlatans if you're overseas.

As much as everyone talked nonstop at the time about Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets and the rest of the Madchester scene in the early 1990s, The Charlatans have to be mentioned in the same breath. It's something of a misnomer to consider them Britpop, because they have many more layers than just one you could identify. Testimony to that fact, they are still recording and gigging around, and are just as popular as ever. Even though the band have gone through a number of personnel changes over the years, they are still fronted by Tim Burgess whose distinctive vocals are fresh as ever.

I thought I would refresh your memory with a cut off their second album, actually two cuts since they fade into one another. Weirdo and Chewing Gum Weekend.

And if you've never heard of them before . . . . . where have you been?